Chapter 170: The World Keeps Its Own Calendar

The bell of San Pietro di Castello rang for the dead on the first Thursday after the fleet left the lagoon, while the caulkers kept hammering along the Riva as if nothing had happened.

It was for the wife of an Arsenal rope-maker in the next calle, as she had delivered a daughter on Monday and died of fever on Thursday. The baby lived, and by Saturday, with his wife buried for barely a day, the husband was back at the rope-walk.

The state paid by the day, after all, and a man who didn’t work didn’t get paid.

Grief was his own affair.

That same Saturday, the midwife who had delivered the child climbed the steps at Ca’ del Leon to visit Caterina, and found Vito washing at the kitchen ewer when she came up from the water.

She flung out both palms as though displaying a catch at the Rialto. "Half of Castello came into the light through these, and not one of them ever complained of the company! The dead are God’s business, the living are mine, and between the two I have never once needed a gentleman’s advice!"

"To the elbow, comare, boiled water and vinegar. Then you may lay a hand on my wife."

"Madonna santa!"

She crossed herself so hard her knuckles cracked. "A good woman not one day in the ground, a mother, Messer, with her milk barely come in, and you stand in your kitchen scolding the living about their washing? I ask the saints, who carries the sin here, I or you?"

"Wash."

That was all, one word, and he held out the ewer. Marouda had appeared at his elbow with linen over one arm and her slipper cocked in her fist, as if she had waited all winter for someone, anyone, to give her cause.

The midwife washed.

She went upstairs to Caterina with her sleeves wet to the shoulder.

That night, Vito called on the Purveyor and bought everything stocked for a woman in childbed, paying for it all in one sitting.

?? [FATE SHOP — KNOWLEDGE & BLUEPRINTS]

Lying-In Discipline

A complete protocol for childbirth, including boiled linen, clean hands and instruments, fresh straw, isolation from contaminated rooms, and strict control of everyone permitted near the mother.

Cost : 10 Fate

Chlorinated Lime

A method for producing and using chlorinated lime, with instructions for preparing a powerful disinfecting powder for basins, instruments, linen, and contaminated rooms.

Cost : 15 Fate

Ergot for Postpartum Hemorrhage

The identification, preparation, and controlled administration of ergot from infected rye to stimulate uterine contraction and arrest dangerous bleeding after childbirth. Includes the necessary warnings against improper dosing.

Cost : 10 Fate

Obstetric Forceps

A pair of precision-forged, curved iron blades designed to guide a trapped child through a difficult birth, complete with measurements, construction diagrams, and instructions for safe use.

Cost : 20 Fate

Ether Anesthesia

The preparation, purification, and administration of ether vapor for surgical anesthesia, with the apparatus needed to control delivery and instructions for avoiding lethal concentrations.

Cost : 35 Fate

Antibiotic Mold

A method for cultivating and selecting the mold that produces penicillin, preparing it under controlled conditions, and extracting a crude antibacterial preparation for infected wounds.

Cost : 40 Fate

Blood Typing and Transfusion

A practical system for distinguishing the major human blood groups, testing compatibility, and transferring blood through sterile tubing and needles. Includes the principles of blood preservation and the dangers of incompatible transfusions.

Cost : 40 Fate

The Survivable Cesarean

A complete surgical protocol for cesarean delivery, combining anesthesia, rigorous antisepsis, precise abdominal and uterine incisions, control of hemorrhage, and layered closure with sterile silk.

Cost : 40 Fate

Total Cost : 210 Fate

Fate Balance : 0 Fate

The box had bought the knowledge, but it hadn’t bought the hands to use it.

At Ca’ del Leon, the water and linen were boiled, every basin was scoured with lime, and the master chamber was set aside for the lying-in. Cristina cooked liver, greens, and fish at every meal, while the old uncle, already on his third helping, helped himself to a fourth.

The smith in the yard forged the iron forceps from Vito’s blueprints, while in the cellar green mold grew on wet bread and, under the yard wall, a bench was built for a surgeon equipped with ether and silk thread.

Nestor cursed the surgeon in three tongues and then used the bench himself. The apothecary from the still, whose oath had lasted a day, received the ether and swore more, and no one asked how long this one would last.

At home, Vito wrote out the rules neatly and brought them to the oak table, where Caterina sat among her cushions with the accounts propped against the round hill of her belly. By Ascension, the child had begun to kick, her feet had cooled, her back hurt less, and the sour mornings were gone.

Once a week, the sala at Ca’ del Leon opened its doors to the midwives of Castello and the wives of the Young’s houses, with Marouda drilling them in washing, Cristina feeding them, and Marina Badoer bringing widows.

There was work to do, and for once the women had a place where they could come to learn without first having to bury mothers.

As for the business of the Republic, Murano needed its landlord as much as the sala needed its hostess. On the eve of Pentecost, Vito crossed to the island by barge, passing a new brick chimney among the old furnace stumps.

The decree was already in force, and the city’s furnace masters had a season to move, and they were coming over by barge with their pots, their boys, and their debts.

On the shore he had leased, Vito assigned plots to the masters, taught clear-glass production to every man who signed, and collected rent from each one who moved in, while his own glasshouse produced clear glass and lead-backed mirrors for the next season’s holds.

Giacomo Tiepolo stood on the new pier, his oak heels making a fine noise on the planks.

"Masters of the furnace!"

His voice rolled across the water and rattled the empty pots on the barges. "Ostrega! Hear the Warden of Murano, who spends his sentences like nails, and every nail driven true! Every pot crosses by San Michele, every master goes upon my roll, and the cat, God keep him, sends his compliments to every last one of you!"

"And who pays for the crossing, Messer Warden? My pots, they do not swim. Me neither."

"The ground pays, ciò!"

Tiepolo stamped, and the whole pier answered.

"The ground pays, and pays handsomely! Handsomely, I say!"

Fishermen’s sheds came down to make room for furnace ground, and the Old complained about the rents they were losing. On the island, the blowers who spent more time mending nets than blowing pipes found themselves outnumbered by the newcomers.

The house kept its calendar, but the world had one of its own, sending its news up the Riva after Pentecost in the first galleys from Modon, Corfu, and Constantinople.

Crete sent the first report, and it was the shortest. Sails had been seen off the western shore, some of them belonging to Pescatore, though the captain wouldn’t say under which flag he sailed.

Leon’s letter was brief, with one line about his seat, while reports placed the Duke’s banners west. That was all.

The fleet was at sea, and that night Vito wrote to Leon, Kalergis, and the Duke, sending the letters out on the first galley bound for Modon.

The news from the islands was louder. Marco Sanudo, whom Dandolo had once described to Vito as a rival with better funding, had sailed with galleys fitted out at the Arsenal and taken Naxos, while Venetian lords were raising the Lion over one fortress after another.

The Latin Empire was at war with itself and with nearly everybody else. Henry had been crowned the previous August, with Kaloyan only a day’s march away, just as Vito’s histories had predicted, and Baldwin had been confirmed dead in his Bulgarian cell.

The Lombard lords of Thessalonica refused to accept Henry, while Boniface answered him whenever he felt like it. Kaloyan’s trebuchets stood before Adrianople again, and Zeno’s courts continued sitting through the whole business.

The fleet was sailing into the middle of it all, beyond the reach of any letter Vito could send.

At home, the work continued, the glasshouse kept firing, wives and widows spread the lime and washing through Castello, and Caterina’s mothers group grew until Cristina had to feed everyone twice.

On the eve of San Giovanni, a sheaf of sealed letters lay on the oak table, each bearing the arms of its house.

Caterina read every letter with a finger beneath the line and began her first reply before the lamp burned low.