R. Garcia y Robertson: Fair Verona

Toni stared at her. What he saw was Silvia Lucetta Visconti with her halo of golden hair, lounging on a day bed on the poop royal of her great lateen-rigged trading galley. A handsomely hung serving lad in blue and white Visconti livery stood ready to refill her wine goblet.

Behind her lay the sparkling waters of the Venice lagoon, backed by the tall Campanile and the sun-drenched colonnades of the Piazza San Marco, where the Grand Canal came sweeping out of the city, headed toward the sea. Toni could see the twin Columns of Execution marking the sea gate to Venice, and the Greek bell-and-onion domes of San Marco Basilica poking above the Doge’s new Gothic palace. At the moment, Venice was besieged by high water. Wavelets lapped past the twin columns into the Piazzetta, flooding the “finest drawing room in Europe.”

Silvia had had the effrontery to suggest that he sail away with her to the East—where she claimed to have inherited rich estates among the Isles. What presumption, even for a Visconti! He was Antonio Cansignorio della Scala, nephew to the prince, not some rich bitch’s plaything. If the right people were poisoned, he would be heir to Verona!

And yet—Italy had gotten stale of late, with this obnoxious French Pope and no wars of note. Or at least none worth fighting in. Even Proteus had failed him, plunging Antonio into no end of trouble. And the East was said to be a real eye-opener—if you believed the Polos.

Besides, the Noble Dog had began to feel he had somehow outgrown Verona…