That meant it could be courted. The dark and handsome Cesare di Verona, unlike the duchesa, was invited to the houses of merchant princes, and did attend their parties, and ingratiated himself with certain ones by means of charity, by his relief to a merchant who had lost a ship and cargo, by his support and rescue of a foundering palazzo, with its historic treasures. Such an aristocrat found his way into ancient and inner circles, paving his way with good works. Could anyone disapprove of such generosity? And did anyone notice the comings and goings among his servants?

Venezia absorbed both arrivals, and went about its own affairs in peace, its life regulated by the tides, by the arrival and departure of ships from the deepwater port, the Porto Nuovo, beyond the great sea gates—and of course by the flow of trade to and from the port causeway, and goods likewise flowing on the western causeway, the sole landward connection of the city to the rest of the countryside.

Two things disturbed that peace. First event and least likely, a great quake struck remote Cairo, and the consequent tide, as it rushed inland, had flooded the Cairo harborside, wrecked ships at dock, and destroyed almost all the warehouses.

To certain merchants in Venezia, Cairo's misfortune seemed more opportunity than disaster, since it had happened to a trading partner, not to them, and since their ships had not been in port, they might sell to a city in dire need of goods. But the debate of the Council, whether to send assistance gratis to the stricken city, was the news of two days only. On the third day, while the city was still abuzz, with disputes over the matter of Cairo, the Doge slipped on the stairs of his own house and died—a careless servant, a previously spilled tray, a spot of oil, on the uncompromising marble steps of the Palazzo Ducale.

In an instant the benevolent and honest man who had ruled Venezia for two decades now was dead. The fate of Cairo entangled itself in the debate over his succession. The Council, after loud argument and the purveying of every favor and counterfavor wealth could manage, deadlocked, and finally chose as the Doge replacement a young man, an astonishingly young man, in fact: one Antonio Raffeto, remote relative by marriage of the lamented Doge, a scholar, and reputedly honest. His election came as a third-round compromise between the pro and the con of the relief effort. The Raffeti owned no ships, nor did they trade. In fact the Rafetti of the last five generations had been respected historians, professors, and scholars of the great library, though this young man was said to be very knowledgeable in practical matters. In fact, as people about town now said, the Raffeti finally held power openly, through this quiet young man, when, through the centuries, they had only stood behind the Doges and told them step by step what to do.

Antonio Raffeto’s first official act was to send aid to Cairo. His second was to oppose Cesare di Verona in his bid to gain the long-vacant Montefiori seat on the Council—a bid against precedent, but supported by several still angry families who had voted against Antonio Raffeto. It was straight into the boiling water of politics for the young Doge, but he withstood this storm, and gained from it a reputation, when several merchant princes found their own accounts audited, and Cesare di Verona was found to have entertained them extravagantly.

Audit the newcomer Cesare, as well? Di Verona was not quite implicated. And since he was a foreigner, though his position was precarious, his behavior, ordinarily benevolent, did not fall under the prohibitions of the city.

So nothing changed and everything changed, which was business as ordinary in Venezia. The tides came and lapped at the walls. The young Doge proved canny and immune to blandishments and threats from inside and out, and Cesare’s enemies in Verona, a city which had attempted its own intrigues aimed at bringing Venezia under its control, did not prosper. Far from it—certain foreigners left Venezia hastily, and in disarray. Cesare di Verona gifted the city with a treasure of books for its library, and made peace with the young Doge, as the man who had pointed out this scheme.

Cairo thrived again and reopened trade. The city; relieved of its worries inside and out, drew a wide breath and celebrated.

Spring came as it always did, with its storms and its carnevale. The young girl had disappeared from the barred window on the canalside this winter. In her place, a young woman of extraordinary beauty came and went freely on the streets, attended by one servant, or completely on her own. The gondoliers called to her, below the Ponte Vele, and along the walk, among the shops.

"Bella! Bellissima, oh, take pity,"

She bought fine silks and grand plumes, this granddaughter of la duchesa. She also purchased—oh, yes—mauve silk and ribbons and beautiful leather shoes. She had come outside the walls of the little house. She bought, yes, masks, this spring, oh, indeed, una bauta, the common white mask of carnevale. And whispers took wing. She would join in the festivities. Young men sighed. She was beautiful, dark-haired dark-eyed, and oh, so quick in wit and soft of voice. Dared young gentlemen ask her name?

It was, she said softly, Giacinta.

Giacmta, like the upright flower that bloomed in spring gardens, the rare gardens of Venezia. Giacinta, young men sighed.

Invitations suddenly came to the long-unvisited door, beautiful invitations, borne by liveried servants of this house and that. One such came from di Verona, who intended a ball in his beautiful palazzo. There were flowers sent, rare and beautiful. And the days of carnevalecame on them.

The dress fitting went on, and the dress itself became like armor, such a weight of thick amethyst silk and cording and purple velvet that it could stand by itself. Giacinta drew in her breath as the servant drew in the laces, everything traditional, everything authentic, from the layers of lace petticoats to the beautiful black lace cuffs and the high-heeled shoes that lifted her up so the hem no longer swept the floor. . . or the watery edges of the canals.

The seamstress, on her knees, surveyed the hem, that it hung well, checked a spot, and stood up to take and pin a tuck at her rigid waist, to be dealt with after she shed the dress. La duchesa sat in her chair across the room, her walking stick resting against her dark blue skirts, a pile of sweets beside her, untouched, in a silver bowl.

"I looked like you, once," la duchesa said wistfully.

Giacinta looked at her, wondering in what decade this was, but never doubting Nonna's word. Nonna never tolerated doubt, or contradiction.

"In Milano," Giacinta ventured.

"In Milano," Nonna said, "before there were fools in charge there. Before I met your grandfather. You look beautiful. Like your mother."

The comparison lanced like a knife. Giacinta had lost her parents and all the family but Nonna. They had died one autumn when the fever had swept the west, and Nonna had been immune, and had sheltered her, and brought her up, somehow blaming the people of Milano for this disaster. Giacinta never understood why. To this day she feared to question, somehow reading into Nonna's silence something Nonna had no wish for her to know, and what Nonna forbade her for her own good covered a world of dark things. Nonna would not, for instance, tell her why they had left Milano in the dead of night, or why they had ventured here. She knew that things had happened in the upstairs room with Signore Muntefiori, terrible things, that had broken china and shaken the locks in the dark of night, when the Signore had cried out that devils were in the upstairs hall, and that they hunted little girls. Things had happened between Nonna and Signore Montefiori, when she had gone into that room, and the noise had very soon stopped. And Nonna did not talk about that night either.