“Hmph.” I eyed my apprentice, who had passed seventeen and passed me in height as well, and he stared right back instead of dropping his eyes obediently. My gawky eager-to-please apprentice boy had shot up over the past year and a half into a tall young man: standing before me with his freckled arms akimbo in their rolled-up sleeves, and his gaze near as prideful as a Borgia’s. Seventeen—a dangerous age for a young cook. It’s right about then that most apprentices decide they know better than whoever taught them to boil their first egg. Bartolomeo was showing all the usual signs lately: moving just a touch slowly when I gave him an order, slouching instead of jumping when I called his name, “forgetting” the occasional respectful signorina when he addressed me. The last thing you ever want to do is tell an arrogant young cook like Bartolomeo that he’s right about anything.

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—”