Chapter 119: Hard to Sleep*

The wine jug had nearly run dry, and the water in the basin was as cold as a church floor.

Across the canal, a bell rang Compline.

Inside their room, Vito sat against the bolster in his smallclothes, the linen sheet pushed down to his waist against the summer heat. Scraps of parchment lay spread across his knees while the lamp burned steadily.

The shutters were open a hand’s width, and water slapped the pilings below while a gondolier’s call vanished into the dark.

His mantle and [Artiglio del Leone] hung over the chair, as always.

He went through the names one by one. Marina. The Scotti twins, with their two identical faces sketched in the margin. Ginevra. Ranuccio, with an enormous cane. Ambrogio, wearing a small crooked halo.

One scrap had a single name, Nestor, and nothing beside it. His thumb stayed there longer than the others.

The lamplight spread across the lean, work-worn lines of his shoulders and chest. He paid it no attention.

Across the room, Caterina stood at the little table in her chemise, dropping pins into a dish while her dark hair fell over her shoulders. She picked up the boxwood comb and dragged it through the first long tangle.

"Madonna santa, that accursed cane."

She said it to the comb, which was innocent enough. "Every third word, on that floor and thump! Thump! Like some poor damned soul knocking at the gates of Hell to be let in. I lost the count, I began to pray for the beams. And who pays for the damage? I do. Sempre io, marito, always me."

Vito pressed a scrap to his heart, wounded on her behalf.

"The cane again? Ohimè, povera moglie mia, what suffering."

He let the thump sit in the room.

"Unforgivable. Imperdonabile, cara."

She put down the comb, crossed to the door, and dropped the latch. She checked it once with her hand. Then again.

"Ah, Marouda would need a battering ram, cara." Vito offered.

"But Marouda has the slipper, Vitale."

She came back to the basin and splashed her face, still talking through the water. "Never, never does he stop the talking. He talks through the wine, through the gout, through the sneeze. Un fiume, Vitale, a river of words."

"Terrible. A tragedy, moglie."

The rant continued. "And Ginevra, hardly a word she says. All the afternoon she sits, the attendant fanning, fanning, and on her not one bead of sweat. I begin to think we have talked to a statue in silk."

"Unforgivable, shameful even.

She worked rose oil into her palms with short, savage strokes. "And those brothers, Madonna. The silk one, bow, bow, bow, at every sentence, every sentence, Vitale. I thought that cap would end in the wine. And the wool one, with the stylus, scratch, scratch, like a rat inside the wall."

She paused, rubbing the oil into her fingers. "And every time the one contradicts the other, click, click, click, the rings, like a moneychanger having a fit. I wanted to throw a shoe at the pair of them, I swear it."

She flung one hand toward the ceiling.

"Both shoes, Vitale, at the same time."

Then Caterina continued without missing a beat. "And that woman, Marina. Again and again she tries to marry off my marito to some stranger from Ca’ Molin, over my table, in front of my face. As if I were the furniture, per l’amor di Dio!"

Vito clasped both hands to his chest.

"Ma va’. A crime."

"Are you even listening, Vitale?"

Vito turned the scraps face-down on his knee. "The cane ate your floor, sì. Ginevra’s attendant fanned a statue in silk. The twins clicked like a moneychanger having a fit. I listened, cara mia, every word."

He spread his fingers, magnanimous. "I would have found you a third, moglie, gladly, a whole cobbler’s shop. And Marina tried to marry me off to a Molin girl right over your table, as if you were the furniture. Che offesa!"

Caterina made a noise halfway between a laugh and a groan, then she turned back to the basin and braced both hands on its edge. Her shoulders dropped an inch.

Vito raised a brow.

The notebook lay open beside the dish of pins, and she closed it with the small snap that ended her working day.

Then she braided her hair loosely for the night, dabbed a last touch of rose oil on each wrist, and came to the bed with the scent of rosewater rising ahead of her.

"Move over, move." she slid in. "You’ve taken the whole bolster, Vitale."

"But I keep it warm for you, moglie mia."

Vito gathered the scraps and set them on the trunk.

He opened an arm for what the last few nights had taught him to expect, a woman draped across his chest and asleep within a few breaths.

She snuggled against his side.

Tonight her fingers stayed curled at his ribs, one leg held stiffly where it lay.

"What is it, cara?"

"Nothing. Sleep, Vitale, go to sleep."

She said it too fast. Even by lamplight, the blush was obvious, climbing her throat.

Vito waited. The wick hissed, and the pilings creaked.

"Caterina... dai, cara."

"It is stupid, Vitale. Una sciocchezza."

She told it to his neck.

"This, the two of us, stretched out here like a nun and a priest, two saints on a tomb."

A joke arrived behind his teeth, fully dressed, with a monk and a goat in it. He swallowed the whole thing.

"And then this chastity, mia cara, what is it for?"

He left the silence open.

Caterina drew a breath and let it out in pieces.

"You kept your word, sì. Three nights, Vitale, and every one of them I resent."

"I know, cara. I know."

"We could... ecco... we could..."

Her fingers tightened at his chest.

"A little... some of it. Only some, Dio mio, you know what I mean, don’t make me say it."

Vito knew exactly what she meant.

By then she snapped due the embarrassment. "Husband and wife we call ourselves, before half of Venezia, before servants, before fishwives, before a priest. A few kisses, ma dai, they are less scandalous than that, much less."

"Tell me what you want, moglie. Clearly. That I do, and not one thing more."

She lifted herself onto one elbow. Her braid slid over his shoulder, warm and heavy.

Her face hung close above his, her breath quick, her green eyes on his lips as though they owed her a debt.

"Kiss me, Vitale. Slowly... piano, piano."

He started at the corner of her lips, barely touching her.

Once, then again, chaste as a blessing. Her breath caught, and her fingers curled lightly against his shoulder.

He kissed her a third time, lingering at the corner before taking her properly. Her lips parted beneath his, and her hand slipped into his hair, drawing him closer as the kiss deepened.

"That was not chaste," Caterina remarked, a little dazed.

"The first two were, mia cara. Only the first two."

She laughed against his mouth, and he kissed her again, slow and lingering. Her fingers tightened in his hair, and when she caught his lower lip gently between her teeth, the laugh disappeared into a breathless little sound.

"Cazzo... Dio santo."

He answered in kind, small bites across her lower lip before letting the kiss wander, slower now, across her cheek and down toward her ear. The rose oil lingered there, warm beneath his breath, and her teasing gave way to a gentle, unsteady sigh.

She leaned into him without seeming to notice, her fingers tightening at the back of his neck whenever his lips lingered.

He reached her throat and lingered, his lips resting there until she forgot to breathe.

Whatever answer she meant to give him came out as a soft, broken moan.

His hands stayed at her back, drawing her closer as the kiss deepened while her braid loosened beneath his fingers and spilled over his shoulder, the careful plait coming apart strand by strand.

Caterina was flushed with embarrassment.

Vito knew why. The plain fact of him lay pressed against her hip, with only her chemise and his smallclothes between them.

He reached for a joke. The words caught, and the joke never made it out.

His hand drifted lower along her back, and she caught his wrist and pressed it flat against the bolster.

"Ah, no. Stay. Fermo, Vitale."

Her blush was bright, pink to the ears.

Her voice came flat and businesslike, like a note read aloud. "It must be very hard, marito, to sleep like that. So I help you, generously. As a good wife should."

Her free hand slipped beneath the sheet.

The linen whispered as she touched him, and Vito’s head fell back against the bolster. For one breath he could only stare at the ceiling, before a helpless laugh escaped him.

"Moglie... Dio, moglie..."