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restless colt. I can sit silent and still for hours in a cell, pretending to be at prayer. But I don’t know anything about parties.
    The air seems to thicken as we get closer. I sit with my fists closed and my elbows pressed hard into my ribs, and my father laughs.
    “Not so tense,” he says gently. “Not so rigid, Laura.” I laugh at myself too, and then he points and says, “Look!”
    I see the palace like something rising out of the water. White and gold. Arches on arches, all flickering with the lights of the party. Other boats are converging, drifting near the jetty to deposit their flamboyant cargo. Already Ihear a hum of conversation coming from within the walls. And there’s music. Lutes, bells, flutes and harpsichord all tangled together. Nothing like the solemn purity of our songs inside the convent. Our turn arrives and the bargeman steers us expertly alongside the alighting point. The music makes my body move. I’m intoxicated already.
    “It’s beautiful!” I say.
    “Yes, it is,” my father replies.
    A lush crowd throngs at the entrance to the palace. People dart jovial hellos and how-are-yous at each other. Just like the palace, the guests are shimmering too. Beautiful, colored, bejeweled. Footmen and maids weave between them, carrying scarves and capes and veils.
    As I step onto solid ground and up the steps, my silken petticoats rustle along the stone. I shiver slightly as we pass into the shadow of the entrance.
    Two footmen open the vast double doors for us and we walk into a great hallway. The walls are glowing marble and the ceiling is frescoed with laughing cherubs. In the center of the hall is a statue of a nymph, her hands clasped to her breast. I whirl around, seeing myself in every polished surface. Except it’s not me. I’m tall and poised and graceful. When I see my reflection on the wall my dress seems to be a ruby jewel, as bright as the missing gems of my mother. Other people are looking at me in a way that makes me want to smile. Their eyes rest a fraction too long, or their brows shift upwards as though I’m a long-forgotten friend now returned.
    There’s a rumble of voices ahead and we walk through a sparkling encrusted doorway into the ballroom. Gilded mirrors and candelabras hang from the walls, the hundredsof candles sparking pins of light that dance and tumble around like fireworks. A lute quartet plays a lively dance, the notes hanging among the chatter. I hold my father’s hand tightly as we move through the other guests. Glorious-looking women and handsome men enter the ballroom together and then slowly drift apart. The men smile at me with eyes as sharp as arrows. I let my own eyes meet some of the more brazen stares, and I see that these people aren’t all as beautiful as distance makes them. Complexions are powdered; flesh shows crinkles of laughter around the eyes and lips. Men with broad shoulders and red cheeks stand in leather shoes that shine so brightly they look wet. Gleaming buckles flash in the light. The women tilt their lace fans, silken gowns shimmering. Perfume hangs heavy in the air. But among the joyful crowd are those who seem apart from the scene; they chatter and flirt, but their eyes are hollow with hunger and desperation.
    “I refuse to pay a gondolier ever again,” a woman in a blue dress complains. “I prefer to walk until the soles of my shoes wear out.”
    “You need to be a criminal to survive,” says her companion, flicking her fan in annoyance. “Those wretched Turkish wars have ruined everything for the honest businessman.”
    Great bursts of laughter ring out from time to time, as if they have been planned ahead—as if there’s some hidden conductor of mirth directing these eruptions of studied delight. I’ve heard these sounds before. They’re the echoes of my childhood—the noise of the glamorous, the privileged, the powerful—the tinkle and the clash of the rich.
    My father nudges me towards the two women. “Sayhello.