Chapter 135: A Lap, Duly Earned

The stairs of L’Angelo had fourteen steps when Vito started up and nineteen when he checked them again at the top, so he figured both numbers were probably true enough.

Zaccaria had walked him as far as the entrance and left him there, an unfortunate duty.

The wall kept leaning into his shoulder, and [Artiglio del Leone] knocked against the plaster, while the Commandaria rode on his breath, all honey, raisin, and oak.

A thin gold smudge of lamplight showed beneath the last door.

Vito put his forehead against the wood and knocked with his voice. "Moglie! Mia cara! Anima mia! Open, open! It is I, Vitale Barozzi, the newest and least-employed Duke-maker in all the Most Serene Republic! I see your lamp under here, I know! I know you kept it burning while the whole city drank itself into the canal. It is the finest lamp in Venezia, cara, and I am in love with its owner. In love, I tell you, like a dog, like a poet, like a fool!"

There was no reply, so he begrudgingly set open the door himself.

Caterina sat at the little table in her chemise, her overgown open and slipping crookedly from her, as if she had forgotten it was there. Her loose night braid had fallen forward, and she absently tucked it back while finishing her line, one fingertip black with ink.

Every letter in its stall, and only then the light found her face.

"The door, Vitale. Close it."

Her voice was pitched for the sleeping house, for walls that had ears and ears that had cousins.

Vito waited for the eyebrow, squinting, braced. But the sky stayed clear, and in the calm he forgot what he had been waiting to see.

She laid the pen across the page and stood, then brought him across a floor that tilted twice, which he forgave thrice. At the chair beside the bed, she unbuckled [Artiglio del Leone] with gentle hands and hung it over the back with the mantle.

Then she lifted the torn edge, and her fingers stopped on a pale, ragged patch where San Marco should have stood.

"Vitale, your lion. Where has he gone?"

"The goat ate it."

Vito raised one finger, a prophet’s finger, before the objection could be born. "Mia cara, the brown goat, split in the ear, sent to the Duke of Candia by the cat of Giacomo Tiepolo as a bride! Sì, sì, a bride, and then, cazzo, then she bites the Republic clean off my hem!"

He bared his teeth and snapped where the lion had been. "Chomp! Like that! And she chews, she chews, staring straight at the Basilica, thinking the houses for supper! San Marco, he is edible, Caterina, edible! We must tell the Doge!"

She let the hem fall and spoke, kindly, with no heat at all. "That was good thread, Vitale. I will have the lion sewn back on, and I hope the poor creature, she had the digestion for the first."

Caterina sank to one knee, caught him like a farrier, and held out her palm.

"Boots, marito. The foot, no, the other foot."

The boots thumped against the floorboards, and she rose and went for the belt, the buckle clicking loose under quick, unembarrassed fingers.

"Arms up, caro. Higher. Like a saint on a cheap altarpiece."

Vito obeyed, arms aloft, and addressed the beams. "Behold, Venezia! Behold how the Most Serene rewards her heroes, one sleeve at a time, by the gentle hands of a wife with the tenderness of a customs officer!"

The tunic came away stiff with wine and smoke, the old scars standing pale in the lamplight, and he clapped hands over the string of his smallclothes. "Ah, no, no, no, cara mia! Here, here the jurisdiction of the Republic, it ends! The frontier! The sacred frontier! Cross it and I call the army!"

She laid the back of her fingers against his forehead, checking for fever. "Keep your frontier, marito, I have no designs on it. Sit, sit, before it is the floor that conquers you."

With the suspicion only rest wouldn’t do, Caterina poured from the jug, the water ringing thin against the cup, and he sniffed at it with suspicion.

"Eh, cara. The water, it is boiled?"

"I live with you, marito. Of course it is boiled, drink."

He drank that cup and a second. Then she tucked the blanket from the bed around his shoulders and brought him into her chair at the table.

Caterina looked at him for a heartbeat, and there was the smallest mischief in her eyes before she turned and lay sideways across his lap. She took her time about it, smoothing her skirts beneath her and snuggling herself comfortably against him.

The chair let out a deep complaining creak beneath them.

His arms closed around her, the traitors, but his eyes narrowed with the suspicion.

"Aspetta, wait, wait, you told me, cara, that I must earn it. This is a trap, with interest!"

"As if you’d complain if it was."

She smoothed the blanket over his shoulder, unhurried. "The Rialto earned it for you and sent me the figures, marito. The city sings your day under the window by Compline, and already, already, the song has a bear in it. The dividend goes to the holder and tomorrow it goes back in the books, and you earn it all over again. Capito?"

"More than enough, mia cara. It was a might display, early today."

Her warmth lay against him through the thin layers of linen, and Vito’s hand rested more comfortably at her waist.

He told her with a short laugh. "The candle, it drowned on my word, pfft, out, and the whole Republic, the whole Most Serene Republic, it threw its cushions like a wedding!"

At last, one eyebrow lifted, scarcely at all, but the look that followed warmed the distance between them. Her fingertip lingered against his chest, lightly, then one small tap.

Vito smiled, then he lowered his voice. "We talked, he and I, after the bell. Down, down to the bottom of the keeper’s barrel. And we want the same for the island, cara mia, the same one, every inch, every stone, every goat. This winter, it will be easy for the both of us."

Caterina nodded once, and whatever sums had appeared behind her eyes disappeared. She leaned in and kissed his temple, then lingered close, her ink-stained fingertip brushing his cheek before her hand slipped behind his neck and drew him gently against her.

"And how does it sit, caro? The whole day, all of it."

The joke came to his lips and vanished there. His hand lay against the warmth of her back, while the lamp whispered beside them and he stared into its small, wavering flame.

Caterina only stayed close, her cheek near his, hand resting softly at his neck, and waited.

When the words came, they came stripped of every ribbon, laid down one at a time. "I stood up against my house today, cara. My uncle, he is a greedy arrogant man, and some of the others, they are no better."

"Sì, caro. I know."

The strain in his voice became obvious. "But there is an old steward in that house, Caterina, an old man who brought me to the boat shed when I was this big on his shoulders, smelling of tar and onions. And a nurse who taught me my letters from a cargo tally, A for amphorae, B for bales, eh? And a cousin who kept the kitchen books and slipped me figs under the table. Figs!"

Vito exhaled deeply. "They sit at that table tonight, all of them. They hear my name spoken at the head of it, spat like trash, and are forced to either agree or be punished."

The tremor had come back into his hand.

Caterina took it between hers and drew it gently against her, warming his fingers between her palms before bringing them to her lips for a chaste kiss. She held his hand there for a moment, her thumb brushing slowly across his knuckles.

As if strengthened by the tenderness, he continued. "They raised me, Caterina. And I put my name against that house, in front of the whole Republic, in front of God and the Feathers, and I will do it again by breakfast, I swear it. But the old steward’s face, cara. I close my eyes, he is there. I open them, he is still there."

"Sì, marito. Sì."

Her forehead came down against his temple, warm and heavy as a blessing.

Caterina’s voice dripped with care. "Of course it hurts, amore. They raised you, and it would be a sickness if it did not. And you did right, you did right, Vitale. Now breathe for me. slowly, there, like that. Tomorrow you give me their names, every one, and we see what is to be done. Tonight, tonight you sit here, and you are only tired."

Her thumb stroked slowly over his knuckles, then she drew his hand against her and covered it with hers. His fingers tightened around hers, and the trembling eased until there was nothing left but the warmth of her palm beneath his.

The couple stayed in the chair while the gondolier called far off down the canal, the lamp burned lower, and the room smelled of rosewater and ink.

His fingers found the end of her braid and slowly wound it around one knuckle, drawing her a little closer with the gentle tug. He let the braid slip through his fingers and leaned into her, his lips near her ear as he spoke, his voice warm and low, carrying the last sweetness of the Commandaria.

"Moglie. Listen. In all of Venezia, there is only one more work of importance left to do."

He repeated with tender resolve.

"Only the one, cara. Only the one."

Caterina didn’t ask which work. The blush rising into her ears was enough for an answer, and she only looked at him for a dozen heartbeats, her lips curving despite herself. Then her fingertip touched his chest and lingered there, a little promise.