Luna watched as Mamma Lucrezia gave Papa a goblet of wine and he told them how looters, or the preacher’s men—he couldn’t tell them apart, so indiscriminate was their appetite for destruction—ransacked house after house to add to the growing pile on the bonfire. Luna sat with Maria and listened with a growing sense of unease. Mamma Lucrezia gave them some wine too and Luna was glad of its fortifying effect, for she did not like the fires. Nothing distinguished the swirl of a bonfire’s thick smoke from the pyres that burned the dead. Fires had been used to burn the bodies of those infected by the plague and, as a child, Luna had lived through three such terrifying times when the orange haze over the city had lasted days and the thud of bodies dropped into the pyres had been indistinguishable from the logs collapsing into ash. There was no pleasure in feeling the heat on her cheek when the crackle and spit of flame was so close.

Her papa described the plumes that reached as high as the cathedral spire. ‘Friar Savonarola’s loyal flock continue to fill the cathedral. He is a law unto himself.’ He gulped down the wine. ‘He has split the city into angels and demons. Apollonius didn’t like the huge pyres of belongings; they spooked him. At least I am reassured by visiting the monastery. All our most precious things are now safely stored within its crypt.’

‘I know you suffer, my husband, but do so here; stay home in the private bosom of your family.’

‘I must still travel to Prato in two morns’ time but now the fires are lit, the worst is over. This will satisfy the preacher’s thirst for penance for a time at least.’

‘I despair amidst so much chaos.’

‘The city will be calmer after this night. There is nothing further to fear, my wife.’

Later, when Luna lay in bed, she thought of the two books she’d taken from her father’s collection. Both would have burned easily, the old paper already crinkled and dry as kindling. Hers was a small gesture of defiance but she was glad to have saved them. She hoped her father’s collection was not discovered by the marauding looters. She still had the friar’s copy of the Sacrobosco and she took it up from where it lay on the small stand beside the bed. Reading would distract her from the frightening discord in the streets.

Luna read again about each of the planets in their individual spheres, circling in epicycles and constantly moving towards the centre of their orbit and closer to Earth, and then out again, each following a distinct pattern within their immutable sphere. All these planets and stars coexisted in perfect patterns within the ethereal, the fifth essence. That was a true miracle of God’s making to inspire mankind, not this preacher’s fire.