Chapter 87: Athanasia of Rakotis, Alexandria’s Contact

The merchant crossed the courtyard unhurriedly and certain of every stone beneath her slippers.

Her underdress was fine linen, pale enough to catch what little light got past the awnings, and cut close enough to leave very little to the imagination. The silk followed the voluptuous sweep of her hips and the full roundness beneath them before falling into soft folds around her legs. Over it hung dyed silk the color of ripe pomegranate, loose at one shoulder and gathered low in front.

That meant he had to make a brief and largely unsuccessful effort to keep his eyes anywhere above the generous fullness her low neckline so temptingly revealed.

Gold weighed down her throat and both wrists, more of it than any modest woman back home would have dared wear outside a wedding. Her dark hair hung loose past her shoulders, with no veil anywhere in sight.

Her eyes were darker still, lined in black in a way that made them hard to look away from once they found him.

And they found him now, and matched precisely what he’d been doing to her all the way across the courtyard.

He grinned. That needed no translation.

"As-salamu alaykum," he said, and watched the words land behind her painted eyes.

Her eyebrows went up.

"Wa alaykum as-salam."

She said it slowly, slower than necessary, as a test.

"A Frank, speaking that well. That’s new."

"I’m full of surprises, signora."

"Athanasia of Rakotis.

She told him her name and not much more. "You’d be the Barozzi everyone’s been muttering about since your ships found the harbor."

"Vito." He spread both hands. "Reputation travels faster than cargo, apparently."

"Reputation lies more, usually."

Her gaze narrowed a little, curious rather than unfriendly. "I was not made aware you received my gate word, Ser Barozzi. I’d know, so tell me, who taught a Venetian to say kitmān like he’d been saying it all his life?"

Vito only smiled. "A friend in the trade, I’m afraid. Owed me a favor and paid it in words instead of silver, cheaper for him that way."

"A convenient friend."

"The best kind."

She considered that answer for a moment, found it thin, then let it go, the way a merchant lets go of a coin that won’t ring true twice but isn’t worth arguing over.

"And what do you want from me, Barozzi?"

"Business, of course."

Nothing followed.

She looked at him the way he’d been looking at her, unhurried, and he let her do it, curious enough to see what she’d make of the silence.

"Then a courtyard won’t do."

She turned away and started walking.

"Come. I keep better rooms for better conversations."

Athanasia led them through halls Vito didn’t bother trying to remember and up stairs that parted open, at last, onto air and sky. The terrace looked over rooftops toward a strip of blue that might have been the harbor or the canal. He couldn’t tell which and didn’t much care.

A low table waited beneath a trellis thick with vine, covered with dates, bread, grilled fish, and wine poured freely. It was a private Christian house carrying on quite comfortably despite whatever the street outside expected of it.

Orso planted himself behind Vito’s chair. Two of Athanasia’s men took the same position behind hers.

Orso gave them the flat, professional respect one guard gives another before leaning down toward Vito’s ear.

"Not one word of this I understand, Barozzi."

He kept his voice low, more resigned than annoyed.

"Might as well be listening to gulls."

"Then enjoy the fish, amico. Nobody’s paying you to follow the conversation."

A girl came and went with the plates, her eyes down the whole time, never once meeting a gaze unless she was first asked to. Another refilled the cups and left again without a word.

Vito had seen enough households by now, in two lives, to know the difference between a servant working for her bread and one who belonged to the house like the furniture. He recognized it here and put the thought away before it could slow him down, forced to bury down the discomfort and act like a person from this age.

There was trade to finish, and pity had never once helped either of them.

Athanasia tore off a piece of bread and made the first move.

"I hear Crete makes a cheese worth crossing a sea for."

"Several in fact, and I brought the best of them."

Her eyes lit up properly for the first time.

"Name a price, then, and let’s see if you know what you’re holding."

"Two dirhams the measure, here. Less anywhere a man hasn’t already smelled the sea on it."

"Oho?"

She laughed outright, delighted, as if the number itself had a pleasant taste.

"I’ll take every wheel in your hold at that price and still call it a bargain, Barozzi."

"Done then, mia bella."

"Then we’ll see."

She leaned over her cup, closer than business required, close enough that he caught a sweet aroma in her hair.

"What else has a man like you smuggled onto my coast, Ser Barozzi?"

Even then, Vito replied without problem. "A spirit distilled off wine, extremely strong. One of your customs man already met it, ask him how his afternoon went."

That got a laugh out of her, loud and unguarded, nothing like cautious amusement. "I heard that story yesterday, a fool cousin of mine works that same dock."

She named a figure for it, higher again, and seemed pleased simply to say it aloud before any profit was counted. "Twenty dirham the flask, and not one merchant in this city will blink at the price once they’ve tasted it for themselves."

"Easy, Athanasia. Keep talking numbers like that and I’ll start believing you actually like me."

"I like coin, Ser Barozzi. You simply happen to be carrying quite a lot of it."

"And grain?" Vito asked, mostly for form’s sake.

She laughed again, sharper this time. "Grain, in Egypt? You might as well try selling water back to the Nile herself and see how far that gets you. Keep your grain, we have more of it than we know what to do with."

"Fair enough. Wine, honey, wax, wool, cotton, then, all together."

"Steady goods, steady buyers, every one of them."

She waved a ringed hand over the whole list.

"Worth the space, nothing worth losing sleep over either way."

Then Vito turned the whole conversation around.

"And what does Egypt owe me in return, once my own ships are empty?"

"Pepper and cinnamon first, as always. Eight dinars the sack for pepper, six for cinnamon."

She ticked off the numbers as if she’d done the sum a hundred times before. "I’ll promise you twenty sacks of each across the season if your demand can keep up with my pace. The Karimi carry both up from the Red Sea, and I keep my own standing with three of their houses, so they’ll deal through me before they’d ever deal with a stranger, if you follow me."

"I follow perfectly."

Athanasia nodded and continued. "Sugar’s local, cheap, and yours whenever you want it. Alum too, I’d wager that one’s bound for your dyers back home, more than your table."

"Sharp guess."

"I don’t guess, Barozzi. I price."

Vito set down his cup. "Here’s how I see it, then, plain as I can put it. Sixty parts of the ordinary goods move through you, straight and simple. Ten more I’ll let slip toward a clerk of the fondaco who fancies himself owed a piece of my trade, harmless stock, wool and wax mostly, enough to keep him fat and satisfied without him ever considering what he’s actually missing."

"And the rest?"

He clicked his tongue. "The cheese and the spirits split down the middle. Half sold here, with you, and the other will be sold on Cyprus and the Levant. That way no single harbor drowns in the cargo twice, and no single merchant gets to claim he’s the only one on this coast who can pour it."

Athanasia sat back and studied him. "Most patrons who walk through that gate think only as far as the first sale, Ser Barozzi. Precious few think about the next market down the coast, let alone protect it before they’ve even made the first one."

"I’ve had practice thinking past the obvious answer, bella."

"So it seems."

She smiled, sharp and pleased. "You’ll find I’m no stranger to discretion either, if that eases your mind any. Goods move through my hands with less noise than any customs figure would ever care to admit, and none of it will ever once come back to bite either of us."

Vito liked her already.

The agreement was as good as sealed, and both of them knew it.

She leaned back into her cushions, easy now, and let one hand brush the rim of her cup.

"Lucky, really."

She said it lightly, almost carelessly, the sort of remark meant to slip past who wasn’t paying attention.

"Some rich patrician landing at my gate, just when I happened to need one."

Vito remembered it well enough.

Indebted enough to want a new patron. His currency had bought him those exact words.

Now they were sitting across the table from him, in the lips of a woman who had just sold him half a season’s fortune without once mentioning what she owed or to whom.

He had never learned to walk past a profit.

"All right." He set down his cup. "Seems like you have a story to share."