by Robyn Young
As Angelo sat, a fifth man came into view from an adjacent room, followed by three slave girls in white, who trailed him like the wispy tail of a comet. They carried silver trays on which were jugs of rose-colored wine, goblets and pewter dishes laden with black grapes, purple figs and almonds dusted white with sugar. “My son,” said Venerio in greeting as he spotted Angelo. His voice was deep and gritty. Though a solidly built man, he moved with a gracefulness acquired from years of instruction with the sword. Knighted by the doge of Venice, and a former governor of the republic, Venerio was a fourth-generation noble with all the schooling and military training that went with the title. “How was your lesson?” he asked, as the girls fanned out around him, waiting until he sat before placing the platters and jugs on the table.
“I need a new instructor.”
“Already? That is the second you have been through in as many days. Perhaps you no longer require training.”
“Not from the dregs I have fought this week.”
“Still,” said Venerio, smiling a cool, expansive welcome at the silent men around the table, “these are matters for another time. We have rather more grave concerns to discuss today.”
Angelo smiled to himself as he took in the merchants’ expressions. Behind those carefully composed exteriors he detected confusion, impatience and, from Guido Soranzo at least, barely concealed anger. None of them knew why they had been invited here. But they were about to find out.
Wiping his brow with a crumpled silk cloth that he snatched from the sleeve of his brocaded coat, Guido was the first to speak. “And what are these grave concerns?” He fixed Venerio with a truculent stare. “Why have you called us here, Vitturi?”
“First, let us drink,” replied Venerio, slipping with ease into the Genoese dialect. Two slave girls came forward at a snap of his fingers and began to pour the wine.
Guido, however, wasn’t ready to dance to his host’s tune. Not bothering to do Venerio the courtesy of speaking the Venetian tongue, he continued in his native Genoese. “I have no desire to drink your wine until I know why I have been summoned.” He extended a meaty hand to the luxurious chamber. “Did you bring me here to gloat?”
“Nothing quite so petty, I assure you.”
Guido erupted at Venerio’s calm. “You sit in a palace of my kinsmen like a barbarian who wears the adornments of his victims as trophies!”
“Venice did not start the battle that resulted in Genoa’s expulsion from Acre, Guido.”
“The monastery of St. Sabas was rightfully ours! We were protecting our property!”
Venerio’s jaw twitched with the first sign of irritation. “Is that what you were doing after you seized the monastery? When you broke into our quarter, overran homes, killed men and women, burned scores of our ships in the harbor? Protecting your property?” His face relaxed, his voice sinking back to its normal level. “You kept your own palace, did you not? You benefited from the war as much as I did, Guido. Unlike the majority of your people, you retained your business in Acre. Besides, the Genoese have now been allowed back into their quarter.”
“Our quarter? That which the Venetians have left for us is little more than a ruin!”
“Comrades,” interrupted Conradt in languid, heavily accented Italian. “The War of St. Sabas ended almost fourteen years ago. Let us leave the past where it belongs. Your wine is making my mouth water, Venerio.” He gestured to the goblets, his eyes swinging to Guido. “Must we argue over old battles whilst thirsty and still sober?”
“Well said,” said Michael Pisani, raising his goblet and drinking.
After a moment, Guido settled into a belligerent silence. Seizing his goblet, he gulped at the wine.
“Gentlemen,” said Venerio, leaning forward, his navy silk burnous, the long Arab-style cloak with a hood worn by many settlers, straining at his broad chest, “I thank you for attending this meeting. I appreciate my invitation must have come as a surprise. None of us are friends. Indeed, at one time or another we have all been on opposite sides in conflict. But now, perhaps for the first time, we have something in common.” He paused, meeting their gazes. “Our businesses are failing.”
There was silence.
Michael unclasped his long-fingered hands, leaned back, then sat forward again. Conradt smiled, but his blue eyes had fixed intently on Venerio.
After a moment, Renaud spoke, in a singsong voice that was like the ringing of a tiny bell. “You are mistaken, Venerio. My business is perfectly secure.” He stood. “I thank you for your hospitality, but I do not believe that I have anything further to discuss with you.” He inclined his head to the others. “Good day.”
“When did you last make armor for the kings of the West, Renaud?” questioned Venerio, rising to tower over the diminutive Frenchman. “How long is it since you equipped an army for battle? And you, Conradt?” He turned to the German. “How many horses have the Teutonics bought from you this year? How long is it since kings and princes bartered for consignments of your destriers?”
“That isn’t your concern,” murmured Conradt, his smile fading.
Venerio turned to Guido, who was staring up at him with undisguised hostility. “My sources tell me your shipyards haven’t been active for months, here or in the Genoese quarter at Tyre.”
“I cannot believe I am hearing this,” growled Guido. “You might have stolen yourself a Genoese palace, Venerio, but I swear by God you will not have my business. Were I living in the gutter without a shirt on my back, I would not sell it to you!”
“I do not want your business. Any of them,” said Venerio, looking at the others. “I am in the same position as you.”
Guido snorted.
“My father speaks the truth,” said Angelo grimly, his black eyes on Guido. “If our profits continue to fall the way they have these past two years, we will not be able to afford to keep this palace. We have already had to dismiss four servants. In the last twelve months we have seen a sharp decrease in revenue. In the past the Vitturi Company’s most profitable contracts were with the Mamluks, but since Sultan Baybars began his campaigns against our forces in Palestine and the Mongols in Syria, he has had slaves free for the taking. In his attack on Antioch alone he is rumored to have captured more than forty thousand. That glut, coupled with the new truce, means that he doesn’t currently require slaves from us as soldiers for his army.”
Venerio was nodding. “Over the last century our businesses, established by our fathers and forefathers, rose to become five of the oldest and most affluent companies in the Eastern world. Now I see vendors of sugar, cloth and spices taking our places,” Venerio jabbed the table with his finger, “our profits.”
Renaud had now sat, but still appeared poised to leave.
“It has been a slow year for us all,” said Michael Pisani. “I will admit my business is suffering. But I do not see what point there is in the frank discussion of such personal affairs. There is nothing we can do.”
“There is,” responded Venerio, sitting back down. “If we work together, we can turn our fortunes around. Desire for Crusade wanes in the West, and in the East the Mamluks remain bound by the truce. That is the cause of our falling capital; the peace treaty signed between Edward of England and Sultan Baybars two years ago.” Venerio swept a hand through his hair, which was as clipped and neat as the rest of him, shot through with white. “Our businesses profit from war, not peace.”
Guido snorted again. “And what do you propose, Venerio? That we end the peace?”
“Yes. That is exactly what I propose.”
“This is preposterous!” exclaimed Guido.
The other men looked astonished.
“War is necessary to our businesses, Guido,” responded Venerio calmly. “It is what we need to survive.”
“It is contracts we need,” snapped Guido.
“We deal in blood, in battle. Every one of us has been made rich through conflict. Let’s not be coy about it.”
Guido went to argue, bu
t Michael interrupted him. “Wait, Guido,” he said, watching Venerio, “let him speak.”
“There have been periods before,” continued Venerio, “when such truces have created a lull in the markets we deal in, but this year, I think you will agree, has been particularly bad. We have lost many trade lines and outposts to the Mamluks this past decade. Now that Acre, Tyre and Tripoli are the only worthwhile cities Baybars’s campaign has left us with, competition for trade between us and our younger rival firms grows fierce.”
Michael nodded. “And now the new grand master of the Templars has been granted consent to build a fleet to serve the eastern Mediterranean, that competition will only grow.”
“The fleet will be for military use,” Renaud interjected. “That is what was agreed at the Council of Lyons in May. As I heard it, the grand master wants to block merchant ships out of Egypt, weakening the Saracens’ trading abilities. The pope would not have approved the motion had it been for mercantile purposes. The military orders remain the papacy’s last hope for the retaking of Jerusalem and the winning back of territory lost to the Saracens. I doubt the pope would want the Templars to waste such valuable resources by lining their own pockets.”
“The Temple has been lining its pockets for years.” Conradt shrugged. “I would not be surprised if they used this opportunity to fill them.”
Venerio interrupted. “This is not an issue we need concern ourselves with today.”
“I doubt you will have to concern yourself with it at all,” said Guido bitterly, draining his wine and setting his goblet down hard. “Venice and the Temple will go hand in hand as always. My business will suffer more than any of yours from the grand master’s contract.”
“How so,” responded Venerio, “when the Knights of St. John have entered into the venture with the Templars? You have not, as far as I’m aware, lost your contracts with them. Indeed, I would expect your business to thrive with this opportunity.”
“We all know how the mighty Temple works,” spat Guido, pouring himself another measure of wine. Some of it sloshed onto the table. “They will take over the whole venture. I doubt the Hospitallers will build so much as an oar!”
“If that is the case, I assume you will want to find other ways of reviving your shipyards in the meantime?”
Guido glowered into his goblet, but said nothing.
Venerio looked around the table. “Do you want to see your wives in the streets begging for food?” he demanded. “Your servants gone, your finery and homes sold? Look outside your palaces. There are nobles like you who have lost everything. You’ll find them rotting in Acre’s gutters with the flies, the dung and the lepers. Do you know how many children I’ve bought from starving parents desperate to feed newborns? Do you want your own children sold in the markets to a rich amir?”
“This is distasteful, Venerio,” said Renaud, frowning delicately. “None of us want that, of course.”
“If we do nothing, Renaud, that might be what we face. We know full well the only reason the Saracens have kept the truce is because they have been forced to concentrate their efforts on the Mongols. When they are ready, the Mamluks will turn their eye to us again and they will destroy us. I have worked with them long enough to know how they hate our kind, how they want us gone. And until that day comes, and I assure you it will, we sit here waiting for our destruction, getting poorer by the day. We must do something now, on our terms, before we lose everything.”
Conradt plucked a handful of grapes from a platter and rolled one into his mouth. “I am mystified by your proposal, Venerio. How do you plan on breaking the truce established between our forces and the Saracens?” He picked the seeds from his teeth. “The Christian troops are weak and divided. There is trouble over the throne. And unless we mounted a full-scale invasion against Egypt itself, I do not see what would spur the Saracens to launch any serious assault.”
“What I propose will bring conflict to Palestine,” responded Venerio briskly, “of that I have no doubt. To the Muslims it will be a far greater act of war than any we could perpetrate against their cities. They would rise against our forces in the thousands. And, yes, we will need military might to accomplish it, but not an army, just a small group of soldiers.”
“And which tree will you pluck those from, Venerio?” said Guido cuttingly.
“We plan to have help from the Temple,” answered Angelo. “The new grand master has been very vocal about the need to take back territory lost to the Saracens. From what we have been told, he intends to come to Acre to take up his position a year from now. We believe he can be persuaded to help us. We are confident he will see the benefit behind the risk.”
Guido grunted, but averted his eyes as Angelo continued to look at him.
Michael was frowning. “Even if we manage to start a war, we do not have a hope of finishing one. We cannot beat the Saracens in battle. It would be over before it began.”
“If our forces were defeated by the Mamluks, we would still not lose out, Michael,” countered Venerio. “Indeed, we would profit from the West’s expulsion from these shores. The Mamluks, if victorious, would drive out our competitors, leaving us free to dominate trade between the East and our home-lands. We do not need to keep a base here in order to make money from the Saracens. They will have other battles to fight when our forces have gone, the Mongols, for instance. They will still need to be equipped for war.” Venerio paused to let his words sink in. Michael and Conradt were looking thoughtful. “Ultimately, it would not matter who won, Christians or Saracens. Either way, our profits would soar.”
“But what, exactly, will we do, Venerio?” asked Renaud. “What is your proposal?”
Venerio smiled. He had their attention, he could hear it in their voices, see it in their faces. Even Guido was listening now. He took up his goblet. “Gentlemen, we are going to change the world.”
2
The Genoese Quarter, Acre 13 JANUARY A.D. 1276
“Marco, tell me! What are you going to do?”
“Let go of me, Luca,” said Marco in a low voice, trying to prise the young boy’s hands off his arm.
“I’m your brother! Tell me!”
There was a muffled cough from the adjacent room, and a tremulous voice floated through the limp sacking that covered the opening. “Marco? Is that you?”
“Yes, Mama,” called Marco, still struggling, as quietly as possible, with his brother.
“Where have you been?”
“Working, Mama.”
There was a contented sounding sigh. “You’re a good man, Marco.” The quivering words ended abruptly in a fit of coughing, a series of violent whooping sounds that made both brothers flinch.
Luca’s brown eyes, large with fear, flicked to the opening.
“Go,” urged Marco in a whisper, “get her some water. She needs you!”
Luca looked as if he were about to concede, then the coughing faded into long rattling breaths. Emboldened, he stared up at his brother. “I’ll tell Father.”
Marco’s eyes narrowed. He jerked his arm from Luca’s grip, causing the boy to stumble forward. “Tell him then,” he hissed. “But you know he’ll be too drunk to listen!” Marco fell silent, his gaze fixing on the object of their struggle that remained tightly grasped in his fist. The dagger’s deadly sharp tip was pointed at his brother’s face. Slowly, he lowered the blade, his hand white-knuckled around the hilt.
“It’s Sclavo, isn’t it?” said Luca in a tiny voice. “You’re working for him again. You promised. You said you wouldn’t do it anymore. You promised.”
“What else can I do?” muttered Marco roughly. “We’re Genoese. Do you know what that means in this city? It means we’re nothing. The Venetians and the Pisans and the rest have taken everything from us. Sclavo’s the only one who’ll give me work.”
“Father said we would go to Tyre. He’ll work again and we’ll help him and Mama will get well.”
“He’s been saying that forever,” snapped Marco. “It’
s never going to happen.”
“Maybe it will. You don’t know.”
“I can’t believe you can still put your faith in him.” Marco kept his voice low with effort. “He doesn’t give a damn about anything, not since he lost the business.”
“It wasn’t his fault; it was the war.”
“You’re too young to know what you’re talking about,” said Marco bitterly. “I was six when the War of St. Sabas ended. I remember. Father could have left the bakehouse and gone to Tyre with the others, started again. But he was too proud, too stubborn to let the Venetians win, and so he stayed. I watched as the Genoese left our quarter and the families who bought our bread began to vanish.” Marco’s fierce eyes were bright. “In the end, he couldn’t afford to have his crops gathered or his grain milled.”
Luca was watching Marco in silence, anguished to see his older brother in such open distress. “Maybe it will get better, now the Genoese are starting to come back.”
“It will take years for our people to rebuild what they had here, and Father no longer cares about the business. He doesn’t care about anything except his drink and his whores!”
Luca clapped his hands over his ears, but Marco threw down the dagger and grabbed his brother’s wrists, pulling his hands away. He dragged Luca to the window, away from the opening to the adjacent room, where their mother’s breaths had evened out into the wheezing sighs she made when she was sleeping.
