Marco was gone too, at dawn the following morning, as Pope Innocent’s funeral rites began and the cramped wooden voting cubicles were erected in the Sistine Chapel for the coming Conclave. I found the silence in the kitchens unnerving. After all the tumult of the Pope’s long-awaited death, now there was nothing to do but wait. Half my apprentices—that is, Marco’s apprentices—did not even come to the kitchens, and I dismissed the rest after the midday meal was done. They scampered off to watch Pope Innocent’s funeral cortege, and to gossip about who the Conclave would elect to succeed him.

Though how long that would take, even Santa Marta herself probably didn’t know. I’d heard of one Conclave that went on for literally years, but we lived in more practical times. If the voting dragged on too long, Marco’s meals would no longer be needed: the cardinals would be restricted to bread, water, and wine until they chose a new pope.

Still, I couldn’t help but design a menu as I started preparing the midday pranzo for Madonna Adriana and her clutch of Borgia wards. “What would you serve to a group of power-mad churchmen in the grip of voting fever and indigestion?” I asked Santa Marta, whose hand I’d placed in a nice decorative box on the spice rack. Altogether it seemed a more respectful place for her than forever being squirreled away under my apron. And if anyone saw her, well, half the servants in the household carried some kind of relic for good luck. No one would have any reason to guess that mine had been acquired a trifle more illicitly than most. “Clear broths, you think?” I went on. “Something very light and soothing on an uneasy stomach and an even uneasier conscience . . .”

“Whoever are you talking to?”

I turned from my trestle table to see Madonna Giulia in the doorway to the kitchens, one hand on the jamb and her blond head cocked inquisitively. I curtsied, but she waved me up as she always did.

“Don’t let me interrupt, Carmelina. I’m just down for something sweet to nibble. I rang for a page, but he never answered—must be off clustered in the piazza with everyone else, waiting for the white smoke. So I thought I might as well come down myself.” She threw an envious look in the direction of the piazza. “I wish I could be out there, too.”

“Can’t you, Madonna Giulia?” I moved to the larder, rummaging for sweets. I’d run out of her favorite marzipan, but I had half a cold strawberry tourte I’d made with a chilled summery sauce of honey, mead, and lemon.