Luna sat silent and still. She felt hollow as a worked deer carcass ready to be mounted on the wall. Did everyone know of the painting’s true purpose, even Friar Bartolomeo? Was she so lowly esteemed? Yes. Even a simpleton would not have her as his wife. She felt Maria take her hand under the table and squeeze it. Luna shook her head. This was not the way it was supposed to be; she was the one to comfort Maria.

Mamma Lucrezia filled Papa’s glass yet again. ‘Best she knows the truth of where her future lies.’

‘I had hoped to enjoy this meal with my wife and children, but I am fair disappointed,’ he said as he rose from the table. ‘There is no marriage now so the rest of it matters not.’ He stopped by Mamma Lucrezia’s chair. ‘Make sure Maria is handsomely decorated when I see her future father-in-law again at Mass. If I must endure a Palagio betrothal, at least let it be with a father’s pride.’ Then he turned to Luna. ‘This was always your destiny, child,’ he said.

Luna watched him leave the room. The boards creaked where he stepped and the heavy plod of his familiar footfall continued even after he was out of sight. She heard the outer doors downstairs open and then a loud thump as they closed; Papa had gone out. There’d be no further conversation, though she knew now, with crushing certainty, that her value was no different to that of any other girl: it lay in the price she could raise as a bride, and in that she’d let him down. Even a simpleton didn’t want her for a wife. Who next would her father approach?

Luna excused herself and stumbled to her room. She took out the Sacrobosco and stared at it. Was she a fool to believe herself worthy of learning? The injustice of her lot sat firmly in the leather-bound text, which she would never be allowed to read once she became someone’s wife. How cruel a fate. She flung the book across the room and heard it smack sharply against the far wall. Damn this world that elevated men above all others.

Chapter Twelve

CHAPTER TWELVE

If he could go back and change the way this morning had begun, Vincenzio would surely have left Luna at home when the family gathered to depart for the cathedral. But he’d been distracted by his little boy, who needed his attention ahead of joining the preacher’s fanciulli and, in faith, he’d no comprehension of how utterly his daughter had befriended her own vulgarity. Lately Luna did everything she could to vex him and prove his wife right. How was it that someone with intelligence could be so foolish? Because she was a girl, of course, and despite all his teachings, the weak nature of her sex would always overwhelm his attempts at nurturing her mind.