Supper in the kitchen. Flavia and Il Sicofante hold their faces to their plates, trying to ignore the smell of boiling rose petals. The apothecary is making soap and both of them have a headache from crushing cloves and lily roots into the sweet-smelling patties. Cimon has a head cold so does not notice the smell. While the apprentice amuses himself blowing balloons of yellow mucous from his nostrils, Il Sicofante plies his fingers through his hair. His doublet is undone to the waist and his shirt collar smeared with charcoal. He does not tidy himself for servants. As Flavia takes his plate she offers him a smile but the apothecary does not give it back to her. Chewing at a hangnail, he pulls a narrow strip of skin right down to the knuckle.

Cimon is talkative this evening, which is bad news because his stories are always disgusting. He wipes his nose on his sleeve and tells them about a holy man from Monteluco who offered his meagre remains to the dissecting table.

‘When his insides were cut open they found a stash of jewels lodged inside his stomach. The story spread like pestilence. People said they must have got there by the grace of God. That diamonds are the hardened shit of the pure at heart. Many a rogue took a knife to the gut of a poor friar before the scholars found they had mixed up the holy man with a cavalier who was killed while fleeing the city with his jewel purse jostling in his belly.’

Laughing, Cimon blows a wet green balloon from his right nostril.

‘Beware the surgeons! They will kill two men for the price of one. I knew one who was so hasty cutting off a soldier’s leg he sliced through his own finger. The soldier lived but the surgeon’s hand turned as black as the pox. He was tumbled into the lime pit not two days after.’

Flavia pushes her remaining sausage to one side. Cimon seizes it and crams it into his mouth, chewing and breathing agape.

‘Most people lose their appetite when they have a fever.’ Flavia regards him with distaste.

‘Most people lose their teeth when they bathe in cerussa. Happy chewing, little dust sparrow.’ Cimon gives a meaty leer over the top of his fork and Flavia kicks hard at his stool, which makes him lurch forward so abruptly the prongs of the fork fly into his forehead. For a moment it is wedged tight and Cimon jumps from his seat, thrashing around the room like a startled frog.

‘Enough!’ Il Sicofante growls and slaps his palm hard against the table. Still whimpering, Cimon plucks the fork loose, leaving two bright beads of blood in the middle of his brow. He shuffles out of the kitchen and is soon heard in his favourite whimpering hole beneath the stairs, snuffling and sobbing.

Flavia smirks, but Il Sicofante’s look wipes her face as thoroughly as a scrubbing cloth. He has a line of fury for every one of the recipes she has not given him. It is a long time since he lined up his tombstone teeth in a smile for her, real or otherwise.

‘I hear you met Gilia Tassi this week.’ Il Sicofante pulls at one of his oiled curls and loops it round his finger. ‘Mona Selvaggia was most distressed to think of her throwing balls around the Alfani courtyard.’

‘There are plenty who would like to throw Mona Selvaggia around the Alfani courtyard,’ mutters Flavia.

‘Quiet!’ Il Sicofante slaps the table again. ‘You braided her hair too tightly and she was kept awake by pains to her scalp. Next time there is a call to attend her in the middle of the night, you can go.’

Flavia is quiet. She knows Mona Selvaggia’s braids were no tighter than her lips, and that some people cannot lie content in their beds unless they have made a servant run halfway across the city.

‘No more time wasting, Flavia. I will have ten recipes by tomorrow morning, or that little book of secrets is going back to Venice. I’ll take it there myself and have its words unlocked. Do you understand?’

His eyes are colder than the cellar steps as he pushes his chair from the table.

‘And Flavia,’

‘Yes?’

‘Get rid of that filthy sack doll. It stinks.’