“They just are.” His voice was absent, and I smothered a smile. “The green sauce, it should go over top; very simple, very fresh. It will remind Madonna Giulia of the country, when she was a girl—you said she grew up by Lake Bolsena? She’ll think of being a girl again. It will make her . . .” he shrugged. “Happy.”

“Then perhaps you’d care to prepare the dish for her tonight.” I turned away from his stunned expression to rattle off my order to the fishmonger. He grunted assent and began scooping fresh smelt from the bucket for me. “I’ll supervise, mind,” I threatened, turning back to my apprentice. “One sign that you’re mucking it up, and I take over. Understand?”

“Yes, signorina.” He stood there clutching the basket, fighting off the grin that threatened to take over his entire face. He had a right to grin—he was a full year younger than any other apprentice I’d ever asked to prepare a dish for the high table. He was also, unless I was very much mistaken, the only one among them with the prospect for being a really good cook someday.

“A fish menu tonight, I think,” I continued, allowing Bartolomeo to fall into step beside me as we proceeded to the next vendor. “And a good array of the local fruits.” I was already pulling various dishes together. No Roman pizze, as I’d originally thought; that would just make Madonna Lucrezia homesick. She had to learn her new home, after all, and what better way than to give her that knowledge through food? A cold salad of spring onions and the local cucumbers; sturgeon from Pesaro’s salt sea and trout from its freshwater river; grapes and peaches from its orchards and white melons from its vines; finished off with pastry diamonds stuffed with the ripe local apricots. A refreshing summer cena of all Pesaro had to offer, eaten in the palazzo garden and washed by the smell of the sea.

“No smelt for Madonna Adriana,” I mused, pausing by a load of salted tench. “She thinks it’s too expensive . . .”

“Lake trout,” Bartolomeo said promptly. “She’s an old trout herself; she’ll love it.”

I gave his shoulder a whack, suppressing a smile. “Never speak ill of an employer!”

“Well, trout’s cheaper than smelt, and that will please her.” He shifted the heaping basket to his other arm, undaunted. “If you don’t mind, signorina—I heard a recipe from a cook to the German ambassador when he called on Madonna Giulia to ask favors of His Holiness. Trout simmered in a sort of sweet-and-bitter sauce with white wine and vinegar and a little butter, served over slices of toast . . . it’s just the sort of cozy food Madonna Adriana likes.”

“Never trust a German to get a sauce right,” I sniffed. “Their solution to everything is just add more butter. Perhaps with a little pepper and cinnamon, though . . .”

Leonello