Abashed, I shifted my cap and my hands behind my back, for I am always rather careless of my nails.
“I, Sofia Baffo! I, who should always be at the center of things. In the heart. That is all I ask. In the very heart!”
“Corfu is a lovely island.” I tried to redeem myself with some display of my knowledge of the world. “I have weighed anchor in her lovely harbor four times. And I even met your father once. A striking gentleman. Much like his daughter.” I nodded the compliment toward her and took her silence as permission to continue.
“And Corfu is not so far from the center of things as all that. She lies on the throat of our trade routes to the East, at the very mouth of the Adriatic Sea. A secure Corfu is very important to Venice.”
“Fool!” she exploded. “You think I don’t know that? My father writes very pretty letters, yes. But what is Corfu...? What is any place on earth compared to Venice? Here in the Piazza of St. Mark, here where the Doge sits and governs, here in the Great Basin where every merchant ship must finally dock from every corner of the world. Here is where I intend to stay-—here, whence things are truly controlled.”
I found it curious that she imagined the world in this guise—and that she felt such feelings so keenly here in the peace of the convent.
“So tell me,” she continued. “What does the Doge say? Has he not found some husband for me a little better than a Corfiot peasant?”
“The man is not a peasant.” How anxious it made me to be speaking another’s suit! I couldn’t make it sound honest to save my soul. “His family’s name is listed in the Golden Book.” So is mine, so is mine! my heart, if not my tone, kept saying. And I am the only male left of our branch, and so allowed—obliged, dying —to marry. “The name must be in the Book, or a marriage to a noble Baffo would be unthinkable.”
Baffo’s daughter brushed my words away with a wave of her hand. Just so easily could she brush away the Golden Book as well. “There is the Doge’s nephew, I hear. A fine young man, unmarried...”
Now it was my turn to be impatient, for I knew the nephew to be a fool though he was twice her age, hardly a match for this creature before me. “Yes, the Doge’s nephew. You did have the audacity to make that very suggestion in your letter to His Serenity, didn’t you?”
“Well, why not? I am a Baffo, after all, and though my father may have belittled our name by taking that governorship, I will not be as he. I will speak as I see fit to any man on earth. To the Doge, to the Pope, if I care to. No, I would not hesitate to speak my mind to Saint Mark himself, and if he doesn’t listen to me, then it will be his own fault if he passes by an excellent opportunity.”
“Saint Mark is hardly one to be in need of opportunities for self-aggrandizement,” I said, having felt a shudder at the blasphemy—in a convent garden, no less. “And a young woman should not go about arranging her own marriage. Even widows are rarely given that privilege. Young women...”
“Women, fie! A flock of silly geese. I have to live among them; you do not. Well, I never intend to behave like one, for they are all too whiny and ridiculous. Tell me, what does the Doge say? Am I to marry his nephew or not?”
“I think not,” I replied.
“No? Well, who shall it be, then? One of the house of Barbarigo? Andrea Barbarigo would not be a bad match, for all that he’s young.”
Ready for action, the blood surged to my heart at the familiarity with which she mentioned that young nobleman’s name. But what action? I only managed to shift on the gravel beneath my feet, and it made a sound that accented my awkwardness.
She ignored me and forged ahead. “A Priuli, perhaps? A Barbaro?”
She did not mention Veniero. Ours was a house as favored as any she had mentioned—once. Our fortunes, however, were on the wane. I grew more determined than ever to repair these fortunes personally.
“Well, what is the Doge’s message, then?” she demanded. “Since he has sent you at the appointed time and the appointed place, he must have something to say to me.”
By now I was angry, as much at myself as at her. “His Serenity the Doge says you are to get on the ship bound for Corfu and do exactly as your father bids you or he will personally turn you over his knee and thrash you as he would his own daughter.”
“What sort of message is that to a daughter of Baffo? I shall have you pilloried in the Piazza, you scoundrel, for speaking to a gentlewoman so.”
“Forgive me, Madonna, but those were his words exactly. If you wish to confirm them, come with me to the Palace, and we will stand before the Doge together.”
It was not quite the truth I told. I had never actually been in the presence of His Serenity at all, but only in that of a lowly secretary whose task it was to answer routine letters. But I was not going to let this girl have the power of that knowledge over me. Governor Baffo was, after all, one of the citizens responsible for the Doge’s election. A petty secretary knew how Governor Baffo must be obeyed, even if his own daughter did not.
Baffo’s daughter believed my little lie that was almost the truth with a wash of angry pallor. “Very well. Good day to you, Signore.”
“Veniero.” I repeated my name for her. If she could not grant me noble status as I had done with
