Before he could ask what Paulo was doing with them, a servant with a prominent Adam’s apple burst in through the back door. He had two dead herons tucked under his arm, their feet flopping about comically. Especially after he saw Mircea and abruptly turned around, trying to fit back through the door, birds and all.
“Where d’you think you’re going?” the little cook demanded, snagging him by the arm.
“He’s hungry,” the man said, staring over his shoulder at the big bad vampire wobbling on the stairs.
“And?” she asked, relieving him of one of the herons, looking it over with a frown. “Fresh caught?”
“Yes. But I have to—”
“Does that smell fresh to you?” She shoved the bird into his face.
“I—it’s what Guilio said—”
“I told you to buy from Zuane. Guilio’s a crook. And his wife’s a damned rivenditrice. She buys leftovers from genuine farmers and then resells them along with stories of how she just dug them out of the earth this morning—when they’re days old already! Bah.”
“Yes, but these aren’t vegetables—”
“And they’re not fresh, either. Looks like her husband is trying the same trick with meat.”
“S-should I go back—” the man asked, looking frankly hopeful.
“Oh, they’re long gone by now,” she told him impatiently. “And there’s no way to prove where you got ’em, in any case.”
“I can try—”
“You can try to make me a Saracen sauce without spilling anything,” she said sternly.
“S-Saracen?” The man looked at her blankly.
“You made the same one just last week! Almonds, currants, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, galangal, grains of paradise. And nutmeg. Grind it all together and splash with verjuice—and don’t stint this time! I need extra to cover the smell on those two.”
“A-all right,” he said, but he didn’t go anywhere.
The cook poked him with a long handled spoon. “What’re you waiting for? A blessing?”
“No, just—” he looked at Mircea. “I gave last night,” he blurted out, shrinking back.
“It’s all right, Lucca,” Paulo said, with a sigh. “He fed already.”
“But he’s hungry. Look—his fangs are showing!”
“And he’ll be hungry for a few days. But that’s nothing to you.”
“Nothing? He half drained me last night!”
“I was here, remember?” Paulo said patiently. “And he did nothing of the sort.”
“But I wasn’t supposed to give again, not so soon. I fed Danieli two days ago. And Besina three days before that—”
“It was an emergency.”
“—and I’ve been stumbling about all day, as a result. Pure dizzy with it I was,” he announced dramatically.
Which was somewhat spoiled when he gave an energetic hop, courtesy of the cook applying a broomstick to his posterior. “Liar! You were whistling coming down the road. Think we’re deaf?”
The man hiked up his feathered accessory with a sniff. “I was trying to keep my spirits up,” he said. “And I deserve compensation.”
Paulo crossed his arms. “And what, pray tell, do you feel would be adequate recompense for the horrors you’ve suffered?”
The man’s expression brightened. “An extra day off would help me recover my strength. And an extra chicken would feed me back up. And an extra—”
“Done,” Paulo said quickly, before he could add anything else.
Lucca looked like he was going to argue, but decided to quit while he was ahead. “I’ll just be on my way, then—”
“Tomorrow,” Paulo said, catching him by the back of his shirt. And neatly managing to avoid the dirty bird feet when he dragged him back from the door. “You know we’re entertaining tonight. Now go make that sauce.”
The man edged around the cook and through the door leading to the pantry, keeping as far from Mircea as possible all the while. The cook looked at Paulo. “He steals a chicken a week anyhow. Robs us blind during the day, like the rest of ’em.”
“And I am supposed to do what about it, exactly?”
“Find us some better servants!”
“Yes, I’ll get right on that,” he said, going back to attacking Mircea’s doublet with a brush. “As soon as you tell me where these paragons can be located, who cook and clean and don’t go screaming into the night at the idea of feeding a houseful of fiends.”
“Watch your tongue. Or I’ll be applying the broom to a new backside,” she warned, turning back to her pot. “Fiends,” she muttered. “Only fiends I know are in the marketplace.”
Paulo sighed, but wisely said nothing. Until he looked at Mircea. “Why are you still standing there?”
Mircea decided this was a fair question, and managed to transition from step to table without incident. Which he was feeling rather proud about—until someone snapped their fingers in front of his face. And he realized that he’d been staring at the contents of the other end of the table for minutes.
He tore his eyes away from the rose-like spiral of a bowl of shrimp, the liquid silver of a spill of sardines, and the gleaming jet beads of a platter of risotto with squid ink. And fell instead into admiration for a pair of sapphire blue eyes. Someone laughed.
“Be careful, Paulo!” the cook said. “He’s silly with it.”
“How much did you take?” Paulo frowned, scrutinizing Mircea’s face.
“The usual. They are well,” he added, as Paulo cocked his head, listening for the soft sounds of snores from above.
“And you are?”
“Wondering what happened,” Mircea said honestly, before the events of the previous night came rushing back. He dropped his head into his hands. “And why they felt the need to almost drain me.”
“If they don’t, you aren’t getting to them,” Paulo said wryly.
“But what was the point?” Mircea demanded. “I couldn’t feed them. At my power level, the taste—”
“Metallic,” the cook said, sticking out her tongue. “Like old leftovers.”
“Then why bother?”
“’Cause they weren’t after the taste, were they?” Bezio asked, showing the cook the butter he’d just finished.
She nodded and handed him the less-than-fresh birds. “Dunk ’em, pluck ’em, gut ’em, and spit ’em,” she instructed. “And use a lot of olive oil in the roasting. It covers a multitude of sins.”
“Then what did they want?” Mircea asked, but Bezio wasn’t listening.
He’d paused, birds in hand, to peer into a baking dish. “Stop that!” the cook swiftly replaced the lid.
“Then stop making it smell so good. What is this?”
“Chicken pie with dates.”
Bezio took a deep whiff. “Smells like pork.”
“It’s the pancetta.”
“There’s pancetta?” He looked pathetically ravenous.
“Then what did they want?” Mircea repeated, but Bezio was busy getting bopped with a spoon, and didn’t hear.
“You’re a vampire,” the chef told him. “You don’t get any.”
“You’re a vampire,” Bezio retorted. “How the hell do you cook?”
The little woman tapped her head. “Recipes are still up here, aren’t they?”
“But how do you taste?”
She just smiled. And then shouted: “Lucca!”
The hapless wonder of a manservant stuck his head out of the pantry, and had one of the cheesy pancetta balls left over from the pie popped into his mouth. He choked, chewed, and swallowed. “Good,” he rasped out. And then quickly disappeared back into his sanctum.
“That’s how,” the cook said. “Now, get those birds on before they add raw to their list of problems.”