“Shh,” said the chef, hastily pressing his forefinger to the boy’s lips. “Best not to disturb official business.”
“Father does not care what I disturb,” replied the boy.
“And who might Father be?” asked the older and more pompous-looking of the two truffle-selling rhymers standing just outside the kitchen door.
“Cosimo di Pucci de Meducci the Third,” the boy said proudly. “Grand Duke of Tuscany.”
“Is that so?” said the rhymer. “And that would make you … ?”
“Princess Margarita, heir to Duke—”
“Oh, stop it,” the chef interrupted. “Your name is nothing of the sort.” The chef could see the smirk on the smug rhymer’s face and this bothered him immensely. “Oh, very well, Prince Gian,” said the chef as he handed the large truffle over to the boy, effectively conceding the negotiations before they had even begun. “Sniff away, if you must.”
Though Prince Gian’s young mind could hardly fathom such a thought, it wasn’t easy heading up the kitchen for the Meducci family and Chef Luigi was in a bothered state for several reasons. First, ever since meeting Queen Margarita of Naples, his boss’s curious child had not only taken on the queen’s name, but the mortifying habit of wearing his mother’s dresses and stealing the melons Chef Luigi planned to use for lunch to fill out the gown’s vacant breast pouches. Despite himself, Luigi couldn’t help but feel a bit flattered by the prince’s attention, but what if, Luigi thought often and with great concern, the child should trip over the gown and hurt himself in the kitchen? He would most assuredly be out of a job then. Nonetheless, it wasn’t the antics of the prince that currently vexed Luigi (he had grown well accustomed to Gian’s behavior); it was the vulgar duo of rimatori who had sought out the royal kitchen in hopes of selling some truffles.
They were a rank pair, one pompous and the other slovenly. The kind of rough-hewn village folk who might have bullied and abused Luigi when he was a young boy at the orphanage and sent to market for the day’s shopping. They would never have made it past the villa’s guards had not the pair of early-season truffles in their possession been so extraordinary. The truffles were unlike anything Luigi had ever seen or smelled, and he had to have them. The problem was, the pompous rhymer knew it, and if there was anything Luigi hated, it was parting with money, even if it wasn’t his.
“Oh, Chef Luigi,” young Gian chirped as he dreamily sniffed the pungent clump of fungus, “I know Papa will love them.” The boy leaned against the kitchen door, jostling a wreath of garlic bulbs and causing a few sheaths of garlic skin to flake off.
“And in which dish, young Princess Margarita,” asked the pompous truffle seller, “does your father most like truffles?”
Repugnant, thought Luigi as he scraped his clog against the wooden floor to whisk the garlic peelings out the door. “Mustn’t make a mess of my kitchen, now, young prince.”
“But,” from out of nowhere the more slovenly of the pair of truffle sellers stammered, “but you’re dressed like a princess?” The man seemed genuinely overcome, as if the mass of his bafflement suddenly slipped through a crack in his discretion.
Luigi stiffened.
Leaning against the frame of the door, Prince Gian continued to sniff the truffle, then replied nonchalantly, “So, what of it?”
“Well,” the slovenly man continued, eyes wide and transfixed upon the boy, “it just seems not proper.”
The pompous truffle seller turned to his underling: his eyebrows raised in disbelief, his lips bent with rage. “Shut your mouth!” he snapped.
Now the young prince stopped his sniffing and looked contemptuously at the pompous truffle seller. “You do not,” the prince said with a surprising authority, “tell anyone to shut his mouth before the Prince of Tuscany.”
There was a pause, heavy and tense, as Prince Gian held his gaze upon the pompous truffle seller. Luigi’s blood froze in his veins. The man did not appear to take kindly to his remonstration. Finally, a forced smile broke the man’s lip-lock and he lowered his eyes. “My apologies, young lord,” he said, though Luigi didn’t believe a word of it.
Satisfied, Prince Gian now turned to address the slovenly truffle seller. “May I,” he asked the man rather sweetly, “see your hands?”
“My what?” the man asked, seemingly more confused than ever.
“May I,” repeated Gian, “see your hands?”
The man nodded nervously as he moved his hands from behind his back to before the prince’s eyes. His