Chapter 91: The Lion Beneath the Silk

The silence lasted one beat longer before it broke.

Theophylact’s palm came down on the table again, harder this time, hard enough to make both untouched cups jump in their saucers. The wordless fury that had burst out of him a moment before had finally found a voice, and this time Vito wasn’t the man it was meant for.

"Have you no pride left to spend, Athanasia?"

His voice cracked on her name, but that didn’t stop it from climbing. "Handled like a sack of grain in the middle of the street by a man who won’t even give his own name, and you let him?"

Athanasia kept her eyes lowered and her shoulders drawn in, every inch the caught and embarrassed woman the room expected. Only Vito, sitting close enough to notice, saw the little glint coming loose behind her lashes. There was time for one more bit of fun.

Against his chest, she drew one slow breath. Vito felt his own grin before she had spoken a word.

"My pride?"

Athanasia lifted her chin just enough to look at Theophylact from beneath her lashes, her voice soft and wounded in a way that would have fooled nobody who knew her.

"A woman’s pride bends easily enough, Theophylact, when the man asking is gentle about it."

Her fingers trailed once along the back of Vito’s hand where it lay against her hip.

"His hands know exactly where to go, while yours have only ever known how to count."

She leaned into him more deeply as she said it. Her open wrap slipped another inch from one shoulder, and she pressed fully against his chest, leaving nothing between them that needed explanation.

The delight in her eyes was obvious now. She was enjoying the freedom of the afternoon more than the job itself required.

That was what finally broke him.

Theophylact came around the table himself, breathing hard through his nose, and threw one arm back toward his men without taking his eyes off Vito.

"Get him up. Get him out into the street where the whole quarter can watch him apologize."

His two bodyguards moved together, although no blades came out. Neither dared that much, and simply physical strength would be enough.

Vito’s reply came by drinking from his cup, taking his time, then putting it down with ease.

"Careful with the mantle, ragazzi," he said to no one in particular. "It’s newer than either of you."

The two men closed the remaining distance and reached for his shoulders.

Orso got there first.

He crossed the floor in four strides, and it felt as if the room itself had to make room for him. His shadow reached the table a full heartbeat before he did.

The giant planted himself behind the couch without a word, arms loose at his sides, broad enough to swallow half the light from the nearest lamp.

One of the bodyguards looked up.

Then he looked farther up.

His hand, already halfway to Vito’s shoulder, stopped exactly where it was. Theophylact himself halted in mid-stride, one boot still raised, caught between finishing the step and deciding that perhaps that was a poor idea.

A flicker of surprise crossed Vito’s face.

Athanasia had gone stiff beside him only a breath earlier, then straightened. He let her have it.

Whatever she intended, the grin spreading across his face showed that he was going to enjoy the result.

"You want a name, Theophylact?"

Athanasia’s voice rang out, sharp with delight. "Since you’ve spent so long shouting for one, here it is. Vitale Barozzi, cadet of the Barozzi, one of the old blood houses of Venezia, case vecchie, the sort whose name opens doors your family will never see from the other side."

As she spoke, she reached up and pulled the fold of her own wrap back from his shoulder.

The silk slipped free in one clean motion, revealing the Lion of St. Mark worked in gold thread across the wine-dark mantle, plain as a seal stamped onto a decree.

The room went silent.

Theophylact’s face went through three different colors in the space of a breath before turning as pale as his own good cotton.

Recognition spread across his face. This was the name half the dockworkers of Alexandria had been chewing over since Venetian ships entered the harbor, the Barozzi who was supposed to have put a spear through an Emperor of the Romans and then walked off an island richer for the trouble.

"I... you..."

Theophylact’s lips kept moving without managing to create anything worthy of being called a sentence.

"That is. I did not. Nobody told me you were..."

He never got the rest out.

His two men had already dropped their hands completely and taken a full step back, without waiting for an order.

Vito caught Athanasia’s eye over the remains of Theophylact’s composure. They shared a look, the plan had landed exactly where they wanted it.

Orso took one slow step forward, closing what little space remained, and let silence finish the job.

Theophylact and his two men gave ground before him, three men backing away from one giant who hadn’t even raised a hand.

That was when Bertuccio Malipiero arrived, wine cup still in hand.

He had been sitting three lengths away, plainly enjoying La Sirena’s cellar since before any of this began, and took in the whole scene with one glance.

The lion exposed on Vito’s mantle, Theophylact’s bloodless face, and Orso towering over the affair. Bertuccio had seen enough to know which man had made a very bad guess about how his afternoon would go.

"Argyropoulos."

Bertuccio named the poor fellow.

"Tell me you haven’t been putting your own hands on a guest of the fondaco."

"I meant no true offense to the fondaco, Ser Malipiero."

Theophylact’s voice had gone thin now, the heat mostly burned out of it.

"Only a private matter, between families."

Bertuccio raised one eyebrow.

He drank from his cup first and took his time to reply. "A private matter you chose to settle in the middle of our wine house, in front of half the merchants who’ll be reading my reports on your house’s trade come next quarter."

He wiped his brow, though the room was no warmer than it had been. "A business trading as much cotton and glass through Venetian channels as yours does cannot afford an enemy with a Barozzi name to him, Argyropoulos, whatever quarrel lies beneath this one."

Theophylact opened his mouth again, then closed it.

Once more, nothing came out.

Bertuccio continued, warming to the subject now, with pleasure creeping into his voice. "I’d think very carefully, amico, about whether House Argyropoulos wants to be remembered as the one that insulted him in public, or the one that apologized for it."

Theophylact’s throat worked once before he managed anything.

"I never meant..."

The protest failed halfway through and died behind his teeth.

Vito gently set Athanasia aside and rose from the couch.

He crossed the short distance and stopped close to Theophylact. Whatever small advantage he had in height was obvious at that distance.

Theophylact’s chin tipped back as he looked up at him.

Vito put a hand on Theophylact’s shoulder, warm and familiar in the manner of an old friend, then leaned closer. Every trace of the warmth that had carried him through the afternoon disappeared from his voice.

"She’s mine now."

He said it flatly, the grin still sitting on his face for anyone watching from across the room. "The marriage talk ends today, here, in front of your men. Whatever’s owed gets paid back the way the rest of her debts already are, fair interest, patient terms, as any other creditor who isn’t a fool about it."

He let the words hang there for a moment before finishing. "Push this again, whatever form it takes, and it stops being a matter between houses. It becomes a matter between you and me."

Vito stepped back, the warmth returning to his face just as quickly as it had vanished.

Bertuccio cleared his throat once. He was far too pleased with himself to bother hiding it.

"A word of thanks would serve you a great deal better right now than more silence, Argyropoulos."

Theophylact’s lips worked for a long moment before he finally managed to speak.

"My thanks."

The words appeared to cost him actual treasury.

"For your... hospitality, Ser Barozzi."

He turned before anyone could answer and hurried for the door, his two men close behind, nearly at a run.

The room slowly found itself again.

The server finished the pour he had been forced to interrupt. Somewhere a lute picked up again in the middle of a phrase, as if it had never stopped.

Bertuccio caught Vito’s eye and gave him one short nod, the sort that needed no words, then returned to his own table and his own cup without waiting for thanks.

Vito crossed back to the couch and sat beside Athanasia once more.

She threw both arms around his neck the instant he sat. Her whole body pressed against him, and this time she meant every bit of it.

"Did you see his face?"

She laughed against his shoulder, far too pleased to bother pretending otherwise. "I thought the bastard might actually faint. Ten years from now I’ll still be telling this story to anyone who’ll sit still long enough to hear it."

Her laugh caught halfway through.

She suddenly seemed aware of how close she was sitting, and how little silk there was between them.

Her hand found the front of her wrap and pulled it closed. Blush rose into her cheeks again, warm and unmistakably genuine.

Vito laughed, warm and easy, and let the moment pass as lightly as she had meant it to.

"Take it easy." He grinned at her. "Else you really won’t be able to marry in this life."

Athanasia gave his arm a light swat, more amused than offended.

"Maybe not right now, but in a couple years any pretendents will forget about this story."

She straightened her wrap properly this time, though the smile stayed where it was.

"Today was business, Vitale. Good business, the best I’ve had all season. Nothing more than that."

Vito raised both hands in mock surrender.

"Ma va’. I wouldn’t dream of confusing the two."

Whatever the afternoon had required of his hands, his heart had never once left Candia. It was still with Caterina, the one woman none of today’s theater had ever really been about.

For the first time since his ships came through those two watchtowers, Alexandria’s business finally felt as though it might have an end in sight.