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behind me.
    “They shouldn’t have come,” says a rotund woman in a green silk gown.
    The crowd parts at the far side of the ballroom and I see another figure making his way towards the new arrivals. I only glimpse his profile and then his back. His doublet is purple and edged with gold, and the ruff around his neck is very white. Two guards follow close behind, swords hanging at their sides.
    “The Doge is going to speak to them!” says the woman.
    The Doge? I remember Bianca’s excitement. Now that I’m in the same room as the most powerful man in Venice, curiosity burns inside me. The other guests move towards him, jostling to see what will happen next. This room of well-heeled socialites exchanging pleasantries is undergoing a strange metamorphosis, and the transformation is an unpleasant one. Or perhaps it was always like this—not a group of civilized citizens, but a reeking mob. It makes my blood quicken.
    I slide as close to the front as I can, standing on tiptoesto see over the wigs and headdresses, my balance supported by the press of the crowd.
    The Doge stops in front of the black-clad couple. They face him with hard, sad faces. Who are they? Why would they challenge the most powerful man in Venice? The Doge shakes his head, then turns to the guards behind him.
    It cannot be.
    With that first view of his face comes the realization that I’ve seen this man, the Doge, before. I want to hide, but there’s nowhere to go. I’ve felt breath from his nostrils on my skin. I’ve held his arms and struggled with him like we were wrestlers, or animals.
    The Doge of Venice is the crazed man from the convent. And, in this room, only I know his secret.

T he Doge beckons his guards towards the couple.
    “Turn around and leave by the doors through which you’ve entered,” he orders.
    If his words are meant to intimidate, they only half succeed. The woman’s face trembles, but the man stands straighter still.
    “We have as much a right to be here as any of the families of the province,” he says. “Asserting that right is what we have come to do.”
    A gasp ripples across the room.
    “You have no rights to be asserted,” says the Doge. “This is a private gathering and you have not been invited. How dare you come here?”
    They don’t have the chance to answer him. He raises his arm, strong and firm—that very same arm that I held to stop it thrashing and flailing. The guards seize the couple, dragging them towards the door. The woman screams andthe man bellows, “You will not insult the name of my family. The de Ferraras will not be humiliated.”
    “Stop. Enough, Julius,” his wife says. Her face twists with some inner pain.
    The guards release them and they walk together towards the door. The woman tries to take her husband by the arm but he shrugs her off.
    The doors clang shut. The moment is over, and the music begins once more. The Doge moves back among the crowd, his power exercised, and a retinue of male guests follow, their faces grim. I pray he won’t come this way. I was wearing my habit the last time we met, and he was in a daze when we spoke, but still, he looked right at me. “I’m a weak man. Weak and yielding. No one in Venice can find out what I suffer.” His words that day in the convent make a new kind of sense to me. If Venice knew what I know, would its people still grant him such loyalty?
    My thoughts must be playing across my face, as the woman with the green dress I saw earlier takes my arm and pulls me into her circle.
    “Oh, my dear, don’t look so startled!” she says.
    I smile gratefully.
    “Do you know what that was about?” a woman with feathers in her hair asks, her eyebrows raised.
    “No,” I say, “I’ve no idea.”
    The women laugh, delighted, I guess, to have an ingénue to tutor.
    “That was the de Ferraras—Julius and Grazia,” says the woman in green. “They have a feud with the Doge and his family.” She pats my arm playfully. “How could you live