I scowled. Bartolomeo had been with me in this whole ordeal with the French, and really he’d comported himself very well—helped me parcel out the food we were given, heated up mugs of wine over a brazier to keep everyone warmed on the inside, and kept his voice cheerful and steady through it all, too. But he’d gotten used to seeing me worn and frightened, and that was no good at all. The mistress of the kitchens must be Law Itself: eagle-eyed, all-seeing, fierce, and steely, not a weakness to be seen anywhere. Let your apprentices see you’re only human, and it’s the beginning of the end as far as discipline is concerned. “To bed, Bartolomeo!” I ordered. “Or I’ll toast your gizzard in a little good butter and have that for a midnight snack!” I must have had some steel left under all the exhaustion, because he bolted off at once.

Though he did stop at the door and give me a smile over his bony shoulder. “We’re home, signorina,” he said. “That’s a prayer answered, isn’t it? I don’t think I had a thought for days that wasn’t a prayer to get home. Or,” he added practically, “a prayer that the French wouldn’t split our heads open with those nasty pikes. Or start raping anybody—mostly I worried about that on your account, and the maids, but with the things you hear about the French . . .” He rumpled a hand through his red hair. “Well, I got a little perturbed for myself, too.”

“Bartolomeo—”

“But nobody’s head got split, and nobody got buggered either, and here we are.” He kissed his fist up to the ceiling. “Thank you, Heavenly Father!”

“To bed!” I thundered.

“You too, signorina,” he advised. “You look ready to drop.” And off he went.

I looked around my empty kitchens. Bartolomeo was right; there had been a great many prayers the last few days. The maids, gabbling hasty Acts of Contrition and whimpering that some unconfessed sin of theirs had brought the French down upon us all as a punishment from God. Giulia’s mother-in-law and duenna Adriana da Mila, lips moving silently as her fingers twitched over her ivory rosary beads. Bartolomeo, his hands clasped around the wooden cross he always wore about his neck, knuckles white and eyes shut as he sent a simpler kind of plea skyward. I didn’t have my apprentice’s easy faith, or his untroubled conscience. I just closed my eyes and prayed to see my kitchens again.