For the next month Luna did not leave the monastery. She slept in one of the novices’ cells, on a bed that Friar Bartolomeo tried to make more comfortable by adding blankets on top of the straw mattress that rested on the wood pallet. She kept to the bed, and when she could not sleep she hid beneath the cover that was musty with damp and smelt of years of burnt candle wax. After early-morning prayers, Friar Bartolomeo brought her food and stayed a while. She drank the draught he gave her because it made her sleep and for those hours she did not think. He returned again after vespers each evening and the candle he lit told Luna another day was ending. She thought his voice was a dream though she did not care to open her eyes and find out.

Outside the monastery walls, the burning colours of autumn flourished and the streets were noisy with families enjoying the cooler evenings. Luna heard their laughter as she lay, eyes closed. What reason had she to see the day? Her family, branded as heretics, was gone: her step-mamma and siblings burnt to death, her father executed. He came to her one night, as a ghost in a room full of strangers and only she recognised him, complete again though his features were dim. She shouted to the party that a ghost was amongst them, but no one took heed of her words and she alone said hello before he disappeared.

Friar Bartolomeo brought news of an emissary arrived from Rome. He described the pomp and ceremony of the riders and carriage as they passed on the way to the Signoria. There was confusion and excitement at what this might portend. She heard his rosary beads click feverishly as he padded about the room, debating with himself how the errant preacher might react and even through the fog of her own grief she could sense his hope. Luna cared not what happened.

Then, just as quickly, the visitors departed back to Rome with the preacher amongst them for an audience with the Pope. Florence was left without its religious leader. Friar Bartolomeo moved about the monastery with a spritely step after that. The people of Florence bundled themselves against the cooler weather, staying close to the protection of the buildings as they walked the streets, caught in the swirling tide that had turned against their favoured preacher. None of this moved Luna.