On All Saints’ Day she stayed indoors, at prayer in the Novaras’ chapel. That week she did not go out walking or enjoy the kitchen’s delicacies. She lit candles for each of her family and only ate after vespers. The hours of daylight she spent in the chapel. Friar Bartolomeo would be honouring her family in his prayers also. It had been two months since the fire and yet she saw each of them still as they were on that last morning: Pippo’s small hand holding to Livia’s; Maria walking off happily to the kitchen; Mamma weeping. But she could not think of Papa. She could not.

She wrote to Friar Bartholomeo and told him of her acceptance within the Novara household and how welcoming they’d been. She spoke of the peace of the countryside and her newfound passion for walking. She asked him to write back with news of Florence and the preacher, all the while aware the one thing she avoided discussing was what the friar would want to hear: news of her departure for the sanctuary of the convent. Luna signed off, Your Most Devoted Student, Leonarda Lunetta, and waited for his reply.

When the professor was home, the table would be laid for a midday meal. Luna joined the Novaras; it was the right thing to do, especially since they allowed her to take her meals in her room so often. Since she’d begun to seek out Elisabetta’s kitchen-garden conversations, she found she sat at their table more easily each time. One day, as she mopped up the juice of a chicken pie, Luna heard the professor mention his workroom.

‘It is only three moons till the eclipse. I hope I will have everything ready by then.’

‘Of course you will, Domenico. I do not know a more dedicated astronomer than you.’

‘How many astronomers do you know, my dear?’

‘As many as I may invite to my bed,’ she answered with a smile that made Luna return to mopping her plate. ‘There is ample time. And don’t you have your assistant arriving soon?’

‘Yes, you are right, of course.’

‘For a professor you worry more than most.’

‘There will not be another lunar eclipse till after the next grape harvest and I mean to collect as many measurements as I can. If it is cloudy and the event obscured, or if I am inefficient in my tasks, then we will lose at least six months’ worth of research time.’

‘Can I help, my love?’

‘Get the wood stock replenished, for my tower becomes mightily cold when winter sets in, and have some more covers laid against the stone.’

Luna realised the tower that looked like a great spike driven into the roof housed the professor’s astronomy room at its top and the noises she’d heard from her bedchamber were the sounds of his night-time work.

‘How much can you see, professor?’ she asked.