Marco wasn’t listening. “I should have . . .”
What? I thought. Married me when he was an apprentice; taken my skillful hands for a dowry? If he had, we might still be standing here in these kitchens—but we’d have babies, and I’d be so busy looking after the babies that I’d have no opportunity to cover for him when zara games lured him away from the banquets he was supposed to be preparing. No, it was better this way.
“Time to go,” I said again, and made a show of dusting off the table so I could turn away from his touch. Hopefully before he could feel my cheeks heat against his palms. My cousin was a fool, but he was a handsome one with his black hair lapping over his eyes. And I wasn’t immune to the touch of a handsome man—even if it was far more a sin for me to enjoy that kind of touch now than it had ever been when I was a girl, given what I had become.
No use dwelling on what I had become after girlhood.
“Shall I place a bet for you on the new Pope?” Marco was asking me as he shouldered into his doublet. “They’re running odds on Cardinal Sforza at three to one!”
The soft look in his eye, I saw with some amusement, had already gone.
Marco was gone too, at dawn the following morning, as Pope Innocent’s funeral rites began and the cramped wooden voting cubicles were erected in the Sistine Chapel for the coming Conclave. I found the silence in the kitchens unnerving. After all the tumult of the Pope’s long-awaited death, now there was nothing to do but wait. Half my apprentices—that is, Marco’s apprentices—did not even come to the kitchens, and I dismissed the rest after the midday meal was done. They scampered off to watch Pope Innocent’s funeral cortege, and to gossip about who the Conclave would elect to succeed him.
Though how long that would take, even Santa Marta herself probably didn’t know. I’d heard of one Conclave that went on for literally years, but we lived in more practical times. If the voting dragged on too long, Marco’s meals would no longer be needed: the cardinals would be restricted to bread, water, and wine until they chose a new pope.
Still, I couldn’t help but design a menu as I started preparing the midday pranzo for Madonna Adriana and her clutch of Borgia wards. “What would you serve to a group of power-mad churchmen in the grip of voting fever and indigestion?” I asked Santa Marta, whose hand I’d placed in a nice decorative box on the spice rack. Altogether it seemed a more respectful place for her than forever being squirreled away under my apron. And if anyone saw her, well, half the servants in the household carried some kind of relic for good luck. No one would have any reason to guess that mine had been acquired a trifle more illicitly than most. “Clear broths, you think?” I went on. “Something very light and soothing on an uneasy stomach and an even uneasier conscience . . .”
“Whoever are you talking to?”
I turned from my trestle table to see Madonna Giulia in the doorway to the kitchens, one hand on the jamb and her blond head cocked inquisitively. I curtsied, but she waved me up as she always did.
“Don’t let me interrupt, Carmelina. I’m just down for something sweet to nibble. I rang for a page, but he never answered—must be off clustered in the piazza with everyone else, waiting for the white smoke. So I thought I might as well come down myself.” She threw an envious look in the direction of the piazza. “I wish I could be out there, too.”
“Can’t you, Madonna Giulia?” I moved to the larder, rummaging for sweets. I’d run out of her favorite marzipan, but I had half a cold strawberry tourte I’d made with a chilled summery sauce of honey, mead, and lemon.
“I promised I wouldn’t leave the palazzo.” She made a face. “Lucrezia and Madonna Adriana and I are to stay inside until the funeral and the Conclave are done. We’re not even to go to confession. Rodrigo says it won’t be safe.”
She said the all-powerful Cardinal Borgia’s name quite unselfconsciously, I noticed. The servants were running a collection on how long it would take Madonna Adriana’s daughter-in-law to succumb to him—Marco had lost a week’s salary when a month passed and she still hadn’t (to anyone’s knowledge) given in. Maybe I should put a bet in myself that the castello Farnese had fallen at last . . .
Madonna Giulia picked a strawberry out of the flaky tourte crust to pop into her mouth whole. “What’s that you’re making there?”
“Part of your midday meal, madonna.” I added a few pinches of sugar and began cracking eggs into the mix. “Elderflower frittelle.”
“I don’t see any elderflowers. Just cheese.”
“The elderflowers are soaking in cold milk. I’ll add them with a little saffron, then roll the dough out into balls and fry them in butter. Right now it needs more sugar.”
“How do you know? You didn’t even taste it.”
“I just know.” Adding a pinch more.
“Don’t you even have to measure it?”
“It only needed a pinch.”
“And that’s something else you just know?”
“Yes, madonna.”
“Can you show me how to do that? When Rodrigo comes back I can give him a plate of frittelle I made with my own hands. He’d like that, I think.”
“His Eminence doesn’t care for delicacies. Very plain tastes in food, he has.” Perhaps the only thing he liked plain—his taste in wine, decor, and mistresses was certainly luxurious enough.
“Teach me?” She made a tragic face. “Please?”
I relented, and my mistress soon stood before me giggling and ready to work, her silks wrapped with one of my aprons. What a strange household I had landed in, where the mistress of the house presented herself not only to a possible pope as bedmate, but to her own cook as apprentice. “Combine those two creamy cheeses there into the mortar,” I instructed, and began showing her how to knead them together.
“I’m not getting in the way, am I?” She already had a dribble of cheese down her apron. “I’d hate to put you behind on your work . . .”
“No work to do, not with such a reduced household. More of a kneading motion, Madonna Giulia, you’re just poking at that cheese—” I reached for a crock of grated bread. “I’ve been sitting about all morning planning what I’d serve the cardinals if I were summoned to cook for the Conclave instead of my cousin. It’s a dicey business, dishing up cena for a college of nervous old men plotting the day round.”
“Cardinal Borgia’s not so old as that.” Madonna Giulia gave a blush at what looked like some reasonably blissful memory. “What would you serve a Conclave?”
“Nothing elaborate—add a pinch of grated bread now, and we’ll measure in the elderflowers.” She got bread crumbs all over everything and upset the bowl of milk. After I’d strained the flowers out of it, fortunately. “First I’d serve a simple thick rice zuppa with almond milk, I think. Very bland, very soothing—half that flock of cardinals will have stomach sores by the time the voting’s done. Now, give that frittella mixture another good hard knead, and turn it out on the table—too fast, too fast!” I rescued it before it went to the floor after the milk. “After the zuppa, a spit-roasted capon with just a squeeze of juice from a lime, nothing more—poisons can hide out too easily in a spicy sauce.”
“And the Cardinal says the cavities of birds are excellent for passing bribe offers back and forth to other cardinals.” Giulia fetched a crock of flour at my direction, dipping her pink fingers in and sprinkling flour far too lavishly over the table, the floor, and her own skirts. “They’re supposed to inspect all the birds, but he says you can always hide a slip of parchment under a wing.”
“An unstuffed capon, then.” I took the flour away from her before she had us wading in it. “Roll out the dough on the surface, now—not too hard—just patch that hole there where it stretched too thin—” I rolled a handful of dough into a neat little ball. “Like this. Unstuffed capon, a plain salad of lettuce and borage flowers—borage makes you brave, and they’ll need that for the vote. And simple sugared biscotti for a sweet, since sugar aids the digestion.”
“I sup
pose it’s all very stressful,” Giulia said a bit wistfully. Misshapen little balls of dough were piling up under her soft hands. “As soon as the Pope died, well, Cardinal Borgia vanished like he’d been magicked. I suppose he’ll have time for me afterward, however it turns out.”
She gave a little sigh, and I wondered if her Cardinal stood a chance of being elected Pope. And if he was, where did that leave a mistress, even one as beautiful as this? Popes had to keep up some appearance of virtue. Children born on the wrong side of the blanket could at least be passed off vaguely as nieces and nephews, but how did one hide a mistress? Giulia Farnese couldn’t exactly be concealed as any kind of niece.
I didn’t dare ask, though. “Very good,” I said instead for her lopsided little pile of elderflower frittelle, and began mentally flipping through other possible dishes for pranzo if they came out as ghastly as they looked.
A deep voice sounded from the doorway. “You must be the concubine.”
Giulia and I both turned our heads. Leaning against the doorjamb, arms folded across his chest, was a very small man. He wore a battered doublet and disreputable boots, and a dusty bundle sat at his feet as though he had just walked in from the streets. He had hazel eyes, deep-set under a prominent forehead, and they were fixed coolly on Giulia.
“I am Giulia Farnese,” she said, cocking her head in puzzlement and wiping flour off on her borrowed apron.
“The Cardinal’s concubine,” he said. “Yes, I know who you are. I am Leonello.” He made a surprisingly agile bow. “Your new bodyguard.”
I couldn’t help but eye him dubiously, and I saw Giulia doing the same. A dwarf for a bodyguard?
“Say it if you like.” He looked amused. “I’m a trifle short for the job.”
“Well, I wasn’t going to say it.” Giulia bent down and lifted up the one-eared cat, who had turned up to rub adoringly along her skirts. “It didn’t seem polite. Not that it was very polite of you to call me a concubine, Messer Leonello.”
“Just Leonello.” He picked up his bundle and moved into my kitchen, swinging himself up nimbly onto a chair. His feet dangled above the floor like a child’s. “And you are a concubine. Just as I, you can plainly see, am a dwarf. A dwarf, however, with a certain skill in knife play. No attacker will notice I’m here, until they pay for it with their lives.”
“You’ve killed before?” I couldn’t help asking.
“Yes,” he said casually, and helped himself unasked to an apple from a bowl I’d set aside to make a crostata. That was when I started to dislike him.
Giulia, however, had bent her friendly smile on him as she scratched under the tomcat’s chin. He purred and arched for her just like her Cardinal. “Did Cardinal Borgia hire you to protect me?”
“Yes, you and his daughter as well. I’ve not met the daughter yet.” He took a finger knife from his cuff and cored the apple neatly. His fingers were stubby, but deft; he flipped the knife without even glancing at it as he looked Giulia over from top to slippered toe.
“It’s not polite to stare,” I told him tartly, whisking Giulia’s frittelle aside and trying a little quick repair while she wasn’t looking.
“I’ve seen you before,” he told Giulia as though I were not there, crunching into his apple. “I watched your wedding procession in May—it took me a moment or two to place your face. I admit, at the procession I wasn’t looking at your face.”
I bristled at his cool rudeness, but Giulia just laughed, unoffended. “At least you admit it! Juan Borgia just lurks and licks his lips when he thinks I’m not looking.”
“I’ve yet to meet him, but I suspect I will not enjoy the experience. Have you met his elder brother?”
“Cesare Borgia? No, but I heard he’s come back from Pisa. Lucrezia adores him. What’s he like?”
“Not a lip-licking lurker, that’s certain.” Leonello crunched on the last section of apple, eyes turning from Giulia to me. “And who are you, my very tall lady, besides the cook?”
“Just the cook.” I began melting butter in a skillet, pushing the lump over the heat as it sizzled. “Not even the cook. The cook’s cousin.”
“Carmelina Mangano,” Giulia said warmly. “The best cook in Rome. Try some of this strawberry tourte, if you don’t believe me.”
“No, thank you.” His eyes traveled over me, speculative. “You’re a long way from home. Venice?”
“How did you—”
“The accent. I’ve played cards with far too many Venetian sailors.” He reached for the bowl of apples again.
“Stop that,” I snapped. “Those are for apple and quince crostate.”
“My apologies.” He tossed the apple back. “So, a Venetian. But Mangano, that’s surely not a Venetian name?”
“Sicilian,” I said brusquely, and tossed the first batch of frittelle into the hot butter. “My father was born in Palermo. But he made his career in Venice.”
“Another cook, no doubt.” Leonello’s eyes drifted to my kitchen-scarred hands, then back up. “Did he cut your hair just to keep it out of the skillets?”
I raised a hand to my head. I kept my short hair covered whenever Marco and the scullions were underfoot, but with the kitchens to myself I’d left off my usual scarf. My chopped black curls stood out every which way.
“I like it.” Giulia noticed my awkward silence and jumped in. “Much more practical in a kitchen, surely. And I’ll wager it doesn’t take hours and hours to dry like mine. Can I fry the next batch of frittelle?”
“With hair like that you’re either a cook, a nun, or a recent invalid,” the little dwarf continued, grinning at me as I ceded the skillet to my mistress. “Or you have a taste for dressing up like a man during Carnival. One hears things about Venetian women . . .”
Unease bloomed inside my chest. He sensed it, I swear, because he cocked his head as though he were trying to read my thoughts. Or my secrets.
“I had to travel alone when I left Venice,” I said at last, averting my eyes to Giulia’s skillet. She had tossed in far too many frittelle, and they were smoking in a way they shouldn’t. “I thought it safer to travel as a man. Give them a stir, Madonna Giulia—”
“To be sure,” the dwarf agreed, tipping his chair back on two legs. He was almost handsome, despite his stunted height and oversized head. His hazel eyes made a striking contrast to his dark hair, and his features despite the prominent brow were bold and regular. But he sat there at my table, twirling a slim knife between his oddly double-jointed fingers, and my unease swelled to fear. I didn’t like him. I didn’t like his face, I didn’t like the way he was playing with that knife, I didn’t like the way his gaze fixed me—idle, curious, as though I were some anomaly to be solved. Santa Marta save me, but I could not afford to be solved. I could not afford curiosity. I could not afford to be discovered as anything other than a cook.
“I burned the frittelle,” Giulia said mournfully, oblivious to the looks passing between us. She gave a poke to the little scorched lumps in the pan. “Maybe we can scrape off the blackened bits . . . Here, let me try another batch.”
“Next time, Madonna Giulia!” I said brightly before she had the whole kitchen up in flames. How had she gotten those little lumps both scorched and raw? “Don’t you wish to introduce Messer Leonello to Madonna Lucrezia?”
“Yes, I suppose we should. She’s upstairs with Joffre and the tutor; they’re translating Homer . . .” Giulia stripped off her apron and put her arm companionably through that of her diminutive new bodyguard, leading him away. Leonello looked back over his shoulder at me, lazy as the lion he was named for.
Leave me alone, I almost cried out. Just leave me alone!
But I did not think this oddly dangerous little man would do anything of the kind.
Giulia
I see it, I see it!” Little Lucrezia’s voice rose into a squeal, and she flapped her hand at me. “White smoke!”
“Where?” I rose so fast I spilled my embroidery to the ground, whirling to the edge of
the balcony where Lucrezia stood leaning out so far that I put a hasty hand on the sleeve of her nightdress.
“There, just above the Piazza San Pietro—”
“White smoke?” Madonna Adriana began to rise from the table where she was playing a halfhearted game of chess with little Joffre, but a bored voice interrupted us all midmotion.
“It’s a cloud.”
I turned back to my new bodyguard. “How can you tell, with your nose buried in that book?”
“Because even if there’s been an election, they won’t release the white smoke until dawn.” Leonello turned a page in the book he’d borrowed without permission from Madonna Adriana’s library. “You can’t see white smoke until it’s light, so what’s the point of lighting the fire until the crowd down there will be able to see it?”
“Stop making sense,” I told him, and flopped back into my chair. Lucrezia blew out her breath, settling back into her perch. Madonna Adriana went back to her chess game, her curl knots bobbing, and little Joffre yawned hugely. The sky was still quite black, but between the sweltering heat of the summer night and the tension of the past week, not one of us in the household had been able to sleep. I was the first to leave my bed, throw a pale green silk robe over my night shift, and creep up to the loggia at the very top of the palazzo. But Lucrezia was soon creeping up after me, her hair still bound in its plait for sleeping, tugging sleepy little Joffre behind her, and Madonna Adriana in her billowing shift wasn’t far behind.
“You children should be in bed,” she reproved, but soon enough she was ordering tapers and wine and plates of soft-roasted chestnuts to keep us in comfort as we kept vigil over the view toward the Basilica San Pietro. I winced as the tray of chestnuts arrived, thinking of poor Carmelina the cook rousted from her bed downstairs just to feed us, but perhaps she was awake too. These past six days, with the Sistine Chapel and a college of twenty-three cardinals locked inside it in Conclave, the servants had been every bit as prone as I to hanging out the nearest window in search of that plume of white smoke. Three days in a row it had been black smoke, and a disappointed shout had gone up each time at the sign that yet another round of votes had been burned with no majority to show for it. White smoke, now—that meant we had a new pope.