by Kate Quinn
But the Duke of Gandia had bagged a stag on his hunt yesterday, and he would want to see it on the table.
“Pork shoulder with capers and a red wine glaze, and the capons with lime and rose vinegar,” I repeated finally. “And the venison, with a sauce of cream and French brandy. I was getting to that, Bartolomeo, if you hadn’t interrupted me. Perhaps you’d like to plan the rest of the menu as well, just to save me the trouble? I am all ears for your pearls of wisdom.”
“Salad of fennel and blood orange and olives,” he said, not turning a hair. “Roasted figs rolled in honey and almonds—”
I gave his shoulder a whack with my ladle. “Enough of that. You can do the chestnut-flour frittelle, and not too crisp either. Your frittelle are always on the edge of burning.”
“They are not.”
I waited.
“Signorina,” he added grudgingly, and began measuring out sweet chestnut flour and sugar. I nodded, clapping my hands and concluding the menu instructions with my usual call to arms—“That’s all, now, so I want to see mouths shut and hands moving!”—and I could have sworn I saw Bartolomeo mouthing the words alongside me, but as soon as I whipped my head around at him, he gave me a look of round-eyed innocence. “All right, all right,” I called testily, and they all scattered to their tasks.
Butter sizzled as it melted into a pan, olive oil bubbled from the jar with a glug, the astringent tang of rosemary and garlic filled the air, and I moved through the bustle like a good general, tasting, sniffing, correcting. “Macerate some raspberries in wine to top those frittelle, Giuliano. The good Magnaguerra vintage, and lots of it.” This was a meal for Juan Borgia, after all; absolutely everything on the menu would be soaked in wine. “Get that useless cat out of the way, Ugo, or so help me I’m drowning it in the cistern!” I ducked under a rack of pots and gave a whack to the spit-boy’s shoulder to have him cranking faster on the capons that had just gone over the flames. “A splash more lime for those capons—”
One more sweeping glance over my well-trained team, and I began spooning out sugar and cinnamon myself for sweet tourtes of ripe blackberries and toasted walnuts. And I couldn’t help a smile, because when I’d fled the Convent of Santa Marta I’d sworn I would never cook sweets again, but somehow I was still the one who always made them. Even after all the training I’d given my apprentices and undercooks, they couldn’t equal me when it came to honeyed crostate and marzipan tourtes and sugared fruits. And no wonder, because crostate and tourtes and sugared fruits were all I’d made in my two years as a nun. Nuns were all mad for anything sweet, and I suppose it stood to reason. When two hundred women are forced to give up silk gowns and the pleasures of the flesh, marzipan was all they had to make life special.
But it was Giulia Farnese who ate my cakes and tourtes now, not my spiteful pinch-faced prioress, and I didn’t mind making them for her. At least she said thank you. Though I wondered sometimes if the woman they called the Bride of Christ would laugh if she found out she had a real bride of Christ making her meals.
“More sugar, Bartolomeo,” I called over my shoulder as my apprentice began tossing frittelle ingredients into a mortar.
“There’s enough sugar already,” he said without looking up.
“No, there is not. A large pinch more.”
He added a very small pinch more. I sniffed to let him know I hadn’t missed a thing, but let him continue. I needed all my attention to roll out the tourte dough; I’d done some tweaking to my father’s original recipe, and it resulted in a thinner, flakier texture, but the dough tore very easily. My father was a very great cook in Venice, but I’d begun modifying his recipes lately, something I would have once considered as unthinkable as making a few improving tweaks to the stone tablets of Moses. “You ran away from a convent, girl,” I could hear my father roar at me, “and now you’re changing my recipes?” My father had already cast my name out of the family for good when I ran away from the convent where he’d placed me. He probably cast me out all over again when he realized I’d taken his recipe book with me, and then one more time for good measure when we’d encountered each other by plain chance on the road, and I’d left him unconscious and trussed up in a cellar rather than let him drag me by the hair back to Venice . . . I wasn’t proud of any of it, believe me, but if you’ve already been cast out of a family once, what difference does it make?
Sweet Santa Marta, but I wasn’t a good daughter. I was, however, a better cook than my father.
“Bartolomeo,” I snapped over my shoulder, “why have you got the saffron out? Frittelle do not need saffron.”
“Just a pinch. It will complement the flavor of the raspberries.”
“It will fight the flavor of the raspberries,” I said firmly. “Put it away at once.”
Bartolomeo muttered something under his breath, and I wished I were a man. If I were a man, no apprentice would dream of arguing with me, and if they did I could simply beat them until they realized their opinions were not required, as my father used to beat his apprentices, and me as well. Not that I blamed him. Now that I had apprentices of my own to manage, I understood just how much they needed to be smacked for anything to sink through their thick skulls.
“I know I’m late!” a man’s voice called from the courtyard, and boots sounded through the scullery and then the cold room. “Carmelina—”
“All in hand, Marco,” I called back without looking. My cousin would pause in the doorway, looking sheepish and running a hand through his black curls, and then there would be the excuses.
“Sorry,” he cajoled me. “I found that, ah, new butcher I was telling you about—beautiful prosciutto on offer, it’ll do for the credenza tomorrow—”
“That’s lovely, Marco.” I cut him off before the lie could get any more elaborate; the apprentices were already nudging each other and stifling snickers. “Madonna Adriana wants to see both of us.”
“Better give me an apron, then.” Marco’s dark eyes twinkled. “An artistic splatter of flour, do you think?”
“Never mind the apron,” I said, but my cousin in a good mood was infectious. When he’d been the star apprentice of my father’s kitchens and I’d been twelve, I’d fallen madly in love with him—and who wouldn’t? Tall, muscled, dimpled, and handsome; that was Marco Santini. Of course, shortly after that I’d discovered that he had no sense and no ambition either, and nothing between the ears but dice games and bullfighting bets, and I’d fallen right back out of love again. Still, my reproving smack to his shoulder was a good deal gentler than the ones I gave the scullions. “Bartolomeo, see my blackberry tourtes get into the oven—” And my cousin and I trooped upstairs to see the mistress of the house.
“I won four ducats on a single round of primiera,” Marco said in a jubilant whisper. “Four! I had a fluxus hand, see, and no one else had anything higher than a numerus—”
“You said you wouldn’t go gaming during the week anymore!” I scolded. “On free afternoons only—”
“I felt Lady Fortune sitting on my shoulder, little cousin. Who says no to that?” He kissed his fingertips, and then he looked around to make sure we were alone on the stairwell, and leaned down and smacked my mouth with a kiss too. “Maybe I can pay you a visit tonight?”
“Maybe.” I scowled, but gave a half smile. My cousin was a fool, and I certainly wasn’t in love with him anymore—but he was handsome. And just occasionally, when his mood flew high from a win and he felt the urge for a bedmate, well, better his little cousin who would at least never pressure him for marriage the way any of the maidservants would have done.
Not that anyone in the household could ever know that Marco occasionally shared my bed. I wasn’t afraid of getting caught with a swollen belly—I’d surrendered my virtue at seventeen to another apprentice of my father’s, and he’d addled my wits for a week or two, but not so badly I hadn’t taken care to safeguard myself with a few discreet tricks involving a halved lime and a tincture of pennyroyal. No, strict chastity
wasn’t really practiced by the palazzo’s maids, no matter what stringent standards Madonna Adriana tried to impose on her servants.
But I had to command obedience from a kitchen full of insolent boys who had to respect me as the inviolable Madonna of the kitchens, a woman far too iron-willed ever to be wheedled by a handsome face or a honeyed word. Marco had no such difficulties, of course, but men didn’t. If I’d been born a man, I could forge a career as a cook and marry, without needing to choose one or the other. If I’d been born a man, I’d have simply followed in my father’s footsteps as maestro di cucina in my own right, without anybody trying to stick me in a convent because what else is to be done with an extra daughter when you don’t have the money for her to marry.
But it was the way of the world, and I saw no point howling over the unfairness of it all. Even if my bed felt lonely most nights, since Marco really had more fire for the cards than he did for me or any other woman . . . well, a little loneliness in this life I’d made was worth it. Far better than making watery communal stews in a habit that choked under the chin. Because I’d been lonely then too, but I’d also been weeping actual tears at the quality of the olive oil I’d been forced to work with, and saying endless Acts of Contrition because I could never keep my sleeves out of the kettles.
“Ah.” Madonna Adriana da Mila greeted us as we were ushered into her private sala. A square, handsome woman of middle years, graying hair pressed into perfect ringlets, jeweled and capable hands hovering as usual over the slates and calculations of her household accounts. “Maestro Santini. And Carmelina. You are aware, of course, that the Duke of Gandia has returned from Spain. This has required a rearrangement of our resources here, now that he is establishing a household staff for his own palazzo . . .”
When we were released from the sala back downstairs, my cousin was no longer smiling. Nor did I think he’d be knocking on my door that night after everyone else had gone to bed.
“You’re not being dismissed, you know,” I ventured. “Just reassigned within the family. Cook to the Duke of Gandia, that’s far more prestigious than cook for the Pope’s mistress and cousin!”
“The Duke of Gandia won’t have any need of me for months, not when he’s leaving soon on this campaign of his against the French and the Orsini! And even when he’s at home, he doesn’t entertain. He goes out, and he takes his whole household with him!” Marco’s long legs ate up the stairs. “Whether he’s off campaigning or not, I’ll be left sitting about on my thumbs doing nothing!”
I was tempted to point out that Marco had done a very good job of sitting about on his thumbs and doing nothing here. “I’m sure it’s just a temporary change—”
He rounded on me in the same stairwell where he’d kissed me on the way up. “Someone told that tight-fisted bitch Adriana da Mila I was gone this afternoon! One hour off for a game of cards, just one, and she thinks I’m shirking!”
“One hour?” I tried to keep my voice gentle. I owed my cousin a great deal, after all. “What about the pallone match two days ago, and the bear baiting last week? The dice games and the zara games and the primiera games?” All of which I’d covered for him . . .
“You’re the one who told her! Don’t even deny it!” Marco’s voice rose, and I saw a pair of maidservants at the head of the stairs take a peek at us over their heaping laundry baskets. “Everything I’ve done for you—I took you in, and now this?”
“I didn’t tell her anything. But really, Marco,” I couldn’t help adding, “what did you expect? The whole household knows you don’t bother putting in a full day’s work anymore!” I flapped the curious maids away with a wave of my hand, and lowered my voice. “How many times did I warn you to be more cautious? Probably one of the stewards dropped a word in her ear!”
The kitchens had been running on my orders for months. Sheer, blind foolishness to think that someone as thrifty and sharp-eyed as Adriana da Mila wouldn’t eventually take notice.
Of course, sheer blind foolishness was another gift of my cousin’s.
“This is all your doing,” he said bitterly. “This is the thanks I get for taking you in—”
I had to sit on my temper at that. Marco had taken me in, given me a place in the palazzo when I fled Venice and turned up on his doorstep begging for help. But his generosity hadn’t exactly gone unpaid, had it? My hands had worked in his kitchens for four years now, freeing him up for all those long afternoons of dice, and I’d covered for him every time!
But that wasn’t the way to coax Marco into a better mood.
“Come now.” I tried a cajoling smile. “Madonna Adriana only gave me your position because she can pay me less! She’s stingier than a vendor hawking secondhand clothes, you know that. And you’re getting a better position, really—”
“That’s not the point! You still stole my position here!” He jabbed a furious finger at me. “I gave you a home, little cousin, I gave you a place in the world when no one else would have you, and you steal my position as maestro di cucina!”
“Maestra,” I couldn’t help saying. I’d never heard of such a title before—I’d never heard of any woman taking such a position before—and I felt a queer little flutter in my stomach. Sweet Santa Marta, had I really heard correctly up there in Madonna Adriana’s sala, all laid out in her unctuous voice? Carmelina Mangano in command over the kitchens of the Palazzo Santa Maria, not as unofficial unpaid second cook, but as maestra di cucina at a salary of fifteen ducats per year?
My father would have said it was impossible.
Some involuntary hint of a smile must have broken over my face despite myself, because Marco’s cheeks darkened. “Ungrateful,” he muttered, “that’s what you are. Ungrateful traitor—” and he went slamming down the rest of the stairs.
“Marco—” But by the time I’d gathered my skirts and raced to the kitchens, he was already banging through the cold room toward the courtyard with his cloak over his arm.
“Maestro Santini?” one of the undercooks ventured, but my cousin was gone without a word, pushing past Bartolomeo, who was simultaneously checking a fresh arrival of dead hens and giving the scullions a brisk tongue-lashing for leaving water spots on the silver. Bartolomeo glanced after him, then looked at me and raised his eyebrows.
“Signorina?”
I took a deep breath but let it out again in silence. Marco should decide when and how to tell the kitchens of his departure—he should be able to make his exit with some grace. Even if that wasn’t his right, I’d still have done it that way. I didn’t want my cousin angry with me. Not out of any fear that he’d inform on me, the way Leonello could—if Marco told the world I was a runaway nun, he’d be in just as much trouble for harboring me. No, I didn’t want my cousin leaving angry because—well, he was the only family I had that was still speaking to me, after my flight from the convent.
If he was still speaking to me after today.
“Signorina, your tourtes are out of the ovens, and the frittelle—”
“The venison—”
“The pork shoulder, more salt?”
I shook myself into motion. “Yes, more salt . . . that sauce for the venison, it needs a dash more cream . . . Giuliano, my blackberry walnut tourtes, just a Credo’s worth more time in the oven to crisp the crust . . . Bartolomeo, is that the first of your frittelle?”
“You want a bite, signorina?” He flipped one in the air, reaching behind his back with the griddle to catch it again.
“No showing off,” I warned, and broke off a flaky corner. At once I could feel my brows rush together over my nose. I tasted sweet flaky goodness, I tasted the usual hints of candied citron and honey—and I tasted mutiny. Delicious mutiny, but still mutiny. “What’s this?” I said ominously.
“Sweet chestnut flour frittelle,” he answered with no shame at all. “With a dash of saffron. Improves the flavor, signorina.”
“It does not. Saffron is for sauces, why would you—”
“Because it works,” Ba
rtolomeo said. “You just tasted it. You know it works.”
“That is immaterial.” I folded my arms across my breasts. “You disobeyed me.”
His brows rushed over his nose, too. “The recipe needed it.”
“That is my recipe. It is perfect the way it is.”
“And I just made it better.”
Not just mutiny, then, but blasphemy. I let the silence stretch, waiting until I had the attention of every apprentice, pot-boy, spit-boy, and undercook in sight. If you’re going to step on a bigheaded apprentice, then it’s best to have an audience. “Bartolomeo,” I said at last in the silky whisper reserved for only the greatest of culinary sins. “You are an apprentice. That means you do not give orders, you obey them. You do not change recipes, you follow them. You have no thoughts that I don’t approve of, no innovations that don’t come from me, and you certainly are not qualified to make changes to my recipes.”
“Someone should.” He folded his arms across his chest, too. “You rely on cinnamon too much. Cinnamon in everything; it’s boring.”
My voice scaled up. “Boring?”
“And orange—why does every blasted recipe in your quiver need a squeeze of orange juice? And as for saffron, it’s not just good for sauces. I could tell you a hundred other ideas—”
“Indeed you can,” I said icily. “When you are a master cook yourself, and not an apprentice. Then you may muck up your frittelle with all the saffron you like, and may Santa Marta help whoever hires you. But until then—” So much for letting Marco announce things his way; the first real test of my authority was already here. “My kitchens, Bartolomeo,” I said, and tossed the frittella I’d tasted to that useless, notch-eared tomcat. “My kitchens, my way. Because I am maestra di cucina here now.”