Father Benito paused. ‘You want me to ask an inquirer of the Holy Father’s own order to ask why the sea should surge into Piccolo?’ he asked sceptically. ‘Why don’t I ask him what makes rain? Or why thunder is so loud?’

‘You laugh at her grief?’ one of the wise women accused him, pointing to Mrs Ricci. ‘You won’t answer her? You won’t even hear us?’

The angry murmur of the crowd rose into a roar of outrage. Father Benito saw that there was no reasoning with them like this. He glanced at Luca and surrendered. ‘Very well. As you wish. Brother Luca Vero – would you hold an inquiry? We should hear what these good women have to say. It will be better for us all if all the fears are spoken aloud and you can tell us if there was anything that we could have done to prevent the flood.’

‘There!’ Another of the wise women was triumphant. ‘We will name the guilty ones!’

‘I will inquire into the cause of this wave, and I will tell the Pope what I decide.’ Luca ruled. ‘If anyone has caused it, I will see that they are charged with causing such a disaster, and I will see that they are punished.’

‘Burned,’ Mrs Ricci insisted. ‘And the ashes blown away on the storm wind that they called up.’

‘I will see that justice is done,’ he promised, but his level tones only angered her more. She dived towards him and snatched at his hands, shouting furiously into his young face. ‘You know there are witches who call up storms? You know this?’

Luca had to force himself not to flinch away from her. ‘I know that many people believe this. I haven’t found anyone guilty of such a thing myself. But I have read of it.’

‘Read of it!’ someone said scornfully. ‘You’ve just seen it happen! What book can tell you what has just happened to us? What book was ever written that speaks of a wave that destroys a town, on a sunny day? For no reason?’

Luca looked around; the little crowd around them was steadily growing in number, as more and more people came up from the market square, and stepped out of the doorways of their houses. They were no longer pale with grief, shocked into silence; they were angry and becoming dangerous, looking for someone to blame for their tragedy.

‘I think there may be books which tell of this,’ he said carefully. ‘I have not read them myself, it is the wisdom of the ancients which the Arabs have in their libraries. This is something that we should understand, so as to make ourselves safe. I will consider carefully what you, and everyone else has to say. I will start my inquiry this afternoon, at the inn.’

‘You should start there indeed,’ one of the midwives from the church said spitefully. ‘That’s the very place to start. You could start in the inn, in the upper room, in the attic bedroom.’