Luna enjoyed the walk. She knew the streets so well it felt like passing through a village rather than the grand city of Florence. Mamma Lucrezia didn’t understand her need to walk; it was an ability that able-bodied citizens took for granted but every time Luna chose to use the legs God gave her, even the one in its half-formed state, she felt capable and not weak. The baker’s boy swept the dust and grime from the square patch in front of his father’s business. Luna waved to him as she passed and he smiled and waved back before turning again to his task. The broomstick’s rushes sounded like the wind in the pine trees down by the Arno. To one side of the bakery was the apothecary, Matteo Palmieri’s shopfront, who sold all sorts of interesting medicinal remedies, and beside him, the most excellent glove maker of Florence. Luna had accompanied Mamma Lucrezia to purchase a pair of the softest leather gloves only the previous week. The floor below the workbench had been scattered with offcuts and Luna had wanted to gather them to make a fine set of play materials for Pippo but her step-mamma would not let her take dirty shreds of leather home. Through the door she’d seen a table of neatly stacked gloves, the fingers fanning in shiny, scalloped layers. She loved the smell of the shop, like the sweetness of freshly turned soil in the rose beds at home. One day she’d visit as a respectable lady of Florence and buy her own pair of gloves.

A warm breeze rose unexpectedly, flying along the thin laneway and skimming round the corners. Luna was glad of her cane’s support as she took the longer route so she could walk through the grace and grandeur of the city’s main piazza where the Palazzo della Signoria kept watch on all who passed beneath its tower. Two officials stood in discussion by the Loggia dei Signori. Luna stopped to admire the marble sculptures, virtues of the free republic her father held dear. She’d stood before the stone men often, listening to her father describe the values of prudence, temperance, justice and fortitude. When she was little, their cold marble expressions and height had frightened her, but now she understood their significance. Her father had been furious when enemies of the Medici family had convinced the priors that their system of governance was tainted by Medici bribes and had Piero and the rest of the family swiftly exiled. It was Piero’s father, Lorenzo, who had brought peace and prosperity to this dear city, along with the statues. Luna vaguely remembered the old man in singular images of his nose up close and the sound of his shouting at the table in Villa Careggi, but she’d been too young to remember more.