Chapter 151: Empire of Trebizond

The boat came alongside with a thump, its bow staff rapping La Contessa’s planking.

Its banner belonged to the archon who held Sinope for the Emperor at Trebizond, and it showed a gold eagle on red, faded by salt and sun. The man with the staff was the harbormaster, while his clerk sat amidships with a writing board on their knees.

The harbormaster tipped his head back until the whole length of the mast was in his eye, and the Lion at the top of it, and held it there past the point of courtesy.

Then he spat neatly to leeward and spoke in Greek. "Panagia mou, I know that Lion. The last time it came calling it didn’t use the harbor, Frank, it came over the walls of the with ladders and a priest to bless them. So, your business, and be brisk about it, the lads on the piers have been standing in the sun since dawn, and their patience is thinner than my wages."

Caterina stood beside Vito, her arm through his, and replied first in the Greek spoken in the city itself, with the accent to match. "Kyrie harbormaster, may the Mother of God keep your house. We carry no spears, only needles and wine, and a husband far too fond of haggling, you will find us a great deal gentler than our banner."

Vito spread one hands wide, and put on the face of a sincere tradesman. "We want leave to tie up, spend our silver in your town, and be gone before you’ve even tired of us. And I’d never come to a man’s door empty-handed, there’s a little gift for your breakfast, there on my deck, no hooks in it, I swear on my mother’s soul."

The harbormaster looked at the crate, and when two sailors lowered it, the clerk lifted the lid expecting trouble. Inside lay needles, knives, shears and silver bells nestled in straw, with a fistful of dried figs on top for the harbormaster’s breakfast.

The clerk rang a bell and couldn’t stop, leaving the whole pier to listen to him ringing helplessly while his master checked a knife on his thumbnail and ate three figs, considering whether anyone deserved trouble.

The brothers who held this coast had spent the spring of the sack carving an empire out of Georgian spears, and now they needed coin to hire mercenaries against the Sultan’s horsemen and Nicaea’s ships. Even if the harbormaster disliked the Lion, the man he served wanted whatever the ships carried.

The boat headed for the harbor with the clerk and harbormaster aboard, while La Contessa lay beneath the bows all morning.

At noon the boat returned, the harbormaster in the bow. "Hear it once, Frank, because I’m not paid enough to say it twice. His lordship, in his boundless kindness, admits the Lion to the harbor district. The piers, a customs hall, a few warehouses, and the gate at the end, where your Lion stops, unless his lordship sends an invitation, and the throne takes its due from every keel that kisses this stone."

The naves and La Contessa could come in, while Zorzi and Zustignana remained outside the harbor with their oars shipped.

The district consisted of a short pier, a customs hall, warehouses and a gate at the landward end, where pikemen stood in pairs, while beyond it the town climbed toward the citadel in a patchwork of tiled roofs.

The waterfront watched them tie up in silence, porters sat on the bollards with their arms folded, a priest crossed himself and turned away, women pulled children behind their skirts, and a fisherman spat into the water.

No one threw anything.

The crews were confined to the stone between the bells and slept aboard their ships, while Vito and Caterina stayed aboard La Contessa for safety. Bepi, who had bet on prizes, paid out with a string of grumbles and treated the missing chain as an insult.

Caterina tipped her head toward the bollards. "Ma dai, marito, guardali. All afternoon they’ve stared holes in us, and not one has had the decency to throw a fish. At the Rialto the basket would be empty, the bill on our table, and some fishwife screaming about our mothers before we’d made fast the second line. I feel unloved, Vitale, I feel ignored."

At dusk the pikemen shut the gate.

By dawn, an awning had been raised on the pier, where the venture put up a table with sample bundles of goods, pushed open like oysters. Greek merchants came first, who inspected every bale with an eye on what it would cost them to haul it toward the middle east.

The road spread down into the Sultan’s country and the sea north, so the town kept little for its own table. The venture would sell what brought a respectable profit and keep the rest aboard for the shores beyond.

On the third dawn the archon came down to the awning himself, and Vito crossed the pier to meet him in his wine-dark mantle.

The man was a lean, sun-cured soldier-landlord in court silks frayed at the cuffs, two guards followed him, and he wore no seal at his belt. He looked at the mantle, and finally took a measure of the venture’s wine.

His house had plenty of land and too little commerce, and with wages falling due before autumn, the venture’s money was the first fresh coin to arrive in months. No one could say whose throats that money would end up buying.

When he spoke, it was to the wine rather than to Vito. "Your Lion left a wound on this coast, Frank, and coasts have long memories. I keep that wound in a drawer, shut, and shut it stays until my spears are paid. So pour, merchant, that cup is the first thing in months that has come anywhere near the lock."

Vito poured himself a measure. "Then the drawer deserves a cup of its own, my friend. Cretan, this, and good wine, it asks no man which banner he sails under, and in my experience, no drawer has ever stayed stubborn past the second pour."

The corner of the soldier-landlord’s mouth came close to a smile before he drained the cup.

The back of Vito’s neck stayed warm throughout, a sign that the house beneath that eagle stood on its own ground and the water behind it was safe for docking and trade.

?? [TITLE ACTIVATED — OCCHIO DEL MERCANTE]

?? [TITLE ACTIVATED — CONQUISTATORE PER CONTRATTO]

The throne collected its due on every sale, and no invitation to enter the town arrived, so the restriction remained.

The receipts piled up on the steward’s table, each stamped by the harbormaster’s clerk, who rang his bell between stamps and still could not stop.

Sinope had goods of its own, and the merchants spread them out in the sun. Be the red earth that lend the town its name in bags, beside wax and honey, pitch and naval supplies, salt fish and hazelnuts.

Caterina walked across the tables with her hands folded behind her back while the books waited to decide what would go into the holds.

On the last evening the pikemen shut the barrier and left the pier.

In La Contessa’s cabin, Caterina laid the receipts in a row beneath the lamp.