Chapter 169: Start of the 1207 Season

The leaf came back from the Rialto’s notaries with so much wax on it that it could have anchored a nave, every line written out and the last one bearing Fantin’s name. The houses had signed and put up their silver, the fraterna’s chest had been opened, and the brokers had bargained over the goods until they had nothing left to say.

First came the fleet in the telling, then the silver, then the cargo. That was the order in which the venture had to work, whatever order the merchants preferred to discuss it.

Eleven hulls had been laid down over the winter, and eight had reached the water before the sea opened, three rebuilt hulls and five new naves, bringing the sailing fleet to seventeen ships, four galleys and thirteen naves.

The three old naves had been brought back from the Riva’s shallows as standard hulls, keeping their old names, La Rosa, Moresina, and La Serena.

The lagoon had run out of new ideas at La Quinta and returned to the one story it never tired of telling. The new naves were named L’Orsa for the bear, La Mela for the apple, L’Anguilla for the eel, La Capra for the goat that ate San Marco, and La Corda for the bell rope at Santa Sofia.

The fourth warship was the old galley belonging to the Contarini branch, now called La Verde after the green door she had come from.

Three more hulls still stood on the yard, one galley and two naves. The Rialto had named all three, naturally enough, the galley was La Bestemmia, after what Nestor called her every dawn, while the naves were La Piuma and Il Cappello.

Every hull began with its frames, followed by the planking, and each had a rudder hung on iron hinges at the stern. The galleys’ benches spread in slanted, staggered rows, their oars adapted from outriggers, while lead covered every keel below the waterline and every hull carried a compass in a box under the Republic’s license.

This year the entire company sailed as escort. Its strength rose from a 180 to 210, arranged in three platoons of seventy under Pellegrino, Orso, and Domenego, with Zaccaria as captain.

Sixteen veterans were promoted into the house guard, thirteen at Ca’ del Leon and three at the distillery. Gasparo, who had run the rise at Chania, took command of the guard, and Domenego handed the chain over one oiled link at a time without looking back.

Forty-six recruits from the Piazza and the Dalmatian ports filled the sixteen vacancies and brought the company up by another thirty men.

?? [FLEET OVERVIEW — BAROZZINI’S FLEET]

Fleet Strength : 17 Ships

Effective Force : 1,810

Crews : 1,600 Sailors, Oarsmen, Officers

Company Soldiers : 210

Warships

La Contessa | Flagship

Zorzi | Escort

Zustignana | Escort

La Verde | Escort

Merchant Fleet

13 Standard Naves | 780 tons

Total Cargo Capacity : 780 tons

Cargo Status : Fully Laden

Under Construction

La Bestemmia | Galley

La Piuma | Standard Nave

Il Cappello | Standard Nave

The colleganza stood at 430,000 grossi, as the patrician houses had contributed 350,000, the fraterna’s chest another 30,000, and the Barozzini strongbox 50,000.

More houses had joined than in the previous year, all accepting the old terms that the silver had to come home whole before the voyagers touched a single grosso.

Goods and the cost of sending them to sea took nine parts in ten of the capital, or 387,000 grossi, while the remaining tenth stayed in the venture’s treasury, 43,000 in coin aboard La Contessa, ready to pay for whatever leases and harbors the charters might require.

The crews’ and company’s wages, 80,250 grossi, remained a debt against the hulls until the pier paid them. The cargo had been bought on the strength of last year’s accounts, which had already shown where the buyers could be found.

Ginevra Frescobaldi’s merchants supplied 120 tons of dyed woolens at 650 grossi a ton, costing 78,000 grossi, destined for a city that had sold its wardrobes to buy bread.

The wool-hall merchants provided 120 tons of plain woolens at 340 grossi a ton, costing 40,800 grossi, the cloth the steppe riders had bought in whole lots, while the Scotti brothers’ Lombard merchants supplied 45 tons of linen at 270 grossi a ton, costing 12,150 grossi.

The metals were bound for Constantinople alone, since Soldaia’s license prohibited war goods. The Golden Horn had a burned city to rebuild and still needed carpenters and roofs, which made building materials a safer investment than anything that could be called a weapon.

German iron-men supplied 130 tons of iron at 160 grossi a ton, costing 20,800 grossi, and 45 tons of lead at 200 grossi a ton, costing 9,000 grossi, while their mule trains brought 26 tons of copper at 540 grossi a ton, costing 14,040 grossi, and Flemish merchants provided 20 tons of tin at 580 grossi a ton, costing 11,600 grossi.

Ambrogio’s procurator sold 12 tons of altar goods at 2,600 grossi a ton, costing 31,200 grossi, for churches the Patriarchate had not finished dressing.

Brescian smiths and the lagoon’s bell-founders supplied another 12 tons of needles, knives, shears, and silver bells at 1,650 grossi a ton, costing 19,800 grossi, half intended as gifts and gate-fees, the other half for the steppe riders.

The Rialto vintners and the keeper of La Botte d’Oro sold 114 tons of wine at 170 grossi a ton, costing 19,380 grossi, and the keeper rang his handbell, while oil-men from Bari and Monopoli supplied 70 tons of oil at 400 grossi a ton, costing 28,000 grossi, and Apulian merchants provided 50 tons of figs and raisins at 230 grossi a ton, costing 11,500 grossi.

The islet’s distillery produced 2 tons of spirit at 6,000 grossi a ton, for 12,000 grossi total.

The lapidaries delivered 1,200 pairs of spectacles, weighing a tenth of a ton and valued at 72,000 grossi a ton, for 7,200 grossi total, while the rag-men supplied nine-tenths of a ton of paper at 5,500 grossi a ton, costing 4,950 grossi, for scribes and monasteries.

The lead-backed mirrors went into the gift chest and nowhere else, while the bead-makers supplied 10 tons of glass beads at 950 grossi a ton, costing 9,500 grossi, and the spicers’ row provided 3 tons of pigments at 1,960 grossi a ton, costing 5,880 grossi, for hill markets and icon painters.

The holds were full, all 780 tons of them, and there were no arms among the cargo. Zaccaria and Orso walked through every ship themselves, having no reason to trust a manifest more than the men who had written it, particularly when the Republic had made the absence of weapons part of the bargain.

Customs at two in the hundred, together with Ambrogio’s tithe and blessings, came to 10,500 grossi. Outfitting the seventeen hulls cost 28,500, covering provisions, water casks, sails, pitch, and cordage from the Barozzini rope-walk, while arms and mail for the forty-six recruits, along with spare crossbows, cost 3,200.

The charter gifts came to 7,000, consisting of mirrors, spectacles, silver bells, knives, and shears for an archon, his steward, and a queen’s court, while notaries, scribes, and chancery fees took another 2,000.

The expenses totaled 51,200 grossi, and together with the 335,800 spent on goods, they brought the venture’s outlay to 387,000.

The formal letters for the fondaco went into Fantin’s coat, each sealed and accompanied by a draft charter. One was for the archon of Soldaia, written in Greek, and the other for the Queen, written in Georgian in Vito’s hand.

Both asked for a fondaco and a harbor, and a reply under seal would turn the request into a binding charter.

Fantin couldn’t read either language, but he carried both letters, along with the horn tally bearing the old caravan owner’s mark, the one thing in his coat every Cuman chief would recognize at a glance.

?? [SEASON OPEN — 1207]

Trade Route

Venezia > Constantinople > Soldaia > Phasis > Constantinople > Venezia

Outward Cargo

Cloth | 285 tons

Metals | 221 tons

Altar Goods | 12 tons

Small Goods | 12 tons

Staples | 234 tons

Lagoon Goods | 3 tons

Beads and Pigments | 13 tons

Total Cargo : 780 tons

Investment

Total Expenses : 387,000 grossi

House Investments : 350,000 grossi

Fraterna Chest : 30,000 grossi

Barozzini Strongbox : 50,000 grossi

Financial Position

Treasury Remaining : 43,000 grossi

Colleganza Principal : 430,000 grossi

Crew and Company Wages Due : 80,250 grossi

The fleet left the lagoon in the order set down in the books, with La Contessa leading, Bepi at the oars and Zaccaria on the raised platform at the bow. Fantin sat in the stern cabin surrounded by every ring he owned, along with the leaf, the letters, the strongbox, and a few of the younger kin who were there to keep his books.

Zorzi, Zustignana, and La Verde followed under oars, and the thirteen naves rode low behind them as the whole fleet crossed the Bacino beneath the Lion of San Marco, with the black lion below it, then passed out through the porto at the Lido.

Vito and Caterina watched from the Molo between the granite pillars, his hand resting over hers on the round belly beneath her gown. Red caps and clerks on their barges counted the masts and lost count, then began again, until the last nave passed through the porto and the Lido swallowed her, one mast at a time.