“Those are separate transactions,” Clarinda said, “and while there’s a portion of the first and second one that will be sold outright, for the rest we need to make sure that we respect the consignments ordered by the Hanse houses in Lund.”
“Well, by that reckoning there won’t be much left for me,” Radulf grumbled. “Und ich dachte, ich wäre Umgang mit Menschen heute, nicht kleine Mädchen,” he said, jerking a thick thumb at Clarinda.
“You are dealing with men here tonight,” Clarinda said coldly, her German as angrily and rapidly spoken as Radulf’s had been, “and you’re dealing with me, as well. I’d prefer that you didn’t call me a ‘little girl’ again, but if such language makes you feel better, so be it. I won’t be taking any rides on your lap, I can assure you.”
The force of her words surprised Radulf because she spoke his own language with better grammar than he did. He frowned at the young woman, but said nothing.
“Clarinda is first mate on the Maritina,” Pasquale asserted into the silence, striving for a reasonable tone. It worked. Everyone at the table turned attention to him again. “I run the rest of Angelo’s ships, but she does have final say on all billing issues and financial arrangements. The consignment agreements we have on the North Sea are substantial, and the Hanse cuts are nonnegotiable.”
“The Hanse are reaching into all the trade networks, Radulf” Paolo offered, taking a commiserating tone. “Sooner than later they’ll have the entire Scandinavian and Baltic trades under their control. Better learn to deal with them now and get the rates you prefer, than later when you’re at their mercy.”
Radulf glared at Kenezki. “This is why you bring me in from the cold?” he muttered, switching to a harsh and swiftly spoken Hungarian dialect. “I prefer the old times, my friend. We should be done with business and wenching by now. Whatever the time, though, that Greek bunkō of a guardsman across the table gets a sliced throat the moment his back is turned. Did you hear him threaten me? and this,” he nodded toward Clarinda, “this slip of a girl, speaking to me like my mother with that tone! Pah! Termeketien gōrōgōk !”
“What was that?” Paolo asked, surprised by the shift into another language, and looking at his partners.
“Oh,” Clarinda replied, “Unser ‘Freund’ Radulf hier just wondered aloud in Hungarian why he and ‘Friend Kenezki’ came to this meeting at all. Then he reminisced about old times before whining about Alexander, threatening to slice his throat when he wasn’t looking, and then adding that he was an ‘effeminate Greek.’”
She initially looked at Paolo as she spoke, ignoring the astonished look on the German’s face, but then shifted her gaze to someone behind Radulf. “Is that about right, Alex?”
“You missed one insult, Clarinda,” Alexander said as he made his way around the table, “but you’re essentially correct. There was also something about him wishing you were his mother, I think. We probably shouldn’t go into that too much, eh?”
The hoplitarch sat down in his chair and leaned back, regarding the furious Radulf. “Really, Gentlemen” Alex said expansively, “is business so good these days, that you can afford to pass up this size of a transaction? Are you going to protest every step of the way, or can we all just be done with this?”
“Where is Angelo Trevisan?” Kenezki asked. “We were talking about his absence before I left to find our friends here.” The man got a confirming look from Radulf before adding, “Many of these arrangements were made with him in Venice before you even set sail.”
Clarinda noted the formality of his expressions; the Greek language fell dully from his lips, as if learned by rote from waxen tablets in an ancient schoolroom. Why did she find this man so strangely at odds with his surroundings? It was as if Kenezki wore an invisible cloak that somehow distorted all of Clarinda’s perceptions, akin to what she might feel if she were undersea watching him speak. Everyone else seemed to understand him quite perfectly, while she could barely follow him, his words reaching her almost as gurgles bubbling upward through water.
“Angelo’s on a side trip,” Pasquale explained dismissively, “and Clarinda and I are long used to making these kinds of deals.” He paused and focused on Radulf. “If you’re done complaining, her point stands: there are three, maybe four deals on the table that need sorting out.”
Paolo broke in, with irritation in his voice. “Are you always so abrasive with people you need to do business with?”
“Don’t flip this keel onto us,” Clarinda said, turning to Alex. “I imagine there are others we can deal with? Find them. I’ve had enough.”
“Hold on,” Radulf interrupted, seeing the entire deal melting away from the fire in Clarinda’s eyes. “A moment, Fräulein Trevisan. You obviously haven’t dealt with many overland routes north of the Black Sea.” The man took a deep breath, visibly restraining his unruly side. “As the saying goes, my men and I will be ‘testing Heimdall’s patience’ as it is in starting so late in the season. If I don’t make Kiev by late November, none of your cargoes are going to make even the midsummer fairs at Calais and Lund. That extra speed costs hundreds of denarii.”
Clarinda looked directly into the burly man’s eyes. “We’ve done our research on you as well, Signore Radulf,” she said pleasantly, as if conversing about the weather. “Your ship got laden two days ago with enough illegal dyed silk-stuffs to sell up to ten tents’ worth of goods for a summer’s worth of fairs, and you still haven’t visited the chancellor’s office to make restitution for three years’ worth of port taxes.” She chuckled. “The emperor’s bureaucracy doesn’t take kindly to merchants dodging taxes, and they’re even more merciless with silk smugglers.”
“I have all the papers!” Radulf whispered fiercely. He turned his head nervously to look over each shoulder, dreading that either robed tax collectors or polearm-wielding Swedes might emerge from the crowd.
“I’m sure you’ve got some papers,” Clarinda said, “but keep them stowed. We don’t care, and my point is that, as a hoplitarch, Alex is concerned about larger issues than enforcing overdue tax bills.”
Clarinda leaned forward slightly, her voice taking some urgency and laced with a common sensical tone. “Think about it, Radulf. Even though you couldn’t sell enough of your own furs to make up for the shortfall you incurred last year, the silks in your possession will more than pay for all transportation costs this season; our commissions have nothing to do with that, of course. You’d make that profit if you walked away now and we never saw each other again. But, if we can come to terms tonight, Trevisan friendship might provide a better future in Constantinople and Venice.”
At this point Clarinda glanced at Paolo Santini, who nodded, regarding her with a curious and respectful expression.
She leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest. “But, please, enough with the blustering talk about heading up to Kiev for our benefit alone. Or telling us with a bad poker face that you’ve got to take on extraordinary costs for getting our goods routed to Danzig and points westward once you’ve reached the Baltic next May.” She barked an incredulous laugh. “You’re not even going ‘overland’ until the thaw in early spring!”
Radulf had been glaring at her initially, but now he, too, had leaned back and regarded her quietly. He fingered his goblet.
“Let’s say that’s true, Fräulein. It’s still Old Pecheneg territory between the Black Sea and Kiev. Many raiders wander there because its a No-Man’s Land between imperial control and the Kievan army.”
“All those costs are factored into the deal,” Clarinda assured him, “and we’re not going to pay for less than you need to hire the proper bodyguards and secure enough crafts. Signore Santini has hopefully testified to the worth of Trevisan promissory notes. You’ll get your money, and some increased legitimacy in Venice.”
Paolo murmured his agreement and Clarinda finished with the burly German. “Do we deal, or do we find someone else?”
Radulf drained the last of the ale from his goblet, slam
med the vessel onto the table.
“We deal,” he said.
Clarinda and Pasquale handled the rest of the negotiations with the same evenhandedness that she’d brought to every transaction for the last two years since involving herself in her father’s business.
Afterwards, there’d been another long pause in the conversation when Radulf departed with Kenezki to find a public notary. The original documents that Pasquale had brought with him had to be redrafted and signed by all the parties. Alexander Stratioticus volunteered to ‘protect’ the men with a few members of the Varangian Guard, as well as to secure the notarial services of a man he knew in the imperial chancellery.
Kenezki and Radulf gratefully accepted the offer, their looks of surprise and ill-hidden excitement proving out Clarinda’s predictions: these transactions with the Trevisans were perhaps the opening salvos into legitimacy and respectability.
After the young commander and merchants disappeared into the crowd, Paolo Santini caught Clarinda’s attention with a measuring gaze.
“That was well done, Signorina,” Paolo commented. “Your father would be proud.”
“Oh?” Clarinda asked, raising her eyes from the whetstone she was sharpening her dagger with. “You’ve had dealings with my father? Enough to know that?”
“The Trevisans are certainly a well-known family,” Paolo observed, “but I’ve only met your father a couple times. I’ve given most of my business leads to your Uncle Verrocchio. But, enough of that. Let’s just remain with a compliment from me to you: that business was well done. My services were almost completely unnecessary.”
Clarinda glanced at Pasquale, who proffered to the handsome young man a small leather pouch that jingled with many coins.
“Oh, no, Signore Santini,” Clarinda said, nodding at the bag, “your services are just beginning. We’d be grateful if you brought copies of the promissory notes back to the bank in Venice. You’re now a witness of record for the courts here in Constantinople…”
“...so if I don’t fulfill that obligation, I can’t work in this city ever again,” Santini finished. “That’s why I complimented you, my dear. Very neat.” Paolo took the leather pouch without looking inside it and tucked it into a soft black bag at his waist.
Clarinda sheathed her dagger and let the ensuing pause linger long enough to change the subject. Her mind had returned to a vision of a subterranean pool and a black-robed Hospitaller knight who bore a striking resemblance to the man before her. An impulse struck her to ask the young man questions in a certain way, with a particular objective in mind.
It’s the Norn Voice that you’ll use here. The words whispered in her mind sounded like Urd’s. Clarinda started talking, trusting to this new, strange intuition.
“Please, listen to me, Signore Santini. You mentioned your father —”
“Signorina, I think we know each other well enough for you to call me Paolo.”
“Grazi, Paolo. Your family, it’s not one of the older Venetian houses, is it?”
“No, no — we’re from Sicily, out of a town near Syracuse.”
“A large family?”
“Si, si. Well, two sisters and four brothers.”
“That’s respectable,” Clarinda commented. “Are all the brothers in the same business as you?”
“Of course. That’s part of the reason we relocated to Venice. Father and I found the climate better for our...kind of brokering than was possible in Sicily.”
“Where do you fall, age-wise, among the siblings?”
“I’m the youngest — well, I’m the youngest, now.” Paolo stopped, seemingly surprised at himself and looking curiously at Clarinda. Pasquale gave her a strange look, too, and the girl ignored both men for the sake of pressing on with the questions.
“What do you mean, ‘youngest now?’” Clarinda asked.
“My... our younger brother, Servius...he was among the fallen at the Battle of Mecina.”
“Really?” Pasquale asked. “You don’t mean the Servius Aurelius Santini? Even if you’re in your twenties, he’d still have been too young five years ago for that kind of acclaim, let alone swordsmanship. The Santini at that battle was a seasoned warrior.”
“Yes,” Paolo murmured, his voice distant and full of sadness. “That man was my uncle, Servius’s namesake. To tell the truth, when the reports came back about their deaths, we were saddened, but also very surprised at how fiercely old Uncle Servius fought.”
“It was more than a fight,” Pasquale corrected. “We know some Genoese friends who heard from some traders that Santini and his Hospitallers killed more Saracens in a few days of fighting than Saladin lost the rest of that year.”
“Si, si — my uncle did our family proud that day. I only wish that I could’ve been there to fight with him.”
“Really? You’ve skill with the sword?” Clarinda asked.
“Certainly more than Servius did at thirteen,” Paolo said, unable to hide a strange competitive fire that lit in his eyes. “He must have been slain in one of the first assaults.”
“Perhaps not,” Clarinda said thoughtfully, “but I’d heard there were survivors? Part of Santini’s legend lies in the fact that so many pilgrims and innocents survived Mecina.”
“No,” Paolo said, his voice urgent. “You heard wrongly. They burned all the dead and we got notified of my uncle and brother’s deaths by way of some merchants coming back to Venice.”
“Were you close with your uncle and brother?” Clarinda asked.
Paolo’s head snapped upward from his reverie, and his eyes widened.
“You’ve got an interesting way of asking questions,” Paolo said. “I feel that I can’t help but answer.”
“Your uncle and younger brother?” Clarinda repeated.
Paolo took a deep breath and continued. “I think, if truth be told, I was closer to my uncle than Servius. We usually agreed about many things. Even the decision to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem was one that we developed together. It was only when Uncle Servius opted to go before the ship set sail that...my brother went in my place.”
“My goodness,” Clarinda said sympathetically, but her face momentarily seemed to pale, and she leaned back in her chair.
“Clarinda?” Pasquale asked, not liking what he saw in her ashen aspect.
“What?” Paolo asked, his voice strangely panicked. “What did I say?”
Clarinda refocused on him and shook her head. “No... niente, nothing. I’m sorry, both of you. Perhaps it was that clam chowder.” She recovered herself. “Then, Paolo. Then, what you’re saying is it might’ve been you at Mecina, instead of Servius?”
It was Paolo’s turn to lean back in his chair, and he nodded regretfully with grimaced lips. “To my shame, yes. He was so devout, though, that our family’s great hope is that he’s earned his eternal rest in Heaven.”
Kenezki was at the table again.
“Your friend, Hoplitarch Stratioticus, is efficient and well connected. If you’re all ready, we can sign the contracts upstairs in a private room.” Clarinda looked past the pirate and saw Alex standing at the base of the inn’s wide stairwell.
Paolo Santini burst upward from his seat, like one awakening from a trance. He raised a hand to his forehead, looked briefly in confusion at Clarinda, and then clasped a hand onto Kenezki’s shoulder.
“Si — grazie, Friend Kenezki. Let’s go and be done with this.”
The man grabbed his cloak and hastened with Kenezki across the room.
Clarinda and Pasquale rose, too, but the girl tugged at the navigator’s arm to hold him back.
“Pesci,” she whispered, “quickly. When Paolo talked about his uncle and brother, what did you hear?”
“That they were lost at Mecina? Died?”
“No, no. When he talked about being close to his uncle and Jerusalem?”
“Oh, that. The uncle and boy were going on a pilgrimage to the Holy City.”
“Ah. Thank you. My mind drifted for a moment, and
I couldn’t recall who was going where to do what.”
“I’m tired, too, Bambina. Let’s finish this and get back to the ship for some sleep.”
Clarinda retained a grip on the hilt of her blade as she followed Pasquale up the stairs at the back of the tavern, a flush rising in her cheeks and the hairs on the nape of her neck standing on end.
When she’d been speaking to Paolo Santini, a story completely at odds with the one he uttered had reached her ears. Clarinda had heard the pilgrimage story of the uncle and nephew getting trapped and killed at the ill-fated Crusader castle of Mecina, but, underlying those words, like a riptide beneath gentle surface swells, she’d also heard Paolo give another version of the story:
I think, if truth be told, we all needed to be rid of Servius. I still don’t know where he made friends with Alexios and Nicolo, but potential alliances with the Byzantine and Venetian princes weren’t in our interest. The future lay with the other Italian city-states, the papacy, and the Holy Roman Empire. For my own soul’s sake, I’m relieved that Uncle Servius’s plan worked. Dying at Mecina saved Servius from a life of slavery in a Persian palace where he was headed before Saladin’s forces attacked.
What was happening to her, that she could hear a lie being told at the same time as the truth that underlay the lie? Clarinda frowned as she thought about the duality of Santini’s words. She wondered at the horrific possibility of a family selling its youngest son as chattel into the Asiatic slave markets.
The girl’s innate pragmatism asserted control as she rose to go sign the documents. As they passed into the stairwell leading up to the inn’s private rooms, the Venetian girl wondered if the Paolo Santini’s younger brother had died all those years ago at Mecina, or if, possibly, he still lived and waited for her in a dreamscape world near a rainbow-fired subterranean pool.
Of course, even if Aurelius was alive, could she even bring herself to care? The madman of Mecina would never be for her. Yet, perhaps, she thought angrily, maybe there was more to the story than she’d previously believed.
The Codex Lacrimae Page 8