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

The side door hit its frame, and hundreds of men sat down to eat. Onions came out of sleeves, salted fish out of sacks, and cheese rinds out of places no Christian ought to keep them.

The retainers’ section had an alcove cut into stone, and Zaccaria stood inside, offering Vito a heel of bread and a lump of cheese. Across the floor, Fantin talked down the Feathers with half a loaf, Tiepolo was gracious among his silver, and Ranieri sat on his righted bench.

There were forty-nine electors, and hundreds of patricians that would watch them do it with no more vote than the gulls.

Naturally, as the newest voice, Vito was among the gulls.

While time passed, Zaccaria complained bitterly.

”Four hours I’ve stood on this stone, Barozzi! With a belt as empty as a Lenten purse.”

He thrusted the bread under Vito’s nose. ”And now the wall has a name for you, Lion’s blood, it has gone down the retainers mouth to mouth like an adultery rumor. Ciò! Dio bon. Tell me how that ends, mona, I want to be standing close.”

Vito took the cheese in both hands like a relic, bit, and shut his eyes.

”Cazzo, Zaccaria, this is good cheese.”

Half of it was eaten before he came back to the question. ”How does it go? Amico, ask me what the tide will do on winter, that would be easier to predict. So I stay at the wall like a saint in his niche, very holy, and watch the hall split apart in their little groups.”

Tiepolo’s silver and Marco’s bare oak would say Tiepolo.

Ranieri’s knot and the Feathers would say Ranieri.

The tar would say Premarino.

The Salt Lords of Chioggia stood by the side benches, brine cracked into their knuckles. Their houses leased the pans and sold the salt back to the Republic keepers at a price they never agreed among themselves.

In July, a cadet had put twenty-nine tons of Cyprus salt on those scales.

The gray-haired patrician who believed Zaccaria was a Michiel sat among the patricians with the oldest scars, chewing a fig.

Three years ago, the Venetian fleet and the French knights had taken Zara from the Hungarian King to pay a debt, and the Pope excommunicated the whole crusader army. These soldiers came home one absolution poorer while their kin still held the Dalmatian shore, where a king had died last year and two more had worn the crown since.

By the far door, five patricians leaned with red caps tucked into their belts. These were the men who kept the Arsenal books, and in July, their yard had lost its shipbuilder to a patch of church ground.

The bell struck once, and its stroke spread through the whole palace as the hall returned to its benches in a clatter of boots and a last sip of the wineskins.

The electors walked in through the side door, their black gowns dusted white. Marco took the front bench with his hands folded, Ser Nicolò wheezing behind him.

The Doge hadn’t left his chair.

”Item.”

The eldest lifted his flat face. ”The Ducal Council, in the name of the Republic and of the Evangelist, require the electors of San Michele to name the Duke of Candia. Here, before this hall, and before God, who will remember.”

From under the blanket the thin voice rose. ”The charge is read and the candle is dead, eh? Good. Good. The words are finished, and the wax with them. Now the man.”

A rattle in the old chest. ”Giacomo Tiepolo. Ruggiero Premarino.”

Then, with no more salt on it than the previous two. ”Ranieri Dandolo. From the eldest to the youngest, each man vote one name, and each name aloud, not in whispers. The elector who is ashamed of his choice should have made another, eh?”

The eldest Avogadore set open the roll-book, and the copyist cousin laid a clean leaf beneath a fresh quill, oak-gall still on his cuff. The old man who had crossed himself back at Piero’s saint rose from the black bench and spoke one word in a voice like paper.

”Tiepolo.”

The old houses followed him one at a time.

Each man rose straight in a good gown and sat down before the next was called. Marco’s nine came after, their chins on their chests, the name leaving each of them like debt repaid.

The eldest Avogadore leaned toward the chair and murmured over the leaf, and the thin voice gave the result to the hall.

”Fifteen for Giacomo Tiepolo. None for the others.”

The Feathers groaned low and the bare oak shifted on its benches.

The vote reached the Salt Lords. The one with the swollen eye rose off the bench with his good eye blazing and his chin thrust out like a bowsprit, and he threw the name across the floor like a punch he had saved.

”TIEPOLO!”

Before his mate sat down, the split lip was up, fresh blood warm on his teeth, and he aimed the word straight at the swollen eye, slow, savoring every syllable.

”Dan-do-lo.”

Still the Salt Lords, the three followed, two for Tiepolo and one for Dandolo.

The Zara veterans voted three Dandolo and two Tiepolo. The red caps voted four Dandolo and one Tiepolo.

”Thirty.”

The voice tasted the number like a wine it didn’t trust. ”Thirty voices, and not two of them friends, eh. Twenty-one for Giacomo Tiepolo. Nine for Ranieri Dandolo. For Ruggiero Premarino, the sea has so far given none. He may keep his oar.”

The tar bench rose like a banked row of oars, each man a half-beat behind the last, each voice hauled up from the belly like wet rope.

”Premarino!”

”Premarino!”

”Premarino!”

The fourth voted with a spit on the floor, the fifth voted low as a vow, and the sixth voted loud enough to shiver the bell-rope. Through all of it Premarino sat with the two halves of his cord in one fist and a face like a shut door.

Ranieri’s knot rose in a ladder, each rung louder than the one below.

”Dandolo.” Dry, almost bored, a man signing a receipt.

”Dandolo.” Chin lifted.

”Dandolo!” Fist on the belt.

”Dandolo!” A thump of the bench.

”DANDOLO!”

The sixth made it a challenge to the rafters, and the seventh didn’t say it so much as shout, as though he were the one standing for the chair. Then a couple electors from the Feathers complemented with a Dandolo each.

The thin voice came again, more interested this time. ”Forty-five. Twenty-one for Tiepolo. Eighteen for Dandolo. Six for Premarino. The sea is moving, eh. Look how it moves.”

Three more Feathers rose, and three more Dandolo came with them.

The Doge remarked again.

”Forty-eight. Twenty-one. Twenty-one. Six.”

The voice slowed on purpose, and every patrician leaned into it.

”And one voice left. One. Pray for it, eh, to whoever you are praying to.”

The youngest elector rose at the foot of the black bench in a gown cut for his father, the hat crushed in his fist like a captured bird, and he said it to the rafters, to no one, to God.

”Dan-do-lo.”

The second syllable split like a green plank.

The old Doge took the leaf from the eldest Avogadore and read it slowly, one man at a time, like a priest reading an inventory of sins.

”Giacomo Tiepolo. Twenty-one.”

A beat.

”Ruggiero Premarino. Six.”

The beads fell silent.

”And Ranieri Dandolo. Twenty-two.”

The cough came at the end of the name, and the cloth came with it.

When it came away, the dry voice returned unhurried, with the gentle malice that outlived every enemy except the coward ones. ”So the Council has found it, eh. The one distance across which a Dandolo is bearable.”

A rustle of blanket.

”The width of a sea. And I say that as one, the chair finds it wide enough.”

The eldest lifted his flat face, and the word came down like a seal on hot wax. ”Item. Ranieri Dandolo is named, by the voices of San Michele, Duke of Candia. Let the roll-book bear it. Let the hall bear it too.”

Then the hall came apart again, and this time it came apart with its heads together.

Ranieri’s knot closed around itself, hats touching, hands over mouths. The Feathers burst into noise, and Fantin was up on his two cushions with fists in the air.

On the tar bench, Premarino laughed into his beard.

Across the aisle, Tiepolo rose among his silver and bowed to the chair.

Ser Nicolò wheezed, Ser Piero crossed himself, and Ser Orio ate the end of his loaf in one furious bite.

Marco’s eyes went to the accounts above the benches, and the sum had changed. He rose, folded his twitching hands over his belt, and walked out.

The page ran out the door with the result, and the Rialto would have a new price by supper.

Down the side benches, the whispers spread in parts, about the cadet who sold an island, a Doge’s son, who owed whom, and who would be victorious by All Saints.

Vito watched the hall redraw itself.

Ranieri Dandolo hadn’t looked at him once, but now he rose from the righted bench, found him across the hall, and stared for a heartbeat. His chin turned toward the door.

Vitale’s grin came up, small.