The two men who’d walked him in withdrew without being asked, pulling the door shut behind them until it was just Vito, the Marquess, and whatever that jug of wine was going to cost them both.
Vito answered before he’d quite figured out how much room he had to answer in.
"Guilty, Marquess."
He kept his weight off the bad leg without making a scene of it.
"Though if there’s plans to put the throne back together, I think I’ll let you handle that part."
Vigilance flickered behind Boniface’s tired eyes, there and gone before Vito could decide whether he’d really seen it.
Then the big man laughed, short and genuine, and that seemed to surprise him almost as much as it did Vito.
"God’s blood."
He shook his head slowly, like a fellow making certain his skull still had the right thoughts.
"Nobody warned me you had such a mouth."
"I’ve been told it’s one of my better qualities."
Boniface watched him another moment, then waved a broad hand toward a low table buried beneath scrolls and a jug that had plainly begun its life somewhere other than this room.
He simply instructed, "Sit, before you fall over and I have to explain why the Barozzi pup died tripping over a carpet."
Vito sat with more care than the joke suggested, and made no effort to hide it.
Boniface poured the wine himself, calling for nobody, splashing more onto the table than into either cup, and apparently considering that nobody’s concern but the table’s.
"This is his?" Vito said, turning the cup once in his hand. "The Emperor’s."
"Was."
He dropped into the chair opposite him, the old wood giving a miserable creak beneath him. "The man’s got no use for good wine where he’s gone. Drink it before it starts feeling guilty about outliving him."
Even seated, Boniface kept drifting back toward the map behind him. Over his shoulder, a woman’s face watched them both from the wall, half buried beneath pinned parchment, gold tile catching what little light came through the shutters.
Some empress dead two centuries, looking perfectly serene while a stranger’s war plans hung directly over her nose.
"Bit of a bad omen, having the Empress watching over you while you plan the ruin of her empire."
Boniface glanced over his shoulder, then waved the thought away. "I’ve had women angry with me before. If I can keep a living one happy, I see no reason a painted one should give me trouble."
Vito raised his cup.
"I respect the confidence, to invite a curse so readily."
"It is experience, boy. I’ll charm the curse too."
Boniface’s eyes went to the map, and his gaze followed the campaign plan across it without him seeming to notice.
Then he caught himself and pulled his attention back. "Tell me about the Norsemen. I’ve had half a dozen men tell me what happened, and somehow every one of them was there for a different battle."
So Vito told it.
The first Varangian who came through the smoke, swinging an axe as though somebody owed him money. The second, built like a church door, who’d nearly folded Zaccaria’s throat shut with one hand before Orso put a mace into him hard enough to make the whole street feel it.
Then the charge defense that followed, stitched together from spears and crossbows. Nobody had handed Vito a manual for stopping heavy cavalry, and he’d been writing his own since the moment he woke up in this century.
Boniface gave a low whistle. "So the stories weren’t entirely drunk nonsense, then. I was beginning to think the Norsemen had been spending the last twenty years breeding themselves for the sole purpose of making soldiers exaggerate at taverns."
Vito smiled. "They’re strong enough. I wouldn’t advise wrestling one unless you’ve recently developed a desire to be tucked under by grown ass men."
"Oh, I’m sure they are. Every one of them apparently has the strength of three men, the temper of six, and a personal acquaintance with every god north of the sea."
He shook his head, amused. "Put enough fur on a man and let him split a shield in front of a crowd, and suddenly nobody remembers he can still bleed."
Vito clicked his tongue. "If they can bleed, they can die."
"Exactly boy."
Boniface’s laugh came up deeper this time, loud enough that the empress on the wall probably felt it.
"Do you know what amuses me?"
He shook his head, still grinning. "An Emperor of the Romans, brought down in a gutter with nobody important there to see it. God does keep His own sense of humor after all."
Vito lifted his cup in acknowledgment.
"I’ve had worse luck with the Almighty. Seems He’s been looking after me."
Boniface shot him a look, then shook his head, still smiling. "I’ve fought in more campaigns than I care to count, seen men die in grand charges with trumpets screaming and banners flying, and others vanish in the mud so quietly nobody knows they’re gone until the roll is called."
His gaze drifted back toward the map.
"But I’ve never seen a battle turn quite so strangely as this one."
They kept at it for a while longer, the fight brought back through a dozen smaller details. Boniface corrected one point here, laughed at another, sometimes loud enough that his own guards outside surely heard it through the door.
It was, Vito thought, the first time anyone had wanted the story simply because they enjoyed hearing it.
That thought was what made him careless enough to reach for the next one.
"Funny place to be having a drink with you."
He kept it easy, more admiring than pointed. "Your own family isn’t a stranger to it, is it? So tell me, how much of this city’s old blood is still running through your family’s veins?"
Boniface didn’t answer immediately.
Whatever had been loose and warm in him folded itself away.
"My brother married the previous Emperor’s daughter."
Boniface’s voice had gone flat. "They called him Caesar for it, Emperor’s son by marriage. Then this city decided being Latin and being kin to their Emperor was reason enough to kill him."
He looked down at his cup.
"Twenty-two years ago. I was thirty-two, and thought myself old enough to understand the world."
He set his cup down without finishing it.
"That’s old blood under old stone."
He continued, gruffer now. "Not why you mentioned it, is it, Barozzi? Speak your business or drink your wine. Pick one."
"Maybe I just like a good story."
Vito let that sit for half a breath. "But since you’ve brought it up, twelve men are about to decide who wears the Empire’s Crown, and half of them answer to a blind old man who never cared much for your family’s history in this city."
"I don’t need a Venetian pup telling me how Venetians vote."
Vito continued, easy and unbothered, "But this pup’s learned a thing or two about the doghouse. Might be enough to help an old soul like you find his way out of one."
That earned him nothing but a raised eyebrow.
Vito let the silence sit a moment longer before continuing.
His voice was lower now, which made it land harder. "Come now, you already know how they’ll vote, Baldwin’s the obvious choice. There aren’t any fools in that room and they’d sooner put a stranger on the throne than hand Constantinople to a man with the sort of influence your family already has here."
Boniface said nothing, which was an answer of its own.
"Say Baldwin wins it."
Vito went on. "That still doesn’t leave you empty-handed, you’ll have territories from the partition, certainly. Whether they’ll be worth anything to you is another question."
Boniface’s eyes narrowed slightly.
"And that," Vito said, lifting his cup, "is where I came in."
The amusement was gone from Boniface’s face. So was the irritation. He looked at Vito for a long moment, weighing the man in front of him against whatever he had just heard.
Then he gave a slow nod.
"Go on."