Chapter 53: The Purveyor’s Countryside

Behind Vito, the beach had quit pretending to be only sand and was making a serious attempt at becoming a camp, though half of it had managed the transformation and the other half was still considering the matter.

Canvas and sailcloth went up in rows laid out by hope, while stakes were being driven into sand that showed little interest in keeping them there.

Domenego moved through the whole business, his voice practical, probably the best voice a man could have when his soldiers were busy inventing new ways to sleep badly.

Vito came up from the tideline just in time to see one shelter surrender completely.

It folded sideways onto the man attempt to raise it, and the canvas swallowed him whole while two of his comrades stood nearby laughing instead of doing the civilized thing and help.

Domenego reached him at a pace that made it plain the collapsed shelter had offended him personally.

"Cazzo, Fosco. Are you trying to shame me into my grave? Out, before you smother."

He dragged the canvas back with one hand and hauled the soldier free with the other, then turned the mess of rope and stake over as though it were a wounded animal he intended to cure.

"Put the bastard in at an angle. This ground’s half sand, straight down, and you’re trying to pin the tide to the earth."

"Yes, Lieutenant."

"Do it right this time, or spend the night under the stars like some fucking pagan. Because death is one thing, but to be remembered as the poor bastard that froze his bollocks, well, there’s no poetry in that."

Fosco went back to work, and Domenego was already three strides away hunting his next calamity before the man had driven in a second peg.

The next calamity was a cook fire dug too shallow, its flames climbing higher than any reasonable man would permit with a hostile city close enough to count them from its walls.

"Bury the bloody thing. Don’t feed it."

Domenego kicked a bootful of sand across the flames, reducing the blaze to a sulky glow. "We’re here to cook supper, not proclaim our fucking whereabouts to every sentry in Chania. And I’d rather not have some idiot fool explaining, with an arrow through his neck, that he was only trying to warm his dinner."

The soldier tending the fire muttered what could have been an apology or could have been a complaint.

Domenego gave him neither sympathy nor an answer.

Vito grinned and let the whole business pass around him.

He exchanged a word with one man about whose turn it was to dig the latrine trench, another with a second about whether the wine ration had survived the landing without finding cause for complaint, and then his boots brought him beyond the last row of shelters to the ground the men had already decided was the edge of their camp.

Sentries were there already, posted where the forest broke and the beach curved out of easy sight.

Farther down the shore, La Contessa sat dark and beached in the last of the light, with Bepi and a handful of men keeping her company.

From where Vito stood, it made a neat enough picture with the ship, sentries, fires dug low and screened, nothing burning high enough for the men on those walls to count by torchlight.

He found his own shelter last. It was no grander than the rest, canvas stretched over driftwood and spare spear-shafts lashed together in a hurry.

He ducked inside and was grateful for the simple luxury of sitting down properly for the first time since the ship had touched the sand.

A confident garrison had no reason for a night raid. That was the plain truth, the instinct that had carried him through a dozen dangerous rooms in another life.

It worked just as well on a Cretan beach as it had in a warehouse at midnight. A man who believed himself the stronger side had little reason to throw that advantage away in darkness, especially against soldiers already awake and waiting for such a trick.

The scouts at the forest were there for the unlikely case regardless, and that was a decision worth paying once and then forgetting.

Tomorrow was the real trouble.

Once the light came, both sides would move, hunting each other across ground neither properly occupied yet. Vito intended to decide where they met before the two forces stumbled into each other by accident.

He knew the beaches around the landing spot well enough. Everything beyond them was guesswork, and guesswork was a poor thing to trust with his men’s lives when the answer he needed might already be waiting inside his own head.

"Purveyor."

He said the old nickname to the empty tent and grinned at himself for having the nerve to drag it back into daylight.

"It’s been a while."

It has. Long enough that I’d nearly persuaded myself you’d found a hobby that didn’t involve me.

"Never, you’re my favorite kind of trouble."

He rested against the driftwood frame.

"I need to know the ground around Chania, beyond what I’ve already walked."

The whole region, then. Every road, every farm, every archon’s private trespasser about his neighbor’s fences. I could arrange that.

"Could you now."

For a price that would make the Doge’s treasury weep. Shall I quote it, or would you rather preserve what little dignity you have left this evening.

"Spare us both. I don’t need Crete’s gossip, Purveyor. I need the ground I’ll be standing on tomorrow in a chart, forthright enough."

A modest request at last. How refreshing.

🪙 [FATE SHOP — INTELLIGENCE]

Map of Chania and Surroundings

The countryside beyond Chania, rendered with an accuracy this century will not manage for another lifetime or two. Roads, water, the true shape of the land, all drawn by a fictional hand that has never once been wrong.

Cost : 80 Fate

I’ve priced it honestly, which is more than this world’s chartmakers will manage for another few centuries. Try not to lose it in the sand.

Vito paid without wasting time haggling over the price, and the chart appeared on the flat stone he’d been using for a table.

The ink even had a faint shine that no parchment ought to have managed on its own.

He spread it flat and leaned closer to the light of his lamp, studying the countryside south from the beaches.

The roads that cut through it, the low walls that separated private territories. More hills rose beyond, all marked with a steadiness no monk’s uncertain sketch had ever come close to manage.

His finger slowed beyond the fields.

Then it stopped.

Vito remained there for a moment.

The idea had fallen into place behind his eyes, sudden as a lock giving way under the right key. A slow, satisfied grin spread across his face.

Vito didn’t rush to report his findings.

There would be plenty of time for that in the morrow.