Kushiel's Chosen

one another aboard ship-those who favor women are notoriously eager upon making landfall.
    Still, it made me think on what I knew of La Serenissima. Women do not hold offices of power in most of the Caerdicci city-states, that much I knew. It is men who built them, and men who rule, by dint of toil and iron. Asherat-of-the-Sea holds sway, still, because she is the Gracious Lady of the Sea, and men who live by the grace of the sea are wise enough to fear her wrath, but this was not Marsilikos, where Eisheth's living blood runs in the veins of the Lady who rules there.
    In La Serenissima, it would be different.
    Soon the lookout cried again, and presently we saw before us the long, low line of the spit that bars the great lagoon of La Serenissima; the Spear of Bellonus, they call it, another legacy of the Tiberians. It extends nearly all the way across the vast, wide mouth of the lagoon, some seven leagues long, forming a natural barrier well guarded by the Serenissiman navy.
    As we drew near to the narrow strait that breaches the spit, there were a great many more ships to be seen, of all makes and sizes, flying all manner of colors: cogs and galleys and triremes, and the low, flat-bottomed gondoli and gondolini with the curving prows and sterns that are ubiquitous in the city, propelled by skilled rowers at tremendous speed. And, too, there were craft I had never seen before, small ships with masts canted forward, bearing odd triangular sails-of Umaiyyat make, the Captain told me. It did not look as though they could carry much in the way of cargo, but they moved swiftly and agilely across the waters, tacking back and forth before the wind while larger vessels must needs go to oars.
    A fleet of Serenissiman gondolini surrounded us at the mouth of the straits, their insubstantial menace backed by manned watchtowers on either side and the presence of the navy within the lagoon. Namot's papers, his writ of passage, were all in order, and in short order, they waved us through.
    Thus we entered the lagoon.
    Joscelin had come to stand beside me in the prow of the Darielle, and I was glad of his presence as we gazed together on our first sight of La Serenissima.
    Serenissimans claim she is the most beautiful city in the world, and I cannot wholly begrudge them; 'tis indeed a splendid sight to see, a city rising up from the very waters. I had read what I could find prior to our journey, and I knew it was an ever-ongoing work of tremendous labor that had built La Serenissima, not on dry land, but on islands and marshes, dredged, drained and bridged, oft-flooded, always reclaimed.
    If I sound unpatriotic in acknowledging the city's beauty, I may add that a great deal of the engineering and building that had made her splendid had come in recent decades, under the patronage of Prince Benedicte de la Courcel, who brought with him Siovalese architects and engineers when his fate was wed to the Stregazza family, exiling him from his homeland.
    The sun shone brightly on the waters as we crossed the lagoon and made for the Great Canal, the sailors cursing good-naturedly as they took to the oars. Ahead of us, galleys and darting craft were everywhere on the vast waterway. Ti-Philippe, who had been once to the city during a brief apprenticeship aboard a merchanter, took it upon himself to point out the sights.
    "The Arsenal," he said reverently, nodding behind us to a vast, walled shipyard hugging the lagoon. "It houses one of the finest navies in the world, and they can build a ship faster than you can cut timber." As we curved along the vast quai, he simply pointed. "The Campo Grande. There lies the Palace of the Doge. At the end, the Temple of Asherat-of-the-Sea."
    The Great Square; it was that, indeed, a vast, marbled terrace simply opening onto the sea. In the center, where it verged the water, stood a tall column, and atop it a statue of the goddess, arms outspread, gazing benignly over the lagoon. Asherat-of-the-Sea, bearing a crown of stars, waves and leaping dolphins worked into the plinth. To her left stood the Palace of the Doge, a long, tiered building worked in white marble, with a level of striated pink, surprisingly rich in the glowing light.
    It is the seat of all politics within La Serenissima, and not merely the Doge's home; within those walls was housed the Judiciary Hall, the Chamber of the Consiglio Maggiore, indeed, the Golden Book itself, in which were inscribed the names of the Hundred Worthy Families deemed fit