'He would be seven,' she said, the words chasing the smile from her face. Then she pulled me to my feet and made me dance round and round, trampling the memory beneath us.
She did a cartwheel. She squatted and pissed on the ground in front of me. She caught a butterfly and, showing me its beating wings, said, 'That is my heart.' Like a girl half her age, she climbed a tree, her strong arms and legs lifting her easily from one bough to the next. Then she sat on a branch and sang a sad song in a small, tuneless voice.
'Che c'e di male?' I asked.
'Niente,' she said, and jumped into my arms. She took my face in her hands and said fiercely, 'You must not tell anyone about us.'
'But I want to tell the world.'
She shook her head. 'The world has taken my husband, my son, and my country. I do not want it to take you.'
'What about Miranda?'
'Only Miranda.'
I lay her on the ground for I wanted to put my head between her legs to taste her sweetness, for except for the freshly laid eggs I sometimes stole, she was the only thing that I knew would not be poisoned. But no sooner had I knelt between her knees than ants crawled all over my face. Agnese laughed, a great honking gooselike laugh that rang across the hillside. She curled up her legs and laughed until she was out of breath. Then she reached her arms out to me.
We had almost arrived back at the palace when a horse cantered past us. 'It is Giovanni, the hunchback,' Agnese said, and hid her face in my shoulder.
'I know. He returned yesterday. We have nothing to fear from him.'
'But no one must know,' she cried, her eyes filled with worry.
'He did not see us,' I assured her. 'Without his spectacles he is as blind as a bat. You go first and I will follow in a while and then we will not be seen together.'
I walked back to the kitchen lighter than the air itself, humming Agnese's tuneless little song. My blood trembled with delight. The serving boys immediately guessed that I had screwed someone but did not know who. 'It was good, huh?' they laughed.
Because of my promise to Agnese I said nothing but, fearing that my good feelings would undo my lips, I left the kitchen and went to my room.
Miranda was standing by the window talking to the birds. When she saw me she twitched her face like Piero and stammered, 'W-w-where have you been?' Then she growled like Federico, blustered like Tommaso and made me laugh till I cried. I wanted to tell her of Agnese, but since it was the first time she had been so playful in so long I was content to let her speak.
'Do you like my hair?' she asked. She had plucked the hairs from her forehead as was the fashion for girls at that time.
In truth, I did not like it, because it made her head look like an egg, but I said, 'It makes you look very pretty.'
'I want my hair to be blonder, too,' she said, looking in her hand mirror. 'I have been in the sun every day but it has not changed. Maybe I should get some false hair.'
She would have gone on like this all evening had I not interrupted, saying, 'Miranda, I have met a woman.'
'A woman?'
'Agnese. The washerwoman. From Bosnia.'
'Ah, with the blonde hair. I wonder if she—' her body stiffened. She put down the mirror and turned to face me. 'Is she going to live with us?'
'I had not thought of that—'
'No! No, I do not want her to.'
'But--'
'No.'
'Miranda—'
'No!' she shouted and stamped her foot. Her outburst so annoyed me that I shouted back, 'If I want her to and she wants to, then she will!'
She glared at me and turned away. I put my hand on her shoulder but she shook it off. I grasped both her shoulders, turned her around and forced her chin up to face me. 'Do you think I will forget your mother?' I asked. 'Is that it?'
She nodded slowly.
'I will never forget your mother, I promise. But you must promise me something, too. You must not tell anyone about Agnese.'
Her eyes opened wide. 'I promise,' she said.
For the rest of the afternoon I wondered why Miranda had lied to me, for even a blind man could have seen she was not thinking of her mother.
At dinner that same evening, Giovanni showered gifts on everyone to celebrate the wool contracts he had made. He gave Duke Federico a gold helmet encrusted with jewels, little trinkets to the servants, and showed off his new clothes, especially an English jacket which had been cleverly made to hide his hump.
'I could only stay a week in London,' Giovanni sighed. 'The ambassador in Paris was giving a dinner in my honor, n'est-ce pas? A countess in the Netherlands wanted to marry me, but 'Sblood! It is too cold there, n'est-ce pas?'
Every sentence began or ended with 'n'est-ce pas,' 'voila!' or "Sblood!' and for weeks after the servants called him 'Miss Nesspa' behind his back. Giovanni again told Federico it was time to pay his indulgence for his cardinalship. Federico chewed his food and said nothing, but as the saying goes, 'His silence spoke volumes,' and as it pleased God, that was the beginning of my journey through hell. It began like this:
Whenever Giovanni returned from a trip he brought back a doll which was dressed in the latest fashion. His sister, Emilia, gave it to her dressmaker to copy and when he was finished with it, Emilia gave the doll to a daughter of a courtier. That was how Miranda's friend, Giulia, had received hers. However, this time Piero's child was the fortunate one.
'I will never get a doll,' Miranda sulked.
'How do you know?'
'Because you are a food taster.' She spat out the words as if they were poisonous.
'Ungrateful child,' I shouted, grabbing her arm. 'Because of me you eat two meals a day, you sleep in a bed under a sound roof. You have lessons three times a week. I face death every day! Is that why you do not want Agnese to live with us? Because she is a washerwoman?'
Miranda bit her lip. Tears leaped from her eyes. 'My arm!' she whispered.
In my anger, I had gripped her so tightly that the bones were crying out. I let go and she fled from the room. She did not speak to me for several days.
'You have no reason to be silent,' I said. 'I am the one who was insulted, not you!'
She still refused to speak to me. It was Agnese who came to my rescue. 'You told me you were a woodcutter?' she said. 'Why not carve her a doll?'
It was typical of Agnese's goodness that even though she was the reason for Miranda's anger, it was she who soothed it. Climbing the hill that afternoon with Agnese I found an old branch of an alder tree, and while she slept I carved a little doll. With berry juice from the kitchen, I painted a nose, a mouth, arms, legs, and hair. Agnese rouged its cheeks and when it was finished I lay it on Miranda's bed and hid myself close to our room. I heard Miranda enter and a moment later the door flew open and she ran out, shouting, 'Babbo! Babbo! It is wonderful.'
She cradled it in her arms, kissing it over and over. 'Felicita! That is her name. Felicita!' Her eyes sparkled as she twirled around and around as she always did when she was happy.
I remember that day well because at dinner Giovanni began demanding yet again that Federico pay the indulgence for his cardinalship. His voice grew so insistent and his manner so impatient that his glasses fogged up. Taking them off to clean them, he peered at Federico, his big bulging eyes filled with anger. Federico chewed on a bone until he had finished and then, throwing the bone to Nero, said, 'I am not paying that miserable goat one scudo and that is that!'
'You humiliate us,' Emilia screamed. 'If it were not for my brother, this palace would be a swamp.'
Federico rose slowly, wiping the grease from his chin with his sleeve. I was standing behind him and, as he turned, he stuck his fist into my face and pushed me onto the floor. He would have trodden on me had I not rolled out of the way. The courtiers followed quickly, no one wishing to be seen with Giovanni, who remained at the table brooding, his sister Emilia whispering in his ear.
Pota! How long can you keep the lid on a pot before it boils over? Something had
to happen. I did not know how, I did not know when, but I knew it would. Worse still, I felt in my bones it would affect me. I could not sleep. Little things — a hole in my hose, a platter being too hot, a sharp word — which would not have bothered me before now worried me. So when Miranda cried that Tommaso had thrown Felicita to the ground, breaking her arm, I went looking for him with murder in my heart.
1 found him just before Vespers in the little chapel of the Duomo Santa Caterina. 'Ugo,' he said, swallowing a piece of apple, 'I have been waiting for you.' He moved into the middle of a pew so I could not reach him easily. 'I have something to tell you.' He wiped his mouth.
I did not answer. He looked around to make sure we were alone. 'Federico refused to pay for Giovanni's indulgence again.'
If he thought I would fall for his stupid tricks he was mistaken. 'Wait!' he said, as I climbed over a pew. 'Did you know Giovanni's mother Pia is coming from Venezia?'
'So?'
'Venezia!' He said it as if I had never heard of the place. 'The city of poisoners.' He went on, 'They have a price list. Twenty gold pieces to kill a merchant, thirty for a soldier. A hundred for a duke.'
'How do you know that?'
He shrugged as if it was common knowledge. 'Luca told me.'
'Is this Pia bringing a poisoner with her?'
'Who knows? But if you were Giovanni and she was your mother—' he hissed. He did not need to continue.
'I think you are making this up to save yourself from a beating.'
He clapped a hand to his forehead, then waved his arms in the air as if I had done him a terrible wrong. 'You were the one who asked me to be your eyes and ears,' he spluttered. 'All right!' He made his way to the aisle. 'On your head be it.' He pointed to me as he walked out of the church. 'And do not say I did not warn you.' Whether his story was true or not, he had got out of a beating.
I did not follow him because part of what he had said was true. Everyone knew there were more poisoners in Venezia than there were Romans in Roma. They spent their days concocting potions and were only too eager to try them out. Any lord, rich merchant, or person with money, which Pia was, could afford one. I closed my eyes to pray, but it was not the face of God, or Our Lord, or the Holy Mother who appeared to me, but the grinning mug of my brother, Vittore.
The evening meal was like the first banquet all over again. My mouth cracked like winter wheat. My stomach shrank. I suspected each dish more than the one before and became so afraid that when the milk custard was served, I sniffed at it, held it up closely to my eyes, turned the trencher around, sniffed at it again, scooped a tiny piece onto my finger, tasted it, and said, 'The milk is off.'
Federico's lower lip dropped to his chin. 'Off?' he said. 'What do you mean, off?'
'It is sour, Your Excellency, I fear it will upset your stomach.'
I thought he would thank me, throw the custard away and eat some fruit, but he swept several platters off the table and called for Cristoforo the cook.
'Ugo says the milk is off.'
'It is his head that should be off,' Cristoforo replied, sniffing at the custard. 'My Lord, Ugo is a fool who has grown too big for his breeches.'
'I have tasted the duke's food for nearly a year,' I yelled at him, 'and I know the duke's stomach as well as my own. If I am a fool, then you are a villain and the truth will soon be obvious to everyone.'
'Are you accusing me of doing something to the food?' Cristoforo said, waving a kitchen knife at me.
'I am neither accusing you nor not accusing you—'
'Basta!' Federico said. He passed the bowl to Cristoforo. 'Eat it.'
Cristoforo blinked. His goiter swelled up.
'Your Excellency, should Ugo not—'
'Eat it!' Federico roared.
Cristoforo ate a spoonful of pudding. 'It is delicious!' he said, and ate two more spoonfuls. He burped. 'Your Honor, if you wish me to finish—'
'No!' said Federico, and grabbed the custard from him.
'Shall I make some more?'
'Yes,' Federico grunted.
I wanted to slip out of the hall while Federico was still eating, but I had barely moved when Federico said, 'Where are you going?'
'He is going to eat some pudding,' Cecchi said, to much laughter.
The servant boys told me that after I left they continued to talk about me, saying that for a servant to speak out of turn the way I did could only mean I had lost my mind for the moment. Piero said I was lucky the duke had not killed me for my rudeness and Bernardo added that if the chairs kept jumping up on the table the whole world would come to ruin. I did not care what they said because Federico had replied, 'The more he wants to live, the better for me. But the next time he does something like this I will make him eat it just to be sure.'
Cecchi gave Cristoforo some coins to ease his humiliation. Although I had been wrong about the pudding, it had turned out all the better for me. I was so relieved I wanted to take Agnese into the hills and screw her until my fallo fell off. But it was night, the gates were closed, and she would not let me touch her in the palace.
If Federico was concerned about Pia's arrival he did not show it. True, he killed a man in a joust, and confiscated a village and burned the houses, but he probably would have done those things anyway. He found a new whore called Bianca, who was pretty and well formed. For some reason she always wore a scarf or a hat which covered her forehead and in a certain light this made her look like an Arab.
'He uses her like an Arab, too,' Emilia shrieked, as they left the table.
I understood why Federico preferred whores to Emilia. I could have understood if he preferred sheep, goats, or even chickens. There was nothing attractive about her form, her face, or her voice. I was told that when she was younger she had been slender, with a pretty face and a keen sense of humor. But living with Federico had soured her, and I did not doubt that she had tried to poison his other whores and would try to poison Bianca if she could — even Federico himself.
Thoughts of poison plagued me. Lying in the glade with Agnese, I dreamed everything I ate was green with decay and filled with maggots or that my stomach burst open and snakes and dragons crawled out. When I awoke, Agnese was sitting in her favorite tree.
'I can see Bosnia,' she said. She told me what her son would be doing if he were alive. This talk had never bothered me before, but now my mind was crowded with Giovanni's sulking, Emilia's shrieking, and the arrival of their mother, Pia, from Venezia and I turned away from her.
But what could I do? For days I racked my brain until my head hurt and then suddenly it came to me. I could test my amulets! Why that had not occurred to me before I do not know, but God in His wisdom gave me the answer just when I needed it. To do so, however, I needed poisons.
As soon as I could I walked down the Weeping Steps to Corsoli. The steps had been built by Federico's brother, Paolo, and it was said that after Federico poisoned him, water trickled down the steps like tears even though it was midsummer. The night was warm, the last rays of autumn casting an orange glow over the city. The shouts of children echoed lazily through the streets, a lullaby wafted from a passing window. I turned a corner and there sat Piero dozing in a chair, his head bowed. I wondered if I should wake him when his eyes suddenly opened as if I had walked into his dream.
'Ugo,' he said sharply. 'What are you doing here?'
Without hesitation I asked him to instruct me in the effects of poisons and their antidotes.
'Poisons?' he laughed. ‘I know nothing about poisons.' Rubbing his head as if he expected to find some new strands of hair there, he picked up his chair and entered his shop. I followed. Every shelf was filled with jars and bowls of herbs and spices, bones, dried plants, animal organs, and other things I did not recognize.
Piero nervously moved a pair of scales on the counter. 'If the duke knew what you had just asked, there would be a new taster standing where you are in less than an hour,' he said.
'Piero, what harm would it do to teach me a
few things that could save my life and that of my daughter? Maybe yours as well someday. Or will you not tell me because you do not know anything?'
Before he could reply, I added, 'Every week you bring new potions to the duke and he still complains he cannot shit. He cannot screw either.' This last was not true.
'The duke said that?'
'No, Bianca did.'
Outside, it had grown dark. The bell was ringing to warn everyone the gates were closing. The voices of the watch came toward us.
'You are lying,' Piero laughed.
The watch were walking past the door.
'No, I am not!' I replied loudly.
There was a knock. 'Piero? Is everything all right?'
Piero stared at me. If I was found in the shop it could be trouble for both of us. I opened my mouth as if to speak again and he blurted out, 'Everything is good.'
'Buona notte.'
'May God be with you.'
We stood in the darkness till the voices had faded.
'I could be killed for this,' Piero said, 'If people see us together they will think we are plotting against Federico.'
I told him I was a spy for Federico; how else would I have dared to speak to him like that? I swore I would keep my visit so secret I would not even tell myself.
He hemmed and hawed. 'If you want to know about hemlock then read the death of Socrates. That is all I can tell you.'
"Who was Socrates?'
'You do not know who Socrates was? He was a Greek who was ordered to drink poison because of crimes he committed against the state. But before he drank it he asked if he could propose a toast. Now that was a brave man.' I nodded although it sounded foolish to me. 'In the middle of dying, he told his friends to pay off one of his debts.'
That sounded even more foolish, but for once I held my tongue. 'What is this?' I picked up a jar full of pink petals from a shelf. ‘I have seen it before.'
The Food Taster Page 6
