The Food Taster

by Peter Elbling

  I left Miranda sleeping and followed him through the crowded hallways. He walked with the same cocky attitude he had the previous night, greeting everyone, be they footmen, courtiers, or servant girls, in a loud, high voice. It had not yet broken, which made his cockiness seem all the more ridiculous. After we passed them, he would say, 'That washerwoman was a slave from Bosnia,' or 'He is a thief,' 'She is a gossip.' According to Tommaso, everyone was a thief or a gossip except him.

  Tommaso led me into the kitchen where the servants ran to and fro attending to the rows of fires and cauldrons. Against the back wall were spits for small birds and another for larger animals. Knives and spoons stuck out from a bale of hay in the corner and on a nearby table lay tools for chopping, spearing, and mincing. There were also rows of pots for stewing and baking, ravioli wheels and sieves of all sizes, rolling pins, mortar and pestle, presses, jugs, whisks, graters, spoons, ladles, and a dozen different utensils which were a mystery to me.

  Tommaso climbed to the top of a cabinet and threw a leather pouch down to me. I untied it and three stones and a piece of bone tumbled onto the table. The stones were small, dark, and round and looked like a thousand others I saw every day except these were smooth to the touch. 'What are they?' I asked.

  'Amulets. They belonged to Luca.'

  A kitchen boy picked up the smallest black stone. 'This is not an amulet. It is a sheep's turd.'

  The other boys laughed. At any other time I would have too, but because Tommaso had said they belonged to Luca I could not even smile.

  'It is a good-luck charm!' Tommaso said, snatching it from the boy. 'This,' he picked up the bone, 'is a piece of unicorn's horn. If you dip it in wine and the wine is poisoned, the bone changes color.'

  'To what?'

  He shrugged. 'All I know is the unicorn has to be killed by a virgin so they are hard to find.'

  'No, they are not!' said a boy pointing to Tommaso, and the other boys burst into fits of laughter again.

  Tommaso turned bright red. 'Shut up!' he shouted, but the boys kept repeating 'vergine' over and over.

  I put my hand on his arm. 'Take no notice of them.'

  He turned toward me, eyes blazing, and tried to compose himself. 'Federico's goblet is made of gold and silver. If someone puts poison in it, it changes color and the wine bubbles like boiling pasta.'

  'Who is boiling pasta?' That cursed cook, Cristoforo, had returned flailing the air with a long wooden spoon. The boys tried to dodge his blows, but he was faster than he looked and beat several of them about the head and arms. Tommaso scooped up the amulets. 'Come on, I have to piss.' We slipped outside, passing a boy who was sitting on the ground tearfully rubbing his head. 'I would have given you worse!' Tommaso said, and trod on his leg.

  As we walked through the hallways, Tommaso again greeted whomever we met as if they were old friends.

  'You know everyone,' I said.

  'And why not? I was born here.'

  I grasped his arm. 'Do you know if Luca really tried to poison Federico?'

  He jerked himself free and did not answer. We reached a portion of the rampart which jutted out over the edge of the mountain. Men were pissing and shitting into a trough which ran through a wall and out into the valley. Some were talking about the banquet, boasting about what they had said or done; others walked about silently, still caught in the web of sleep.

  We were surrounded on three sides by hills, and on top of each hill a tiny village glinted in the morning sunlight. Below us lay the town of Corsoli, the streets winding between the towers and then reappearing again like streams in springtime. Beyond the walls, the occasional traveler moved toward the city like a bustling ant. Yesterday I had looked just as small and unimportant, but today, God in His mercy had placed me on the roof of the world.

  'Hey, contadino,' Tommaso said. 'If you want to take a shit, the straw is over there.'

  'My name is Ugo!' I said loudly. I had been called a peasant all my life, by the guards when I came to the city, by the merchants who cheated me, by tax collectors, even by the priests. Now that I was in the palace I wanted to be called by my right name.

  'All right, Ugo.' Tommaso pointed to the top floor of the palace. 'That is where Duke Federico lives. Giovanni the hunchback, Federico's brother-in-law, lives below him.'

  'The one who spat on me?' I asked. Tommaso nodded. He told me that Giovanni was Corsoli's ambassador for the wool trade and without his contacts the valley would starve. 'He wants to be a cardinal,' Tommaso went on. 'But Federico will not pay because every scudo he gives to the pope, the pope will use to attack Corsoli. So Federico hates the pope and everyone hates Federico.'

  'Perhaps Luca and Giovanni—'

  'Your nose is for sniffing, not poking,' he warned me. 'It does not concern you.'

  'But it does concern me. Pota! If some fool decides—'

  'There is a ten scudi fine for swearing,' Tommaso interrupted, holding out his hand. 'Give me ten scudi.'

  'Ten scudi! I do not even have one.'

  Tommaso nibbled the nail of his little finger, all his nails were bitten to the quick, and his brown eyes stared at me from beneath his thatch of curly black hair. His eyes were a little too close together and his two front teeth too big for his mouth. His face had several pockmarks. My mother had warned me each mark was a lie the person had told. 'You owe me then,' he said. 'Come on, this way.'

  Sometimes after the rains,' when the grass sprouted up through the earth and the flowers burst into bloom, I had dreamed of a huge garden full of cauliflower, garlic bulbs, cabbages, rows of carrots like marching soldiers, and so on. Now Tommaso led me to a garden filled with every type of vegetable I had ever known and many I had only heard of. Beans, garlic, cabbages, carrots, onions, curly lettuces, eggplants, mint, fennel, anise, all neatly arranged in rows with little paths between them. 'This is where I work,' Tommaso boasted. 'It is only for Federico and his family.'

  'You are in charge of all of this?'

  'Me and an old woman. But I do all the work. Not even the pope has a garden like this. You have never seen anything like it, have you?'

  I said I had not. He prattled on about how important his job was and would have gone on for hours had I not interrupted him saying, 'Tommaso, you have lived in the palace all your life. You know everyone. I do not care what happens to me — I trust God will protect me — but my daughter, Miranda. She is young. She—'

  'You want my help?'

  'You work with the food. I wondered -'

  'Do you want me to help you?' he repeated, folding his arms.

  'Yes, but I cannot pay you. Whatever we agree—'

  'How old is Miranda?'

  'Ten, I believe.'

  Tommaso cocked his head to one side. 'Marry her to me when she is thirteen and I will be your eyes and ears in the kitchen.'

  'Marry her?' I laughed.

  His face turned red. 'Do you not think I am good enough?'

  'No, it is not that. It is just that she is a still a child.'

  'My mother was married when she was fourteen.'

  'Then when Miranda is fifteen,' I said.

  'Twat!' he spat on the ground. 'I gave you amulets! I fed your daughter out of the goodness of my heart. You see how much I know about the palace. You ask for my help and this is how you repay me?'

  In the blink of an eye he had worked himself into a rage, waving his arms about and turning as red as a beet so that I barely recognized him. Other people were looking over at us. I remembered my mother saying 'Hot heads lead to cold graves.' I said to myself — much can happen in four years — my whole life had changed in four minutes — so why not agree with him. 'Fourteen then. When she is fourteen.'

  Tommaso stuck out his arm. I took hold of it. 'We will not tell anyone now.'

  He shrugged. 'As you will.'

  He started to pull away, but I held him fast. 'You must be good to her because if you harm her, I will kill you.'

  'I will treat her as a princess,' he said, 'as long a
s she behaves like one.'

  Just then two serving boys called to us. They said Tommaso was wanted in the kitchen and I had to taste the duke's breakfast.

  'What has Tommaso been telling you?' a serving boy asked as we climbed the stairs to Federico's chambers.

  'About the palazzo and the people who live here.'

  "What have you been telling him?' asked the other.

  'Nothing. I have nothing to tell.'

  'Just as well,' he said, and the first one nodded his head in agreement.

  Something gripped my insides. 'Why?'

  'Niente' they shrugged. 'Nothing.'

  I wanted to know more, but guards were leading us through Federico's apartment to his bedroom.

  CHAPTER 9

  After we had been searched for weapons, the serving boys knocked on Duke Federico's chamber. His doctor, Piero, answered. A short fat Jew, Piero was bald except for a few stray hairs on the top of his head. He smelled of fat, which he mixed with ground nuts and rubbed into his scalp to keep those same few hairs from falling out.

  'Breakfast, My Lord,' Piero laughed. He laughed after everything he said whether it was funny or not.

  'Food!' roared the duke. 'I have not shat for three days and you want me to eat more food?'

  Piero's right cheek began to twitch. Another voice, lower and calmer, said something I did not hear.

  'Oh, bring it in,' came the duke's voice again.

  We entered the duke's bedchamber. It was unlike any room I had ever seen. The floor was covered with thick carpets of many colors and tapestries hung from the walls showing men and women making love. In the center of the room stood a bed big enough for my whole family to have slept in. It was surrounded by deep red velvet curtains and covered with silken cushions and sheets that shone in the sunlight. The bed was raised up from the floor and when the duke sat up, as he was doing now, he was as tall as any man standing next to him. His thin, wispy hair lay like thin strands of wet pasta about his head, his eyes were runny and his face blotchy, and a great mass of hair poked out of his nightshirt. He did not look like a duke at all, but like a fishmonger I knew at the market.

  The duke was listening to the solemn gray-bearded man, Cecchi, his chief adviser, who was saying, 'I told him since it was your birthday you assumed the horse was a gift, and it would not reflect well on your friendship if he were to ask for it back.'

  'Good,' Federico said. 'I will ride him later. Bernardo!' An untidy-faced man with scraggly hair and shifty pale blue eyes spat a mouthful of fennel seeds into his hands, scurried over to the bed and lay some charts in front of the duke. 'Your Honor, Mars is on fire while Mercury and Saturn are cold. Now since Mars—'

  'But is that good?' demanded the duke, slamming his hand on the chart.

  'It is good for war,' said Bernardo slowly. 'Otherwise it is better not to do anything.'

  The duke sank back on his cushions. 'If it were up to you, I would stay in bed all day.'

  Bernardo frowned and stuffed some more fennel seeds into his mouth as if this would prevent him from having to answer.

  'Your Honor,' said Piero, stepping forward on tiptoe, 'I think—'

  'You think?' said the duke. 'You do not think. You do not know how to think. Leave me! All of you. Leave me!'

  'Not you,' the serving boy muttered to me. He gave me the bowl and followed everyone else out of the room, leaving me alone with Duke Federico.

  Because we had spoken in the hallway during the night, I thought the duke would remember me, so I bowed and said, 'Good morning, Your Excellency. I hope you slept well and that God brings you many blessings.'

  He stared at me as if he had never seen me before. 'You are not here to talk to me,' he yelled. 'You are here to taste my food. Have you?'

  'No, I—'

  'What are you waiting for?'

  I lifted the lid and saw a bowl of bubbling polenta covered with raisins. The steam sprang out, burning my face. There was only one spoon. As I raised my hand, the duke yelled, 'Clean them,' and pointed to a pitcher with a handle shaped like a naked woman.

  Christ on a cross! Before last night I never washed my hands from one month to the next and now I was washing them twice in one day. I soon discovered Federico was so afraid of being poisoned that he insisted everything had to be clean. He changed clothes several times a day, and if he saw even a shadow of a spot on his clothing or a tablecloth or a curtain, it had to be washed again. I did not understand what that had to do with poisons, but no one was asking me, and if that is what he wanted who was I to tell him he was wrong?

  I poured water into the bowl and rubbed my hands in it. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the duke clamber out of bed and pull aside a beaded curtain. He raised his nightshirt and sat on a chair with a chamber pot underneath. He grunted and groaned and farted like a cannon. I pulled the amulet bone out of my pouch. I wanted to dip it into the porridge to see if it changed color. But I did not know how long to leave it in or if I should ask the duke's permission before I did so. What if he said no? He farted again, a great smelly fart all the perfumes of Arabia could not have hidden.

  The duke moaned. His back was toward me, his nightshirt raised above his waist. He was bending down staring at the chamber pot between his legs. I was so startled by his huge white culo that I dropped the bone into the porridge. I put my hand in to take it out, but the polenta was so hot I nearly screamed in pain.

  'What are you doing?' asked the duke. I had stuffed my fingers into my mouth. 'Tasting, Your Honor.'

  The duke climbed back into the bed. For the second his back was turned I dipped my hand into the water. 'Give it to me,' he said.

  I gave him the bowl of polenta. The duke lifted a spoonful up to his mouth and swallowed it. I prayed he would not scoop up the bone.

  'The last taster used amulets and stones and horns,' he said. 'Do not use any of them. I want you to taste EVERYTHING.' He swallowed another mouthful and made a face. 'Go. Take that with you.' He pointed to the chamber pot. My thoughts were jumping around like a bat caught in the daylight. If the duke found the bone I would say that Cristoforo had put it there. I picked up the chamber pot. 'Take this, too,' he said, and handed me the bowl of porridge. By a blessed miracle, he had not seen the bone.

  As soon as I was outside I pulled out the bone. It had not changed color so the porridge was not poisoned. But what color would it have changed to if it had been poisoned? And if the bone had changed color, what should I have done? Would Federico have made me taste it anyway? Each question led to another, and none of them led to an answer.

  CHAPTER 10

  In the months that followed it became obvious that although many people feared and hated Federico, none of them were brave enough to kill him. Every moment of his life was protected either by a taster like myself or by guards who accompanied him wherever he went. They were posted outside his room and below his window. They listened for malicious gossip and wandered through the town looking for assassins. They looked under his bed before he slept. Pota! They would have looked up his culo if he suspected someone was hiding there. He also employed spies. Anyone could become a spy if they had useful information, and so even as the weather changed from one season to another, the climate of fear was always present in the palace.

  The only people who did not fear Federico were Giovanni the hunchback and his sister Emilia, Federico's wife. Giovanni I have talked about so I will tell a little of Emilia, but only a little since she herself was no more than a small ball of fat with a voice of a crow and breasts which stuck out of her camora like pigs' bladders. She spent her time collecting paintings and sculptures, planning her flower garden, and writing letters to her relatives in Venezia and Germany, complaining how Federico consorted with the town whores. The whores claimed Emilia tried to poison them. Whether it was true or not I did not know, but I was glad I did not have to taste her food.

  Even though Tommaso was now my eyes and ears in the kitchen, I still feared tasting the capons or kid or venison, asparagu
s, eggplant, peeled cucumbers dressed with salt and vinegar, fava beans, sweetbreads, pastas, almonds in milk, pies, tortes, and the thousand other dishes Federico ate.

  Anyone reading this might think that I soon became fat, but since I only ate a little of every dish and many of them, such as apples and cherries, were for cleansing the bowels, added to which I did not enjoy what I was tasting, it is a wonder I did not starve to death. As it is, I am as thin now as when I first arrived in the palace five years ago. However, in two months' time when the wedding is over, I will sit down at the table and eat to my heart's content. Not just one helping either, but as many as I can. But to return to my story:

  What eased my nervousness during the meals was listening to Septivus read. It was from Septivus that I heard of Julius Caesar, from whom Federico claimed he was descended, and also of Socrates, Homer, Cicero, Horace, as well as parts of the Bible. Or at least the beginnings of these stories; for if Federico became bored he would order Septiyus to start a new tale. So it was not till Miranda taught me to read that I discovered that Odysseus arrived home safely or that Julius Caesar was assassinated!

  Even if Federico was not bored he changed his mind so often that no one could tell what his mood would be from one moment to the next, except of course when he had not shit or when his gout flared up. Then he was more dangerous than a hungry wolf. For putting seven raisins in his polenta, a kitchen servant was flogged. For disagreeing with him, a kennel keeper was thrown down the mountain. It was best to avoid him then, but as if he knew that he demanded that we stay close. We hopped from one leg to the other trying to guess which way to jump in case one of Federico's rages descended upon us.

  Not that it was that different when he was in a good mood. Then he amused himself by throwing gold coins down into the streets of Corsoli to watch the peasants fight in the mud for them or he encouraged the courtiers to jostle for his favor. I remember one evening, Federico had finished a new recipe of fried artichoke bottoms — I hated new recipes because I did not know what they were supposed to taste like — when instead of calling on Septivus to read, he pushed away his trencher and said, 'I have been thinking that the world is shaped like a triangle. What say you?'