“Cardinal Borgia’s not so old as that.” Madonna Giulia gave a blush at what looked like some reasonably blissful memory. “What would you serve a Conclave?”

“Nothing elaborate—add a pinch of grated bread now, and we’ll measure in the elderflowers.” She got bread crumbs all over everything and upset the bowl of milk. After I’d strained the flowers out of it, fortunately. “First I’d serve a simple thick rice zuppa with almond milk, I think. Very bland, very soothing—half that flock of cardinals will have stomach sores by the time the voting’s done. Now, give that frittella mixture another good hard knead, and turn it out on the table—too fast, too fast!” I rescued it before it went to the floor after the milk. “After the zuppa, a spit-roasted capon with just a squeeze of juice from a lime, nothing more—poisons can hide out too easily in a spicy sauce.”

“And the Cardinal says the cavities of birds are excellent for passing bribe offers back and forth to other cardinals.” Giulia fetched a crock of flour at my direction, dipping her pink fingers in and sprinkling flour far too lavishly over the table, the floor, and her own skirts. “They’re supposed to inspect all the birds, but he says you can always hide a slip of parchment under a wing.”

“An unstuffed capon, then.” I took the flour away from her before she had us wading in it. “Roll out the dough on the surface, now—not too hard—just patch that hole there where it stretched too thin—” I rolled a handful of dough into a neat little ball. “Like this. Unstuffed capon, a plain salad of lettuce and borage flowers—borage makes you brave, and they’ll need that for the vote. And simple sugared biscotti for a sweet, since sugar aids the digestion.”

“I suppose it’s all very stressful,” Giulia said a bit wistfully. Misshapen little balls of dough were piling up under her soft hands. “As soon as the Pope died, well, Cardinal Borgia vanished like he’d been magicked. I suppose he’ll have time for me afterward, however it turns out.”

She gave a little sigh, and I wondered if her Cardinal stood a chance of being elected Pope. And if he was, where did that leave a mistress, even one as beautiful as this? Popes had to keep up some appearance of virtue. Children born on the wrong side of the blanket could at least be passed off vaguely as nieces and nephews, but how did one hide a mistress? Giulia Farnese couldn’t exactly be concealed as any kind of niece.

I didn’t dare ask, though. “Very good,” I said instead for her lopsided little pile of elderflower frittelle, and began mentally flipping through other possible dishes for pranzo if they came out as ghastly as they looked.

A deep voice sounded from the doorway. “You must be the concubine.”