Chapter 18: Barozzi Family Reunion

Orso’s fist shut like a cannonball.

He leaned forward onto the balls of his feet, one boot planted for the swing, while three of Andrea’s liveried men watched with expressions that suggested they would be happy to see him throw it.

Vito caught his forearm and hauled him back a full step, hard enough that Orso nearly lost his balance. Pellegrino seized his other arm for good measure, one man might not have been enough.

"Not today, amico."

"He put his hands on you."

"Brushed my shoulder, Orso. Save your knuckles for those that actually earn them."

Orso grumbled that the man had earned it plenty, then muttered a curse that only Pellegrino caught the worst of it.

"Che tu possa marcire con la lingua di tua madre in bocca."

Pellegrino’s face twisted as he fought to hold back his laugh.

Vito turned back to his cousin as calmly as a man returning to his breakfast, despite the fact that a beating had nearly started three feet away.

"Andrea."

He looked him over slowly, taking in the fine cloth, the soft boots, and the spotless state of the whole performance. "Still dressed like a man who’s never been caught in the rain, I see. Tell me, do the tailors cheer every time you walk through their door, or has even that miracle become ordinary by now?"

"I’d take fine cloth over smelling like a fish market any day, cugino."

Vito’s smile thinned. "And you call yourself Venetian? We live and die by the sea, Andrea. Try not to look so frightened of it."

Andrea ignored that. His eyes flicked toward the ships, then back to Vito. "Zio Marco didn’t send me here to trade insults, but to remind you that this is no longer your little adventure."

Vito’s expression hardened.

His cousin continued with a sneer, "It’s Barozzi money, Barozzi men, and a Barozzi name you’re gambling with. If you lose, you don’t lose alone. You drag the rest of us down with you."

He took a breath, then added at last.

"Give it up, Vitale. Come home before you make fools of all of us."

Zaccaria and Pellegrino had both gone silent behind him.

The laughter and noise from a moment before had vanished. What remained was the particular silence men fell into when they realized the joke was over.

"Our uncle."

Vito let the words have their weight. "Safe in his mansion, where he can count some meager fortune and never risk to chase what it might be, frightened of any wave that might rock a boat he has never dared put to sea."

He smiled without much warmth. "Tell him grazie for the concern. I’ll do my best to remember his wisdom the next time doing absolutely nothing starts looking like a strategy."

"And what makes you think you’ll succeed? Have you mistaken yourself for the Doge now?"

Every word came slow, like a currency he hated spending. "That island isn’t a legacy, Vitale. It’s a wager, and you’ve sewn our name onto the losing side before the dice have even left your hand."

"Funny."

Vito clicked his tongue. "I don’t remember you or Pietro ever risking anything more dangerous than your dignity. How’s your brother these days? Still every bit the coward you are?"

That struck home.

Andrea’s escort shifted uneasily, none of them quite willing to meet the others’ eyes.

"La Serenissima wasn’t built by men behind locked doors, Andrea."

Vito’s grin sharpened enough that might have drawn blood. "It was built by men willing to bleed for their share. If Zio Marco has forgotten that, somebody in this family ought to remind him what the name Barozzi used to mean before he turned it into a nap."

Zaccaria’s hand had found its way toward his scabbard during the argument. It was an old habit, and old habits rarely bothered asking permission.

Yet before the conflict could escalate, one voice cut through, warm and much too pleased with what it had found waiting for it.

Caterina’s attendants set a small iron-bound coffer at the foot of the gangway. She walked past the whole argument without breaking stride.

Her hair was tied back today, her sleeves fastened close for the voyage ahead. Even the hired hands loading crates nearby seemed to discover that their work could apparently be done more slowly.

For a moment, the whole dock remembered its manners.

Whatever she had heard while walking toward them had plainly improved her morning.

Andrea’s entire manner changed when he saw her.

He noticed the wealth first, the beauty second, and the rest of the situation somewhere behind them. He reached for her hand before she offered it, already wearing the smile he reserved for women whose clothes cost more than most men earned in a year.

Caterina permitted him to brush her fingers for precisely as long as courtesy demanded.

Then she looked him over, from his neatly combed hair to his spotless boots, with patient judgment.

"Ah, and you must be Andrea Barozzi. How curiously dressed you are, you remind me of a peacock that has somehow learned to walk upright."

Her mouth curved into a smile that promised trouble rather than kindness. "Does your uncle still dress you every morning, or have you managed that much by yourself?"

Andrea lips parted open.

Nothing survived the journey out.

Vito tried to swallow his laugh and failed badly enough to make the attempt insulting.

Caterina withdrew her hand before Andrea could recover and walked the remaining distance to Vito instead, with familiarity she had shown no one else on the dock that morning.

"Vito."

She said his name warmly, letting it linger for a moment before she stepped closer. Her fingers brushed his sleeve as she leaned in, close enough that he caught the faint warmth of her breath against his cheek.

Then her lips touched his cheek, soft and warm, lingering just long enough to make the gesture unmistakable.

When she drew back, she was smiling. "I’ll be waiting on the flagship. Try not to start a second war before we’ve even sailed away from the first."

Vito touched two fingers to his cheek, entirely for Andrea’s benefit, and made no effort to hide how much he enjoyed the gesture.

Then she climbed the gangway herself, her people following behind her, without waiting to see whether Andrea had managed to find his voice.

Andrea’s expression turned ugly.

It was a genuine crack in that composure, though he repaired it quickly enough.

"Give my regards to Zio Marco."

Vito called after him, cheerful as church bells. "Tell him you’re doing wonderfully, from what I can see of it. Standing perfectly still."

He turned away before Andrea could find an answer.

"Zaccaria, get the men aboard! We sail within the hour."

Andrea’s escort closed around him and led him from the dock at a pace considerably faster than the one with which he had arrived.

His composure followed a few steps behind.

Orso’s voice followed him halfway down the dock. "Go choke on your fine boots, you perfumed peacock!"

Pellegrino winced and crossed himself twice.

Whatever reckoning waited for Vito with Uncle Marco could wait in Venice until this venture eventually sent him home to answer for it properly.

By then he would have an Emperor’s death, an island, and the Doge’s name behind him. That was considerably more than all the cautious, motionless years of his uncle’s faction had managed to earn.

Let Zio Marco put that into his record books and see what sort of sum he came up with.

For now, Vito caught the gangway’s rope rail and started upward, grinning all the way.

Behind him, the whole company erupted into shouted orders across three galleys and three overloaded naves, as if the entire dock had suddenly remembered it had somewhere else to be.