T had better place someone to keep watch,’ Titus said nervously. T would not like to be responsible if it were stolen.’
In my pantry, I had already had Hannah scrub the stone ledge that ran the length of one wall in readiness. The chest was set down and the locks undone. A few people had managed to follow the chest’s progress indoors, and now craned forward eagerly to see the contents.
Inside, on a red satin cushion, lay a strange fruit: half coronet, half hedgehog. The skin was scaly and patterned, like the shell of a tortoise, while from the crown sprang an extravagant headdress of prickly plumage. The aroma - which had something of the perfumed fragrance of strawberries, and something of the sharp freshness of limes - escaped from the chest where it had been trapped and filled the air around me. As one, the onlookers made an ahh-ing sound.
‘And now you must all leave,’ I said firmly. ‘I have work to do.’
When there was no one left in the pantry but Hannah, Elias and myself, I reached into the chest and pulled out the pineapple, using the tips of my fingers to avoid being pricked by the curved, talon-like spikes that protruded from each scale. Placing it on the ledge, I picked up a cleaver. With a certain trepidation - this must be how a surgeon feels, I thought, in the moment before he slices open a patient - I lopped off the top, revealing the pale, sweet-smelling inside. Carefully, I placed the crown to one side. Then I sliced the pineapple in two lengthways, before taking a smaller filleting knife and carefully cutting away both the scaly
skin and the hard, husk-like inner core. I did this last part over a bowclass="underline" even so, drops of priceless pineapple juice ran down my fingers.
‘That fruit,’ Hannah observed suddenly, ‘would cost more than I will earn in my lifetime.’
‘What of it?’
‘Nothing could be worth so much.’
I shrugged. ‘It is worth what men are prepared to pay.’
‘But it is not even particularly pleasant.’
‘How do you know?’ I said sharply, wondering for a moment if she had taken some to taste when I was not looking.
‘From the smell. It is almost as sour as a lemon. Can’t you feel it?’
It was true - my own nostrils were pricking from the fruit’s sharpness too. Experimentally, I lifted my hand and Hcked my finger where the pineapple juices dripped along it. It was very sharp indeed: bitter, almost. It would need a great deal of sugar to make it palatable.
‘I cannot help thinking,’ she went on, ‘that these pineapples are like gold, or precious stones - their value comes principally from the fact that they are rare.’
‘It is rather more than that.’ I hesitated. ‘The pineapple is known to be an aphrodisiac - to stoke the passions of love.’
To my surprise, she hooted with laughter.
‘What is so funny?’
‘Only that it is strange how it is never common-or-garden herbs or fruits that are said to do that. If a simple blackberry or an English apple had the misfortune to look so strange, and to be so elusive, then perhaps those too would cost men fortunes, and be considered a source of potency.’
‘No one would be so foolish as to pay a fortune for a blackberry,’ I said. The pineapple now lay in eight pieces in my bowl, together with its juice. I separated it into two, and handed one lot to her. ‘Cut it as fine as you can.’
She nodded, and we began to slice and reslice the pineapple into cubes barely larger than crumbs of bread. I will say this for her: she kept a sharp knife, and she could use it quickly.
‘People - that is to say, men - prize what they cannot have.’ She gave me a sideways glance. ‘For you, I suppose, that is all to the good.’
‘What do you mean.>’
‘Only that your ices are expensive for exactly the same reason.’
‘My ices are sought after because of their excellence,’ I said. ‘Enough of this chatter, woman. We need to slice and sift the fruit very fine.’
‘I can talk and chop at the same time.’
I sighed. ‘Perhaps, but I cannot. This fruit is, as you have rightly pointed out, more precious than gold, and I would like to give its preparation the attention it deserves.’
When the sifting was done, and I had a mound of fine-textured pulp and juice, I considered what to do next.
I had been planning to make a simple sorbetto^ but the fruit’s sharpness persuaded me that I would do better to aim for a richer dish. So I sent Hannah to get sorrie buttermilk, the creamy, thick liquid left over from churning butter. Meanwhile, I readied my other ingredients: crushed mint leaves and a litde lime juice, to act as a flavour base for a sherbet.
When Hannah returned, I mixed together equal amounts of buttermilk and sugar, and added that to my pineapple and the other ingredients. Then I poured my mixture into the sahotiereHannah by this time having been ordered out of the pantry - and stirred it every half an hour, initially with a whisk, and later, as it became heavier and more snow-like, with a fork to break up the crystals.
So simple, and so quick. I tasted it - just a morseclass="underline" there were barely three cupfuls in total. It had a sweet, delicate flavour, like pale sunshine, the sourness balanced now by the sugar and the
richness of the buttermilk. It was very fine - but as to whether it was any better or worse than a blackberry or an apple, I really could not have said.
Louise
Every day now he comes to visit me. If there is anyone else present - the ambassador, Lord Arlington, one of the many French exiles who seem to assume that my apartments are their salon - he abruptly bids them good day.
And then . . .
All we do is talk. Talk, and tears.
That is to say, he talks about his sister. But we also speak of the Great Affair, this plan for a united Europe, a kind of second Holy Roman Empire, stretching from Ireland to Russia. One continent, united under one faith. A place without wars, almost without borders.
And litde by little we switch to talking about Louis. How he has stamped his authority on what was, once, the most divided and squabbling kingdom in Europe. How he has slowly reclaimed those portions of his lands owned by foreign powers. How, even now, his borders are being pushed outwards - to the Netherlands, to Alsace, to the Pyrenees.
It is clear that Charles is fascinated by his French cousin - fascinated and a little envious.
Vetat, c’est moi.
I tell him about the glories of French art, the musicians and philosophers and poets who add such lustre to the court of Versailles.
‘I have my poets too,’ he says, a little defensively. ‘I have my painters and my wits.’
‘Of course,’ I say soothingly.
‘Well? Has he made love to you yet?’ Lady Arlington says with a smile.
‘Elizabeth! What a question to ask.’
‘I’ll take that to mean yes, shall I?’
I don’t reply.
‘You French, with your shrugs!’ she exclaims. And then, more quietly, ‘Well done!’
Why do I not tell her the truth? After all, she has never laughed at my scruples, even if she has made it clear that she thinks them irrelevant. But I sense that on this point she may yet become insistent.
As may he.
For it is becoming all too clear that his interest, whatever he says, is not only because of Minette. Grief has given way to something more. When he looks at me now it is not always with the chaste eyes of a brother.
And yet he keeps his word. He does not make any suggestions that would embarrass me. It is all in the space between the words: the glances, the unspoken intensity of his eyes, the sudden smiles, the silences.
Is this what I want? What force am I unleashing? Is this a monster I can ride, or one that will destroy me?
‘Sir, I have an ice for you.’
I hand him the goblet. Tiny, exquisite, it has been made especially for this moment: an eggcup-sized pineapple of gold and painted glass, latticed like a pineapple’s eyes, its brirn adorned with golden leaves.