‘I know,’ she replied. ‘I know. And that is why I only wish it, and don’t do it.’

‘You are a troubled woman.’ He had no idea what he should say to comfort her. ‘A troubled girl.’

She raised her head and, from the darkness of her hood, he thought he saw the ghost of a smile. ‘I don’t need an inquirer to come all the way from Rome to tell me that. But would you help me?’

‘If I could,’ he said. ‘If I can, I will.’

They were silent. Luca felt that he had somehow pledged himself to her. Slowly, she pushed back her hood, just a little, so that he could see the blaze of her honest blue eyes. Then Brother Peter noisily dipped his pen in the bottle of ink, and Luca recollected himself.

‘I saw a nun last night run across the courtyard, chased by three others,’ he said. ‘This woman got to the outer gate and hammered on it with her fists, screaming like a vixen, a terrible sound, the cry of the damned. They caught her and carried her back to the cloister. I assume they put her back in her cell?’

‘They did,’ she said coldly.

‘I saw her hands,’ he told her; and now he felt as if he were not making an inquiry, but an accusation. He felt as if he were accusing her. ‘She was marked on the palms of her hand, with the sign of the crucifixion, as if she was showing, or faking, the stigmata.’

‘She is no fake,’ the Lady Abbess told him with quiet dignity. ‘This is a pain to her, not a source of pride.’

‘You know this?’

‘I know it for certain.’

‘Then I will see her this afternoon. You will send her to me.’

‘I will not.’

Her calm refusal threw Luca. ‘You have to!’

‘I will not send her this afternoon. The whole community is watching the door to my house. You have arrived with enough fanfare, the whole abbey, brothers and sisters, know that you are here and that you are taking evidence. I will not have her further shamed. It is bad enough for her with everyone knowing that she is showing these signs and dreaming these dreams. You can meet her; but at a time of my choosing, when no-one is watching.’

‘I have an order from the Pope himself to interview the wrong-doers.’

‘Is that what you think of me? That I am a wrong-doer?’ she suddenly asked.

‘No. I should have said I have an order from the Pope to hold an inquiry.’

‘Then do so,’ she said impertinently. ‘But you will not see that young woman until it is safe for her to come to you.’

‘When will that be?’

‘Soon. When I judge it is right.’

Luca realised he would get no further with the Lady Abbess. To his surprise, he was not angry. He found that he admired her; he liked her bright sense of honour, and he shared her own bewilderment at what was happening in the nunnery. But more than anything else, he pitied her loss. Luca knew what it was to miss a parent, to be without someone who would care for you, love you and protect you. He knew what it was to face the world alone and feel yourself to be an orphan.

He found he was smiling at her, though he could not see if she was smiling back. ‘Lady Abbess, you are not an easy woman to interrogate.’

‘Brother Luca, you are not an easy man to refuse,’ she replied, and she rose from the table without permission, and left the room.

For the rest of the day Luca and Brother Peter interviewed one nun after another, taking each one’s history, and her hopes, and fears. They ate alone in the Lady Almoner’s parlour, served by Freize. In the afternoon, Luca remarked that he could not stand another white-faced girl telling him that she had bad dreams and that she was troubled by her conscience, and swore that he had to take a break from the worries and fears of women.