Kushiel's Chosen

Semprevivi, Floridi-flocked to me like bees to honey, and I was glad of the Immortali's zealous protectiveness, both for my person and my reputation. The young women of La Serenissima treated me with a certain jealous awe, and if I made no friends among them, at least they were wary of maligning me where the Doge's grandson might get wind of it. Most of them, I was shocked to learn, were illiterate. Only priestesses and a few rare noblewomen learned to read and write.
    Although I must say, they did know how to cipher. A shrewd mind for trade was reckoned an asset in a wife. Giulia Latrigan, whose uncle was one of the richest men in La Serenissima and stood as the likely candidate for Sestieri d'Oro, could add and deduct whole lists of figures in her head in the blink of an eye. She was clever and funny, and among all the young women, kindly disposed toward me; I think we might have been friends, if not for the rivalry between her family and the Stregazza. But there was talk of an engagement between Giulia and a son of the Cornaldo family, who held great sway among the Consiglio Maggiore, and Severio said bitterly in private that Tomaso Cornaldo would take six votes with him if the rumors regarding the size of Giulia's dowry were true.
    Amid the whirl of activity, TiPhilippe tracked down the Doge's astrologer.
    I went to see the man with Remy and TiPhilippe, and I was glad I'd taken both, for I saw another side to La Serenissima, winding through the smaller canals in the poorer quarters of the city. Here, the work of building this city on the sea was evident. Brackish water flowed sluggishly in the narrow canals and ramshackle wooden houses crowded together, built on ill-drained marshland that stank of rot and fish. When we paid the hired boatman and dismounted, I quickly understood where pattens had originated, the teeteringly high wooden platforms women of style wore as foot-ware. It had begun on the muddy, unpaved streets of La Serenissima.
    We were attracting enough curious glances already; I refused Remy and TiPhilippe's laughing offer to carry me. As a result, I was mired to the ankle by the time we had trudged through a murky labyrinth of back alleys into a mean little courtyard, strung with crisscrossing lines of drying laundry. One closed door onto a windowless dwelling bore a rude painting of the circle of the Zodiac.
    "Quite a comedown for the Doge's astrologer," I remarked, holding up my skirts and trying in vain to stamp the worst of the mud from my finely made heeled slippers, which were likely ruined.
    "He read the stars for His Grace's wife when she was ill," TiPhilippe said philosophically, "and prescribed a philtre of sulfur to cure her. It's a wonder it didn't kill her. My friend Candido said Prince Benedicte sent his own Eisandine chirurgeon, who gave her a purge that likely saved her, though she's been sickly ever since. But his mother's superstitious; she thinks someone played foul with Magister Acco's potions, and is yet devout to his advice.”
    I gave up on the mud. "Lucky for us we're not seeking him out for his medical acumen."
    Remy chuckled and rang the bell outside the astrologer's door. Presently it opened a crack, and a sallow face peered out. Weary eyes sized up our persons and our attire, and the astrologer's face took on a cunning look. "Adventurers from the Little Court, yes? Does the fair lady want her stars charted?" Magister Acco stepped back and opened his door wide. "Come in, come in!"
    We entered the dark and frowsy interior of the astrologer's dwelling. He bustled around, lighting additional lamps. I gauged him to be some fifty years of age, lean, streaks of iron-grey in his black hair, atop which perched a fraying cap of velvet. The satin robes of his calling, decorated with celestial symbols, had been fine once, albeit unsubtle. Now they were stained with foodstuff and worn about the hems. Still, there were books and scrolls strewn about his rooms. One, obviously well-thumbed, was in Akkadian script, which I could not read. Obviously, he'd had some learning. I should have guessed as much, since he had been a friend of Maestro Gonzago's.
    "Sit, my lady, I pray you." With some embarrassment, Magister Acco cleared the picked remains of a chicken leg from his worktable. Covering his shame, he asked in passably good D'Angeline, "Shall we conduct the charting in your maiden tongue, my lady?"
    "Caerdicci is fine, my lord astrologer," I said politely, sitting opposite him, the