The dogs pushed through the outer doors and ran off down the steps into the entrance yard, the professor following. Elisabetta turned back and Luna couldn’t help herself, scanning the lady’s cheek and arms for signs of bruising. She expected to see the same marks of wedded discord as on her step-mamma but Elisabetta’s skin was burnished brown only by the strength of the sun. Perhaps the play of a husband’s power was different in this household. Luna followed Elisabetta to where she stopped at the base of the staircase. A bench seat lined the wall opposite the stairs and when she put her foot on the first step, she saw a thick tapestry hung against the stairwell’s drop, from the top floor down to where the stairs first turned. It was a magnificently detailed scene of men and boys hunting on horseback. Below them, servants carried bows and arrows, flagons of wine and books; above them ranged deer and boar, hawks and pigeons. Luna imagined it to be the family’s lineage.

‘You must be tired,’ Elisabetta said and Luna nodded. ‘A quiet evening in your room would be best. I will arrange for supper to be brought up to you.’

Luna found her hostess’s directness a relief and she accepted willingly. On the first floor, she was shown into a small but comfortable bedchamber. A fire had been lit in the hearth and Luna went to warm her hands. A desk sat beneath the window, which looked onto a courtyard garden and beyond to the estate’s working fields and farther still to hillocks that rose like watchmen against some distant enemy.

‘You should find this room quite comfortable.’

‘It is a great reprieve to stop here,’ Luna replied. ‘Thank you for taking me in.’

Her hostess nodded. ‘We will talk properly in the morning but I hope you will stay a goodly time. I’m looking forward to having another woman in the house.’ Then she left, closing the door gently behind her.

Luna hung her hands in front of the fire again, taking some comfort from the warmth. She looked around the room; shadows leapt about the walls and across a portrait that hung above the bed of Mother Mary wearing a soft expression and cradling baby Jesus in her lap, one hand firmly balanced on his chubby stomach, the other holding his fingers. Around her head an aura of gold leaf shimmered. The paint had cracked in one corner. Luna’s memory went straight to the fresco of Mary with the baby Jesus in the main hall of her family home. That mother had always felt strong and protective.