Chapter 29: Vespers for a Vanished Archbishop

Vito walked through the construction yard with the blueprints tucked under one arm and found Nane exactly where he had left him, bullying some poor structure into sharing a secret it had apparently intended to keep. He handed over the rolled sheets with little ceremony.

Five sheets. Faster walls, faster planks, and less time spent standing over one stubborn board waiting for it to remember its duty.

Nane unrolled the first and analyzed the wheel and the ropes over it, his thumb brushing the drawing as a slow grin pulled at one corner of his mouth, the sort of expression that suggested he had already forgiven the machine for whatever trouble it was bound to cause.

"She’s got rope for legs and a devil’s temper, paron."

He frowned at the drawing as though it warranted serious contemplation.

"This one gets Marietta."

"I prefer Giulietta, it has a certain ring to it."

Nane looked up as if Vito had just suggested seasoning soup with lamp oil. "Giulietta? No, paron, that’s a name for some little thing with brass gears and a pretty handle. This lass will haul a church roof out of the sky. Marietta."

Vito laughed, gave the old man one clap on the shoulder, and left him to his new romance.

That business done, Vito rushed over to the horse Toffolo had brought, swung himself into the saddle with all the mighty grace the body years of training could muster, and rode out of the city.

The horses’ hooves changed their tune beneath the gate, from stone under iron horseshoes to the dull thump of packed earth, while the journey became the perfect opportunity to finally get some answers from the boy.

Vito called through the wind to Toffolo, riding by his side, "Gods, ragazzo, you have enough energy for three men. Since you’ve spent the whole time trying to burst out of your own skin, why don’t you put some of it to use and finish your report?"

"Theodoros Vlastos, Ser Barozzi!"

Toffolo nearly threw the name at him. It had plainly been waiting behind his teeth this entire time.

"The archon you sent us after! We found him, all right, but it’s strange!"

Toffolo’s hands danced over the reins as though they were already trying to pull the rest of the report out of him. "Every other archon we’ve found keeps their household right there in Candia, doors open, servants everywhere, people coming and going from dawn to dark!"

Somehow, the boy continued to speak without a break, "Vlastos hasn’t been near the place for the better part of a week! He’s out on his own land beyond the olive rows, and the odd thing is he keeps living there as if he’s afraid to knock on his own door!"

The name dropped neatly into place. Vito had paid for that man secrets weeks ago, betting on a stranger’s degenerate habits when he did not yet have a face to put them on.

Now he had him.

Vito laughed, "I do hope his wife has a taste for a little bondage. Would be a pity if she didn’t share his little amante’s habits."

"Ser Barozzi?"

"Nothing, ragazzo, you’ll understand when you find yourself a lover, or scrape together enough silver to rent one. Now, keep going."

Once the wall fell behind them, the road cut onto cultivated countryside, with olive terraces climbing the slopes in long gray-green rows, each one looking as though some patient farmer had spent half his life teaching stones to grow trees.

"What’s he actually been doing out there?"

"Visitors, Ser Barozzi."

Toffolo pointed across the terraces. "They come and go whenever they please, morning, midnight, whenever it suits them, and we finally managed to follow one back into Candia! Straight to St. Titus Cathedral, too, and that’s where it gets bloody strange, because nobody’s seen the archbishop in days, yet here we have Vlastos’s visitors slipping into his cathedral as if they’ve been expected all along!"

A churchman that disappeared from public life at this particular moment, while the Republic ships still had the stink of a sacked religious capital, was not the sort of coincidence that could be trusted. Neither was a archon sending his people into the cathedral to whisper with an archbishop who ought, by every appearance, to have been mourning in private.

It stank of plotting, the sort that hid behind a bishop’s robes and spoke in whispers beneath a church. Rome and Constantinople had been around one another for generations, and the sack had done little more than take an old wound, sharpen it, and place a knife in the hands of anyone clever enough to use it.

Through the scenery, olive trees let way to wider fields, vineyards and small farms spreading across the plain, with little hamlets here and there beneath the sun.

Vito’s fingers drifted toward the hilt of his sword, stopping just short of it as his eyes stayed on the road ahead.

"And what do you suppose they’re up to, ragazzo? Go on, surprise me."

"Rebellion, Ser Barozzi."

The lightness went out of Toffolo’s voice. "Those churchmen hate our guts, and the commonfolk would sooner listen to a priest than their own mothers! I reckon they’re trying to stir up the farmers, get them angry enough start fighting the foreign occupiers, and Vlastos is the sort of bastard with enough land, silver, and connections to make sure the mess stirs up worse!"

Curiously, Vito had hunt one man’s shameful little secret and had put his hand into a scheme large enough to set the island ablaze. History told him the organized revolt against Venezia was still years away, yet the seed had already been planted.

"Well, aren’t I blessed?"

Vito kept it light, although his hand remained on the hilt.

"So much for an easy errand."

The road climbed into the fold of the hills, with dry-stone walls crawling along the slopes, goats picking their way over a rise, and a threshing floor laid out below them.

The ground grew rougher after that. A dry streambed cut straight across the track, and the horses picked their own way over the loose stones, needing little help from either rider.

That was when the estate finally appeared, low walls and red-tiled roofs sitting against the hillside. It was still far enough away that guessing at anything beyond its general size would have been foolish, so Vito did not bother.

The retinue camp was tucked into a fold of ground below the estate’s line of sight, where a stand of low trees provided the sort of cover a wall could have offered if the countryside had been generous enough to provide one.

The horses were picketed close and no fire had been lit, though the hour gave them every excuse to have one.

Pellegrino came out of the cover first, one hand raised flat and steady. Three other men crouched behind him, all of them watching the estate with the patience of cats.

Vito dismounted and walked the remaining distance to meet them.