He began reeling off dishes, too many of them and too fancy. It was just a simple summer cena, and with Madonna Lucrezia still keeping the house in a frenzy deciding if she wanted one more chest of gowns or three, no one would notice what they were eating tonight. Bread and fruits and a few cold meats would have been sufficient, and I opened my mouth to tell him so, but then closed it again. This wasn’t my domain, not anymore.

“I want to see mouths shut and hands moving,” Ugo concluded, alight with his own importance, and I just winced.

The sizzling sound of butter hitting a skillet; the rapid whack-whack-whack of knives against trestle blocks; the glug of olive oil being poured. The sound of a kitchen coming to life, and a spit-boy looked at me strangely because I was standing in the middle of the growing bustle, standing still as a statue, and I made myself move. I reached automatically for my apron, but just tying the knot at my back sent a jolt of pain through my palm. Don’t ever give me the stigmata, I thought to Santa Marta. If it hurts like this, I don’t see why saints pray for it.

I settled everyone at their tasks and looked about me for something to do. I couldn’t hoist a heavy saucepan with this hand, but there were herbs waiting to be chopped for the stew. An apprentice’s task, but the herbal tang in my nose was green and comforting. Rosemary, sweetly medicinal; garlic with its crisp sting; mint to flavor the refreshing ices that would come to the table after the food was done. But I couldn’t press the heel of my hand on the knife, and I had to chop one-handed. I made such a mess of it. I hadn’t chopped a sprig of rosemary so clumsily since I was five years old. “You finish this,” I told one of the apprentices brusquely, shoving the knife at him, and as I turned away I realized I was crying. All day that had been happening, and I couldn’t seem to stop it. I’d be cataloguing spices on the racks one moment, and then realize my eyes were leaking again.