Chapter 179: Money In, Walls Up, Ships Out

The sea had shut San Martino in, but the patricians kept knocking at the Barozzini door.

Not quite four years had passed since a cadet had climbed out of the crusade with a name. Now the sea had closed for winter, and his wife had the strongbox brought to the accounting-room table, where she tallied the year’s money into three heaps, with frost on the shutters and a brazier close enough to warm her hands.

The first heap came from the venture. It held 170,213 grossi, the Barozzini stake and half the profit, after deducting the cost of the silk and ash the house had bought from its own voyage.

The second heap was what remained of last winter’s free money, 25,523 grossi.

The third came from Crete. The island’s tolls and dues had arrived throughout the year, some in drafts and some in silver, and together they amounted to 45,000 grossi, nearly twice what the island had paid the year before.

Together, the three heaps made 240,736 grossi.

As she had the winter before, Caterina set the keep aside first, leaving everything else to wait its turn.

The distillery wanted 15,908 grossi and the yard wanted 6,600, exactly what they had cost the year before. Ca’ del Leon would house eighty-seven souls, and feeding, clothing, and keeping them came to 13,825. Table, cellar, firewood, lamp oil, and linen took another 4,990.

Twenty-five servants drew 1,500, the twenty-one men of the company watch took 2,751, and twelve clerks took 1,584. The roof and walls needed 1,200, while the six households asked for 900. Church dues, alms, and candles took another 900.

Of that last sum, 400 bought a year’s candles at an old Doge’s tomb. It was the closest Caterina could get to balancing a line in her book that had a word attached to it but no sum.

The new works took 14,000 grossi. The glasshouse at Murano received 10,500, the silk frame 1,800, and the paper stamps 1,700. Another 10,000 went into a leaf bearing Lucia’s name, to be entered on her saint’s day.

The girl hadn’t cut a tooth yet, but she already had an account.

The hull refits needed no separate entry, since the venture had once again paid the caulkers.

The expenses came to 60,333 grossi, leaving 180,403 free for whatever else winter might bring.

Caterina lay a finger on the stills. There was money to be made there.

A full year had shown what the distillery could produce, the apothecaries wanted more spirit, and so did every port the fleet had visited.

The coppersmiths received orders for more alembics, the coopers got a larger shed, more barges were bought, and more workers crossed to the islet each morning, though none of the new work would be finished before spring.

Father Ambrogio had named his price for blessing each new still, charging by the pot, the head, and the worm as he had before. The master distiller continued to sniff the first run of every batch, and that was as far as he was willing to go.

Across the haze, Murano’s chimneys smoked.

The shoreline had acquired a new skyline since summer. The masters who crossed by San Michele signed for their plots before the warden and paid their rent, which he duly entered in his roll.

More followed as the cold settled in, each new chimney going up where the net racks had been shoved back toward the reeds.

Vito’s furnaces taught every master who signed how to make the clear melt, then turned out clear glass and lead-backed mirrors by the cartload. The glasshouse kept growing, one furnace at a time, through the winter months.

The glass guild grumbled all season and paid its rent every quarter, on the appointed day. Blowers coughed charcoal smoke into the December air, burned hands were wrapped in wet linen, and barges from the mainland arrived every morning loaded so high with firewood that their rowers could scarcely see where they were going.

They managed, which was enough for the moment.

Back in Castello, the wall beside the estate courtyard came down.

The neighboring lot belonged to a house that had once looked down on the Barozzi from the same calle. It had spent its way down the stairs ever since, until all that remained worth selling was a garden, a wall, and a gate.

The Barozzini bought the lot with money from the strongbox, recording no debt against the household. Before the frost settled, pile-drivers began working in the mud, one stroke at a time, cursing the cold in the speech of Castello.

An east wing would rise on those piles through the cold months and into spring, containing a accounting hall, warehouse bays, servants’ quarters, and a barracks. Once the bays had roofs, the rented warehouse at the Rialto would lose its best tenant.

By the last week of the year, the new wing consisted of a ring of piles, a footing, and the lower courses of its walls, all standing open to the weather.

The larger house needed more servants, and the twins needed more of those servants still. The newly acquired lot needed watchmen too, so soldiers were taken from the company and posted across the new wall.

Gasparo, who had never asked for the first chain, now kept two. The neighboring lot had its own gate onto the calle, and that gate wanted a key of its own.

The works on other people’s ground continued all winter.

A ream of paper came out of the stamps beside the Memmo grain wheel, where rags were beaten into pulp from dawn until dark, and the notaries’ copyists bought every sheet.

The Old, who trusted vellum and kept the Great Council’s roll on it, also bought their copying paper from those same stamps. They distrusted the paper, naturally, but it was cheaper, and even the Old had to pay for their habits.

A bale of raw silk went to the frame in the millpond and came out as thread, which went on to the Morosini looms.

At Ca’ Zane’s basins, a basket of white salt came out of the mended and widened works prepared for summer.

At the Castello yard, behind a wall that no red cap had climbed since, the last three hulls took to the water.

La Bestemmia, named for the word Nestor used for her every dawn, slid down the ways under that name, followed by La Piuma and Il Cappello.

Il Cappello was the last to launch, on San Nicolò’s Day, exactly a year to the morning after the first keel of the rebuilt fleet had gone down straight. That brought the fleet to twenty hulls, five galleys and fifteen naves, and Nestor cursed every one of them by name.

New keels went onto the emptied ways that same week. A shipyard that had finally filled its order was apparently not interested in enjoying the achievement.

The houses that had stayed out of the season signed for the next colleganza that December. A house that had watched the Great Council record every Barozzini gift as a debt had learned which side of the books it preferred.

Caterina made the new leaf wider than the last. Nane and a Barozzini merchant were appointed to go to Soldaia with the first ships of spring, turning a pier that existed on paper into one laid in stone.

Phasis continued waiting for its court, which had never been famous for hurrying, while the Fondaco di Candia was told to expect more traffic than usual.

At the Rialto, the Contarini branch’s fraterna with the Barozzini was finally sealed in every respect, including the entry itself. It had taken long enough to put the last mark in the book.

From the salt flats of Chioggia to the wagon yard at Soldaia, from Murano’s chimneys to the river mouth at Phasis, there was hardly a basin, furnace, frame, or keel along that whole stretch of water without a black lion somewhere on it.

On the last evening of the year, the display came to Ca’ del Leon for the third time. It listed the house and everything that belonged to it, even though part of the house was still being built.

?? [HOLDING — CA’ DEL LEON, CASTELLO]

Status : Occupied (Expanding)

Governance : Barozzi del Leone (Fraterna)

Population : 87 (Family 29, Servants 25, Clerks and Hands 12, Company 21)

Courtyard : Cistern, Fig, Vine, Armory Lean-to, Drill-Sand

Water-Gate : Landing, Hoist (Lucietta), Barge, Gondola

Ground Floor : Androne, Four Bays, Counting Room, Strongroom

Second Floor : Kitchen, Larder, Scullery, Laundry, Servants’ Hall, Clerks’ Room, Sewing Room, Linen Store, Guest Chamber

Third Floor : Sala, Family Quarters, Office, Master Chamber

Under Construction : East Wing on the Neighboring Lot (Accounting Hall, Warehouse Bays, Servants’ Quarters, Guard Post)

Storage : Approximately 90 Tons (32.3 in Use)

Goods : Wine for the Still (12 Tons), Charcoal (8 Tons), Pitch and Hemp (4 Tons), Iron and Nails (3 Tons), Lamp Oil and Tallow (2 Tons), Distillate (3 Tons), Mirrors and Clear Glass (0.3 Ton)

Defense : Gate, Wall, Company Watch

Fixed Assets : Distillery Islet and Stills, Castello Shipyard (Ten Berths), Murano Shoreline and Glasshouse, Silk-Throwing Frame, Fondaco di Candia

Partnerships : Ca’ Memmo (Paper Stamps), Ca’ Morosini (Silk Looms), Ca’ Zane (Salt Basins)