An Excerpt from Sofia:

Of all the days in my long life, I remember the day I met Governor Baffo's daughter more than any other.

I, Giorgo Veniero, had climbed a convent wall.

This was no youthful carnival prank, though it was both the year's season and mine. I'd been told I must do it. I must climb the convert wall to deliver a message. The message was unusual not because of what I must say--which was what the Doge of Venice would say to any young lady under the circumstances--but because of the lady herself. His Serenity's secretary had decided to humor this lady's own singular demands of secrecy.

My blossoming sense of romance and adventure had tingled to life from the first suggestion: I'd jumped at the chance.

I'd never seen a convent garden before, of course; I was no priest. I guess I'd envisioned it in the hull-spliting life of spring. But the naked branches of the plane trees--like hoary, shedding antlers--provided very little cover apart from their woolly winter tassels. Nor did the air--hard, cold and clear as a diamond.

It was the bare-bone structure of a garden, odorous of moist loam and worms working. The beds were damp but barren, turned over for the season, and against anything but the sky I must stand out like a sapphire on sack cloth. Afraid this would happen, I'd climbed high in the tree. But I was going to be very dependant on the lady's skills of subterfuge, a position of helplessness I didn't care for.

And my fingers were beginning to grow numb and clumsy with the chill.