Chapter 50: Godspeed, More or Less

One day was spent to load the ship, another for the platoon time to finish whatever business they had left, and then after that there was no respectable reason to stay.

On the next dawn the ropes came off the bollards, and La Contessa eased away from the pier. The oars found their rhythm one stroke at a time, then fell into the beat, blade after blade striking the water together while the ship moved.

Vito stood near the stern in full mail, [Artiglio del Leone] at his hip, and watched Candia begin to lose its form behind them.

Domenego’s platoon occupied the waist of the ship, checking straps and blades that had already been checked twice. It was common belief that some soldiers with nothing to do will inspect their equipment until he finds religion in it.

Bepi’s crew worked the ropes among them, an action done often enough that knew ships could be loaded without an audience.

Vito kept looking at the harbor a little longer than the shrinking view deserved.

It occurred to him how little that very stretch of water had meant the first time he’d seen it. Then it had been a stranger’s harbor in a stranger’s century.

Then he spotted her.

Caterina stood at the pier with a knot of her servants and guards who looked bored enough to make a profession of it. Even at that distance there was no mistaking her.

She stood sharp and upright, as if the docks themselves had to thank for her presence.

Vito raised one hand in a wave.

Caterina raised hers in return, easy, less a goodbye than simple acknowledgement.

He permitted the place one last glance before the coastline folded it out of sight.

Candia was already becoming a strip of stone and color, the rough new walls of the fondaco still visible from the water, pale against the old stone around them.

The sight left a weight behind in his chest that he could not quite name.

🦁 [TERRITORY OVERVIEW — CANDIA, CRETE]

Sovereignty : La Serenissima

Governance : Latin-Aligned Archontes

Population : Approximately 15,000

Civil Order : Tense, but stable

Harbor : Broad bay. Long Stone Pier, Ample Port

Military : Stone walls, Towers, Garrison, Compagnia del Leone Nero

Major Districts : Harbor, Market, Administrative, Noble, Religious (Presently Overcrowded), Suburbs, Venetian Quarter

Barozzi Presence : Established (Fondaco Under Construction)

🦁 [VITALE BAROZZI — STATUS]

Rank : Cadet of House Barozzi. Legitimate birth, junior standing.

Reputation : Substantial, and compounding faster than the Republic has noticed

Influence : Borrowed, though the debts increasingly run in his own favor

Fate Balance : 150

Well, look at you.

It has been only a few months, and you already own part of an island, have a bishop under lock, keep a spy on the payroll, and is sailing off to conquer a second city before you’ve finished paying for the first one.

I’d call that ambition, but ambition generally has the decency to have a plan. You, on the other hand, keep making yours up as you go. I’ve noticed. For the file, naturally.

Vito read the displays.

Beneath the urge to laugh at the absurdity of it, he we was proud of every word. He was not about to admit that aloud, of course.

A man had standards.

When the boxes faded, Vito left the stern and wandered forward, letting his boots decide where they were going.

He had no destination in mind and simply exchanged a word here, a worse one there, and kept walking.

Two soldiers by the mast complained over which of their blades was in greater need of sharpening. As usual, the discussion soon wandered toward what waited for them at the far end of the voyage.

"Heard we are to expect battle this time."

The younger man turned his whetstone over in his hand and looked at it as though it had disappointed him personally.

"Che figata."

His companion spat over the rail. "I’ll take a nice, glorious death over another week of babysitting fucking priests. At least these bastards will know which end of a sword to kill you with."

"And if he doesn’t?"

"Then the Devil himself wants to fuck with me."

The man shrugged.

"I’ll have a word with Him myself."

Vito clapped the soldiers on the shoulder as he passed.

"Sharpen it twice, amico. Chania won’t be sending farmers out to greet us."

A little farther on, three men had shared enough of a wine skin to become experts on women and the broken hearts they’d left behind in Candia.

One of them insisted, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Mine cried for three days. Three fucking days. Then she threw a basket of figs at my head when I left."

"Then you’ll admit it. She’s got better aim than you, you blind bastard."

The other man snatched the skin from him and took a drink.

"Mine took my last coin and told me to write back when I was dead."

"Least she acted with romance."

"Bah, shut it, least she charges by the hour. Yours charges by the week, that fat little dockside cow."

"Fuck you."

"Already tried, your mother was better."

The laughter went up loud enough to draw a glance from the nearby officer.

He considered the three men, then the sea, and wisely decided there were battles more worth fighting.

Near the bow, a boy whose beard had not yet made up its mind whether it intended to exist had begun humming a tune under his breath.

An older sailor cuffed him hard across the back of the head.

"Whistle again and I’ll feed you to the fish myself."

The sailor kept his voice low.

"The sea hears that, ragazzo, and answers with weather nobody wants."

"For a damned song?"

"It’s an invitation, that’s what it is."

The old man jabbed a finger at him.

"Ask the comito if you don’t believe me."

Vito grinned as he passed.

Bepi’s superstitions had apparently outlived the man’s patience for explaining them. The old fool had believed them hard enough that now every man aboard seemed willing to help keep them alive.

He found Domenego near the mast, halfway through a speech, one arm flung wide as if Chania itself were waiting across the water to be impressed.

"...and when they ask who has come to break their gates, tell them Domenego of the Compagnia del Leone Nero has come, and that he brings neither mercy nor patience, only steel and a considerable appetite for confession!"

He paused, pleased with himself.

"Too much? I think it needs trimming."

Bepi was coiling rope a few feet away. "It needs less words and more silence. They won’t hear a word of it through the battle regardless."

"My warrior’s heart doesn’t rehearse for the enemy’s ears, Bepi. Only for itself."

"Then rehearse below deck, where the rest of us don’t have to hear it twice."

Domenego’s grin appeared at once, then faded just as quickly, the fire in him from blaze to embers in the space of a breath.

He clapped Bepi on the shoulder hard enough to make the old comito grunt and nearly lose his coil of rope.

Vito let them have another round before stepping in.

"Enough theatre, both of you."

He nodded toward the deck below, toward wherever the maps had been stowed. "It’s past time the three of us sat down and worked out how we mean to take Chania."