Juliet's Nurse by Lois Leveen Read Free Book Online Page A

middle of a morning hour when he is gone from the compound, and Lady Cappelletta is yet in her bed, and poor Tybalt is at what no right-minded person would call the mercy of his tutor, I gather Juliet in my arms and steal down from our chamber. The autumn day is dry, and the air in the courtyard smells of the acrid odor of olives being pressed to fresh oil, mixed with the heavy must of strong wines aging in barrels in a nearby storeroom, and the fragrance of loaves baking in the Cappelletti oven. The bready scent draws me to such a kitchen as I’ve never imagined any house could have. Set in its own stone building, it has two open fires along with the oven, and pots of every size hanging from the ceiling and stacked along the walls. A table as big as an ox-cart sits in the center of the room ringed with mysterious jars and jugs, its top covered with sprigs of fresh-pulled herbs.
    The man standing at the table does not glance up when I enter.He’s got the drawn face of a hare, the skin beneath his eyes shaded from want of sleep. His quick-bladed mincing of parsley does not slow, even while I complain my food’s too bland.
    “That’s no fault of mine,” he says, snorting in all the sharp, sweet, thick flavors of the meal he’s making. “Lord Cappelletto told me you’re not to have any sauce or spice, no hint of flavor that might taint your milk.”
    This is how I’m spoken of, like I’m some cow being pastured. “I nursed six sons while eating savory dishes, and none of them—”
    “None of them is Lord Cappelletto, who is the man who pays my wages.” He reaches for a head of garlic, and, sliding his thumb up the dull side of the blade, begins to peel it. “Meager wages they are, for everything I’m got to do to get his meals cooked, the arbor fruit and all the vegetables that are brought in from his country estates preserved, and a winter’s worth of meats cured. They do not keep a man-servant in this house I can trust to send to the market to buy a decent round of cheese, or a pantry-maid with sense enough to keep the mold from growing on it once it’s brought back here.”
    Cribbed as I’ve been within Juliet’s chamber, still I know the truth of what he says. Tybalt’s tutor is not the only hireling seeking his own pleasures. The serving-man’d slurp the dregs out of a dead man’s cup, or so I suppose from how often his face is flushed with drink. The maid-servant is such a doltish thing she truckles more grime into a room than she ever manages to clean out of it. Tybalt tells me there’s no need to grumble over her, for she’ll doubtless be gone in a month or two, like all the other maids before her. And whenever I catch sight of the house-page, he’s scratching so furiously at himself that I’d not let him within twenty paces of Juliet, to keep whatever infests him away from her, and me. For all the poor are in want of good masters, it’s the wonder of Ca’ Cappelletti that the rich can be so in want of good servants. A fine riddle that proves for me to puzzle over whenever Juliet’s soiled swaddling needs washing, and I must haul up the water bucket from the courtyard well myself, balance the tub above the brazier fire in our chamber to heat it, scrub the strips of fabric clean, and lay them in the sun to dry, all before my babe cries once more to be fed.
    “Lazy and insolent,” I say, to show him I agree. “It must be trying for so skilled a cook to have to rely on them.”
    He pitches the peelings into the fire with a flourish, as if to confirm how worthy he is of my compliment.
    “So skillful a cook,” I continue, “could easily prepare a bowl of hearty broth, and send it up to me with fresh bread and oil. And a bit of cheese, which after all is made from milk. Surely that would do no harm.”
    For the first time, he raises his eyes to take me in. “Lazy and insolent,” he repeats. “And witless as well, if you think I take orders from a common servant.”
    My quick tongue is