Reborn in The Most Serene Republic of Venice – Rise of a Doge

The walk from the Boukoleon palace to the Venetian quarter took less time than Vito’s leg needed to start complaining about it.

His escort followed a few respectful paces behind. Their job continued to look dangerous enough that nobody would ask Vito to explain himself twice.

It had not worked before.

It did not work this time either.

At the edge of Marino Zeno’s brand-new little government, a pale, ink-stained clerk stepped squarely into Vito’s path. He had a record book tucked under one arm as if the thing might make a break for it.

”Your business?”

Vito handed him the invitation.

The clerk turned the letter over once, found the seal, and widened his eyes in surprise. His gaze traveled from the wax to Vito’s face, as though he were trying to make the man who had supposedly gutted an Emperor match the rather unimpressive fellow in front of him.

”The one who...”

”That one.”

The clerk handed the invitation back so quickly he nearly dropped his book, then waved Vito through without another word.

His escort stayed at the gate this time too, just as they had at the palace, left behind to look important and mighty.

Nobody made Vito wait after that.

He walked through the quarter until he reached the mansion.

Two servants let him inside, neither looking particularly surprised to see him, and brought him through the house without much ceremony. Vito had barely decided he was being taken somewhere rather than politely removed from the premises when they stopped at a door near the far end.

One pushed it open and Vito stepped inside.

The servant waited for him, then closed the door behind him.

The office was large without being grand, with a broad desk taking up most of one side and enough shelves along the walls to suggest that somebody had spent a great many years putting things on them and considerably fewer years taking them back off. Record books stood in uneven rows beside bundles of papers, letters, and a handful of manuscripts that had seen better days.

There was one chair near the window.

Enrico Dandolo sat in it.

He was smaller than Vito had pictured, yet larger too, a wall of a man reduced by eighty-some years to leaner and harder, like driftwood that had given up everything except the parts too stubborn to rot.

Dandolo’s face was narrow beneath a thick white beard, the skin drawn tight over high cheekbones and a nose that had plainly spent a lifetime refusing to be overlooked. What hair remained on his head was white as the beard and thin enough that the skin showed through.

His eyes were the tone of clouded milk, staring at nothing.

One hand worked a string of prayer beads the way another man might worry a coin in his pocket, the habit so old he had probably forgotten why it had started.

That was when Vito noticed the woman standing a few steps from Dandolo’s chair, and every clever introduction he had ever said walked straight out of his head.

She had a dispatch open in one hand and read down the page with flat, patient attention.

Her hair hung loose past her shoulders in the Venetian fashion, dark enough to argue with black and win. No veil covered it, which seemed a sensible decision considering what she had to work with.

A beauty mark sat beneath one eye. Another rested between her breasts, just above the low neckline of her gown.

The dress was Venetian in its cut and thoroughly Byzantine in the gold thread worked through it, catching what little light slipped past the shutters. It followed her neatly from the shoulders down, leaving rather less to the imagination than a sensible man might have preferred.

Her eyes lifted from the page and found his.

They were sharp, narrow, and already far too interested in him for his comfort, like the eyes of a cat looking at a bird and deciding whether chasing it would be worth the trouble.

Vito recovered quickly, because recovering quickly was about the only worthy thing two lifetimes had managed to teach him.

His spine grew a full inch, his chest came out.

For one short and disastrous moment, he forgot that one of his legs contained an actual hole. The fresh stab of pain reminded him to put his weight back on the good one before it gave way in front of God, Dandolo, and this woman in particular.

”Well, this visit has turned out better than I expected.”

Vito let his gaze linger on her. ”Though with a welcome like yours, I may have to start finding excuses to come back.”

Her green eyes were as indifferent as the page in her hand, yet he felt himself sinking into them all the same, catching beneath that cool expression the briefest flicker of dangerous interest, carefully hidden behind a face that gave away nothing.

Then she pursed her lips, and the small, soft pop that followed was almost enough to make him forget himself entirely, before she turned back to Dandolo as though he had never been there at all.

Her voice was barely a whisper. ”The visitor you were expecting has arrived. Though I confess, he does seem determined to make an impression.”

Dandolo’s laugh came up rough and delighted, ”Sit down, boy, before you fall over trying to look tall for her. Lion’s blood, my eyes went years ago, but my ears never did. I can hear you sucking that stomach in from clear across the room, and it isn’t fooling anybody. Least of all her.”

Vito’s shoulders dropped about an inch, precisely the inch he had just worked so hard to add.

It did not stay that way.

He straightened his collar with both hands, gave it one firm tug as if that had repaired the real problem, and lowered himself into the offered chair with care.

”Vitale Barozzi.”

He said, finding enough charm again to make the introduction a favor to them both. ”Though most people call me Vito once they’ve decided I’m worth the extra breath.”

Dandolo waved the introduction away, his hand cutting through the air like he was swatting a fly that had already taken too much of his time. ”Save your manners, some blind relic like me doesn’t need this pleasantries. I’ve been Enrico Dandolo for eighty-some years, and nobody’s talked me out of it yet.”

His other hand moved without looking, the way a man reaches for something he has found ten thousand times before, and closed around the woman’s wrist.

”This one you’ll want to remember properly. Caterina Contarini.”

His thumb moved once over her wrist, an old man’s fond version of a pat. ”Her grandfather and I stole wine as boys, and buried more friends than either of us cared to count before God finally took him too.”

There was enough warmth in that last part to take some of the sharpness from Caterina’s face.

She pulled her wrist free with ease, then dropped into a curtsy so deep and so plainly unnecessary that it belonged on a stage.

”Caterina Contarini.”

She said, rising without a trace of the humility the gesture had promised. ”Merchant, moneylender, and the only reason my household hasn’t been swindled blind twice over already.”

Her eyes flicked toward Vito, lingering just long enough to make him wonder whether she was judging his worth or deciding what he might be worth to her.

”So, if you’re bold enough to try bargaining with me, do make it interesting.”

Before the conversation could start, one servant appeared from the shadows, put a fresh jug and three cups on the table between them, and slipped away again before he could get a proper look at her.

Caterina moved her dispatches aside to make room, stacking them with two others already waiting, and sat down into the chair beside Dandolo.

For a while the talk stayed easy.

Dandolo wanted the true story of fight, the version before the crusaders had ruined it with their nonsense additions, and Vito told him the whole mess, Varangians and all.

Caterina poured the wine and added remarks witty enough to pull a laugh from both men whenever she pleased.

Eventually, the prayer beads stopped moving.

Vito nearly missed it at first. The motion had been so constant it had become part of the room, but the sudden stiffness landed harder than any raised voice could have, right in the middle of a sentence about Orso and his mace.

Dandolo’s voice did not change at all.

He simply asked, ”Now, tell me exactly what you promised the Marquess of Montferrat this morning. All of it, boy. I understand you were remarkably generous with your own future on his behalf.”

The wine cup stopped halfway to Vito’s mouth.

Every clever plan he owned, two lifetimes’ worth, went looking for the door at once and discovered somebody had locked it.