If she decided to remain here, either in Capodimonte or in Carbognano, I might very well be unnecessary. No doubt she’d scrape up some consolation post for me, just to be kind. Which meant I would still be out of employment, because I wasn’t going to rot in the country on Giulia Farnese’s pity just for the sake of keeping my belly full.

“Here’s a pretty mess,” I said to no one in particular, and went inside to brush off the mud.

Chapter Fifteen

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Fathers and other relations who violently gag their daughters!

—SUORA ARCANGELA TARABOTTI, “L’INFERNO MONACALE”

Carmelina

I miss Rome,” I told the mummified hand crossly. “I miss the city, I miss proper kitchens with proper cold rooms for the cream and not just cramped little nooks with a freezing cold window slit, I miss that Sardinian dark-rinded cheese I can only get from that one-eyed cheese importer who won’t ship all the way out here in the provinces. And if I have to cook up one more batch of that wretched lake smelt, I shall scream.”

I could hear Santa Marta agreeing with me through the linen of the little drawstring bag. No more carrying her about beneath my overskirt; I’d hung her up on a rack with some rosemary I’d left to dry, so she could watch over the cena preparations. Santa Marta liked a vantage point, I’d found. I could swear that hand had a way of falling out of the pouch if I carried it too long out of sight beneath my skirt. It was a thought to make me cross myself and shiver, but there’s nothing that doesn’t stop being strange given enough time, and after a while I’d taken to hanging the little pouch up with the drying herbs where it had a nice view over the cramped little kitchens. I’d want a view too if I’d spent the last few centuries locked in a reliquary box with nothing edible in sight but the occasional holy wafer.

“I’m sure you miss the city, too,” I told Santa Marta, reaching for a pile of garden greens. With so few luxuries on hand at the local markets, I’d been forced to do some experimenting with humbler ingredients than I was normally used to. Salads of simple dandelion leaves rather than the expensive lettuces I could get in Rome; little bite-sized cheese pillows flavored with mint and lemon from the gardens rather than costly spices imported from Venice; saddle of rabbit instead of breast of peacock. “Cooking for a provincial household is certainly good for one’s creativity, but it’s not the same as laying a table for a pope, is it?” I went on to Santa Marta. “Not to mention the difficulty of getting good saffron here. At least Madonna Giulia’s left off stealing my supply to rinse her hair—”