‘Is the portrait ready to send?’ Vincenzio asked Friar Bartolomeo and was relieved at his nod in reply. ‘Take this to send with it.’ He handed the friar a sealed letter. ‘Go now and have it done, so I may return home at least one worry lighter. I will wait for you here.’

Vincenzio bowed his head and closed his eyes in prayer, though it felt perfunctory and he struggled to hear the Lord’s voice. A sense of misgiving needled his mind like the moth larva that burrowed into his bolts of cloth and planted its rot before he even knew it was there. Vincenzio clutched at the bag of Medici coins in his pocket. When would he have money enough of his own to be no man’s puppet?

At the end of prayers, he hung back then stood before one of the private chapels. Offerings of candles burned in a simple altar. He did not hear Friar Bartolomeo return, but there he was again, standing beside him.

‘Why did you take so long?’ Vincenzio held a corner of Piero’s letter to a flame and stood patiently as it flared and smouldered.

‘Roberto might be a fool and a spy, but he is still my family. I do not know where he will rest his head this night but I can make sure he has bread and wine to keep him company. A candle too.’ He shrugged.

‘And was he grateful for your kindness?’

‘Mainly there was a great deal of self-aggrandising,’ Friar Bartolomeo replied. ‘He makes ready to leave the monastery shortly. At least we will be rid of him.’

‘And the portrait?’ As he spoke, Vincenzio dropped the charred remainder of the parchment to the ground and stamped on it till there was nothing left but ash.

‘It is dispatched, though Luna was there, too,’ he said softly. ‘I have just sent her home.’

Vincenzio swung round sharply. ‘What say you?’

‘She thought she was to sit for the painter this morn and surprised me in my rooms.’

Vincenzio felt a fiery heat rising in him. Only the night before, he’d told his wife to keep her home. He did not want Luna to know of his plan just yet. He saw a tremor of consternation cross the friar’s face and it only served to fuel his anger. ‘By Christ’s body, I shall have to hit you on the head. Did you let slip the real purpose of the portrait?’

‘I sent her home with a new text to read. She has no idea.’ He crossed himself with trembling hands then clasped them anxiously to his chest.