‘She was working on Madame’s orders, you can be sure of it.’
‘Why, who is she?’
Audiger waved the question away. ‘One of Madame’s ladies-inwaiting. Aside from that, a person of no great importance. But if I had not been there to rescue the king’s honour and accept the challenge . . .’
‘What!’
‘If I had not been there,’ Audiger repeated, ‘the king would
have found himself embarrassed in front of his English guest. For that alone, surely, he will declare that I am the winner.’
‘What will you make him?’
Audiger assumed a sneering expression. ‘I do not know yet, and I will not tell you when I do. Something magnificent. Perhaps something that symbolises the brilliance of the sun.’
4t
Of course, I thought with a sigh; the sun. It was every courtier’s answer. Personally, if I were the king, I would have tired by now of sun-embossed snuffboxes, sun-decorated mirrors, sunshaped jewels, sun-embellished paintings, sun furniture . . . But Louis never seemed to mind. Perhaps there was a value in having a simple symbol associated with your name, just as back in Florence the three balls of the Medici were on every palace and church.
‘Perhaps you should serve an ice that has already melted,’ I suggested. ‘You know, to symbolise the king’s dazzling sun-like warmth.’
‘One day,’ Audiger said grimly, ‘that tongue of yours is going to get you into trouble. And I suspect that day may be sooner than you thinlc.’
In that, as it turned out, he was quite wrong. It was not my tongue which got me into trouble that day but rpy eyes, when they alighted on a certain dark-haired, green-eyed Udy-in-waiting. But of her I said no more to Audiger. There was no point in alerting him to my interest.
Carlo
You must stir your sorbet with a fork as you freeze it, to soften the crystals and break up the ice.
The Book of Ices
A few days later I found myself walking in the rose garden, deep in thought. I was thinking about the king’s competition, and what I might devise for it, but I was also thinking about my future.
It seemed that my partnership with Audiger, for so long uneasy, was finally turning to rivalry, with the presidency of the guild as the prize. I regretted it - if Audiger had not rescued me from the Medici court, who knows how long I might have had to endure there - but one could not go on being grateful for ever. And, if I was honest, I was shocked that the Frenchman thought he could beat me at the creation of an ice. I had always assumed - no, knew - that when it came to this part of our work, my supremacy was clear.
Louis’s words to the Englishman had signalled that he only saw the need for one ice cream maker: I would simply have to make sure that it was me. There was no choice. I would win that competition, and Audiger would have to cede to me.
There was a place I sometimes went to be alone, when I wanted to escape the constant ebb and flow of people around the court: a small thicket of medlar trees where the low branches made a sort of hidden bench. I directed my footsteps there now, only to discover I was not alone after all. A woman was sitting, reading, in the exact same spot where I had intended to sit myself.
Only as I came nearer did I see who it was. It was the girl with the green eyes, the one who had tasted my ice. I was pleased: I
had not expected to have the opportunity to speak with her so soon.
‘Madame,’ I said, bowing. ‘Good day.’
‘Mademoiselle,’ she corrected, glancipg up briefly. ‘My name is Mademoiselle Louise de Keroualle.’
‘My apologies, mademoiselle. And I am—’
‘The Great Demirco, the maker of ices,’ she said laconically. ‘Yes, I know.’
I bowed again, and waited for her to say something else, but she had already returned to her reading.
‘I should thank you, mademoiselle, for tasting my ice the other day,’ I observed. ‘Had you not done so, I am sure that idiot doctor would have persuaded the king not to eat it.’
‘Well, I have not suffered any fits as yet,’ she said. She turned another page. ‘Although your confection did have certain unwelcome side effects.’
‘In what way?’
‘Only that the whole court has been talking of nothing but ices ever since. It has been quite impossible to get anything done. I have had to come out here to escape from you, and read my book in peace. And yet now here you are, in person.’
All this was said quite matter-of-factly, and for a moment I wondered if my presence really was unwelcome to her. But then I remembered the eagerness with which she had' devoured my strawberry ice, and resolved to proceed,
‘And what do you do here at court, mademoiselle? This is not usually a place in which people read books.’
‘If you must know, I am waiting,’ she said, after a moment’s pause.
‘For whom?’ '
‘For my husband.’
‘And have you been waiting long?’
‘Around three years. You see, I have no husband.’
Slightly baffled by this nonsense, I said, ‘I would have thought
that a young woman as beautiful as yourself would have no shortage of suitors.’
Nor did she react to this sally in either of the two ways I had been anticipating; that is to say, she did not blush prettily, as I might have expected her to do if she welcomed my interest; but neither did she turn up her nose, as she might have done to show that she was not receptive. Instead, she simply sighed, as if this were a conversation she had had too many times before.
‘Do you mean to flirt with me? Please do not, Signor Demirco. Did they not tell you? I am much too poor to be worth flirting with.’
‘Whatever do you mean?’
‘Just that no one told my parents the price of a good husband nowadays is, oh, almost a dozen sets of fine clothes, and a house in town, and a hunting estate, and your accounts with tradesmen settled, and your losses at cards made good.’ She spoke lightly, but it seemed to me that there was now a flash of anger in her eyes. ‘So they mortgaged their last remaining lands and bought their oldest daughter a place at court, in the hope that the excellence of her wit might cause some wealthy courtier to forget the poverty of her relations, never realising their error.’
‘I am sorry to hear it.’
‘Don’t pity me, signor. In any case, my time here is hardly wasted. While I am waiting, I can be Madame Henrietta’s lady-inwaiting.’
Unsure if this was more irony, I said nothing.
‘Oh, Madame is a great person,’ she said with sudden passion. ‘She’s not one of these simpering court beauties, content to sit around embroidering cushions and plotting assignations.’ She had closed her book, although I noticed that she left her thumb in it to keep her place. I glanced down, and got another surprise: it was not a romance she was reading, but Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy. ‘She is working for a great diplomatic prize - an alliance between her brother the king of England and her . . .’ she
hesitate^!. ‘Her protector, the king of France. As you yourself witnessed yesterday.’
I shook my'head. ‘I witnessed only some courtiers being idle, a game of paille maille, and some dancing.’
‘Dancing is diplomacy, in this court. And throwing dust in the
eyes of the English, although amusing, is not always as easy as
«
Madame makes it look.’
‘“Dust?”’
‘Forgive me,’ she said suddenly. ‘I am touching on matters I should not.’ She got to her feet. ‘You would do me the greatest service, signor, if you would forget that we ever had this conversation.’
‘Forget what?’ I said, puzzled. ‘You have said nothing - nothing of any consequence, that is.’
She was already walking away, but she paused. Once again the lazy eye seemed to rest on me a little longer than the other.
‘I’m glad you think so,’ she said, mockingly. ‘For my part, I thought I was exposing the very secrets of my soul.’