Chapter 41: The Patrician’s Excuse

Vito lay face down across the bed, boots still on, and one arm hanging over the edge. He had come back battered, exhausted, and in no mood to give the dawn another thought, and sleep had taken him almost before he hit the mattress.

Behind his closed eyes, the night had already sorted itself into what roughly resembled a report.

Orso had the bishop, along with every priest and deacon Knossos’s cathedral had managed to hide. By the time the company reached Candia during dawn, the whole miserable congregation had been tucked inside St. Titus with Vlastos and the archbishop.

Zaccaria and Pellegrino came in not long after. Their four villages had been dealt with in much the same fashion, with no dead on either side, only bruised ribs and wounded pride. They had done the job well enough.

Aboard one of the galleys, kept carefully apart from every other guest of the Republic, sat the captured Pisan. Presumably he was still thinking of a way out of his precarious situation.

Candia itself had not caught up with any of this. The city had watched soldiers disappear into the darkness and return leading strangers on ropes, then had sat down with the matter like a man whose stomach had not yet decided whether it intended to keep its breakfast.

There was not much else to do until someone found out what had happened.

After dawn, whatever passed for sleep in a man beaten, cut, bruised, and otherwise introduced to the limits of his own durability began to wear thin.

A few details slipped through, as the text that hovered near the foot of the bed, glowing patiently.

🪙 [SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]

Quest Complete : Under the Cretan Moon

Reward : 140 Fate

Reward : Equipment — Artiglio del Leone

Beside the bed, laid over a fold of dark cloth, there lay a sword.

The blade caught what little light came through the shuttered room and returned it in dark bands and ripples, like water trapped beneath ice. It was the sort of steel men talked about as if they had seen a miracle, forged somewhere beyond Aleppo and worth more than the ship unfortunate enough to carry it home.

Set into the crossguard, small enough to escape notice unless a man was looking for it, was a lion with folded wings and one paw raised. The very lion appeared stitched across Vito’s mantle.

Then, without preamble, Marouda’s voice cut his slumber, muffled through the door.

"Kyria, please, he only just returned."

Caterina’s voice went straight through the protest. "Then he is still apt for conversation. Vitale Barozzi, I heard about a dozen stories about last night, and every single one of them is more fit for a tavern than a report. You will get up this instant and explain yourself."

The door was pushed open, and Caterina came through in a storm of exasperation.

Then her voice stopped.

It stopped so suddenly that a man might have thought someone had cut the string.

Her eyes reached him while a pinkish flush rose from her throat into her face, and then she developed a sudden and profound interest in the wall, a wall that had done absolutely nothing to deserve such attention.

Vito yawned and stretched, having very little concern for who happened to watch, and paid for it with a genuine wince.

His forearm woke sore rather than numb and his thigh stung with a mild pain.

As he sat up, he caught his reflection in the washbasin, dark and wavering in the poor light.

His hair had gone wherever sleep had thrown it, and he wore nothing but his underpants, leaving little to hide the breadth of his chest or the solid build beneath it.

He was muscular, certainly, but not in the manner of those who cultivated muscle for its own vanity, the strength showing instead in the width of his shoulders, the weight through his arms and chest, and the lean firmness of a body that had simply been put to work too often to remain otherwise.

Caterina said, continuing to address the wall, "For the love of every saint in that cathedral you just overbooked, put some clothes on."

Vito laughed. "And here I thought you had come all this way to scold me. Now I find you only wanted a good look first."

He made no attempt whatsoever to reach for the clothes over the room’s single chair.

"Say your piece, mia cara. I promise I am all ears."

"Not to a man who is presently a danger to public decency."

Her eyes betrayed her, as the blush that kept rising through her cheeks. They found him despite all her efforts, stayed long enough to remember why she had sent them away, and escaped back to the wall in a hurry.

Vito watched them make the same short journey again, "You could simply look at me, Caterina. I promise the wall has done nothing to deserve this much attention."

This time her eyes searched for another refuge and found the sword.

They stopped upon it with gratitude, as if she finally found a way to steer the conversation away from her indecent thoughts.

"What is that?"

Vito lips parted open with great confidence.

For perhaps the first time since waking in this century, he discovered that there was no answer waiting behind it.

"That is..."

He looked at the sword, giving it a fair chance to rescue him. The sword, being a sword and therefore a poor conversationalist, offered nothing.

"Spoils of war, of course. I liberated it from among the relics in the Knossos cathedral."

Caterina stared at him for a moment, then pressed the back of her hand against her mouth as a laugh threatened to escape. Vito watched her with an expression of complete innocence, which only made it worse.

She lowered her hand and shook her head, the smile still threatening at the corners of her lips.

"How fortunate for you that sainthood comes with such practical rewards."

Caterina let out one sharp breath and turned toward the servant near the door before her eyes could linger on Vito’s glistening chest any longer, or her thoughts follow them there. Whatever amusement the sword had given her, there were more important matters to deal with, and she was not going to stand there all morning to give him the satisfaction.

"Marouda. Bread, whatever fish came in, and wine watered enough that he won’t make a morning of it."

That done, Caterina folded her arms and let the teasing leave her voice.

"Candia’s fine and stable. That’s the short version, and you ought to be grateful for it."

She watched him closely, judging how much of it was getting through. "Last night frightened people enough to fear what might come next, yet fortunately there was no bloodshed, bodies, or anything for them to mourn. That made their fear easier to pacify."

Vito nodded, "A generous resolution of a decision I made mostly because dead priests are terrible for business."

Caterina shook her head, not buying the excuse. "Don’t cheapen it. It’s the only reason I’m not writing home to explain why our fondaco burned down before we managed to even put a roof on the thing."

Vito’s grin continued, but his eyes did not join in. "One fire tonight, another tomorrow. Cazzo, at this rate I’ll put out more fires this year than I ever started, and I used to be very good at starting them."

Before either could continue the discussion, the door was pushed open again.

Marouda backed into the room carrying a loaded tray, bread, fish, and a jug that smelled considerably more like water than wine.

And behind her stood Leon Skordilis.

His eyes traveled over the room, slowly.

Vito was still sitting exactly where he had been, wearing nothing except his underpants and his usual good humor.

Caterina’s blush was still creeping up her throat, left there by an argument that had apparently said rather more than either of them had intended.

And beside the bed lay a fine foreign sword on a piece of dark cloth, looking entirely too comfortable.

The smallest smile appeared at one corner of Leon’s mouth. It was a dry little thing, but it had all the life of a a joke without having to ask for it.

"Forgive me, Ser Barozzi."

He inclined his head toward Caterina, then swept the room another leisurely glance.

"I hope I am not interrupting a private reunion."