The chefs secret, p.7
The Chef's Secret, page 7
Anger rose within me. Romoli had once been one of my uncle’s apprentices. He was also a thief. Several decades before, when I was quite young, he had stolen recipes meant for Bartolomeo’s first cookbook and fled to Florence, where he changed his trade and quickly climbed to fame as a steward in the Medici court. In 1560, he published a book on the trade of the scalco with a chapter full of Bartolomeo’s recipes sandwiched in between. He was the only man Bartolomeo ever spoke poorly of.
My first thought was to continue walking, but something made me pause. Curiosity or stupidity, I knew not which.
Romoli crossed the piazza to where I stood. He wheezed from the effort of the jog. He was a large man in all aspects. He wore his dark beard cropped close and his peppered hair cut short, and sported a white quilted doublet with pearl buttons and breeches of black velvet.
I reminded myself to be polite. “Signor Romoli.”
Romoli clapped me on the shoulder as if we had been friends for decades. “Giovanni, I am so glad to see you. And so terribly saddened to hear of your uncle’s passing.”
I stepped back a pace at his touch. “I appreciate the sympathy.”
“He was a good man. He taught me everything I know. I would be nothing if it weren’t for Bartolomeo.” His brow furrowed, as though he were remembering special times spent with his mentor.
“That’s true.” It was difficult to contain the anger I felt toward the man.
The feather in Romoli’s green velvet hat fluttered in the breeze. He continued as though he had not heard me. “When Bartolomeo gifted me his recipes, it was the most important thing that ever happened to me. I could never thank him enough. Tell me, Giovanni, did they read the will yet? Barto told me when he passed he would leave more of his recipes to me.”
The heat rose to my face and to the tips of my ears. I jabbed a finger at Romoli’s chest. “You stole those recipes! How dare you ask if there are more for you.”
Romoli brushed my hand away. “I don’t understand this jealousy, Giovanni. I worked with him long before you did. I was called into service by the Medici and could not say no. It is because of that appointment you were even allowed into Bartolomeo’s good graces. Why should you be so surprised he would promise his recipes to me?”
During the conversation, I slid my dagger from its belt sheath. I whipped it up to Romoli’s chin. A bright bead of blood glinted against the blade. “Don’t you ever ask for his recipes again. Don’t come near me, don’t talk to me, don’t even say Bartolomeo’s name aloud. You don’t deserve a single crumb of your success. Thank your lucky stars and be content with what you have already stolen.”
Once I was satisfied the dagger had instilled an adequate level of fear in him, I pushed the steward backward with the palm of my free hand. He tumbled down into the dirt and I strode off, ignoring the alarmed and curious looks of the pedestrians buying goods from the handful of stalls lining the little square.
“You wait, Giovanni Brioschi!” Romoli called after me. “You’ll rue those words. I will have what is due to me. I will take what is mine.”
I refused to give him a backward glance.
When I reached the university, I stopped at the central fountain to catch my breath and think about what had just happened. My forehead throbbed, and it took every bit of self-control not to break down with the sadness that filled me to the brim. What was he playing at? He would have no access to Bartolomeo’s recipes and books, and I would be safe. As soon as I returned to the Vaticano, I would have them placed under lock and key.
* * *
The Sapienza University of Roma was one of the oldest in the world, founded in 1303 by Pope Boniface VIII. It had not fared well during the Sack of Roma in 1527, when many of the professors were killed and classes were closed. Pope Paolo III had revitalized the university several years later, and now a few hundred prominent scholars studied law, medicine, philosophy, and theology within its walls. I looked around, wondering how I would find Bellaso.
Inside the front doors of the university, a young clerk sat at a desk.
“Greetings!” he called out, motioning me over to him. “How may I serve you?”
“I’m looking for Giovan Battista Bellaso.”
The clerk’s eyes shone. He checked a sheath of vellum resting upon the desk.
“He is giving a talk now, but if you go down this corridor and wait in that chair there”—he pointed down the long hall to a lone chair at the end—“you can greet him after his lecture.”
I waited almost an hour before the door opened and several men in university robes filed out of the lecture hall. I entered when the last of them had passed me by.
Bellaso looked like a professor. He wore black robes, spectacles, and a simple black flat cap on his extraordinarily large head.
The man barely glanced at me. “I can’t tutor anyone today, please come back tomorrow.”
I cleared my throat. “I’m not looking for a tutor. I need help breaking a code.”
Bellaso continued to riffle through his papers. “Everyone wants me to break a code for them. I’ve not got time.”
I placed the note from Bishop Avito in front of the professor.
Bellaso paused, then broke the seal.
“I see, you are Scappi’s nephew. I am sorry for your loss,” he said after a time. “Do you have the cipher?”
I pulled them out of my pouch. “This is only an example. I copied some of them for you. I tried to puzzle out what it said but it was no use.” A part of me was afraid to turn over the scraps of paper to this man. I wasn’t sure what they said. What if the paragraphs I had copied from the journals were damning? But if I did not share some of the code with this man, I might never know. I passed the papers to Bellaso.
He glanced at the papers for only a few minutes, then handed them back to me.
“There are two ciphers here. The first cipher is an extremely simple polyalphabetic substitution code. You’ll need a cipher disk and a key to determine the second alphabet set. You will need to figure out what the key is—it’s a secret word. The second code is more complex. It is a cipher I myself devised. You’ll also need to know the countersign to decipher the code. Here, take this book. All the instructions are within.”
Bellaso dug something out from a pile of books, scrolls, and papers and handed me a book entitled The True Way to Write in Cipher.
I took it. “How do I know what the key is? Or the countersign?”
The professor shrugged. “It’s something only your uncle would have known. It’s probably a special word or a phrase. If you are lucky, he may have hidden it within the cipher. If so, my book will tell you how to find it.” He turned back to his papers.
“Can I pay you to help me?”
“No.” His tone was matter-of-fact.
I took a breath, willing myself to be calm. Bellaso’s indifference was maddening.
“How much do I owe you for the book?”
“Bishop Avito will take care of it for you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
* * *
On the way home, I decided to stop in and see my mother. She was in the courtyard when I arrived, chatting amiably with two young women. As an herbalist, she was often sought out by her neighbors for simple health remedies, love potions, and powders for all manner of situations ranging from curing sadness to attracting luck. It didn’t surprise me to see her back in the garden. It was where she always went in times of frustration or grief.
I recognized one of the women, a Colonna servant girl. She waved good-bye, then swept past me without a glance. I found myself transfixed by the other woman, whom I had not seen before. Her black hair was wild, without a hat or net to hold it down. She appeared in her late twenties, with eyes so clear and blue it took everything I had not to stare. She wore a brown dress with red cutouts in the sleeves. The dress was simple, but the material looked fine. She didn’t seem to have a servant or a guard with her.
“Giovanni, my son! Your ears must be ringing. I was just telling Isabetta about you!” Caterina waved her hands wildly, as she always did when she was excited. “Giovanni, meet Isabetta Palone. Her father is a very successful silk and wool merchant.”
I took Isabetta’s hand to kiss it. I had kissed the hands of many women, but never had I felt my heart beat so fast as when my lips touched Isabetta’s skin. She smelled like thyme and roses.
“I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Signorina Palone.”
Isabetta gave me a lopsided but charming smile. A bloom of color glowed on her cheeks.
“And what were you telling her?” I asked my mother.
“Of your wondrous cooking. Of your humor.”
In most situations like this, I would have found any way to change the subject. My mother had often attempted to play matchmaker for me, determined to improve the name of the family. There had been countless other arrangements for me to meet eligible women, but I had spurned them all.
Isabetta’s eyes, however, burned through me. They left me with an ache in the tiny space above my heart.
Unnerved, I tore myself away from her gaze and looked to Caterina. “Is Cesare still here?”
She sobered. “No. He returned home to Maria and the girls. He will visit next week.”
I felt as though a heavy pot had been taken from my arms. I didn’t realize how much I had been dreading seeing Cesare until that moment. If Isabetta had not been there, I would have commented on it, but airing out family grievances in public was not something I wanted to do.
I gazed upon the dark beauty before me. “Isabetta, do you come to see my mother often?”
“Only one other time, when my brother was plagued with a terrible boil on his foot. Your mother’s salves are legendary. He was cured in two days. I came today for some herbs to help me sleep better.”
“I’m sorry you are not sleeping well. But you came to the right place.” I motioned toward the little package in Isabetta’s hands. “My mother’s sleep remedies are the best you will find.”
Caterina took the woman’s hands in her own. She gave me a hopeful glance. “Perhaps Giovanni would like to call upon your father soon. Where do you live?”
Isabetta flashed a smile at me. “Our house is on the Via di Ripetta, number twenty-four.” She gave a slight curtsy to Caterina, then she winked at me, her hand brushing my arm as she passed by.
“I will send a letter to your father soon,” I called after her, a little more awkwardly than I would have liked—her wink had thrown me off guard. She looked over her shoulder and gave me a wave.
Dazzling was the word that came to my mind as she walked out of the courtyard and disappeared around the corner.
“It’s about time a beautiful woman caught your fancy.” My mother beamed at me. I rolled my eyes at her. “It’s about time,” she repeated, satisfied, before ushering me inside.
CHAPTER 7
Giovanni
Roma, April 19, 1577
In the days after Bartolomeo’s death, the comet grew larger. At night, it was as bright as the moon, lighting up the sky with a brilliant orange glow, and during the day it seemed like a smaller sun hanging in the heavens. Pope Gregory held a special Mass to ask the Lord for his protection from the comet. Word trickled into the city that pilgrims were making their way to Roma, hopeful their prayers at the city’s basilicas would save them from the star they thought was surely going to crash into the earth. Some opportunists sold charms to ward off the comet’s evil portents, shiny stones to be sewn into the hems of a doublet or worn about the neck as a safeguard.
I thought of my uncle every time I looked toward the horizon. The comet appeared to be moving with determination. It was a beacon, a sign, I believed, that Bartolomeo, now in the world beyond, had left for Stella.
Who was she?
Deciphering Bartolomeo’s journals proved no easy feat. Bellaso’s book was overwhelming, with its talk of symbols, countersigns, ciphertext. I wasn’t a fast reader to begin with, and Bartolomeo’s flowery script was sometimes code enough. When I wasn’t reading The True Way to Write in Cipher, I helped Francesco clean out Bartolomeo’s rooms at the Vaticano and finalized some of the last details of my uncle’s estate.
Doing so proved to be most fortunate. As I packed up a crate of items from Bartolomeo’s desk, I noticed several copper disks scattered in the back of a drawer. I recognized their use only because I had been reading Bellaso’s book. I brought them to Francesco’s attention.
“Do you know why he had these?”
Francesco took one from my hand and examined it, nodding in recollection. “Ahh, cipher wheels. I remember he told me he had a friend who loved ciphers and taught him how to code. I’m surprised you did not know this about him. Barto could write ciphers with ease. He even helped other people to encode their letters. You remember how Michelangelo was always sure Pope Paul was spying on him when he was painting the altar wall for the Cappella Sistina? He often put his correspondence in code and Barto helped him with the ciphers.”
Bartolomeo had often told me Michelangelo’s tales of how he was poorly treated by previous popes. The old artist had been a friend to Bartolomeo and had often spent time with him in the kitchen. He was never interested in the food or drink my uncle prepared and only seemed to eat out of necessity. What he did love, however, was commiserating with Bartolomeo about the shortcomings of their papal employer.
I turned the copper piece over in my hands, examining how the letters spun around the wheel. Bellaso had said the cipher was a simple polyalphabetic cipher, which meant there was an alphabet with its letters rearranged that substituted for the real alphabet. Depending on certain parameters of the code and how the wheel turned, an A could represent an R, for example. Simple substitution had been around for centuries but was often easy to decipher. In recent years, a new sort of polyalphabetic code had been developed, one involving substituting different alphabet sets. While the letters of the alphabets might be the same, they were arranged in a different way within a set. This must be the type of code Bellaso had indicated Bartolomeo used for this first journal. The cipher wheel allowed the coder to alternate alphabet sets with ease.
I slipped one of the cipher wheels into the pouch at my belt, grateful I could abandon the awkward paper model I had started to make the night before.
I couldn’t return my attention to Bartolomeo’s journals until after I had prepared the evening meal for Pope Gregory. I had not planned to go back to work so soon, but Antonio had fallen ill. Perhaps it was being away from the kitchen for so long, but I could not deny I loved to cook, to chop, to taste, to deliver nourishment that tasted divine. If only I did not cook for Gregory.
Before I sat down to read, Bartolomeo’s housekeeper, Dea, who had agreed to stay on in my employ, brought me up some homemade mostaccioli cookies and spiced wine to dip them in.
“This is Bartolomeo’s recipe, isn’t it?” I asked.
She shook her head, a strand of gray hair pulling loose from the braid wrapped around her head. I estimated her to be about forty-five. She had worked for my uncle for as long as I had lived in Roma.
She grinned. “No, the recipe is mine. He asked me if he could use it for his cookbook. He loved them so.”
“I had no idea.” Bartolomeo had crumbled the biscotti on many dishes. “I love them too, Dea. Thank you.”
She patted me on the shoulder before she left, a gesture I took to be as much comfort for her as it was for me. Although she never once complained, her sadness at my uncle’s loss was evident. More than once, I had caught her examining an item of Bartolomeo’s with tears in her eyes.
The journals did not seem quite as daunting when I sat down again to decipher them. I retrieved the cipher wheel from the desk where I had stored it and examined the disk. I spun the wheel.
With Bellaso’s book by my side, I turned my attention to the journal entry I had read the night of my uncle’s death and found the lines of code:
SV IX OXLE FT SIT LX MRB FTF HEGE FTR HSOORXRQD B TS DST DX HISMSGES ITFFTIRVS MRB DXD IXGLX BEX VPD RS LXDX LX GXMLC CVC OTHIT FTR MRB LIBSSV C HE FTEID GSG LVFHV DSSV MCRR EBVGA VPD TXXRTFS VAIX S FT DAG Q TQAIS DBLLDX SX IXGLX
No matter what I did, I couldn’t figure out the code using the cipher wheel. After fiddling with it for the better part of an hour, I wondered if perhaps the passage was not written in the simple cipher Bellaso had described, but in the more complex code he himself had devised.
I thumbed through the journals, and it seemed that this type of code was used a bit more sparingly. I wondered if Bartolomeo had decided only to use it for the most important parts of the code. I attempted using the wheel to decipher one of the other, simpler-looking passages, which I was able to do without much issue. It was a few lines describing Bartolomeo’s frustration working for Gregory—nothing of import, but I could see why he wouldn’t want someone loyal to the pope stumbling across it.
I had to know what the other passage said. I turned to the book again and found the reciprocal table Bellaso insisted upon using. The table laid out different sets of letters to create alternative alphabets for use in the code. Bellaso also said I needed a “cipher key” to break the code. Based on what I had read in his journals, there was only one word I could think of that my uncle might have used: STELLA.
The process of decoding was painstakingly slow. First, I wrote out a grid, with the key word repeated over and over on a straight line, followed by the coded words, which Bellaso referred to as “plaintext” under each letter.
S
T
E
L
L
A
S
T
E
L
SV
IX
OXLE
FT
SIT
LX
MRB
FTF
HEGE
FTR
LA
SA
VITA
MA
ORA
SO
CHE
NON
