Chapter 140: Til Debt Do Us Part

The gondola finished its slow turn with the tide, and the next day was to keep a promise.

Vito had promised a blind man that he would hear of any marriage before the fishwives, the priest, or the bells. It was the only oath he ever kept ahead of schedule in either of his two lives.

The Doge received the news with delight, followed by a coughing fit that lasted longer than his delight and an immediate demand for details. He wanted to know everything, starting with the ring and ending with what it had cost.

Ca’ del Leon heard next. Marouda took her place beside Caterina, as if she had never belonged anywhere else. Fantin, Domenego, and the cook followed, and by noon the whole Rialto knew.

Caterina treated the marriage like a cargo shipment.

She tallied the costs and drew up her plan for a formal document, Ambrogio’s blessing at a church door, Zaccaria and Fantin as witnesses, and a meal at home.

That was the cheapest arrangement that would satisfy both God and the Republic.

Vito accepted every part of the plan happily enough, he would have married her in a barrel if that was what she wanted. He helped whatever she wanted, and the household assumed the matter was done.

They were about to learn otherwise.

The broth boy brought Caterina’s plan up the palace stairs, and the Doge rejected it.

A wedding, he explained, told the Rialto what sort of house it was dealing with. A house with a Council seat, a fraterna, a yard, and a casa in Castello couldn’t afford to marry cheaply, as every lender on the bridge would take notice and set their credit accordingly.

Caterina could find no fault in his reasoning, which irritated her more than an outright mistake would have, as being bested on a matter of credit by a blind man lying under his blankets was a new experience.

She wrote a single line changing the plan, and the wedding would befit the standing of the house.

The marriage grew grander, but the matter remained private. There would be a proper ceremony with Ambrogio at the altar, a feast, the six little Barozzini households, the houses Caterina had business with, and then everyone would go home.

A sensible merchant would have considered the business finished.

The Doge, unfortunately, had other ideas.

He had led an assault against an empire’s sea walls at an age when most people needed help getting to the bathroom, and he approached the wedding with the same determination. Seated in his chair, he bargained for one concession at a time.

First he would bless the match, then attend the feast, and finally give the bride away himself.

Her grandfather was dead, and the main Contarini branch had been refused. Each small agreement won him another, and Ca’ del Leon surrendered its rooms one by one while the old man never left his chair.

Ambrogio knew the Church calendar by habit. He found the narrow schedule available that winter, in the latter half of January, leaving the household to discover just how little time remained.

The ceremony was moved to San Marco, the Doge’s chapel, which he could lend to whomever he pleased. Ambrogio, the only priest either Vito or Caterina could stand to have in a doorway, was given the altar.

He wept when he heard the news, charged for his tears, and raised his candle prices to match the rank of the church.

The feast moved into the Palace, and the Doge paid a substantial share of the bill. No one recorded how he managed it, and Caterina couldn’t accept a gift without knowing its price, so she set open a separate ledger for his contribution and called it a debt not yet named.

The ducal oath forbade the whole business, and the council made sure the Doge understood this at considerable length.

He answered with a story about a debt of friendship to Caterina’s grandfather, a private arrangement between two old men, one of whom was dead, and a matter that had nothing to do with the state.

It was a bullshit story, told to a room full of people whose faces he couldn’t see.

Cannaregio put it on his tally stick, while Dorsoduro slept through the best part. The Great Council now faced the prospect of fighting with a Doge in his eighties who coughed dark into a cloth at every sitting.

Other business suddenly seemed urgent, and the Councillors ran out of objections before the Doge ran out of story.

Caterina drew up the guest list as carefully as any business account. The household and the six little households came first, followed by the houses she had business with, friends from the Great Council, patricians and acquaintances worth knowing, and finally Cannaregio and Dorsoduro, who would attend the Doge’s elbow.

Every seat had a price, measured by what it might bring in return, and every invitation opened a door. The Rialto regarded the list as a second roll of the Council, except this one promised better food.

Marina Badoer saw the list as a stock of eligible matches and immediately put it to use, pairing widows and widowers across the tables before the ink had dried.

The Scotti twins sent a single gift in two crates, each accompanied by a note disowning the other.

Ginevra Frescobaldi and Ranuccio Salimbeni, who had managed not to agree on anything for twenty years, sent their gifts on the same day, though their contacts had been instructed to use different bridges.

Orsola and Almorò Contarini received invitations in a note so polite it could have peeled fruit, and were seated at the far end of the hall.

The Barozzi under the hat were left out.

Vito’s old steward, who had carried him as a small boy to the boat shed, made the first list, along with the nurse who had taught him his letters from a cargo tally. Tonin belonged there too.

He read through the names and supplied commentary as he went. Caterina removed his remarks from the record and told him where to sign, and he signed wherever she pointed.

A seal, she reminded him, never talks.

The draft still had one blank to fill.

The main Contarini branch had offered silver, a chapel, and a house, and Caterina had refused all three. Her dowry came from her own branch in Constantinople, already bound to the Barozzini through a fraterna in everything but name.

The vows would make the connection official, and the deed that had been waiting to receive her now received her as the notary closed the gap with a single stroke.

By law, the dowry belonged to her.

The Constantinople branch’s formal assent would have to wait until March, when the sea opened.

The remaining questions were small ones.

The Palace kitchens and Ca’ del Leon’s cook figured their boundary by treaty, with a witness present. The rest of the food came straight from the lagoon, whole roasted fish, crab, and marsh duck.

They would serve Commandaria too, the wine a king had once used to toast his own wedding.

The new cloth came from Marina’s stall. Caterina chose samite for her gown and cendal for her veil, both cut in the Constantinople manner, with long sleeves and close-fitting wrists. Vito received a new mantle dyed in the house colors and stood still for the pins until his legs finally rebelled.

Silks from Constantinople, woven with peacocks and griffins, lined the hall. Gilded lamps hung from chains, while Venezia displayed its banners and finest cloths from every window along the Molo. Ambrogio’s candles stood in ranks.

Caterina woke in the night to correct sums that were already correct, and Vito went through every item with her. When her worry rose, he made jokes about the crab. and when it rose further, he stopped joking and held the list while she counted.

Then the day arrived, and every item had been crossed off.

Before the first bell, a barge left the Molo for Castello with a blind old man aboard, tucked under his blankets and clutching a folded cloth in his fist.