I left no note: not because I was unable – the mistresses at the Baraccano slapped and cuffed our letters into us – but I was too angry to give any explanation or thanks. If the Signora thought me an ungrateful wretch, so be it; at least she would not come looking for me. As for Sofia – it pains me still that I did not take my proper leave of her and worse, that I unpicked our friendship in a few words.

‘No lesson in Bolognese tonight, I beg you, Sofia. To tell truth, I have become wearied by them.’

That same night, I waited until it was certain that they would both be asleep before I took my bundle and crept down the flights of stone steps, pulling the front door shut behind me. In the courtyard I unbarred the gate and slipped round the side of the palazzo, heading towards the Reno Canal.

I spent the first part of the night ducking in and out of side streets, avoiding the main roads where the Legate’s sbirri liked to roam in gangs, pretending to keep the peace. But soon after Matins a fine drizzle of rain which clung to my cloak and hood drove me to find shelter in the precinct of a tiny church, set back from the road. Its porch was in dark shadow and I tiptoed towards it, expecting to find at least one snoring vagrant stretched out on the stones. As I approached, a rat’s tail flicked away into the surrounding bushes, but that and the lingering smell of stale piss were the only signs of life. I curled up behind a pillar, my bundle an unyielding lump beneath my head. Nearby a dog barked, setting off a chain of yapping and howling which faded into the distance, followed by silence.

I did not drowse for longer than an Ave Maria that night. Every footstep, every scuttling creature set my heart pounding and my thoughts weaving some shapeless danger. A lone girl lying on the ground in the dark invited violence, or so most would say – men and women both. And I had of my own will left a warm pallet and the safety of Signora Ruffo’s palazzo. It was but one night, yet it gave a terrifying glimpse of what my life could become if I did not find work.

Finally, a grey dawn brought with it the first low rumblings from the massive mills which crouched along the canal banks, spewing out flour, paper and silk thread. The thrumming sound was ever-present during daylight and there was a saying in the city that you could tell a foreigner because he walked around with his hands over his ears. Here, so close to the mills, I felt like doing the same myself, but I had never before been so grateful for the pounding noise and the return to the daily round it marked. I peered round the pillar and saw men and women in heavy wool tunics already hurrying down the street in the direction of the canal. I fell in behind them, looking like just another silk-thrower on her way to work.

Hard against the canal was a mesh of streets, already narrow but further straitened by porticoes on either side where households had extended their upper floors to make space for a paying lodger. I knew that if I could afford a room anywhere it would be here. At the first house I tried, a weary-looking mother with children tugging at her skirts suggested I share a room with two infants. I smiled a refusal and walked a little further on. This time the door was opened by an elderly widow who, it seemed, had become wary of letting out to students from the university after one almost burnt the place down. Consequently, the rent would be low for a quiet and respectable seamstress. It took only moments before I was unwrapping my bundle in a tiny room which teetered over the street below. I had, of course, forfeited my dowry by running away, but I’d managed to save most of the purse money the Signora was contracted to give me, as well as my earnings from piecework at the Baraccano. It was enough to live on for a few months but I needed a tailor to give me work soon – if I was to avoid lifting my skirts in order to eat.

I was bawled out of most of the tailors’ workshops which jostle for attention along the Via Drapperie, and in others the welcome was more physical. I could feel where bruises would soon ripen on my arms because eager journeymen wanted to be certain that I found the door. As for the workshop of Signor Martelli, I hurried past its counter – that meeting would be a humiliation too far. Now there was but one left to try. It occupied a position of prestige on the corner where, no doubt, light coming in from two sides was reflected in the rent. Nevertheless, I smoothed down my apron once again and stepped through the gap in the counter into the back room. This workshop, though larger and brighter than the others, shared with them the smells of new fabrics and waxed thread and was laid out much the same, with rolls of cloth propped around the edges and half-finished garments hanging from a beam suspended along the back wall.

In the lightest corner of the room four tailors sat cross-legged on a long table. One was grizzled with age and held his work close to his eyes, but all were older than their master, who stood at his own bench within sight of the street. He wore his hair and beard neatly trimmed and his clothes were in the highest fashion: ivory silk doublet and crimson breeches, both with just enough slashing to let a richer fabric show through while avoiding a penalty under the sumptuary laws. I curtseyed.

‘Good day, Signore.’

There was a long silence, sliced through by the sound of his shears on a fine blue serge. Finally, he cocked his head and waited.

‘I come to ask if you have need of an apprentice.’

He sighed.

‘Is your brother, husband … or pimp unable to ask for work?’

‘I ask for myself, Signore.’

There were stifled guffaws from the journeymen, which he quelled with a glare, and I pressed on.

‘I have worked for three years as assistant to a seamstress. My stitches are so small as to be almost invisible and my seams hold firm. I am also an experienced fitter.’

This was usually when the shouting or manhandling began, but he waved in the direction of a small basket under the table.

‘There are fabric scraps in the cavolo. Join two of them with stitches of exactly equal length.’

I was so taken by surprise at this chance to show my skills that it took me some time to select my pieces. I knew he would expect me to pick some linen, an obvious choice for a seamstress who had worked only on undershifts. Instead, I chose a heavy, embossed damask which required particular care with matching of the pattern across the sewed seam. I had to search around for the haberdashery I needed, since the journeymen had buried their noses in their work and showed no sign of offering help. Set along the side wall was a small set of drawers and inside I found thread of the right colour as well as needle and thimble. I considered hoisting up my skirts to join the others on the table, but thought it more prudent to settle on a cushion on the floor. There was silence inside the room – the only sound the muffled chatter of matrons in the street beyond. At first, my hands shook, but I took in a deep breath of the familiar workshop smells – beeswax, wool, silk, a wisp of woodsmoke from the stove – and was soon lulled into the rhythmic repetition of stitching.

I was once again that small child back in my father’s workshop, where I learnt to thread a needle after running a thread across a lump of wax; to use a bodkin to make eyelet holes; to mark fabric with a sliver of leftover chalk. Mine was the best-dressed wooden doll in the street, with a collection of outfits which I sewed from scraps too small to be of use to the tailors. But my doll did not wear flowing gowns and capes of linen and silk, because I had long since decided that it was a boy. Father had split the doll’s stump, usually hidden under skirts, to create separate legs so that I could clothe them in little damask breeches, and I added matching doublets and even tiny ruffs.

If the journeymen were working, I kept myself tucked in a warm corner out of the way, my hair tousled from time to time as one of them passed by. But once they had left for the day, Father would dart around the room with me trotting behind.

‘Feel this perpignano, Elena. Isn’t it soft?’

‘Look at the gold thread glittering in this brocade, Elena.’

I learnt the name of every fabric and how to use it to best effect as well as the tricks and ruses used to enhance a man’s figure. Mother always knew where to find me and she would patter down the stairs from our living quarters to bring me a piece of bread or remind me to use the privy; when I was in the workshop with Father, I was like to forget everything else.

‘Signore.’

I held out my completed work. The tailor did not take it straightaway but continued cutting along his chalked line until he reached the end. Then he snatched the fabric from my outstretched hand and walked to the doorway where he held it up to the thin March light and peered at it, pulling at the seam, tugging it this way and that. At last, he spoke.

‘You sew a tight seam, girl. The stitches are even too, and that is better pattern-matching than I have seen from...