‘I will always love you,’ she whispered.
I felt a great heaviness descending on me. ‘That means no.’
‘Please, Carlo. It’s too risky—’
That night I was waiting by the Porta San Miniato long before the church bells struck midnight. By my side was a chest containing a sizeable haul of Ahmad’s ice-making equipment.
We stopped the dili^ence^ the high-speed mail coach drawn by six horses that went from Rome to Paris in long, non-stop stages. It did not usually take passengers; once again, Audiger seemed to have both the confidence and the money to bribe his way on board.
As we travelled north I looked out of the window. I had never before been further than Pisa, and I was thinking with an ache in my heart how each mile we covered was taking me further from Emilia.
T have been thinking,’ Audiger said.
I dragged my attention back inside the carriage. ‘Yes?’
‘Before we get to Paris we must get you some proper clothes.’ The Frenchman indicated his own fashionable garb. ‘It is important we do not look like tradesmen. At the French court, appearances are everything.’
I shrugged. ‘Very well.’
‘And we must think how best to approach the king. I know one of his valets: we can bribe our way into the royal presence, but it will be a waste of time unless we can present the king with a gift something special, something which will make him talk about us to all the men and women of his court.’
‘Very well.’ I yawned. Now that the tension of our escape was behind us, I felt exhausted. ‘We will make him an ice.’
Audiger shook his head. ‘More special even than that.’
‘I’ll think on it.’ It amazed me, this ability Audiger had to worry, not just about the next twenty-four hours, but about events that would not happen for days or weeks yet.
‘There’s something else.’ Audiger hesitated. ‘You said you would not have any man as your master. That is fair enough. But I think, nevertheless, that you should address me as your master when we are with others.’
I was ililly awake now. ‘Why?’
‘It is simply that I am older than you. People will expect me to be in charge. And besides, I already have a certain reputation in Paris. It will seem strange if I turn up with an Italian ragamuffin in tow and treat him as an equal. Not that you are a ragamuffin, of'course,’ he said quickly. ‘But that is how people may see it.’
Once again it was only the sliver of ice in my heart that made me restrain my anger. ‘I said I would have no master.’
‘And you will not have one. We will split our profits between us, that is completely understood. I will not be your master; it is simply that you will cM me master. You see the distinction, do you not?’
A little reluctantly, I nodded. ‘Very well.’
‘Good.’ Audiger looked out of the window. ‘But what to give the king,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘Now that is a worry.’
It was only as I drifted off to sleep that I realised that Audiger had misunderstood what I had said, back in Florence. He had thought I said I would have no master; but what I had actually said was that I would call no man master; I was quite sure of it. And yet here I was, agreeing to do just that. But perhaps Audiger had forgotten the exact words of our agreement.
‘Could one make an ice from peas?’ '
I jolted awake. The diligence had stopped, but only so the drivers could relieve themselves. Audiger stood by the side of the road, just beyond the open door, pissing into the field beyond.
‘What?’
‘I said, could one make an ice from peas?’ Audiger called over his shoulder. ‘Look, I am watering some right now.’
I looked out of tlie carriage. In the brilliant, flat light of a full moon I saw a field of peas, their plump green pods swinging in the breeze. The aroma of fresh legumes was, mercifully, more powerful than that of my companion’s piss.
‘The king has a strange passion for vegetables of all kinds,’ Audiger said. ‘Especially for peas. Each year his courtiers compete to bring him the first crop from their estates - it is the sort of contest he enjoys. And these are weeks earlier than any peas in France^ I am wondering if we could make an ice from them.’
‘But if you want to give the king peas, why not simply pick him some.>’
‘They will be withered long before we reach Paris. Even the diligence takes a fortnight.’
‘But you could freeze them.’
Audiger’s head appeared at the carriage door. ‘What?’
‘Freeze them,’ I repeated. ‘Preserve them in ice.’
Audiger stared at me. ‘Such a thing is possible?’
‘It is not just possible: it is simple. The Persians have long known that ice preserves fruit from corruption. Peas are surely no different.’
‘Yes? Brilliant! What would you need? Ice?’ Audiger gazed around the moonlit field. ‘But of course, we have no ice,’ he said dejectedly. ‘A couple of ice makers, with no ice.’
‘Audiger - where are we headed?’
The Frenchman looked nonplussed. ‘Paris?’
‘Via the Alps,’ I reminded him. ‘And although I have never been there, even I know that the Alps are—’
‘Full of ice! Stuffed with ice! Ice and snow everywhere you look! Yes!’ Audiger tossed his hat into the air, then caught it again. ‘But first we have to get our peas to the Alps,’ he said, more glumly.
‘How long before the coach gets there?’
‘Two days, perhaps three.’
‘My chest of equipment will still be cold; the pewter buckets and so on came straight from the Boboli ice house. If we put the peas in there . . .’
‘Yes! Yes!’ Audiger threw his hat up once more. ‘Of course!
With my vision, Demirco, and your expertise, we shall be the king’s confectioners in no time!’
Two days later, in an inn high on the mountain pass that led to France, Audiger watched me prepare the peas.
‘Packed sn6w is even colder than ice, and lasts longer,’ I explained. ‘Why, I do not know. But I intend to find out, one day.’
Audiger was staring at the snbotiere like a man awaiting a conjuring trick. Very well, I thought: I will show you some magic.
‘Now I add saltpetre to the snow. That makes it much, much colder. Again, I do not know why exactly.’
‘Go on,’ Audiger breathed.
‘Then I put the peas into the inner pot, like so.’ I poured the peas in and placed the lid on top.
‘Now what?’
‘Now we leave them. It is no different from leaving a cake in the oven - if you open the door too often to check it, the heat will escape and the cake will never get baked. Only in our case, it is the cold which must be kept safe.’
Audiger pulled out a pocket watch. ‘How long?’
‘The length of time between matins and mass, according to the bells of Santa Maria.’ >
‘What?’ '
‘Say half an hour.’
Audiger spent the next thirty minutes pacing up and down. When we finally opened the sabotiere he looked inside and drew in his breath.
The peas had drawn together into a ball, a silvery-green cluster flecked with ice. Audiger reached in and pulled it out. ‘Remarkable!’ he breathed.
‘Careful,’ I warned. ‘Your hands will warm them, and they will not taste so fresh if they have to be frozen a second time.’
‘They’re stuck!’ Peas were dotted on Audiger’s fingers, clinging
to his skin like burrs on cloth mittens. He tried to flick them off, but they would not budge.
‘Here, let me.’ I pulled the frozen peas off one by one. They did not stick to my fingers as they did to Audiger’s, I noticed. ‘We should put them away now. And we must take a chest of pressed snow with us in the coach, so that we can keep them like this.’
Carlo
To make i ratafia of green walnuts; take your walnuts, not quite ripe; chop them into quarters, husks and all, then infuse them for a month in a gallon of aqua vitae, with a lemon and some leaves of the sweet lime bush. This cordial in France is known as liqueur de noix^ and freezes pleasingly, though not hard.