At that moment, he struck up a wailing somewhere in the house and his healthy cries carried all the way through to the birthing chamber. When she’d first arrived, Giulia had found comfort in knowing she would be delivered of her firstborn in a house of children, but now she heard the sound of the newest Medici baby with a jealous ear.

The midwife raised the cloth to her brow once more and Giulia lifted her head proudly. This woman had helped birth ten babies in nine years, none of them touched by the Devil as hers had been. She would stare down her judgement.

There was a noise from the side of the room and she saw her friend Elisabetta had not left as she’d asked. Instead she hovered with the cloth bundle in her arms. The cotton had begun to discolour.

‘I thought you had already gone to do my bidding,’ Giulia said. Only hours earlier she’d kissed Elisabetta’s hands as she placed a soothing poultice on her belly; now Giulia eyed her friend wearily.

‘I could not leave till I heard sense from your lips once more.’ The young lady held firm to the bundle which had begun to mark her dress with its seeping fluid. ‘I beg you not to abandon your own child.’

Giulia considered her friend, so sure of herself and still fresh-cheeked despite the hours spent assisting through the birth. Elisabetta had always spoken her mind more freely than any amongst their circle of friends and whilst her forthright nature did not endear her to many, it was one of the things Giulia admired about her. She couldn’t imagine being in this big, strange house without Elisabetta but her well-meaning talk was simply too much right now.

‘Don’t make this harder than it already is. I need you to do my bidding.’

Giulia saw her friend’s brow crease. She steadied herself, preparing to defend her decision, but a flood of warm liquid surged from between her legs and with it another wave of agonising pain gripped her. It was all she could do to stay sitting upright. She shifted in the damp bedsheets and saw how Elisabetta looked at her, how everyone would look at her now—with pity.

‘All I suggest is that you sleep first, regain your sensibilities and then consider your choices. You may feel very differently in the morn.’

‘And give my husband time to blame me for this thing that I did birth? No, I most certainly will not wait for that!’ Giulia was annoyed now; she had little enough energy without wasting it on this argument. ‘Did I not ask you to take the filthy cord for burning? It must go into the fire downstairs without delay, else our sin will fester like maggots feeding.’ She didn’t bother to keep the sharpness from her tone.