He grinned at me, alight with adventure, and I envied him his high spirits. I just felt ill. “Not a word about any of this,” I warned him for at least the fourth time, settling my small bundle of clothes more firmly between the chests I’d loaded with the skillets, pots, spices, and other cooking essentials I’d brought for what had originally supposed to be a short summer trip away from Rome. “Not a word to Maestro Santini when we get back to Rome, or to Ottaviano or any of the other apprentices. Not to the fishmonger when I send you to the market for sturgeon, or your confessor when you go to Mass. I know it goes against the grain for a good, honest boy like you, not telling your priest something like this—”

“I’m up to my neck in this too, signorina,” he cut me off. “I don’t want trouble any more than you do. I won’t be telling my confessor or anyone else.”

“Swear it,” I insisted.

“On Santa Marta’s head.”

“Swear on her hand.” I produced the little bag from where it hung at my waist again. He peered inside and recoiled.

“That’s what you’ve got in there, signorina? A saint’s hand?”

“Likely it’s a fake,” I lied. “Swear on it anyway. She’ll hear you.”

He put a hand gingerly on the bag and swore.

“Good,” I said, and barely managed to put the withered hand away again before I had to lean over the wagon’s tailboard and void my empty, roiling stomach into the courtyard.

“That withered thing in the bag is enough to make anybody throw up.” My apprentice sounded so cheerful I could have killed him. “A nice soothing meal, that’s what you need, signorina. I packed us a hamper!” My apprentice patted the big basket he’d hauled in along with his clothes. He’d gotten very fond of packing meals for the outdoor repasts by the lake that the Farnese were so fond of here in Capodimonte. Myself, I preferred a good sturdy credenza rather than a picnic basket when it came to laying out food. My stomach churned, and I retched all over again.

“You’re sure you don’t want a little zabaglione?” Bartolomeo sounded hopeful. “I whipped it up this morning: good Milanese almonds through the strainer with some egg yolks and a little sweet white wine—”

“I hope you used the Trebbiano from Pistoia,” I said, wiping my mouth. “That’s the best vintage for zabaglione.”

“Of course I used the Trebbiano from Pistoia! And a little cinnamon, fine sugar, a little rosewater—”

My apprentice was patting my back now as though I were a nervous horse. I should have brushed him away—a cook should never show weakness before underlings—but I felt too worn. My throbbing face was as swollen as a nut that had soaked in cold milk all night, and I’d slept sitting up at the trestle table outside the storeroom, straining my ears in my sleep for some sign my father was stirring. I kept waking up with the dream that he’d somehow unbolted the door from inside and was coming for me again. Coming to take me back to that place.