So here she still sat, hands clasped together, body uncomfortably constrained by this fine woollen gown, and with a devilish tickle about to undo her. She set her mind to another distraction and recalled the path she’d walked to the monastery, having left home when the sun was already risen and any chance of taking note of her beloved stars had passed. She would make up for that another night; the pages of her small notebook would soon be full of descriptions of the positions of the stars she spied. It was simple astronomy but she’d not the skill to do more. If she was a student of the subject, she’d have access to books such as that of Ptolemy or Sacrobosco, with valuable tables that gave instructions for predicting the positions of celestial bodies. She hoped to be in possession of such a text soon.

Yet that morn was not made for decrying the fading of the night sky but for delighting in the wakening of a new day. It had been a perfectly crisp spring morning when she’d set out, blanched of the icy chill of winter, just warm enough to hint at the season’s change. A streak of glorious colour shot over a rooftop as she walked, then hid again till she came round the next corner, when it appeared anew as glittering particles that dappled the cobblestones. She thought of the sweet smells that had enticed her towards the baker’s shop along Via dei Neri and the curiosities she’d seen on the table outside the apothecary’s before she’d turned down her secret, quicker path through the tiny alley with no name, overhung with bricked arches at either end. In the quiet of the alley she’d shaken off her hood and let the first breeze of the day twist in the curls at her neck. She’d looked up to where the roofs of the crooked buildings almost touched, like lovers leaning for each other. The thought had made her smile. Before long she’d come out into the Piazza dei Peruzzi where a group of foreign men in strange hats waited for admittance into the palazzo. But none of it was any help; her back still tickled and the notion of a persnickety little mouse, whiskers twitching and tail flicking back and forth betwixt her shoulder blades, filled her with such an urge to jump up and shake about that she clasped her hands so firmly together her knuckles turned white.