Leon brought them to a room buried in the middle of his mansion, well away from the street and all the noise it had thrown at them.
There were low couches instead of chairs, and wool hangings in deep red and blue, colors normally known only as things found looted, scorched, and hanging in somebody else’s house.
In one corner an icon watched from a shelf, its gold leaf catching the lamplight.
Looking around, Vito realized this was the first properly Roman room he had stood that had not already been torn apart by some soldier wearing the crusaders colors.
The guards remained at the door on either side, Zaccaria’s men on one hand and Leon’s on the other, close enough to do their jobs and far enough away to make the point.
This talk belonged to only three voices.
A servant put three cups on the low table and stayed there, waiting to pour.
Leon stopped him with two fingers, no hurry in the gesture. He picked up his own cup, drank first, and only then waved for the other two to be filled.
"Forgive the custom."
He made a small gesture. "I’d rather my guests not wonder whether the wine is safe to drink. Consider it a small show of faith."
Vito raised his cup, formal and easy. "A sensible habit. Though I admit I’ve dined at fewer tables where the host felt obliged to drink first for my safety. I’m not sure whether I should be flattered or worried."
"Both, Ser Barozzi. Most days a man is better off with both."
Leon placed his cup squarely on the table, and that little piece of ceremony was finished.
Vito followed his example and set his cup aside. "Well then. I believe men speak more plainly than banners ever do, Ser Skordilis."
"I’d like to make use of the privilege."
"Then make use of it."
Leon kept his eyes on him. "Do I keep my land? My court, where I judge my people as I always have? The men who still call themselves mine, do they answer to me tomorrow, or to some Venetian stranger I’ve never seen?"
"Most of it, yes."
Vito let him a moment to hear those words before leaning across the low table. "Whatever privileges you have as archon remain. The difference is that they serve the Republic now, and never against it."
Leon pursed his lips in thought.
When he finally spoke, whatever warmth the wine had put into his voice was gone. "The very Republic that stripped down the altar from the greatest church in Christendom and called it a fair morning’s work."
He spoke flatly, and that made it harder to dismiss.
"Forgive me, Ser Barozzi, if ’most of it’ does not comfort me quite as much as you intended."
Vito neither flinched nor tried to fight the point. "Absolutely, I won’t dress it up for you. La Serenissima has done things here that no speech of mine can make respectable. But understand the difference, we do that to our enemies, and to men who think they can swindle us after making a bargain."
He turned his cup slowly between his fingers without drinking. "Alexios IV thought much the same, if I remember correctly. He promised Venezia a fortune to put him back on the Roman throne, then discovered that promises have a way of becoming debts when the Republic is the one waiting to be paid."
A faint smile touched Vito’s mouth. "You will be neither enemy nor debtor, Ser Skordilis, but our ally. And when the Republic begins putting its money and strength into the island, you will be in a rather better position than the men who chose to stand against it."
"In a better position how, exactly?"
"A seat in the Great Council, perhaps. You’d fit in as easily as a man born to it."
"Then you’d dare to imagine a foreigner in the Republic’s government?"
Vito’s smile turned sly. "Why would I not dare? I’ll put your name in front of them and let the old men choke on it. Better that than have the Republic spend the next twenty years trying to govern the island without the men who already know how."
Leon tapped two fingers against his own chest, more softly this time. It was thought rather than challenge.
"That, at least, sounds like a man speaking. Not a damned treaty."
He watched Vito over the rim of his cup. "But can you make this decision alone? Of which houses are brought into this Great Council of yours, and which are left outside the door? You, Ser Barozzi? Or men in Venice who have never set foot on Kriti and never intend to?"
"Not me alone, no. I won’t lie to you about that."
Vito met his eyes. "But that’s the beauty of it. I have an island to win for the Republic, and every man I persuade to accept it without bloodshed makes my voice a little louder in Venezia. Do it well enough, and I’ll have influence to throw around like a rich man in a brothel. I might as well spend some of it on the friends who helped me get there."
Leon’s mouth bent toward a smile without quite becoming one. "Then I hope you become very rich indeed. If yours Republic influence is spent as freely as money in a brothel, Kriti may finally get its share."
Before Vito was able to fire back a retort, Caterina cleared her throat softly, a reminder that there was, in fact, a third person at the table.
"He forgets introductions when he’s enjoying himself this much."
She spoke to Leon, though she side-eyed Vito. "Caterina Contarini. I keep the books on this venture, which means I’m the one who has to make it profitable after the two of you are finished with this little ritual of masculine admiration."
"A pleasure, Kyria Contarini."
Leon inclined his head.
"I assume you didn’t come into my house to simply observe."
"I have not."
She looked around the room once, taking in the hangings and the icon catching the lamplight, then let the silence have its turn. "By the look of your house, Ser Skordilis, poverty has not yet found you. So tell me plainly, why does your harbor look half asleep?"
Leon took his time answering, which was an answer of sorts. "The Empire hasn’t had the strength to conduct serious trade in these waters for years, not with all the turmoil. And the private merchants..."
He gave a small shrug.
"Their courage seems to diminish in equal measure with the risks."
Caterina brushed one finger along the table, an old habit taking the place of a map neither of them had bothered to bring.
"In this, Ser Skordilis, you have very little to lose and quite a lot to gain."
She smiled sharply, "La Serenissima has ships enough to carry trade from here to the ends of the known world, and you will find our merchants possess courage in direct proportion to their appetite for profit. Give them a harbor worth coming to, and they’ll come running."
Leon’s palm came down flat on the table, close to where his household’s interests would have been marked on a chart.
"All very well, but none of it does my house much good unless we have a share in it."
The ease had gone out of his voice again. "When this harbor is packed with Venetian ships and every shipment leaves its mark on Kriti, who will profit from it?"
Caterina’s voice refused to falter, "I won’t feign generosity, Ser Skordilis, you will have a share of the profit, not all of it. But if we make this harbor what we intend, your share alone will be worth many times what your house is capable to earn today."
Leon grunted, not satisfied. Yet he was not leaving the table either, and Vito felt that was good enough.
The discussion fell into silence, and no one rushed to break it.
Then Leon reached for his cup and took a slow drink.
"All of this. The seat, the harbor, the wealth you promise ten years from now."
He put the cup down carefully, as if even the noise it made deserved consideration. "That is a matter for the future, Ser Barozzi, Kyria Contarini, not one afternoon in my house. So put it aside and tell me plainly, what does your Republic wants from me now?"
Vito grinned. At last, they were getting somewhere.
The man would not ask what came next unless, somewhere inside that stubborn head of his, he made a decision that there would be a next.