So there were many, many things that she never asked Nonna. She came and went about the house and garden like the servants, in silence. If ever they entertained, it was di Verona, who called nearly every week, and sometimes walked in the garden with Nonna, or worse, sat and talked with them both in the gallery.

Di Verona came visiting during this last fitting, and Giacinta was mortified, being, as it were, incompletely dressed, but Nonna thought nothing of it.

"Hyacinth for Giacinta," di Verona said. He was in his thirties or his forties, if handsome, and came and fingered the damask silk of her skirt as if he were buying it. "How becoming." Giacinta blushed furiously and looked only at the white and black tiles of the salon until di Verona strolled aside and spoke to Nonna.

"Gossip in the town is," di Verona said, "that she will wear mauve, and the white mask."

"Your gift," Nonna said, "will deceive these young scoundrels." Then Giacinta knew where the hyacinth fabric had come from, and that Nonna approved this man. She had liked the dress until then.

"I do not like him," she confessed to Nonna, when di Verona had gone away. It took courage, to express an opinion while she wore the hyacinth dress, but it was the truth, and she had endured their one visitor too often since the signore had died, endured, because he was their only visitor, and pleased Nonna.

But, oh, she had gotten the taste of freedom, when, this year, having come by a little money, Nonna sent her out to the calles and the shops along the Serpentine to buy necessities and even fripperies. She had breathed the air and walked farther than ever the little garden permitted, and her steps had grown wider and surer every passing day. More, she had seen choices spread everywhere, choices in fabric and in glass, in trinkets and foods and wines and oils, and every sort of thing the merchants had. She had the choice to laugh or not to laugh. She had the choice to stare at a young man who stared at her, or not to stare; or to return a wink, or not, from a young gentleman in russet velvet, who followed her all the way to the Ponte Vela. She had made such choices, and realizing that she had them, now she said to Nonna, her greatest act of rebellion, her greatest choice of all: "I don't like him at all, Nonna."

"Hush, silly girl. Would you have the servants gossip?"

"But, Nonna, I want my pretty mauve silk." It was what she had bought for her gown, before this fabric turned up. "I most of all don't want to wear his gift. He's an old man." This amused la duchesa, who rose and leaned on her walking staff. "And what am I? Am I old?"

"You're my dear Nonna," Giacinta said, unhesitating: that was forever the coin that paid for quiet, and for getting her way. "You're always my Nonna, and you're always beautiful."

"Dear child." Nonna walked close and touched her cheek. La duchesa went, as usual, stiff-braced in an old-fashioned gown—such tight lacings helped her back, Nonna maintained; but Giacinta found the hyacinth silk dress, low cut, similarly rigid, exposed and emphasized far too much of her bosom, and the lacings made her ribs creak. She felt strangely undressed, to have had di Verona passing judgment on her. Most of all, she detested the way he looked at her, walking all around her, like a buyer contemplating a table at the market.

"Il duco is a good friend," Nonna said, "and a protector for you. He's a warlord, with claims to a wealthy city. Men follow him. And who knows? He may soon became a greater man than he is." That word soontroubled Giacinta, who had no possible interest in di Verona's future. She walked to the diamond-pane windows that looked out on the Priuli's dark chasm, above the water where traffic passed. The sound of shops and restaurants down on the walkway always disturbed the peace in this room. The days of carnevalewere approaching, beginning this evening, and already there was a scattering of festive traffic, despite the dimming of the sun and a spatter of rain. Thunder murmured in the distance.

"Il duco Cesare is our very powerful friend," Nonna said.

"He's not my friend," Giacinta said sharply. She wanted not to think about Cesare di Verona. She wanted the carnevaleto break out now. All the spectacles of previous years she had viewed only from the windows, but this year, this year Nonna said she might go to one of the balls, di Verona's, unfortunately, on the fourth day of the festival, but it was the price she had to pay. "I don't want to think of him. I want only to think about the festival. I want my dress to be finished. I want to go to the Serpentine and see the barge parades."

Listen to me, child. These pretty things you enjoy all have a source. Do you not care where?" She was not a stupid girl. Nor was la duchesa a stupid woman. Giacinta looked at her grandmother sharply, with great apprehension now. A source? A source, for her party finery?

Before now, only this or that trinket had been a gift from di Verona to her grandmother, not to her. But Nonna had talked of liquidating certain properties in Milano, of being sent a sum of gold.

"This man," her grandmother said, "this man you so lightly dismiss, mark me, will rule Venezia." A moment of rash rebellion. "The Doge rules Venezia."

"The Doge," Nonna scoffed. "The Doge, the son of a professor, with the mind of an accountant. Weare the nobili, weare the ones burdened and privileged to rule, for centuries." Giacinta knew that speech. She had heard di Verona and Nonna talking together about old times.

"Come." Nonna took a bracelet from her own wrist, and put it on her. "You will go to il duco's ball, and dance with him, and perhaps . . . perhaps two great houses may make common cause."

"What are you saying?"

"That a union of our houses is to our good. I depend on you, my girl, my bella. I depend on you to make that union possible."

"To marry him, are you saying, Nonna? To marryhim?"

"If you can manage to please him. If you are a good and clever girl, who thinks most of her Nonna, and make a good impression on this man."

He throat seemed too narrow, breath too short. She struggled for argument. 'Why should I marry? Why should I ever leave you?"

"Because—" Nonna always had a lace handkerchief, it was always perfumed, always slightly damp and warm, and, being magical, as she had once said, it dried tears even before they were shed. "Because, my sweet, my treasure, if you marry Cesare di Verona, you will become the most powerful woman in Venezia."

"How should I be?"

"Because Cesare is a clever man, and the Doge will soon fall, and the divided Council will find itself in chaos, with riot in the city. Cesare will be at hand with a strong presence, to save Venezia from civil disorder. When ever could an accountant rule a city like this? It's only to the good of the city that he fall. And you will be a grand duchesa yourself, la duchesa di Venezia, respected among all the other cities."

One could never argue with Nonna when she spoke like this, so soft, so close and so intimately. It began to sound reasonable and necessary, whatever Nonna said.

But this year she was seventeen, and thought her own thoughts, and had been promised the carnevale, and Nonna could not persuade her. She said, however, obediently, "What shall I do?" because there was only one way to have peace from Nonna, and to get out the door. So Nonna told her how she must go to the duke's ball in three more days and dance with him, and he would dance with her the next day after that in the great Piazza di San Marco, declaring their engagement to the crowds. They would become the talk of Venezia, how handsome they were, how well matched.