She grabbed a single house slipper from the basket beneath the bench and slid her left foot into it, then placed her boots into the basket and pushed it back. Next she reached for the wooden contraption she strapped to her right leg when she was indoors. It was a simple peg-leg made of two lengths of smooth wood attached at right angles. She rested her right knee on a small pillow on the horizontal length of wood and tied the straps around her calf. When she stood, the peg-leg gave her instant relief. Then she reached across for the crutch that supported her under her armpit. The peg-leg was much easier to bear than the boot, but it slowed her down and it was an unsubtle thing to look at. She readied herself to see her step-mamma, angling the support under her arm till it felt comfortable and hovering briefly at the staircase for any sound of her brother or sister, before continuing up to the top floor.

She hurried into the kitchen. Freshly laundered clothes were drying by the hearth and she heard the spit of delicious juices from that night’s birds roasting in the oven. The room was hot and sweet and savoury all at once. Luna breathed in the mix of spice and fat with pleasure. Her step-mamma was loudly praising two girls who stood at either side of the thick wooden work table, pummelling portions of bread dough. They energetically pushed the heels of their hands into the sticky mounds. Luna watched and waited.

‘Brava, that is much better!’

The servant girls nodded at their mistress’s instructions. Luna’s step-mamma hung her head over a copper bowl being held by another servant. ‘More salt; it needs flavour,’ she instructed, licking her fingers clean of the sticky mixture. ‘You know, before I was married, I had to help in my mother’s kitchen, which is why I’m so particular.’ She addressed them all equally. ‘My mother did not employ anyone else, for she believed her daughter should learn the skill of cooking and what better way than to put me to work? Else it was that my free service gave her more coin to spend on dresses!’ She laughed and Luna saw how the girls responded to being taken into their mistress’s confidence, turning back to their tasks with added vigour.

Lucrezia Fusili was a sensible, well-rounded woman, with light hair that she swept up in a plaited knot. The pink of her cheek was marked by its curve, the colour heightened by the heat of the kitchen, and her slender nose had just the slightest dusting of flour. Her lips were red with the lustre of an exotic pomegranate and flecked with tiny salt crystals that she licked off as she turned to where Luna stood by the door.