She’d expected something of her step-mamma’s control from Elisabetta but her hostess didn’t seem concerned that her guest kept so much to herself and preferred to walk outdoors than join in the household tasks. Not having the weight of another’s expectations on her made Luna loiter a little longer each time their paths crossed, and before long she always took the path that led past the kitchen garden just so she could begin or end her day with a chat with Elisabetta. Luna came to enjoy listening to her talk of the fattening lettuces or how well her seeds had taken. Sometimes hers was the only voice to break a day of walking.

At night, Luna slept with a tiredness that kept her dreams at bay. The mornings were broken by cocks crowing and then the scratching and clucking of the chickens would begin. Noise started early in the yard too, for even though the grapes were in, there were many jobs to be done to prepare the estate ahead of winter. She occasionally came across the workers on her walks and they would make the sign of the horned hand when they saw her, but after the first time when they’d passed one another and a worker had run back to the villa to warn the master that the cripple had escaped, they did not bother her again. They seemed to begrudgingly accept she was not in need of containment, even though the Devil’s touch had been upon her.

Luna walked to exhaust her body so her mind had not the energy to think. The boundless paths across open hills, the focus of where she placed her walking stick, the cries of birds of prey, all acted as diversions from her memories. Her guilt was as powerful as the circling hawk, her grief as desolate as the mice scrabbling for cover. She walked because it was all that she could do. She knew her future loomed and the few days of rest at the Novara estate had become weeks of walking and sleeping, yet still she let the convent wait.

Chapter Twenty

CHAPTER TWENTY

November 1496

By the time winter had closed in on the Tuscan hills, Luna knew the pathways of the estate close to the house as intimately as her bedchamber. She knew where the olive trees grew thickly so she could use them to balance her descent when she trudged down the hill. She marked the path to the herb garden by the copse of younger trees planted closer to the house. The pain that walking brought on did not deter her. She bore it willingly and at night she soaked her stump in rosewater. Her hostess noticed Luna’s curiosity with the land and offered to join her but Luna didn’t want company.