The Food Taster

by Peter Elbling

  The abbot Tottorini used to say God sees everything, but if that is so then why had He allowed Vittore to curse Him and not avenge Himself? Is He waiting, and if so, for what? He could avenge Himself at any time. But, if it was as I thought, that God does not see everything, then surely it is the duty of those who do see, to take up arms on His behalf. If Vittore was the devil, as he said he was, then I was a soldier of Christ. Besides, if Vittore was planning to kill me, I knew he did not concern himself if God saw him or not! Vittore did not care if there was a God. So whenever the scepter of doubt hovered above me, I contemplated the worthiness of my task and was filled with pride that God had selected me to achieve it, and I swore I would not abandon my effort unless I died doing so.

  As we had agreed, ambushing Vittore was impossible because of his guards, and to poison him would have been equally difficult. So I watched and waited and asked questions of the servants, some of whom were so in love with him that they told me far more than I ever wanted to know. Jesus in sancto! What stupid women they were! But it was through them that I discovered that Vittore never allowed anyone in his room and whenever he left it, he not only locked the door, but also posted a guard outside until he returned. That had to be because there was something he wanted to hide and I was determined to see what it was.

  I dared not bribe a guard because the guard might take the money and tell Vittore, so for two weeks I plotted, and at the end of them I was no closer to a plan than I was at the beginning. I had fallen into despair when God Almighty blessed my mission by providing me the answer. It came about in this manner:

  Federico could not shit and Piero, who was taking care of him again, ordered an extra plate of fruit with the juice of several lemons squeezed over it to relax Federico's bowels. It worked so well Federico barely had time to get out of bed before he shit like a horse. When I heard that, I asked Cecchi to have a key made which would fit Vittore's room and once he had given it to me, I instructed Luigi to give Vittore's guards the same breakfast as Piero had given Federico. They ate it greedily and all I had to do was wait. It took several days, but, when the guard outside Vittore's door had to relieve himself, I slipped inside the room.

  God in heaven! May I never see another room like that one. It smelled as if a flock of bats had died in there. Nor was it just the smell. Vittore must have prowled the streets of Corsoli, Venezia, and Roma, collecting every piece of refuse he could find. The floor was littered with battered chests, soiled pallets, cracked vases, torn baskets, and cleaved helmets with the dried tissue of brain still clinging to them. Bloodied clothing lay piled on the floor beside worn-out saddles, crippled chairs, and broken swords. Where he had found all this I did not know. Nor why he had kept it. Perhaps being a soldier and a bandit had caused my brother to lose his senses.

  A large desk cluttered with books stood on one side of the door and three full spittoons on the other. I tried to move the books, but they fell apart at my touch. The spittoons were so heavy the slop slipped over the sides, and the stench made me sick. I crawled under the desk, then climbed over mounds of clothing and broken furniture until I came to the far wall close to the bed. I stood up and opened a shutter. A thousand wretched smells flew out as the fresh air rushed in. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply for several moments. And then I smelled it! An odor so faint that only a food taster such as myself would have noticed it. I traced its path to the back of the bed and there, hidden under the sheets, were six small bottles of ginger, crushed beetles, cinnamon, and mercury. No wonder Federico was acting strangely. They were aphrodisiacs and probably no more useful than my amulets, but ten times as deadly.

  I put tiny amounts of arsenic into each bottle and placed them back where I had found them, all except for one. Then I raced out of the room, knocking over chairs, armor, and books. The guard, who had since returned, was so startled that I rushed by him before he could stop me. Running down the stairs, I shouted, 'Salvate il Duca! Save the duke!'

  Doors opened as if I had announced the second coming of Christ. I kept running and shouting, 'Salvate il Duca. Salvate il Duca!' I passed through the courtyard and rang the stable bell. Guards came, their swords drawn.

  'Is Federico dead?' they yelled. They grabbed my arms, but I pulled away and ran up the marble steps to the palace, through the hallways, past the kitchen, up a flight of stairs and down another, through the garden, gathering people like monks to money. And all the time I cried out, 'Save the duke! Save the duke!'

  Those following me joined in even though they did not know why. Their faces flushed, their blood surged, their cries echoed off the palace walls. I saw Cecchi. 'Save the duke!' I shouted. Immediately, he ran behind me urging on the others. 'Save the duke! Save the duke!'

  Now there were guards, washerwomen, scribes, footmen, kitchen help, and grooms all following me. More than fifty voices and twice as many arms. I led them up the stairs to Federico's chambers. The guards outside his apartment drew their swords but they were confused for we were not coming to attack the prince, but to save him. I had not been running and yelling like a fool all this time for my health — running is not good for the health — but because I prayed that Federico would hear us, and God granted my prayers. Federico opened the door himself.

  'Save the duke! Save the duke!' I gasped.

  'Save me from what?' Federico asked. He carried a sword in his hand and he pulled his nightgown around him as he pushed his way through the guards.

  'From being poisoned!' I held up the tiny bottle. 'By him!'

  I pointed to Vittore, who was standing in the doorway behind Federico. Until then no one knew what I had been shouting about. Now Vittore's guards drew their swords and knives. Vittore ran at me, but could not reach me because the passageway was too narrow and the guards were in the way.

  'He is mixing arsenic in your aphrodisiacs,' I said, and whiffed the bottle under Federico's nose. He jerked his head back as if he had been stung.

  'Someone stole arsenic from my apothecary!' Piero exclaimed.

  'Kill him!' Cecchi said.

  'Burn him!' Bernardo spat.

  'This is a conspiracy,' Vittore shouted. 'I do not have any arsenic. Ugo is the one who has poisons in his room.'

  The blood drained from my face as Federico whirled on me. 'You have poisons in your room?'

  Time crawled. So many things rushed through my head, each crying to be recognized. 'My Lord,' I said calmly. 'You have seen my room. You came at a moment's notice. You sat there, we talked, you saw no poisons.'

  'He is lying,' Vittore cried.

  'It is a trick to divert your mind. Look first in his room. Then look in mine.' I prayed Federico would listen to me because if he went into mine first he would see enough poisons to kill Caesar's army!

  Cecchi said, 'Ugo has served you loyally. You can always look in his room afterward.'

  Vittore tried to protest but the servants, whose loyalty changed as quickly as a summer breeze, shouted, 'Look in his room!'

  Federico marched to Vittore's room with everyone crushed behind him, pushing, shoving, and yelling. Vittore's guard disappeared the moment he saw Federico. I unlocked the door. Federico did not crawl under the table or over the soiled clothing. He did not move a spittoon. Just the sight of the room enraged him as I knew it would.

  'My Lord—' Vittore began.

  Federico ignored him and said to me, 'How did you know about this?'

  'With due respect, Your Excellency, since you have appointed Vittore as your adviser you have sometimes said and done things which are not always in your best interest.'

  'What have I done?' Federico's eyes narrowed.

  'You have been eating fish which, if one eats too much of it, brings about black bile.'

  'That is not true,' Vittore snarled.

  'It is!' Piero answered.

  Cecchi interrupted, 'You have allowed a man who has no experience in finances to become involved with the wool trade. We have been losing money.'

  'That is not true!' Vittore sh
outed.

  'The people of Corsoli have long loved you for your wisdom, your fairness, and your goodness, My Lord—'

  'Is that also not true?' Federico turned to Vittore.

  'But we hardly know you anymore,' I continued.

  'La cospirazione,' Vittore snarled.

  Federico struck him so hard with the handle of his sword that Vittore fell to the ground. 'Imprison him,' he roared.

  As I watched the soldiers take Vittore away I marveled how easy it had been. Just like that Vittore had been imprisoned and would likely be put to death. I did not feel sorry for him in the least. That he was my brother made no difference to me. Perhaps I was a better assassin than a food taster.

  Piero bled Federico, examined his phlegm and his shit, and said since we had stopped the poisoning, he thought Federico would live till the next century. Federico pushed him away and rolled out of the bed.

  'I am going to boil Vittore in oil,' he said, pulling on his hose. 'Then I will put him on the rack.' As he was pulling on his shirt he said, 'I will make him eat his poison and cut his heart out.' By the time his shoes were on he wanted to cut out Vittore's heart, feed him poison, and then put him on the rack. I glanced at the others and knew what they were thinking — this is the Federico of old. Suddenly, a smile spread slowly across his face. 'Did you hear that?' he asked.

  All I could hear was the lion roaring.

  Federico smiled. 'We will have a caccia at my wedding. We will throw Vittore to the lion.'

  We stared at Federico. 'Your wedding?' Cecchi said, tugging at his beard.

  'Yes, my wedding,' Federico replied, as if he had just decided to go hunting. 'I am going to marry Miranda.'

  Marry Miranda!

  'That is a brilliant idea!' the others cried. 'A decision inspired by God! It will produce male children. She will make a worthy mate.' The compliments came faster than a hailstorm.

  'And you, Ugo?' Federico asked. 'What do you say?'

  ‘I am speechless, Your Excellency. You do me too great an honor. How can I ever repay you?'

  'Your service to me is enough.'

  'But surely I shall not have to wait on my own daughter?'

  'And why not?'

  'And if I refuse?' I said, before I knew what I was saying.

  'Refuse?' Rising like Neptune from the sea, he lurched to the fire and pulled out the poker. He had completely forgotten that I had just saved his life! Guards grasped my arms and turned me around so that my culo was pointing to Federico.

  'My Lord,' Cecchi cried, 'If you kill Ugo you will have lost the very reason you wanted to keep him as a taster. Let Ugo have his own taster, but he will still taste your food. That would be enough, would it not, Ugo?'

  I could feel the heat of the poker, smell my hose burning. My bung-hole tightened up so much I did not void for three days.

  'Yes,' I gasped.

  'Let him go,' Federico ordered.

  I fell to the floor, drained of all senses.

  Federico kicked me with his foot. 'His own taster,' he laughed and, turning to the rest of the room he said, 'He has the courage of a lion.'

  If God Himself had praised me, I could not have been in greater bliss. Federico had finally recognized my worth. I kissed the hem of his robe muttering, 'Mille grazie, mille grazie.'

  'You must want to die,' Cecchi said, shaking his head when we were outside Federico's chambers.

  'No, I want to live! Vittore is imprisoned, my daughter is marrying the duke, and now, after almost five years, I will enjoy food again.'

  How could he understand how I felt? How could anyone understand? Now at long last, I would be able eat again. No, not just eat, but chew, gobble, suck all without fear of being poisoned! I could nibble as quickly as a rabbit or as slowly as a tortoise. I could munch as silently as a dormouse or chomp as noisily as a hog. Oh, what joy! What joy! I danced through the palace even though everyone could see my culo, but I did not care! Oh, that my father could see this. I could not wait to tell Vittore.

  That was the night I began writing this manuscript. God had answered my prayers and it seemed as if all my tribulations were finally over. Now I will write what has happened since the announcement of the marriage three months ago, for just as a heavy rain will change the course of a river, so God in His wisdom saw fit to change the course of my life yet again.

  I wanted to be the one to tell Miranda. She would be the princess she had always dreamed of becoming and have everything she wanted. But the news of the wedding had spread so fast that even as I was making my way to our room, courtiers and washerwomen and stable boys ran to congratulate me. Everyone was happy except Tommaso.

  'This is what you always wanted,' he accused me.

  'You had your chance.'

  'And I will have it again.'

  I wanted to know what he meant, but first I had to tell Miranda of her good fortune. As it was she already knew. Her girlfriends were brushing her hair, kissing her cheeks, and reading her fortune. 'Federico will invite all of Italy to the wedding. He will take you to Venezia. He will build you a new palace,' they predicted. They claimed the wedding would take place at the midsummer's festival. There would be two hundred guests, then three hundred, then six.

  That evening, Bernardo consulted his charts and said the best week for the wedding would be when Jupiter and Venus were aligned with the sun, which would be on the last week of June, in four months' time. Federico decided the wedding should last eight days with four banquets, a play, a pageant, and the caccia. It would be the most expensive and greatest wedding Corsoli had ever seen.

  What power there is in words! I had seen their effect on the palazzo when Federico had said, ‘I am going to Milano to find a wife.' But when he said, 'I will make Miranda my wife,' oi me! The whole valley was transformed. Each house was to be cleaned, painted, and hung with banners. Four matrimonial arches flanked with statues of Harmony, Love, Beauty, and Fertility were to be built leading from the Main Gate through the town to the Palazzo Fizzi. All the cracked marble in the palace was to be replaced, Emilia's flower garden uprooted, and the hillside behind the palace re-created as the Hanging Gardens of Corsoli!

  'I want a fresco of Miranda opposite mine,' Federico told Grazzari. Grazzari was also instructed to design the pageant.

  I cannot express how important I felt to sit at the same table with Duke Federico, Septivus, Cecchi, and Grazzari and make plans for Miranda's wedding. At the first meeting, an argument broke out between Bernardo and Septivus. Bernardo thought Federico should be portrayed as Justice because he was born in late September, but Septivus said, 'A wise man is master of the stars,' and that Hercules would be a better choice because of Federico's strength. 'We could show Hercules and the twelve labors.'

  'Cleaning the stables?' Bernardo sneered.

  'Hercules also captured a deer,' Septivus retorted. 'He killed a lion, and a monster, and captured a bull and a boar. In the tenth labor he captured four savage horses, in the eleventh—'

  'Basta!' Federico said, 'This is a wedding, not a zoo.'

  'Or a hunt!' Bernardo added.

  'But it could be a hunt.' Grazzari thought for a moment. 'Miranda is a virgin?'

  'Of course,' I replied.

  Grazzari leaned back, stroked his beard, and stared at the ceiling. 'Since a unicorn symbolizes virginity, why not have a dance through the trees in which Hercules captures the unicorn.'

  'Hercules captures the unicorn,' Federico mused.

  'It is not becoming,' Bernardo said.

  'Yes, it is,' said Federico. 'It is a marriage of strength and beauty. We can use the same piazza for the caccia.'

  'An excellent suggestion,' Cecchi smiled.

  'And then she turns into Venus,' said Septivus.

  "Venus?" Federico turned to Septivus.

  'Whose only duty was to make love,' he explained.

  'Perfect,' said Federico. 'Hercules hunts the unicorn, he captures her, she changes into Venus, and they make love.'

  'But Venus came a
shore naked in a scallop shell,' Grazzari said. Again Federico turned to Septivus.

  'Well then,' Septivus said, biting his little yellow teeth together, 'Hercules comes upon a lion about to ravage a unicorn. While Hercules kills the lion, the unicorn flees into the sea. We think for a moment she has drowned, but she emerges naked in a shell and comes ashore into his arms.'

  Federico loved it, even though it meant building a cave where the unicorn would change into Venus and damming up a mountain stream to create a small flood.

  As soon as the plans were announced, peasants from all over the valley poured into the city. Grazzari and Cecchi set them to work, building, painting, digging, planting, sewing, and polishing. Actors were hired from Padua, singers from Naples. Every moment of the day was devoted to the wedding, and everyone, whether they were courtiers or peasants, strove to fulfill Federico's dream and make Corsoli the envy of Gubbio, Parma, Arezzo, Perugia, and every other city in all of Italy.

  Nor was Miranda left out of the preparations. Federico sought her opinions on everything. At first she delighted in making suggestions and was amazed to see her words transformed into colorful costumes or dresses. But one morning she came back to the room stamping her feet and cursing Septivus. 'He still treats me as if I was one of his students! He smiles when I say something and yesterday he patted me on the head! If he does it again I will tell Federico.' Because of this she threw herself into the plans with even greater urgency.

  I discussed the menu with Luigi, for since I would have my own taster I wanted all the dishes I had ever longed for: quail, sausages, veal in garlic sauce, and a dessert shaped like the Fizzi palace made out of marzipan, sugar, and many kinds of fruits.

  At mealtimes, Federico instructed Septivus to read aloud passages from the book Verana of Firenze had given him so that we might uplift our behavior. Septivus read a passage which said that even though breaking wind was rude, to hold it in could be bad for the stomach.

  'So what should we do?' asked Federico, drowning out Septivus's next sentence with a fart.