My head was pillowed in a woman's lap, and it took me a moment or two to realise that that lap was Madonna Paula's, as was hers the voice that had reached my awakening senses, the voice that now welcomed me back to life in terms that were very different from the last that I could remember her having used towards me.
"Thank God, Messer Boccadoro!" she exclaimed, as she bent over me.
Her face was black with shadow, but in her voice I caught a hint of tears, and I wondered whether they were shed on my behalf or on her own.
"I do!" I answered fervently.

"Have you any notion of what hour it is ?" "None," she sighed.

"You have been so long unconscious that I was losing hope of ever hearing your voice again." I became aware of a dull ache on the right side of my head.

I put up my hand, and withdrew it moist.

She saw the action.
"One of the horses must have struck you with its hoof after you fell," she explained.