Chapter 142: Paid in Full, with Interest*

Vito kicked off his boots by the door, the Commandaria still cracking in his skull.

Caterina stood in the middle of the floor in blue, her circlet crooked and her cendal slipping off one ear. She swayed a little, quite at ease, her hips shifting beneath the blue silk as the clinging fabric traced the gentle curves of her figure.

"Sober, I am!"

Caterina informed the bed, which was left of where she pointed her finger.

"Perfectly, completely sober, te digo, and I want it written down, with a seal!

Her chin lifted like a duchess before a tribunal.

"Me. Only me. The one sober soul on this whole island."

Vito laughed. "Sober, certo, certo, moglie, is the floor who has been drinking since noon. I saw it heave in the round dance like a galley in a squall."

He came at her with arms flung wide.

"Dai, sit, sit, before it throws you off."

She sat on the edge of the bed with great care, as a sober woman would, and stuck one foot out at him. He knelt, took the foot in both hands, and worked the shoe loose.

Even through her hose, it was cold as a fish.

"Longer than Lent, that Mass. Madonna santa, longer than Lent!"

She watched his hands on her shoe with the grave suspicion. "Twice I count the candles on the altar, twice, and two different sums. Never before, never in my life, me, who can total a ship’s cargo tally in my sleep. It is the incense, the incense, I blame."

"The incense, sì, sì, that poor incense has so much to answer for."

Vito warmed her foot between his palms. "I kept my thumbs in my armpits through the whole Credo, mia cara, like a hen on her eggs, so the ring would be warm when it went on your finger. And not one soul saw it, every eye in the church was on you."

A hiccup cracked her laugh clean in two, and she presented the next foot with queenly impatience. "And you! ’Messer Doge, with all reverence.’ Dio, with all reverence! I hear your spine creak from the back of the hall. Creak, creak, like timber in a storm."

Vito clapped a hand to his heart, mortally wounded. "I call the Doge of Venezia my delivery boy, in front of the council, and he laughs, Caterina! Put that in your books. A victory!"

The next shoe came off. Her veil had caught on the circlet, so Vito rose to free it, but the cendal had snagged on the gilt, tugging at her hair and drawing the delicate fabric against her cheek whenever he tried to ease it loose.

"Piano, piano, don’t pull! Madonna, don’t pull! Is cendal. Priced, I tell you, priced!"

Her hand flew up to guard the veil like a hen spreading her wings over a chick.

"Me? Pull? Never."

He pulled.

She yelped, and suddenly their faces were a hand apart, her hair caught between his fingers and her wine-sweet breath warming his neck. Her blue-clad figure brushed against him as she leaned forward, their noses nearly touching, her lips close enough to invite a kiss neither quite claimed.

They lingered for a heartbeat, caught between amusement and warmer affection, until laughter spoiled the moment, then the veil came free and landed on his head.

"Behold."

He stood beneath the veil with gravity.

"The man who took an island, brought low, ruined, finished, by one rag."

"A priced rag."

She plucked it off his head, then climbed onto the bed on her knees, the blue silk gathering around her hips as she leaned forward to find the clasp of his mantle. The pin caught her thumb, and she drew back with a sharp little hiss.

Vito bit his laugher down. "Basta, basta! Hold still, you little brigand, give it here. You will bleed to death in my mantle, and then who pays the notary?"

She hung the mantle on its peg, then turned her back to him and held out her wrists, tilting her head to one side with an expectant little smile.

The words came teasingly. "Marouda sewed me into these at dawn, a knot at each wrist. She says a bride, she must be earned, kyria. Earned!"

There was no blade at his belt, so Vito caught one wrist and brought it to his mouth, worrying at the stitches with his teeth. He worked slowly, the thread yielding one stitch at a time, his lips brushing her skin as he went.

Beneath them, her pulse quickened, and the hand resting in his loosened its grip by degrees.

"Don’t tear it! Don’t you dare tear it."

The threat wavered halfway through, and she didn’t seem to notice.

"The samite is entered in the accounts, every ell."

Vito muttered around the threads.

"I kill an Emperor in an alley, and he fights me less, Caterina. These knots, they are Greek devils."

The next wrist came free.

"And what else did she sew? Say it now, so I know how many sieges I face."

"The rest is only laces."

She said it with great pity.

"Laces, Vitale. Courage, my brave one. Be brave."

He found the first lace and straightened up.

"Lace the first! Hear, all Venezia, hear! The groom meets resistance and, sacramento, he prevails!"

He loosened the next.

"Lace the next! The garrison begs for terms, and ostrega, terms she shall have, generous ones!"

Her hand flew back over his mouth, but he delivered the next proclamation against her palm, his words muffled by her touch and his grin unmistakable beneath it.

The samite slipped down her arms and gathered at her waist, leaving her in the thin linen of her chemise, and the cold raised gooseflesh across her shoulders, drawing a little squeak from her as Vito caught her arms between his palms and rubbed warmth back into them.

She leaned into his hands before she could think better of it, her head bowing to expose the nape of her neck, where he pressed a kiss that lingered just long enough to draw another shiver from her.

Rising to her feet, Caterina let the samite fall and stepped out of it, laying the costly garment across the foot of the bed with the care she reserved for valuable property.

In her chemise, the contrast between her slender waist and the fuller sweep of her hips was all the more noticeable, the linen laying lightly against her figure, its neckline dipping low enough to reveal the gentle swell of her breasts and a small beauty mark just above them.

She sat on the edge of the bed with unhurried composure, quite unaware, or perhaps perfectly aware, of the view she offered her husband.

Vito lifted the circlet from her hair, set it on the ewer, and picked up the comb, drawing it from her crown to her waist in long, unhurried strokes. The tangles crackled softly in the cold, and as her hair spilled over her shoulders and down her back, the Panagia’s flame caught its copper glints, while the scent of rose oil rose warm around them.

Gradually, she grew still beneath the steady strokes, her head tipping back and her eyes slipping closed as she surrendered to the gentle pull of the comb. One strap slid down her shoulder, baring the smooth curve of it, and Vito nudged it back into place with a knuckle, his touch lingering just long enough to make her lips curl in a faint, contented smile.

It slipped again.

"Badly," she murmured, eyes shut, voice thick as honey. "You do this very badly

"Badly? No, no."

He drew the comb down slowly, to the end.

"Slowly, mia cara. It is not the same."

Turning toward him, Caterina knelt between his knees and set about undoing the ties of his tunic with the quick, practiced fingers of a broker, though her smile suggested she was enjoying the view almost as much as the task.

The tunic caught over his head before he could pull it free, leaving him blind inside it with his arms trapped beside his ears, and a muffled ’cazzo’ emerged from the darkness.

Caterina dissolved into laughter at the sight of her husband defeated by his own clothes, leaning back on her heels as he struggled to free himself.

Then she stopped.

Once her laughter subsided, Caterina laid both palms flat against his bare chest, her fingers spreading over the warmth of his skin. Old scars showed pale in the firelight, and her gaze lingered on the thin line along his forearm before wandering back to his chest, where she traced one faint mark with her thumb.

Then, with all the solemnity, she pressed an inked fingertip over his heart and lifted it again, leaving a gray print against his skin.

"Entered. One husband. Received. In good condition, more or less."

A low laugh escaped him as Caterina turned her attention to the points of his hose, undoing them with brisk efficiency. Yet somewhere along the way, her fingers lost their haste, lingering over each knot as though the task had grown unexpectedly complicated, until the last came loose and his smallclothes remained between them.

Before Caterina could reach for the bolster, Vito swept her into his arms and brought her to the bed, earning a startled laugh as he dropped them both onto the feathers. He drew her close until her head nestled beneath his chin and her leg tangled with his.

The shutter whistled through its gap, the Panagia’s flame burned steadily, and the ring caught the light where her hand rested against his chest, just beside the gray print over his heart.

"Months, Vitale. Months I call you marito only to make you flinch, to watch you jump like a cat with a firecracker."

The teasing had drained out of her voice, and what was left was small and bare.

"And today, a priest comes and takes the joke away from me."

She tried it again, with nowhere to hide.

"Marito."

"Moglie..."

When he spoke again, it was brief and warm. "A well in the courtyard, a seat in the Council, bah! I trade every stone of this palazzo for this one room, you hear me? Every stone."

His voice dropped, stripped of its usual brass.

"I mean to live here. Here, with you. Live."

Her thumb brushed his collarbone, a small, absent movement as she looked up at him, her eyes glistening in the firelight. For once, she made no attempt to disguise it with a jest or a smile, letting him see the tenderness she had spent so long hiding behind both.

"The account has been outstanding a long, long time, marito, and I charge for waiting."

"Then you’ll be paid with interest."

A soft laugh escaped her as she slipped her fingers into his hair, drawing him closer with a fond little tug.

"Basta chiacchiere, marito. Stop talking."

Vito caught both her wrists in one hand and held them against the feathers above her head, a playful glint in his eyes as he laughed against her lips before leaning over her, close enough that his loose hair brushed her cheek.

He kissed the inside of her wrist where the thread had pressed against her pulse, then turned her hand to press his lips to the inked fingertip, lingering over the gray stain with an affection that drew a smile from her.

When he reached her mouth, he brushed his lips against hers before kissing her properly, slow and unhurried, coaxing her into meeting him halfway until her fingers curled against his palm.

A little sugar still clung to the corner of her mouth, and he caught it with another kiss before trailing his lips along her cheek to her throat, lingering there before descending to her collarbone.

The strap finally slipped from her shoulder, and the linen followed, loosening beneath his hand.

His hand cupped her breast beneath the loosened linen, his thumb grazing her skin as he bent to kiss her again, and the teasing smile she had worn all evening melted into a far less composed moan.

Caterina tilted her face to his, catching his lower lip between hers before drawing him into a deeper kiss, her fingers slipping into his hair as she pulled him closer. When his mouth wandered down, she turned her head to give him room, only to catch his cheek with her lips and murmur his name against his skin.

His arm tightened around her waist, drawing her against him until she could feel the warmth of him from chest to thigh, and she answered by hooking her leg around his hip, keeping him close when he lifted his head to look at her.

Whatever clever remark had been waiting on her tongue was lost to a breathless laugh, and she brushed her mouth against his once more, inviting him to finish what he’d started as the feathers shifted beneath them.

"Vitale," she breathed, and the name cracked on her tongue like a seal on warm wax.

"Caterina," he murmured into her throat, roughly.

Her hand closed around his shoulder, and the ring caught the last of the flame. Vito reached up and pinched the wick between his fingers.

"Panagia mia."

He held the wick between thumb and forefinger, solemn as a penitent. "Marouda says you see everything. Then please, Madonna, this once, blink. Allow me to spare you the rest."

Darkness filled the room. Out over the water, a bell began the night office, and the timbers of the bed answered with a slow creaking of their own.