La gola

On the fault-line of two imaginary duchies—one a cauldron of perpetual banquets, the other a snow-cool realm of abstinent fastidiousness—hovers Frescalinda, a countess whose pulse beats to the drum of appetite yet whose bloodline is bifurcated by treaty and table etiquette. Court astronomers chart her future like a dubious soufflé: the rising marriage of state that will glue Glotonia’s gluttonous nobles to Frescalia’s frosty magistrates, a gastronomic détente sealed over a betrothed body. Enter Gallardo Amore: mercenary, trencherman, poet of the palate, whose sabre is as swift as his palate is wide. Their clandestine trysts take place in buttery moonlight amid spits of swan and sarcasm; every kiss tastes of saffron and subversion. The Great Duchess, a woman who has weaponized etiquette into slow-acting poison, orchestrates a matrimonial masque whose layers rival mille-feuille. Frescalinda must choose: fork or fiancé? Ladle or legatee? In a climactic bacchanal staged like a Last Supper painted by Brueghel on peyote, alliances curdle, aspic solidifies into armor, and a single bite of poisoned marzipan threatens to collapse two thrones into one grave.