Heart of Glass - By Sasha Gould Page 0,31

what just happened. Halim calls to him, “You may proceed!”

The man uses his long paddle to push us off from the jetty. The gondola begins to sway lazily through the water. I gaze out at the sides of the buildings and wait for my heartbeat to slow. What a strange sight we must make—the prince and his fleet of ships pushing into the center of the city.

Soon, we are moving between houses that rear up on either side of the water. People lean out, their elbows resting on sills. I try not to feel awkward beneath their gaze. Halim’s tour has already been publicized through the gossip channels of the city.

“Throw us a kiss, young prince!” a young woman calls from a doorway, and Halim enthusiastically responds, kissing his palm and throwing his hand out towards her. The woman mimes catching the kiss and draws her hand to her lips. Halim roars with laughter, but when he turns to look at me the smile fades.

“I’m sorry,” he says, “I don’t mean to embarrass you. Come. Tell me something of this city of yours.”

As I point out landmarks, I begin to forget all the people watching me with this foreign prince.

“That is one of the oldest squares in Venice,” I say as we pass a small square off to our left. “It’s easy for people to miss. It’s said that is where the Lords of the Night would gather before doing their rounds.”

“The Lords of the Night?”

“Those who police the streets.”

“Ah! It sounds so romantic.”

I try to find something else to tell him. “Here is the church of St. Mary of the Visitation. It once hid an assassin.”

Halim raises his eyebrows. “Don’t you Venetians call the church La Pietà?”

“You know more than I realized,” I say. “Perhaps you should be guiding me!”

Halim smiles and holds his open palm out to me. I hesitate, then place my hand in his. Within moments, his lips brush the skin of my wrist. I shudder and pull my hand away, hiding it in my pocket. “You shouldn’t.”

His eyes have not left my face. “I’ve offended you?” he says, looking suddenly crestfallen.

“No,” I reply. “It’s just that if people were to see …”

He breaks our gaze and looks out at the merchants’ mansions we are passing. “It’s said you can judge a city’s character by the morals of its women. Would you agree?”

It could be a reference to the Segreta, but it’s not, of course. From the smile that plays around his lips, I can see he’s not serious.

“If that’s the case, I hope you’ll find Venice to be everything it should be—beautiful, classic and luminous. Just like its women.”

Halim laughs loudly and a lemon-seller on the dock looks round, startled.

“I knew you’d be good company,” he says, slapping his leg.

The gondolier is grinning too, but wipes the look off his face when he sees I’m watching him. Nothing spoken in a gondola is private. In many ways, the gondoliers’ currency of secrets must rival the Segreta’s.

“Do you like classical or Eastern-influenced architecture?” I ask, looking up at the church of Madonna of the Miracles. Better to keep the conversation on such matters.

“Ah, built by Lombardo,” Halim murmurs, taking in the building. His hand moves through the air, tracing the geometrical patterns. “Byzantine-influenced, I believe. All very different from our mosques.”

I shake my head. “Are you sure this is your first time in Venice?” Finally, I spot a building that Halim can’t possibly know more about than I do—the convent that was my home for more years than I like to remember.

“This is a very special place in Venice,” I say as our gondola draws near.

Halim frowns. I can understand why—the convent of Mary and the Angels looks unprepossessing with its bars and grilles. I think of my servant nun, Annalena, and the dull ache of separation lodges in my heart. I wonder what she is doing now. Does she still pray five times a day on the floor of her narrow cell? She will be conversa to a new sister now, of course. She’s probably forgotten her Laura. Certainly, her eyes would pop out of her head if she could see me now, sharing a boat with an Ottoman prince!

“So tell me why it’s special,” Halim says. He has pulled a short dagger out of his sleeve. It has a golden hilt, inset with mother-of-pearl. He twirls it once in his hand, then again. I try not to be disturbed by the glitter of the