The Long Sword by Christian Cameron Page A

should I ever see a sign of a Florentine lady casting an amorous glance at me, I’d do whatever I could to make sure that her heart remained unbroken.’
    She laughed, not a simper or a giggle. ‘Your Italian is good, and so are your manners,’ she said. ‘I don’t think you were ever really a cook.’
    I liked this kind of game, always have. I sat back and played with my wine cup. ‘Perhaps if we were to slip into the kitchen, I could prove myself,’ I said.
    The two ladies-in-waiting both giggled.
    Donna Giulia leaned forward, and I could smell her scent again, more like musk than flowers, and yet at the very edge of perception. Her presence was … palpable. I have known a few women like her, where up close, the impact of beauty and personality can rob you of breath. She put a warm hand on my arm. ‘You play this game very well for an Englishman. What would you make me, in the kitchen?’
    I sighed. Italian ladies can play this way for hours and mean nothing, or mean everything, where an English girl would be reduced to giggles – or a blow with her hand. I thought of Sister Marie, Donna Giuglia’s direct opposite.
    I leaned forward. ‘I should make you …’ I said softly.
    She smiled.
    ‘… dessert,’ I finished. ‘Perhaps a nice apple tart.’
    Now the whole table laughed; some at me, and some with me. Ser Nerio, beside me, gave me a look that told me I’d found the right path. We had skirted the marshy ground, for flirting with your host’s mistress is a dangerous game at the best of times.
    She threw back her head and laughed, not a ladylike simper, but almost a roar.
    Ser Niccolò appeared at my shoulder. He poured his lady wine and she told him of the whole exchange, word for word.
    He raised his eyebrows. ‘But of course you must go make her an apple tart. I insist only that I have some too.’ He grinned. ‘Think of it as a feat of arms. Or a task of love.’
    ‘He loves apples,’ Donna Friussi said.
    Juan glared at me, and Miles looked offended on my behalf, but given Ser Niccolò’s origins, I didn’t think he meant a slur. At any rate, I rose and took my beautiful glass of wine to the kitchen, following a page.
    The cook was a big man with a pair of enormous knives in a case in his belt, and he frowned and then shrugged. ‘Whatever my lord and lady require,’ he said, ‘it is my task to provide. You wish to make an apple tart? So be it.’
    I found that the darker of Donna Giulia’s ladies was at my shoulder. ‘This may take an hour or two,’ I said.
    She shrugged and sipped her wine.
    By the time I’d made my dough and was rolling it out, I had a little crowd. Ser Nerio was there, and Ser Niccolò, and Donna Giuglia. I had flour on my best doublet, and I was having a fine time. In fact, I was the centre of attention, and I like that well enough. And the cook had decided to humour me – better than that, he was actively supporting me, so that when I was at the point of forgetting salt in my crust, he slapped a salt horn on to the table beside my hand.
    A pair of boys chopped apples for me. I discovered that the palazzo boasted a majolica jar of cinnamon, a fabulous spice from the east – you know it? Ah, everyone does, now. I ground it myself, and held my fingers out to the dark lady-in-waiting and she breathed in most fetchingly.
    More and more of the guests found their way into the kitchens, and Ser Niccolò served a pitcher of wine to the cook’s staff. He had rented the house, and none of the staff knew what to make of him: cook’s apprentices do not usually mix with the guests. But Donna Giuglia brought musicians into the kitchen, and there was dancing, and a lady began to sing. And then, as I assembled my little pies, Donna Giulia took a tambour and raised it, and everyone fell silent, and she whispered to one of the lute players. Accompanied by only a single lute, she danced and sang to her own song.
    She was magnificent. Let me add that she was so good that the fifty