The Serpent and the Pearl

  Afternoon sun glinted off the trio of fair heads retreating down the shore of the lake. Young Orsini looked like he was describing something, waving his free hand. Giulia had her head tilted at the attentive angle all men seemed to find so flattering. Laura skipped between them, swinging on their hands. Husband, wife, child—a little trinity of family contentment.

  If she decided to remain here, either in Capodimonte or in Carbognano, I might very well be unnecessary. No doubt she’d scrape up some consolation post for me, just to be kind. Which meant I would still be out of employment, because I wasn’t going to rot in the country on Giulia Farnese’s pity just for the sake of keeping my belly full.

  “Here’s a pretty mess,” I said to no one in particular, and went inside to brush off the mud.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Fathers and other relations who violently gag their daughters!

  —SUORA ARCANGELA TARABOTTI, “L’INFERNO MONACALE”

  Carmelina

  I miss Rome,” I told the mummified hand crossly. “I miss the city, I miss proper kitchens with proper cold rooms for the cream and not just cramped little nooks with a freezing cold window slit, I miss that Sardinian dark-rinded cheese I can only get from that one-eyed cheese importer who won’t ship all the way out here in the provinces. And if I have to cook up one more batch of that wretched lake smelt, I shall scream.”

  I could hear Santa Marta agreeing with me through the linen of the little drawstring bag. No more carrying her about beneath my overskirt; I’d hung her up on a rack with some rosemary I’d left to dry, so she could watch over the cena preparations. Santa Marta liked a vantage point, I’d found. I could swear that hand had a way of falling out of the pouch if I carried it too long out of sight beneath my skirt. It was a thought to make me cross myself and shiver, but there’s nothing that doesn’t stop being strange given enough time, and after a while I’d taken to hanging the little pouch up with the drying herbs where it had a nice view over the cramped little kitchens. I’d want a view too if I’d spent the last few centuries locked in a reliquary box with nothing edible in sight but the occasional holy wafer.

  “I’m sure you miss the city, too,” I told Santa Marta, reaching for a pile of garden greens. With so few luxuries on hand at the local markets, I’d been forced to do some experimenting with humbler ingredients than I was normally used to. Salads of simple dandelion leaves rather than the expensive lettuces I could get in Rome; little bite-sized cheese pillows flavored with mint and lemon from the gardens rather than costly spices imported from Venice; saddle of rabbit instead of breast of peacock. “Cooking for a provincial household is certainly good for one’s creativity, but it’s not the same as laying a table for a pope, is it?” I went on to Santa Marta. “Not to mention the difficulty of getting good saffron here. At least Madonna Giulia’s left off stealing my supply to rinse her hair—”

  “Who are you talking to, signorina?” Bartolomeo’s voice sounded behind me as he reached for an apron. The rest of the household had gone brown under the blazing summer sun of Capodimonte, but Bartolomeo just pinkened and peeled and pinkened again even though it was now fall.

  “No one. Start chopping those onions over there.”

  “You’re talking to that little bag again, aren’t you?” My apprentice grinned, testing the edge of his knife and then halving the first onion with an easy flourish. With so little to do out here in Capodimonte, we’d passed the summer days improving his knife skills. He had a way to go before he matched my speed, but his knife was a blur in his freckled hands as it reduced the onion to a minced heap. “What’s in that bag, anyway? Ottaviano always swore it held the withered balls of all the apprentices you’ve killed and eaten.”

  “None of your business. And keep chopping,” I added as Bartolomeo flipped his knife behind his back and gave another grin at me when he caught it. “Move the mouth less, please, and the hands more!” I reached for an apple that I began peeling in one long strip, just to show him he didn’t know everything yet. “We’ll prepare smoked onion bread, red mullet in a salt crust, and a good thick zuppa of asparagus in meat broth. That should do for cena.”

  “Yes, signorina.” His eyes tracked the lengthening curl of apple peel ribboning evenly from my knife. “How many at table tonight?”

  “Madonna Giulia, her sister, her brother and his wife—” The other brother, not Cardinal Farnese, who had gone back to Rome again what with the French approaching so near. I’d miss the young Cardinal, a jokester with a refined palate and as healthy an appreciation for my food as his sister. “I’m not too proud to have a woman managing my kitchens,” he’d wheedled me last month with those dark eyes of his as merry as Madonna Giulia’s. “Think about it, Signorina Carmelina!”

  It was worth thinking about. Mistress of my own kitchens, and for a cardinal too! Even if he was only twenty-six and more jester than churchman, it would be a step up in the world for me, and no mistake. But I was all but mistress of the kitchens in the Palazzo Santa Maria, and I’d grown fond of them. The scullions who hopped like obedient frogs whenever I spoke, the unlimited papal budget for rare spices and imported cheeses and anything else I wanted for the storerooms, Madonna Giulia and her endless appetite for my tourtes. Not to mention Marco, and I wasn’t at all sure Marco would let me leave Madonna Giulia’s household. It wasn’t my company in his bed that he couldn’t do without—he could have any of the maids he chose, anytime he wanted a girl between his sheets. He probably was bedding one of the palazzo maids back in Rome, since I had been gone so long, and the thought did not make me jealous in the slightest.

  No, Marco could get along well enough without me in his bed, but in his kitchens? That was a different matter. My cousin was a lazy soul, and my presence meant he didn’t have to work near as hard. He wouldn’t be happy if I moved on to greener fields and he had to do his own dawn shopping at the fish-market again. And I still owed him for taking me in when I first arrived in Rome.

  I flicked the long ribbon of apple peel away with a final flourish, tossing the naked apple at Bartolomeo and rummaging for the tender shoots of asparagus I’d already set aside to blanch. If I were telling the truth (and that was something I kept strictly for Santa Marta and my own conscience), it wasn’t Marco himself that I missed, but the presence of a man in my bed. Smooth male warmth stretched over me, kisses and laughter and the sharper smell of masculine sweat . . . One or two of the guardsmen here in Capodimonte had given me the eye, but I hadn’t been tempted. I had standards, after all. Guardsmen stank of boiled leather and sour beer. The only two lovers I’d had since fleeing Venice had been a nobleman and a cook, and noblemen and cooks might not have a single other thing in common, but both kinds of men smelled wonderful. Sandalwood oil and leather and scent for Cesare Borgia; cloves and herbs and olive oil for Marco. I didn’t see myself bedding any more noblemen, but I could at least look about for another cook rather than just fill my bed with guardsmen because I was lonely. Cooks not only smell lovely, they have dexterous fingers. If you can peel an apple in one long curl, the ties and laces of a woman’s dress are nothing. Not to mention a cook’s discerning tongue when it came to the tastes of the body: the salt of sweat, the fragrance of soap, the musk of desire rising hot in the blood like oil rising to the top of a sauce . . . My hands slowed on the chopping board.

  “I’ll bet I can peel an apple in one strip.” Bartolomeo eyed the bowl of fruit. “Can I try?”

  “No.” I reached for more asparagus. “Keep chopping those onions for the bread. Then I’ll show you how to cut out the dough in diamond patterns. Presentation is as important as flavor, you know.”

  “Yes, signorina.” He sounded faintly mutinous, but he obeyed me. “Is Madonna Giulia’s husband staying for cena as well?”

  I laid a double handful of slender green asparagus shoots in to cook with a few slices of prosciutto. “He is.”

  Bartolomeo let out a long whistle, and I slanted an eyebrow. “No gossiping about your employers, now!??
?

  “I didn’t say a word.” But my apprentice shook his head, and truth be told the whole household was shaking its head ever since Orsino Orsini had arrived two days earlier. I think Madonna Giulia’s brother was tempted to deny entrance at all, for fear he might just take his wife with him when he left. God forbid the Farnese family lose that stream of papal privileges from the sister they were so quick to call a harlot!

  “I heard Orsini is going to drag her to Bassanello,” one of the maids had confided. “By the hair!”

  “You think His Holiness will stand for that?” the chief steward snorted. “He’ll send troops against Orsino Orsini to fetch her back . . .”

  “What are you going to do?” I’d heard Madonna Giulia’s brother groan at her over the table. But the Bride of Christ, for once, didn’t seem to be talking to anyone, and nobody knew anything.

  “About Madonna Giulia,” Bartolomeo began. “Do you think she’ll really—”

  “I don’t think anything,” I said, giving the asparagus a stir and adding half a jug of simmering beef broth. “Except that I wish Lord Orsini would be a little more specific when he sends down a compliment of ‘lovely food’ because how am I supposed to feed the man if I don’t know what his tastes are. That, Bartolomeo, is our only concern.”

  “Yes, signorina.”

  “You might have more to concern you than Lord Orsini tonight,” a voice full of sour amusement said at the entry to the kitchens. “His mother’s just arrived.”

  I turned, still elbow-deep in asparagus, and saw Leonello leaning up against the doorjamb, arms folded across his chest. I wished Madonna Giulia hadn’t given him that all-black livery—it became him well enough, no mistake, but he looked more like a devil than ever. Then his words sank in. “Madonna Adriana’s here?”

  “The lady herself, and a party of papal guards. Not to mention some stragglers they picked up on the road, some Venetian lords and an archbishop and their various entourages, getting out of the path of the French army and now begging hospitality for the night.” Leonello shrugged. “You will have rather more mouths to feed this evening than anticipated, Signorina Cuoca.”

  “Why on earth is Madonna Adriana here?” I blinked, drying my hands on my apron. I could braise some fresh lake trout for her—trout for an old trout . . .

  “I thought we weren’t supposed to ask questions about our employers, signorina,” Bartolomeo said innocently. I gave him a dirty look.

  “Besides, why bother asking?” Leonello’s voice was very dry. “Madonna Adriana is here to drag La Bella back to Rome, of course, and before the French can arrive.”

  Bartolomeo sealed his mixture of cheese and onions into its packet of enveloping pastry. “Are the French really almost here?”

  “No more than two days’ journey by the Montefiascone road, from what I hear.”

  I couldn’t help a shiver. “So close?”

  “Oh, I shouldn’t worry, Signorina Cuoca. If you fall into French hands, you’ll just be raped a few times. It’s me and this apprentice lad of yours who have something to be afraid of. Him they’ll kill, and me they’ll dress in motley and set to dance for their king.”

  “Very funny.” I dismembered a handful of asparagus spears in a violent yank.

  “Don’t prickle, my lady. I didn’t have to give you advance warning of a dozen extra guests at your table, did I, but here I am. Out of kindness to you—and I might advise you begin packing up this sorry excuse for a kitchen with anything you brought from Rome, because I imagine a journey back to the city is imminent. Madonna Adriana is besieging the Bride of Christ in her bower as we speak, and she did not look at all willing to be fobbed off with excuses.” Leonello tilted his head, hazel eyes glittering up at me. “There, doesn’t that earn me a thank-you?”

  “Thank you,” I said, grudging. I still didn’t like my mistress’s little bodyguard with his probing eyes and his even more probing questions, but he seemed to have lost interest in tormenting me lately. Not a jibe for weeks—months, even—about what might possibly have brought me fleeing to Rome. Madonna Giulia was the target for his barbs these days, and I would never have wished her pain, but I was grateful to be left alone. I looked down at Leonello and felt almost friendly. “While you’re feeling so helpful, Messer Leonello, perhaps you’ll tell me how many guests will be sitting down to table tonight.”

  “I’d say twenty. That party from Venice is large, and they clearly think highly of themselves. Not much dignity in scuttling out of the path of the French like rats, but they’re clinging to the shreds. There’s an archbishop, by the way, who has brought his own cook—doesn’t trust anything that doesn’t come from his own fellow’s hands, so I imagine you’ll be sharing the kitchens this evening.”

  “Santa Marta bung me with a spoon,” Bartolomeo groaned.

  I whacked him on the shoulder. “No one swears in my kitchen but me. Now, we’ll make a fricassee of those capons I was saving for pranzo tomorrow—go to the storeroom and get them for me. No, wait; first lay hold of that useless steward and tell him to round up any extra maids and servers and carvers and send them down.” Bartolomeo had grown into a very capable assistant this summer, and with his help I could easily turn out a meal for five, but not for twenty. Extra hands would be needed.

  I sent Bartolomeo on his way with another whack, and Leonello sauntered off whistling. I began whisking together the spices I’d need for the capons—perhaps a shoulder of wild boar too? No Venetian archbishop coming to my table would go away thinking the food provincial. Besides, if I had to share my kitchen with His Excellency’s private cook, I meant to show him right away that he wasn’t dealing with any jumped-up kitchen maid stirring a pot. Cooks sharing kitchens: never a good idea. You had to stake your territory right away or else they started laying claim to your spices. Or God forbid, touching your knives. Though there was always the possibility of sharing new recipes, once territory was staked and boundaries understood. A good heated argument on the Venetian versus the Roman sauce for a suckling pig was just the thing to liven up a long dull evening of chopping and stirring. Maybe this archbishop’s cook was Milanese; I’d heard such interesting things about that leavened bread they made in Milan . . .

  That was when I heard an autocratic voice in my doorway, sharp and pinging with a glass-clear Venetian accent just like my own. “Are you what passes for a cook in this household, girl? His Excellency my good master will require hot sops to soothe his stomach after a long journey, so you will fetch me muscatel pears, sugar, whole cinnamon, and as decent a red wine as you have in your cellars. And at once.”

  I put down the packet of cinnamon I had just been pinching closed. I put the bowl of mixed spices carefully to one side and automatically dusted a few grains of sugar from my fingertips. I turned slowly, sick in my soul, to face the man in the doorway. The man with a long face and a high-bridged nose like mine, imperious height and sharp all-seeing eyes to match mine. His arms in their rolled-up sleeves were singed smooth and hairless like mine, after so much reaching in and out of hot ovens. And his hands, like mine, were marked all over with the knife nicks and burn scars that told the world, I am a cook.

  I stared at my father, and he gave a great start and stared at me.

  I wondered if I looked so different after more than two years’ absence. He looked the same, though he had grown a belly that overlapped his belt. Inanely I remembered telling Madonna Giulia that no great cook ever had the time to get fat. I suppose this meant my father was doing well—he’d never had the leisure before to get himself a belly.

  “Last I’d heard,” I found myself saying, “you were working for the Doge’s great-nephew, Father. Not an archbishop.”

  “Carmelina,” he said, still looking stunned.

  “Is Mother with you?” I asked inanely. All my fears, working in Rome, that someday my father or someone else who knew me might cross my path—all the hiding I’d done in storerooms whenever there were Venetian visitors to the Palazzo Santa Maria—a
nd now my father was here, not in the vast city of pilgrims where so many travelers passed, but in the backwaters of the provinces.

  “Your mother’s safe in Venice,” my father replied automatically, still staring at me as though I were a resurrected corpse. “His Excellency took me with him to Florence on an advisory to Fra Savonarola. We were delayed returning, and now the French army . . .”

  He trailed off. Maestro Paolo Mangano, the best cook in Venice, who had set me chopping my first onion at three years old, who had shouted at me for being slow to fetch olive oil and clouted me on the ear for dropping an egg and tanned my back with a ladle for arguing with him about the best way to make a royal sauce. Maestro Paolo Mangano, a right and proper bastard, may Santa Marta and all the saints forgive me for speaking so of my father. A right and proper bastard who had never had a fond word for me but still made me into a cook. For that at least I owed him, and I felt a child’s urge to run to him, bow my head.

  Instead, I picked up the nearest knife.

  “Turn on your father now, girl?” His eyes narrowed, and I could see him collecting his thoughts. My father could be counted on never to be caught off guard for long. “I’d expect no less of a faithless, talentless slattern like you. I’d assumed you were dead in some whore’s flophouse by now.”

  “I’ve missed you too, Father.” He’d spoken in the crystal-sharp Venetian street patois he always used in the kitchens, if not to his distinguished clients, and unthinkingly I answered in the same dialect. Somewhere in the back of my head I was howling in panic, but my voice came out even. The days of hanging my head under the lash of my father’s tongue were long done.

  He took a step forward, unfolding his massive arms. “You’re coming with me, girl.”