Chapter 30: A Cordial Home Invasion

Vito loosened the reins and let the horse run into a canter. The others closed up around him before the dust had even thought about laying down.

"Barozzi, there’s six of us."

Pellegrino found his saint’s medal with his free hand as naturally as if the medal had called for help. "Six of us riding up to the house the entire damned island suspects, and we haven’t brought a single siege engine. San Marco, if I die today this far in the red, Father Ambrogio will squeeze the last silver out of my mother before he agrees to let my soul go."

Toffolo’s horse crowded in beside them, eager as ever to get itself into trouble. "Don’t be a coward now, nobody’s dying, Pellegrino. Give me the word and I’ll have that door off its hinges before they can finish their prayers."

"Nobody’s kicking anything, ragazzo."

Vito grinned, and there was not a trace of a scold in it. "I don’t need a catapult when I’ve got a man’s sins in my pocket, and a retinue back in the harbor large enough to burn his farmhouse down to ashes. Let him talk himself into a corner, it’s much more entertaining to watch."

"Entertaining for you."

Pellegrino looked up ahead. "You’re not the one who has to explain to San Marco why he let his paron walk into a tiger’s den without even a escort for company."

"Ma va’, you’re the escort, Pellegrino."

"I’ve got a sword I intend to keep sheathed. That is an entirely different virtue."

The low stone walls soon came into view, with red tile flashing in the sun above a household that had plainly spent good money making sure everyone knew it was prosperous.

Vito drew up a few lengths short of the gate. There, some couple guards stepped into the road at once, their spears crossing neatly in front of him.

<anno data-annotation-id="6ded3f80-0095-916f-8f0d-a2b76d73fdf3" data-title=""Ποιοι είστε?"">"Ποιοι είστε?"¹</anno>

Not one man in Vito’s party understood a word.

Vito clicked his tongue and gestured with a jerk of the chin. "Toffolo, introduce me."

The boy needed no second invitation.

"You stand before Ser Vitale!"

Toffolo’s voice shot upward as he tried to fit an entire reputation into a single breath. "Of House Barozzi, of Venezia, the man who put an Emperor of the Romans into the ground with a fish spear and a foul temper, right in the streets of Constantinople itself, before God and every soul brave enough to watch!"

Pellegrino crossed himself, though with even less confidence. "San Marco preserve us, he’s going to talk the poor man’s ears clean off."

Toffolo dragged in another breath, loud enough that the horses seemed to notice it, and continued without mercy. "Beloved of Doges! Backed by Enrico Dandolo himself, blind as a stone and twice as stubborn, who calls this man friend and partner both! And I’ll thank you both to stand aside before I run out of breath and have to begin the whole thing again!"

The guards looked at each other, and naturally, understood none of it.

They were also no more inclined to move than before, which made Toffolo’s magnificent introduction rather less useful than it deserved to be.

That was when a household servant came hurrying through the gate at a half-run, both hands already raised in apology before he was near enough.

"Perdono, perdono, Ser Barozzi, is misunderstanding, is nothing, please."

He was already waving the guards away, breathing hard from the run.

"My master, he say nobody come today, he not tell the men. Please, come."

He turned and snapped a short order at the guards in their own tongue. <anno data-annotation-id="c669f17d-e7dd-8de5-3fe8-1bc3b0891d1c" data-title=""Αφήστε τους να περάσουν."">"Αφήστε τους να περάσουν."¹</anno>

The guards stepped aside without even giving the party another backward look, as though they had not just been standing in the road threatening to make an afternoon of it.

From there, the visit became more civilized in the usual fashion of such visits.

Grooms appeared from nowhere to take the horses and the three soldiers were left at the gate with them, while Vito, Toffolo, and Pellegrino were led through a courtyard into a side room where benches and a low table had already been prepared.

The room felt like the place where guests were either expected often or expected to be trouble, and the household had sensibly prepared for both.

A servant filled three cups from a jug and withdrew without a word, leaving the wine to catch what little light slipped through the shutters.

Vito lifted his cup, swirled it once, and held it toward the light with grave attention.

He said, sniffing it with genuine reverence. "Now this is genuine work, and I’ll wager it’s seen real oak, the sort a cooper can take pride in."

He took a slow sip and let it sit a moment.

"There’s fig in it. A little tar, too. The good sort, when you watch these grapes grow."

Pellegrino looked at his own cup with considerably less ceremony.

"It’s just wine, Barozzi, to award the privilege of not being sober."

"Blasphemy, in a house this rich."

Vito took another sip, entirely unmoved by the accusation.

"A man who can’t tell good wine from bad has no business drinking either one."

"I can tell good wine from bad."

Pellegrino drained half his cup in a single swallow.

"Good wine is the kind I’m still drinking after the first cup."

Toffolo sniffed his own cup with exaggerated seriousness, trying very hard to imitate whatever Vito had just done and achieving none of it.

"Smells like wine, Ser Barozzi."

"A promising start, ragazzo. Give it a few more years."

The wine discussion ended when a man swept into the room, smoothing the front of an embroidered robe with both hands again and again, as if enough rubbing might somehow straighten out the trouble wearing it.

Theodoros Vlastos was a stout, well-kept man somewhere past forty, with a beard trimmed to a fashionable point and enough rings on both hands to suggest he had exhausted every sensible place to put his money.

"Ser Barozzi!"

His Italian came out quick and clipped, each word tumbling forward a half-beat before the next one was ready. "Such honor, such honor, to have you beneath my house. Forgive the wait, my household is normally so much better prepared for guests of your, your standing. What brings a man of your, your considerable reputation, out to my poor land today?"

"Just admiring the countryside, amico."

Vito took another slow drink of wine.

"You’ve got a beautiful piece of it out here."

"Ah. Ah, yes. Very beautiful."

Vlastos’s smile stretched a little too wide and stayed there a little too long. His hand returned to the front of his robe, smoothing it flat again even though there was not a wrinkle left in it.

"Though I confess, Ser Barozzi, my household does not often receive guests riding this far out. May I ask what business brings you all this way?"

"No rush, business can wait."

Vito put his cup down and looked around the room with leisurely pleasure.

"This is a fine house, Theodoro. Fine wine too. One could get spoiled by hospitality like this."

A bead of sweat crept down Vlastos’s temple despite the cool shade. "You are, you are too kind. Ser Barozzi, forgive me, but I am, that is, I confess I am a busy man, and I would be glad to know what I might do for you, so that we might..."

He lost the rest of the sentence somewhere between his mouth and his robe.

Vito set his cup down between them, slow and easy. He had been enjoying himself from the beginning, and there was no reason to spoil a good afternoon now.

"Actually, Theodoro, there is one thing."

He leaned back with a grin, warm and easy, like an old friend about to share a private joke. "Tell me, is this the room where you like to take the whip to sweet Zoë, or do you keep a basement for all that candle wax? I only ask because a man ought to know where the good stories happen before he decides how loudly to tell them."

Vlastos nearly choked on his own saliva.

His face drained until he looked like old parchment, while the smile remained where he had put it. He had somehow arrived at two different expressions at once and found himself unable to finish either of them.

<annotations style="display: none;">"Who are you?""Let them pass."</annotations>