Chapter 102: A Merchant’s Idea of Romance

The voyage from Limassol took five days and gave nobody much to complain about. The wind stayed fair from the first morning to the last, and Bepi checked his little brass needle at every dawn, nudged the heading by the width of a finger, and kept silent.

By the fifth morning all ships were bound up across Candia’s pier, sails furled and ropes doubled, and Vito was down on the stone with the harbor alive around him. The hammers rang from the fondaco, whose new stone was beginning to weather to the same color as the old walls.

The dockhands moved like they were actually being paid on time.

Candia was only a short stop, long enough to see how the fondaco had fared without him and pick up Caterina before the fleet continued toward Venezia, the city he had promised her in a courtyard back in March. November would close the sea soon enough and the lagoon was still a very long way off.

With that in mind, Vito looked down the pier.

Caterina came toward him at the head of her little procession, two guards and a handful of servants behind her, as though the harbor watch had sent word that an important inspection was underway.

Her sleeves were pinned above the elbow and her chin was up. She walked like she owned the pier and had come to see whether the lease was being honored.

Even then, there was still ground to cover, and Zaccaria reached Vito first. He came out of the crowd of guards and looked him over with a practical eye.

"Barozzi, alive and still in one piece. Good, I had money on it."

Vito was about to ask where the money had gone, but Zaccaria simply moved past him towards Orso, halfway down La Contessa’s gangway with a crate under each arm.

"Orso! Platoon report, now. Barozzi, I’ll hear your version, after I’ve heard the true one."

Orso looked like he had just been called to confession, while Zaccaria caught him by the sleeve and brought him off into the crowd.

Toffolo bounded down the gangway after them and began to question a dockhand before both feet were properly on the pier.

That left the last stretch of pier clear, and Caterina was nearer. Vito planted his feet, spread both arms, and put on the grin he had been practicing since Limassol.

Three ports for this moment, and surely that deserved a warm welcome.

Caterina walked straight past him. She came close enough to brush his sleeve, and that was all.

She moved over to Bepi, who stood at the foot of a nave’s gangway with a coil of rope over one shoulder.

"Bepi, there’s in salt in the cargo, surely? Tell me it came through the voyage dry."

Bepi looked at her, then at Vito with his arms still spread, then back at her. He had been through enough storms to recognize trouble when it came walking toward him on dry land.

"Dry as a Lenten supper, missus. I checked every sack myself."

Vito remained where he was with arms out. His grin held for another breath, then began to wonder whether it had made a mistake.

Some gulls landed on the nearest bollard and regarded him with what looked suspiciously like pity.

He started lowering his arms with what dignity he could rescue, and almost got them down when warmth came against his back. Two arms slipped around his waist from behind, and Caterina folded herself against him, her cheek finding the warmth between his shoulder blades.

Caterina rose onto her toes and pressed a slow kiss to his cheek, lingering there with a softness that made all his wounded pride disappear. She stayed wrapped around him for another breath, her body snug against his back, until there was no mistaking the welcome.

Vito’s grin came back so quickly it nearly brought the rest of his face with it.

He turned inside her arms until he was facing her, and there she was with pink cheeks and green eyes full of triumph. "Cazzo, moglie. Three ports and a season, and you spent my welcome on Bepi. I’ve been robbed in four languages, and none of them hurt like that."

Bepi, who was close enough to hear every word, spat over the side.

Caterina chuckled mischievously. "A man who stands on a pier with his arms out like a scarecrow gets what he deserves, marito."

She put a finger against his chest, right over his heart, and his arm went around her waist as naturally as breathing. She melted into the space beneath his arm, her weight settling against him with the easy familiarity of returning to her own bed.

"Ma va’, I’ll have you know no scarecrow ever came home with a cargo like mine."

Curiosity appeared in her eyes at that, and the sharpness left her face. She leaned her forehead against his chin.

"Tell me." Her voice softened. "How did the season go, Vitale? All of it, slowly."

Her fingers slipped beneath his hair and curled gently at the nape of his neck, while her lashes lowered as she drew nearer, and for once the mischief left her face, replaced by an endearing anticipation of whatever he was about to tell her.

Vito bent until his mouth was beside her ear and lowered his voice to match hers. "Listen, mia cara. There are things I carried a very long way for you, and I mean to give them to you one at a time. First, the grain. Egypt wouldn’t have it, Acre wouldn’t look at it, and Cyprus laughed in my face."

Her breath caught. She met the news with a small nod, her hand never leaving his neck.

"It fed the crews." she whispered.

He brushed a lingering kiss against her temple, letting his lips rest there for a heartbeat before moving on to the better news. "The wine and the wool, the honey and the wax and the cotton. Alexandria took most of it, mia cara, for nearly twenty thousand dirhams. What was left of the wine and cotton found no buyer at Acre or Cyprus. They followed me home like two strays that figured I belonged to them."

She tucked herself closer beneath his chin, her thumb caressing the nape of his neck in slow, absent strokes.

"Nearly twenty thousand," she repeated, almost too softly to hear. "Say it again."

He murmured it again against her hair, softer and lower, and she shivered in his arms before hiding the reaction against his chest.

Then Vito continued. "And then the cheese, Caterina. The cheese and the distilled spirits. Three ports, and every one of them paid handsomely. Between them, they outsold everything else in the cargo."

A small noise came from her that made one of the guards suddenly find the horizon very interesting.

"Oh, the cheese," she breathed.

Down the pier Bepi shouted at a dockhand, and her household guards crossed themselves.

"Now for what I bought you, moglie. Pepper first, twenty tons of it, for nearly eighteen thousand dirhams, and I’d pay it twice."

She went pliant in his arms, leaning her full weight into him as her lips parted. A quick pulse fluttered beneath the delicate skin of her throat.

"What else did you bring me, Vitale?"

Vito’s hand slipped slowly from the small of her back to her hip, lingering there as he bent closer to answer her. "Cinnamon. Thirteen tons, nearly ten thousand dirhams more. Then sugar and alum, six thousand between them. I know how that sounds after pepper, not a soul ever wrote a song about alum."

Her laugh dissolved against his shoulder, muffled by the cloth beneath her cheek, and her fingers tightened playfully at his collar.

"Seventeen tons of pepper," she chuckled, eyes still closed. "You said twenty."

Vito grinned.

"Seventeen, sì. It smelled like twenty. I rounded up for love."

He let her a moment to recover, then lowered his voice. "Acre was a modest offering, mia cara, and I’m sorry for it. Tyre’s glass, three and a half tons, for about five hundred bezants, and he wept over every piece. Damascus’s silk and balsam, a ton of each, for about two hundred and fifty more. After pepper, it’s a posy left on a cathedral step."

Caterina opened her eyes.

"A posy is a fine thing, Vitale."

He laughed against her shoulder. "And Cyprus, moglie, I saved the best for last. Commandaria, fifty-eight tons of it. The wine a king toasted his wedding with, bought in quantity for a Venezia that has never tasted it. Sugar and salt to fill the holds, thirty-odd tons of each."

Her fingers threaded into his hair, gently catching at the dark strands as she drew his face closer to hers.

"Thirty-five and twenty-nine," she whispered.

Vito kissed the corner of her lips in tribute and kept going. "And when the last sack was aboard, the naves were at two hundred and forty-five tons, as they had been the day we sailed."

She buried her face against the warm hollow of his neck, both hands gripping the back of his shirt and holding him close as though she had no intention of letting him sail away again.

Vito laughed until his ribs ached, and she laughed against his neck, her whole body trembling in his arms until they were both breathless.

"I could keep you in my arms until the tide turned, moglie, and never once think to complain."

He drew a breath.

"Venezia is waiting, and every family that put a mark behind us is going to want its share."

Caterina leaned back far enough to look him in the face, then put her palm flat against his chest and slapped him lightly. "Enough, marito. One more word like that and I’ll sign you a colleganza before we’re off this pier."

Candia would have them only as long as it took to load one woman and her account books. The sea was already waiting.