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said.
    â€œYou have heard of the celebrated Maestro Nostradamus? Grazia’s parents hired him to find her. I am his apprentice. I will take you to his home so he can treat your hand. And maybe we can talk this out. You do have a piece of paper with a priest’s signature on it?”
    â€œOf course we do!” the girl shouted at me, although we were side by side. “What sort of a woman do you think I am?”
    Young and incredibly gullible to fall for a fast-talking snake like Danese Dolfin, despite his luminous sapphire eyes and subterranean voice. “But you did not have your father’s permission to marry, so you are married only in the eyes of the church, not under the laws of Venice.”
    Danese said, “But we are married.” His sneer implied that he had made sure the Church would allow no annulment.
    â€œDo you have the Great Council’s approval?”
    He went back to sulking without answering my question. His name would be struck from the Golden Book, but that would be the least of his worries if Zuanbattista Sanudo chose to lay charges. Then he would face exile, or three years in the galleys, or worse. The galleys are a slow death sentence, each year counted equal to two years in jail. Grazia would still be married and likely doomed to end her days in a convent.
    Grazia sobbed at my side, her hands covering her face. She was hoping, no doubt that a lovable, romantic young man like me could never resist such an appeal, but she was miscalculating. I felt no impulse to clasp her in my arms and beg forgiveness. She was too young to light my touch-paper, and her fake tears merely made her seem more childish.
    â€œMadonna,” I said, “now that you are married, will not your family accept your husband and forgive? Your father did tell me that he loves you.”
    She muffled a couple of quite realistic gasps. “He should have thought of that before he ordered me to marry Zaccaria Contarini.”
    â€œWhat is wrong with Zaccaria Contarini?”
    â€œHe’s old and ugly.”
    Now I knew the name of the king of coins. The Contarini clan is one of the largest in the Republic, with scores of votes on the Great Council. That might account for Zuanbattista Sanudo’s election to ducal counselor. With his own Sanudo clan, and marriage connections to the Marcellos, the Morosinis, and potentially the Contarinis, Zuanbattista would have about a hundred votes for the asking.
    Grazia lowered her hands and fixed me with her lustrous eyes. They did not look as if they had been weeping much lately. “Who are you? I mean really?”
    â€œI told you.”
    â€œAn apprentice?” She glanced over my apparel and it did not impress her. “Look!” She pulled back a sleeve to reveal a bracelet of gold and amber. “This is very old. Byzantine work, from Constantinople. My grandmother left it to me. I’ll let you have it if you’ll let us go. It’s worth two hundred ducats.”
    I thought maybe thirty or forty. They make them by the score on Murano. “It looks much prettier on you than it would on me, madonna. It probably wouldn’t close around my wrist.”
    â€œYou could sell it, you stupid boy!”
    Danese curled his lip at me. “Don’t try to bribe him, Grazia. You’re wasting your breath. He’s an idiot and always was.”
    Whereas Danese had always had an aye for a good offer.
    Whether or not Grazia had been foolish to turn down a Contarini, I thought she had been utterly daft in her choice of alternative. A week before, at the theater, Danese had been dressed like a wealthy young patrician. That had not been a one-time extravagance or rags borrowed for the occasion, because his present outfit was even grander. Somehow he had come into real money. Not by marriage, unless he was a secret bigamist, and not from his sisters if they had all married artisans or laborers, as he had told me. Looks, birth, and money