Chapter 150: The Thumb of Anatolia

Eleven hulls left the Golden Horn with the first fair wind and pushed their way up the Bosphorus against a current that fought every oar.

Beyond the northern passage, where the Argonauts had once slipped between the clashing rocks, they emerged onto the sea the Greeks had first called the inhospitable and later renamed the hospitable, which was a considerable improvement on the Greeks’ part.

The fleet accepted the new name, and Bepi stuck to the old one.

The Anatolian shore spread across their starboard side, while the galleys kept to seaward and screened the naves. Forested mountains appeared above the water, and not a Latin banner showed on any headland.

By day the needle brought them around the bights, and by night the convoy docked in the lee of a cape. Bepi trusted the needle first, the sun second, and his own eyes third.

Every dawn he checked the monk’s chart for the winged beast, which still hadn’t shown up. So the days passed, seven of them in all.

Vito’s histories said little about Sinope. The city belonged to the Empire of Trebizond, which two brothers of the Komnenos line, Alexios and David, had carved out across the coast in the spring of the sack, with Georgian spears behind them.

David had pushed their territory westward, mile by mile.

Three powers had their eyes on the place, and none of them was likely to be satisfied. Trebizond wanted to keep what it had taken, while Kaykhusraw I, Sultan at Konya, wanted a port on this sea, and the histories had his horsemen riding toward the coast in these very years.

From the west came Nicaea, ruled by Laskaris, another Greek claimant who wanted the whole Empire for himself.

The same books placed the Sultan in Sinope in the autumn of 1214, eight years from now. They had also buried a blind Doge in Thrace, though the fellow was still sitting in his chair in Venezia, which left open the possibility that 1214 might arrive early, late, or not at all.

The old grudge lay beneath everything. The towns across this coast sheltered refugees from the sack, and the Lion flying from the masthead was the same Lion that had flown over the breach.

The brothers’ grandfather, Emperor Andronikos, had come to power in 1182 on the back of a mob turned loose against the Latin quarter, so there was grudge enough on both sides. The fleet would be the first Venetian ships to put in at this port, and it would answer for the breach whether the town liked it or not.

The harbor explained why everyone wanted Sinope, it was one of the finest on that southern coast, lying along a low neck of land with water on either side and two entrances to choose from.

Behind the city, the countryside sloped down toward the water, and the inland roads led into the Sultan’s territory and beyond it to the caravans bound for the Middle East.

Ahead lay the sea, with the long crossing north to Soldaia and the Crimean shore.

The town had the usual goods of a place blessed with mountains, valleys, and water. Timber and naval supplies came down from the hills, salt fish came from the sea, and produce came from the valleys.

The red earth used by painters came from here too, and they called it sinopis after the city, but none of the histories gave figures for any of these goods, nor did anyone aboard know what the throne charged each keel to enter the harbor.

The holds would carry whatever the convoy could sell, from plain woolens and linen for soldiers to wine for a garrison’s table, church brasses for Greek altars, silk for a governor’s household, and glass beads for those who fancied them.

Whatever they bought in return would come down from the country or across the sea, and the accounts would show where it had come from.

The inland caravans and the sea route north also fed the slave markets of the south, for trade seldom troubled itself over the distinction between what was profitable and what was decent.

As for the welcome, it could go one of three ways.

An open hand meant a harbormaster, customs and a market, while some chain stretched across the harbor meant a long wait beneath a row of spears, and the fight meant a seized fleet, which in turn meant ransom money or a sale of the crews.

A governor short of money might look at fat hulls and see either customers or prizes. Bepi expected the worst from every port, so he put his money on prizes.

Even then, profit had beaten the same old grudge once already. The Greek houses that had sold the venture their wardrobes for bread hated the Venetians at breakfast and earned their hyperpyra by noon.

That was business when both sides could profit. Whatever Sinope decided, the rest of the coast would hear about it, as if the town bought, the next harbor might buy too, and if it hanged them, the Komnenos would hear that news just as quickly.

The venture set apart tons of small goods in crates on deck, needles, knives, shears, and silver bells, all intended to be presented to the harbormaster over breakfast.

Vito spoke Greek, and Caterina had grown up speaking it in Constantinople, so there was no need to hire a dragoman.

The Lion stayed flying, and the galleys, on the other hand, looked too much like a war fleet to soldiers who still remembered the sack, so they struck their war colors and passed themselves off as an escort.

Zorzi and Zustignana would keep the naves outside bowshot while La Contessa entered first, alone.

If the chain went up, she would offer no fight but turn back under her oars, and the convoy would withdraw to the next harbor. They would lose one market and nothing more, since the Barozzini owned no property on this sea.

Eventually, one day, the boy in the lookout cried. "Messer! Messer, Madonna santa, land! Land, dead ahead! A green thumb, I swear on my mother’s bones, shoved right out into the sea! And it’s smoking, Messer, smoking like a pot of tripe forgotten on the fire!"

At the steering oars, Bepi checked the needle, then the sun, then the chart.

There was no winged beast anywhere on it.

He bellowed across the waters. "Stroke, you drowned herrings! Stroke, mona, Stroke! You want that thumb to see us come in like a basket of spilled sardines? Row like Christians, row like Venetians, and make it respect us!"

A long green spit of land reached into the sea from a low neck, with dark mountains rising behind it in tiers.

The water had grown darker since the straits, and smoke hung low beyond the spit.

Vito freed his arm from Caterina’s and swept it across the whole green coast with flourish. The scholar’s grin tugged at his mouth, and his shoulders stayed loose, as if no spear on those towers could concern a man with a good line in hand.

He explained cheekily. "Behold, moglie mia, Sinope! Birthplace of the famous madman who lived in a jar and told the conqueror of the world to step out of his light! Ah, but we carry a hundred and eighty-two tons of wine, no? So if the old dog’s ghost fancies a jar, ecco, let him choose, he will find the finest cellar on the whole sea, and I swear he will not ask us to move out of his light!"

Caterina lifted her head from his shoulder just far enough for him to see one eyebrow rise. Then she let her head fall back with a sigh of fond, merciless pity. "Ma dai, Vitale mio, a Contarini would have sold the philosopher the jar, and the lid, and a nice rope to carry it. Then he would have sent a bill to Alexander for standing in the man’s light. Per carità, amore, don’t tempt your blood."

As the convoy drew closer, a wall came into view across the neck, its weathered stone patched in the Greek fashion, with towers spaced along it.

Beyond the wall, the town climbed from the water in tiled roofs, and a citadel stood at the higher end. There was a bay on either side, and the piers of the nearer one stretched into the sea like an arm, but nobody aboard could tell which bay held the main harbor.

Neither bay held anything that could genuinely be called a fleet. Heads appeared on the towers, a trumpet sounded, and the brown fishing boats rushed toward the beach.

The gifts waited on deck, the colors flew, and Zorzi and Zustignana fell back with the naves just as planned.

Vito watched the towers, his face still easy, while Bepi tightened his grip on the steering oar.

The boy at the bow found his voice once more. "Boat! Messer, boat, boat! Coming out from behind the mole, oars flashing wet in the sun, and a banner I’ve never seen before!"

She came in low and fast, her form marking her as a customs boat. A man stood in the bow with a staff, while amidships a clerk held a writing board across his knees.

No one aboard could name the banner flying at her stern, and her bow wave curled white as every stroke brought the two hulls another length closer.