After an hour conversation is becoming stilted, not least because we are all now ravenously hungry.
‘Tell me,’ I ask Lucy, who is pale and fair, ‘what does one do to get some food in this place.>’
She looks even more confused than Lady Anne did earlier. ‘Is your chef not bringing lunch!*’
‘My chefl ’
‘Everyone at court has their own chef.’
‘Well, I have not appointed one as yet. Nor am I entirely sure how I would set about doing such a thing.’
‘Perhaps you would ask your steward to appoint one for you?’ Lady Anne suggests helpfully.
‘Perhaps, but I have not yet got a steward either. Or a butler, or a footman, or a dresser, or maids.’ And neither do I have the money to pay for them if I did.
‘Oh,’ says Lucy, whom I am quickly realising is the less clever of the two. ‘Does that mean we are not going to get any lunch?’
I sigh. ‘Perhaps the French ambassador will lend us some staff I will write to him.’ I stop. ‘I suppose I am going to need a servant, to take my note?’
The girls nod.
‘Lunch in France is often skipped by the ladies of the court,’ I say decisively. And perhaps by supper, I think, I will have worked out what to do.
But it is long before supper when a servant in royal livery enters and whispers something to Lady Anne. She spins round to face me. ‘The queen is coming.’
‘Now? Here?’
She nods, her eyes large.
’■Mon Dim' I say faintly. ‘What about Lady Arlington?’
‘On her way also.’
‘That is something, I suppose. What will the queen expect?’
Lady Anne shrugs helplessly. ‘She likes cards. And she will expect to be fed.’
‘Fed what?’
‘Supper,’ she says vaguely. Clearly Lady Anne’s upbringing has not included much household management.
‘For how many?’
‘She’ll bring her ladies-in-waiting. Perhaps a dozen all told. And if she is visiting, others may too.’
I think for a moment. ‘Send a message to Signor Demirco, the confectioner. Ask him to send ices for twenty. Tell him there is no time to lose.’
Carlo
In a hurry, a simple ice may be fashioned from eggnog, or custard, or fruit, or any mixture of the three.
The Book of Ices
‘Twenty! I cannot make twenty ices by dinner time.’
The man who had brought the message shrugged. ‘That is the request.’
I sighed. ‘Very well. Say that I will see what I can do. And have a carriage here at six.’
It is not possible to make cream ices in a hurry, but a good quantity of granite may be prepared in a few minutes, if you have a syrup to pour on them. Cordials, too, can be boiled up in no time, if you have a supply of ice with which to cool them down. And even creams can be approximated, if you have preserved fruits with which to flavour your milk as you churn it. In Paris I could have responded to Louise’s request with a snap of my fingers, and my apprentices would have rushed to get everything ready in time.
But here in London, I had no apprentices. And no one I could trust not to steal my secrets.
‘Why are you shouting?’ Elias enquired.
‘I am uttering profanities in Italian,’ I told him. ‘But now I am going to utter instructions in English. Put on that glove, and grate as much ice as you can.’
‘5?, signor^ he said happily.
‘Not like that, or we will be here all night,’ I said, showing him. ‘And I must get some syrups on to boil. Who is there who can go to the market for me?’
‘Mary is free,’ he said, pulling on the grating glove.
‘TH*en send Mary for oranges. And more sugar.’
‘What is going on?’
It was Hannah, having heard the commotion.
‘The queen is coming to supper with Madam Carwell,’ Elias told her.
‘You cannot possibly make enough orange syrup in time,’ Hannah said, taking in the situation. ‘Send Mary out for oranges by all means, but you must squeeze the juice fresh and serve it with some sprigs of mint and a little cardamom,’
I had not, at that time, heard the English expression beginning ‘Too many cooks’, but I was quickly becoming familiar with the sentiment. ‘There is no time to debate this. I need to serve ices to Her Majesty—’
‘I have made a posset,’ she interrupted. ‘You can have it.’
That brought me up short. ‘How much?’
‘A gallon. Enough for twenty, if you freeze it.’
‘Making ices is not quite as simple as that.’
She sighed. ‘I do not mean to suggest that it is. But I think, all the same, that the posset will freeze adequately, just as the custard did. Think of it as a kind of cook’s short cut.’
By now Mary, Rose and the landlord, Titus, had all joined us. I had to make a quick decision. ‘Very well,’ I said. ‘I will freeze the posset' But get some oranges as well. We will squeeze them for juice. And lemons too - we will make a syrup.’ ,
‘Do not pay more than sixpence for the oranges,’ Hannah added to Mary. ‘Go to Robin Marchmont, and tell him I sent you. Rose, tell Peter to get the stove hot. And I will fetch the posset.’
Posset^ I should explain, is a concoction the English are especially fond of, a kind of eggnog made with wine and spices. It was often served in the taverns, both as a warming drink and as a kind of dessert. This one was flavoured not just with lemon juice, sweet wine and nutmeg but also another taste I could not at first identify.
‘What is that?’ I asked. ‘Some kind of herb?’
Hannah nodded. ‘Sweet cicely. Just a pinch.’
I put down the spoon. ‘Well, it will have to do. Elias, how does the ice?’
‘I have nearly^done the whole block,’ he reported, his cheeks pink from the effort of grating.
‘We will need at least twice that.’ I picked up the paddle, and hesitated. Now I had to pack the sahotiere with ice and salt so that I could freeze the posset. At this stage I would usually have asked everyone present to leave, but today I could not afford to have them stop what they were doing.
Making the best I could of the situation, I took the various ingredients off to a corner. To confuse an eavesdropper even further, I spoke some Latin over the pail as I stirred it.
''Dominus virtutum nobiscum^ I added, recalling some words from a Catholic psalm.
And so we proceeded for the next two hours, making the orange cordial and thickening a lemon syrup for the granite while I periodically turned back to the sabotiere to work the ice mix as it froze. Hannah suggested that we send out for some jellies as well, so Rose was despatched to purchase quiddanies from Mrs Lamb around the corner, and by the time the carriage arrived we had almost pulled together a respectable collation. I was not in such a rush, however, that I neglected to taste the frozen posset: to my surprise, it was possessed of a smooth, rich texture that I had only achieved twice before, once on the day of Madame’s funeral, and once when I froze Hannah’s custard.
Louise
‘They’re here,’ Anne says, looking down from her position at the window. I go to her side.
The procession coming towards us down the Stone Gallery makes a strange sight. The queen is unmistakeable - a tiny woman, she is nevertheless dressed in a fine Spanish gown, her bearing upright as only a princess’s could be. Her ladies-inwaiting, though, are another matter. They wear strange, tall hats like nuns, and their skirts are sewn with hooped farthingales that make them sway from side to side as they walk.
‘Lord help us,’ Lady Arlington says behind me. ‘She’s brought the whole Portuguese fleet. I can’t wait to see the looks on their swarthy faces when they realise they’ve been usurped.’