Elisabetta lay in a sunken state of delirium, sometimes mumbling and at other times so still that Luna held her fingers under the lady’s nose to make sure she still breathed. Luna kept her rosary beads linked across her wrists and read from her friend’s Book of Hours. In her pocket she carried the bottle of holy water that Friar Bartolomeo had given her before she left the monastery. She would use it if the patient worsened.

At the rise of the full Moon three days after the accident, the doctor decreed that Elisabetta was so ill as to be anointed with the holy oil. The professor sat beside her bed through the night, insisting that Luna go to her own chamber and leave him with his wife.

Luna didn’t sleep. She saw the Moon rise whole and prayed that her mother was watching over them and would turn her light upon Elisabetta. She snuck back to Elisabetta’s room. When she saw that the professor was asleep, she sprinkled holy water upon the bed covers, knowing that Friar Bartolomeo would be glad she’d used it thus.

The next morning Elisabetta was so revived that they all believed she would live to see the new Moon. She drank some wine and even took a bite of bread.

‘You coddle me, Luna. Thank you, my dear,’ she whispered, before slipping back into a troubled slumber. Luna mopped her brow and kissed the hot skin tenderly. When the menfolk left them alone, she stroked Elisabetta’s forehead and thanked God for His mercy.

When next the doctor visited he brought leeches to suck out the bad humours from within Elisabetta’s blood. Luna had never minded the feel of the wet creatures on her skin but Maria had hated the treatment and so she was not surprised to hear Elisabetta react with similar horror. Despite the doctor’s insistence on the good a leeching would do, Elisabetta refused and so Professor di Novara had no choice but to send him away. Luna suggested another tonic of Mamma Lucrezia’s and Nicolaus offered to procure the ingredients from a local apothecary. He returned with viper’s flesh and opium, which Luna added to a jar already filled with a mixture of honey, wine and cinnamon. The opium and viper’s flesh had cost three gold florins and Luna prayed fervently that the tonic would help. She motioned for Nicolaus to place the jar on the table nearest the bed. Elisabetta drank the tonic slowly, and Luna encouraged her to finish it all as she knew the opium would soothe the throbbing ache of the wound and help her to sleep. Nicolaus took the empty glass from Luna and went to stand at a discreet distance as she helped the lady lie down again.

‘Thank you for helping,’ she said.

‘I am learning from you.’