Chapter 63: Welcome Home, Your Lordship

Dawn arrived gray and busy, which was about all the ceremony anybody had energy for. The camp came apart while everyone was exhausted, not because anyone had finished being exhausted.

Soldiers rolled their packs, checked their straps, and made a poor show of caring whether either would hold. There had been too little sleep and too much wine the night before, and both had left their mark.

Ruggiero and Bortolo stayed behind with the badly wounded, under guard and in the surgeon’s reluctant care. Vito crouched beside Bortolo’s bedroll long enough for the two of them to exchange a few words, neither man seeing any reason to decorate them.

"Try not to die of boredom before we’re back."

"I’ll do my best to disappoint you, Ser Barozzi."

Then, on their march forward, some object caught the light beyond the tideline, a hull and sail riding low and patient, well out from what had to be Chania’s harbor. Vito watched it enough to know Nico had done his work, then gave the ship no more thought.

There was little use admiring a job already finished.

The platoon formed up at somewhere around forty men who were still fit enough to be useful. Everyone else remained behind with the simple instruction not to die before supper, which was about as much optimism as the day could afford.

And this time, two men rode instead of walked.

Vito and Domenego had each been given a horse recovered from the scattered herd of the previous night.

Chania rose out of the haze.

The platoon stopped at a reasonable distance and looked the city over.

The walls had men on them, but nowhere near enough men, the garrison stretched thin on walkways built for many times their number, some leaning as though standing had become an unreasonable demand.

Domenego followed the battlement with his eyes.

"I reckon that watch couldn’t stop a determined goat."

"Small mercies."

Then a man near the front of the platoon noticed the gate and shouted it plainly enough for the ranks to hear.

"The gate’s open!"

It was. Both doors stood wide against the stone, with nothing behind them but shadow and an empty road leading straight into the city’s heart.

Domenego sat up in the saddle like he had just been handed the finest gift of his military career.

He announced to the whole platoon. "An ambush! Obviously, they want us wandering inside before they drop some enormous object on our heads. Boulders, most likely. Maybe two, stacked one on another."

"Or boiling oil," some footmen offered from behind him.

"Boiling oil is beneath them now, amico. I’d expect some real imagination this time."

Domenego started to scratch his chin in thought. "I’d wager some pit full of lions, starved to nearly extreme despair. Or, if their creativity is boundless, wolves dressed as priests. Or worse! Actual priests."

"Priests aren’t a weapon, Lieutenant."

"Evidently, you’ve clearly never confessed to Father Ambrogio."

Then one picchieri toward the rear, still carrying what was left of last night’s wine inside him, called out with no great interest in settle the discussion. "If it’s a trap, I’d rather die full of good wine than empty and sober. Say what you want about yesterday, least a man went to his grave fed."

That earned a laugh, rough and tired.

Vito let it have its moment, then ended it.

"If Chania meant to kill us, leaving the door open would be a curious choice."

He nudged his horse forward. "Forward. Shields up, mouths shut, eyes open. If it is a trap, we’ll at least have the satisfaction of discovering we were right."

The platoon closed up around him at once. Shields came up, the jokes disappeared, and for a good stretch the only sounds were boots, harness, and hooves on the road.

Then movement appeared at the gate.

A party was coming out to meet them. Most were on foot, with a few horses mixed in, and they wore robes instead of mail.

Not one thing about them looked like men coming out to fight.

Vito raised one hand and the platoon stopped behind him. Uncertain whispers traveled through the ranks as everyone tried to decide what sort of welcome they had been given.

Then Vito saw what the horse at the back was dragging.

One man was tied to it by a length of rope, bound and still struggling weakly against the dirt.

Cazzo.

The delegation came close enough to be seen. Four men, dressed in fine formal clothes better suited to a council chamber than a road, with a modest escort behind them. The escorts had spears, though mostly in the manner of men carrying walking staffs.

The thing being dragged, what remained of the imperial-cut robes hung from him in strips. His face was buried under bruises and dried blood, and it took Vito a moment to recognize him.

Then there was no mistaking him.

Andronikos Melissenos. The archon who had walked away from a conversation about boots and then marched an army out to die over it.

His hands were tied in front of him and blood had dried black along one side of his jaw, and Vito doubted he could open his mouth without leaving a few more teeth behind.

He made no attempt to speak. Whatever had happened to him had already made that impossible.

By then, Vito could wager a rather good guess for what happened.

One man broke away from the delegation and came forward alone. He was thin, gray at the temples, with ink still staining his fingers and the unmistakable expression of a clerk.

"Ser Barozzi."

His Italian came out broken and rushed, the words falling over one another.

"I am Michael Kalergis. I speak for the small houses, not his house."

He gestured toward Melissenos without looking at him. "This rebellion, against your claim on Kriti, we did not want. He wanted it. He made us silent, with his men, his standing, we could not refuse, we could not..."

He stopped and drew a hard breath. The next words came out in Greek before he caught himself.

"Δεν είχαμε επιλογή."

Then, remembering himself, he translated.

"No choice. We had no choice."

"And now?" Vito asked.

"Now we arrest him. Ourselves. Some of his men also, those who followed him."

Kalergis pointed toward the bound figure again.

"We bring him to you. To Venezia. For peace. Please."

Behind Vito, one of the crossbowmen spoke without making the slightest effort to keep his voice down.

"Look how quickly a great man’s friends remember they never liked him."

Domenego leaned across his saddle to get a better look, apparently seeing no reason to let decorum interfere with a perfectly good spectacle. "God’s teeth, they’ve dragged him half to Candia by the look of him. I’ve seen wine barrels treated better."

He raised his voice toward the delegation, courtesy and cruelty in the same breath. "My compliments, gentlemen, on your thoroughness. Most men lose their honor in a defeat like this one, while yours seems to have lost most of his teeth as well."

"At least this horse knows how to keep its feet."

One more footmen added, and the laughter that followed had teeth in it, too.

Momolo, somewhere in the ranks, could not resist his own contribution. "Momolo has seen many endings upon the stage, but never one performed quite so literally at the end of a rope."

Vito let them laugh for a while. Then he spoke to Kalergis, keeping his eyes on him rather than on the ruined man behind.

"Chania will have peace."

There was no point gloating over a man who was too broken to appreciate the joke.

"One thing first."

Kalergis went pale and stiffened, preparing himself for whatever price came with those words.

Vito’s voice remained plain. "Lead us through your gates yourselves, in the open, in daylight, with your people watching. Let them see you welcome your neighbors home."

The relief that crossed Kalergis’s face was almost painful to watch.

"Yes. Yes, of course, Ser Barozzi. Gladly."

He turned immediately and waved the rest of the delegation around. The platoon followed as they started toward the gates, still standing open in the sunlight.

This time they waited for more than just an ambush.