Always, always flip away from yourself—that way if grease is to splatter, it will splatter away from you. Do you understand?”

Gian nodded.

“Good.” Luigi peeked under the bread to see that it was cooked properly then flipped the bread onto its other side; butter sizzled and bubbled at the edges of the bread. “There, do you see that color?” Luigi glanced over his shoulder to make sure Gian was paying attention. “That’s what you want.”

Luigi left the bread to cook. He took a clean plate off the shelf and set it on the counter, then pulled a knife and fork from a drawer and set it before the boy. Reaching for a pitcher, he then poured a glass of milk from it. “Fresh,” he said whilst sniffing the air, “you can still smell the grass.”

Gian did not smile. Luigi pursed his lips in a moment of internal deliberation. He had come to know the young prince well enough to understand that if not even fresh milk and a lesson on Tuscan toast could undo the boy’s concern about his father, then he must truly be suffering.

“Let me tell you a secret that all good chefs know,” Luigi said to the boy. “A secret I learned many years ago when I was about your age, about how food and flavor can tell the future.”

Luigi turned to face the stove and with another quick move of the spatula lifted the cooked bread from the pan and set it on the plate. From the cupboard he took a jar of jam and flipped its metal cinch-top open. Discerningly, he brought the jar to his nose and sniffed twice. “Ah, fig jam,” he said, and then spooned some atop the bread. Next, he sunk the spoon into a bowl of fresh whipped cream and shook a dollop of it upon the plate as well. Quickly dipping a knife into a pot of honey, he then drizzled a thin stream of the sweet nectar over the toast in a back-and-forth pattern. Finally, he slid the plate before the prince.

“Here,” he said, looking into the boy’s eyes. “This is how we’ll know if your father is still alive. This is the secret that all true chefs know. You see, when someone you love dies, even if your eyes have not seen it, nor your ears heard of it, your belly will know of it.”

The young boy raised his eyebrows.

“It’s true,” Luigi answered the expression, “your stomach has a mind of its own. And if someone you love has died, even the sweetest and most delicious foods will taste like merda.” Luigi gestured to the plate, letting the boy know it was time to sample the dish.

Tentatively, Prince Gian Gastone picked up his knife and fork and sliced into the toast. He was a refined eater for a boy his age and made sure to get equal amounts of fig jam, cream and honey upon the fork. Slowly, the boy brought the fork to his mouth.

Faccia di Merda, thought Luigi Campoverde, as he watched the boy’s face light up, this could assuredly cost me my job. But Luigi knew that he had no choice but to fetch the duke from hiding. A boy deserves his father, after all.

In which We Learn

the Divine Reason

Behind an Unruly child

Wonderful, thought Cosimo di Pucci de’ Meducci the Third, Grand Duke of Tuscany in peasant disguise, absolutely wonderful. He was working in tandem with the colossal and perplexing Good Padre. It was only yesterday that Cosimo had such an extraordinary experience in the Good Padre’s company, and he felt something akin to a childlike excitement just being in the man’s presence again. Cosimo was particularly giddy about all the commotion going on around him. It was the day before the feast and nearly the entire village was present in the piazza, arranging tables, festooning donkeys and setting up all manner of decorations and preparations for the great day. Cosimo and the Good Padre themselves were busy lifting hay bales off a wagon and helping in the construction of a hay-bale-lined oval track that circled the statue of the Drunken Saint.

Cosimo had been living with the villagers for nearly two weeks now and, ironically, had found that he was almost as useless a peasant as he was a duke. This realization, though a touch disheartening, hardly undid his newfound joy in being among the common folk and working the land. How easy it was for Cosimo to shed the falsity of his life as