(Ebook) The Ballot Boy by Larry Mellman

(Ebook) The Ballot Boy by Larry Mellman

Venice, 1368.War hovers in the wings with the fate of the Republic at stake when the old doge dies. Fourteen-year-old Nico, a street urchin from the poorest Venetian parish, is chosen at random to tally votes in the upcoming election for a new leader. Uprooted from his old life and transplanted to the doge's palace, Nico becomes an alienated outsider at the mercy of scheming nobles.Andrea Contarini, sixtieth doge of Venice, wants the ducal throne less than Nico wants to be ballot boy. Both walk a golden tightrope over treachery and deceit. When he witnesses a court clerk burned at the stake for being gay, Nico despairs. His romantic attraction to men is as powerful as his fear of fiery death and an eternity in Hell.Taking advantage of the fraught transition in the Doge's Palace, the hostile duke of Austria pushes Trieste to rebel against Venetian domination, jeopardizing her mastery of the Adriatic Sea. The Venetian nobles split,...