Chapter 192: The Lion Moves House

On the afternoon of San Martino, the family left the old water-gate in Castello.

Cristina and Marouda had gone ahead with the pot and the bell, while the old house still had its six households and its Fantin. Vito brought the folded edict that named him to the jurists who would gather the laws, keeping it folded small in his coat where it wouldn’t get in the way.

He took the oar himself, standing and facing forward, just as he had on the night he asked for a woman’s hand. Caterina sat on the cushions with a baby tucked beneath a fleece, while the twins occupied the bow like two captains who had hired a boatman and intended to supervise him.

They had bought the new house outright in the spring from an old family whose last heir preferred Acre to the damp of Venezia, and the place had been made ready by autumn. The old house had come on credit, with a crest-spoon offered as surety.

From the Grand Canal, the house stood four floors high and twice as wide as the old one, built of red brick and white Istrian stone, with a loggia of six stilted arches on the third floor. Company soldiers hanging from ropes were fixing the black lion above the water-gate, while faces appeared in every canal-side window to check their new neighbors.

The election had required a house in Cannaregio, and now it had one.

Lucia, sitting in the bow, had been watching her father’s rowing and found it wanting.

<anno data-annotation-id="427c4b89-f473-b693-949d-5e56f4380faa" data-title=""Papà! Ma ti te vogi storto, ciò! Mi lo vedo da qua davanti, mi, che son el capitan! Andemo de traverso come un granso! Drito, Papà, drito, drito, DRITO, or I tell it to Mama, and then ti vedi!"">"Papà! Ma ti te vogi storto, ciò! Mi lo vedo da qua davanti, mi, che son el capitan! Andemo de traverso come un granso! Drito, Papà, drito, drito, DRITO, or I tell it to Mama, and then ti vedi!"1</anno>

Vito straightened the oar, and the gondola turned beneath the arch.

Inside the arch, Lucietta, who had arrived on the last barge, stood to the left of the landing with her jib folded. On the right, set into the wall at the entrance to the androne, stood a stone basin with a copper ewer and a cake of soap.

Lucia jumped out before the boat had touched the landing and reached the basin just in time to stop a company soldier in mail coming through with a chest on his shoulder.

<anno data-annotation-id="1570c034-b4d9-8d79-3034-692046c3a9ca" data-title=""Fèrmete, ciò! Fèrmete! Soap first, then water, and up to the elbow, fin al gómio! Mi l’ho dito a tola davanti a tuti, e lo digo anca in sta casa! Ti senti? In sta casa!"">"Fèrmete, ciò! Fèrmete! Soap first, then water, and up to the elbow, fin al gómio! Mi l’ho dito a tola davanti a tuti, e lo digo anca in sta casa! Ti senti? In sta casa!"1</anno>

The soldier put down the chest and washed up to his elbow while Leo kept tally.

The androne ran straight from the water-gate to the courtyard door, long as a galley, with the scale hall on the left and the accounting hall on the right, where ten empty desks stood beneath tall windows overlooking the canal.

Beyond the halls were eight bays, four on each side, raised on stone sleepers to keep the goods clear of the damp, and soldiers and servants were already carrying bales in and out.

At the far end, the androne reached the courtyard door, with the strongroom behind its twin iron doors on the left and the great stairs on the right.

Vito led them into the courtyard.

In the old house, a cousin had taken him from room to room and shown him what belonged to whom, but today he did the leading himself, with Caterina behind him carrying the baby and the twins following her with orders for everyone.

The courtyard was paved and swept, with a wellhead carved with the lion, a fig cutting from the Castello tree growing in a tub, rosemary and bay in pots, and a vine trained along a trellis on the left wall.

At the far end, Gasparo was hanging the second of his two chains across the land gate, and stopped a passing clerk to ask whether a third chain might be obtained as a matter of principle.

The east wing on the right contained the kitchen, larder, scullery, and laundry, with the servants’ hall, sewing room, and linen store above.

The west wing on the left held the house watch room, barracks, and armory, with the guest apartment above and the chapel of Santa Lucia in the rear corner, its single lamp already burning.

Cristina stood in the kitchen, inside a hearth large enough to hold a chapel, with her wooden spoon raised as she watched a boy on a ladder hang the pot hook behind her head.

The old treaty had survived the journey across the city without losing a thing. Cristina kept the pot and Marouda kept the door, and both now had a bigger one to look after.

Vito took them back through the courtyard door and toward the great stairs, built of stone below and oak above. The first landing led to the low floor, where there were buyers’ rooms, as well as clerks’ rooms and a notary’s room.

Leo counted the steps aloud while Lucia ran up two at a time. Nothing in the house was properly hers until she had been the first to climb it, and the mason who had built the stairs waited at the top with his hat in his hands.

He had sworn by his patron saint that it had thirty-eight steps, and until now he had never been wrong in public.

"Trentasète... trentòto... trentanove."

Leo stopped and looked back down the stair. "Trentanove, Papà. Mi go contà tuti, one by one, with my feet. The mason said trentaoto, but they are trentanove. He is wrong by one. Uno."

The mason looked down at the top step as though the thing had personally insulted his mother, then put his hat back on.

The sala stretched the whole depth of the house, from the head of the stairs to the loggia overlooking the canal, where two servants were still polishing its inlaid marble on their knees.

At the loggia, the six arches, each fitted with the house’s clear glass, held the last of the afternoon light. From there they could look back and see the dining hall and reception room on the right, with a sugar loaf waiting on the sideboard, the book room on the left, and the covered galleries at the courtyard end leading east to the family rooms and west to the guest apartment.

Vito couldn’t see a stilted arch without wanting to explain where its grandfathers had been born, and he was doing exactly that now.

"Moglie! Moglie, senti! The day these two marry whoever they please, I dance across this floor in my stockings, from the loggia to the stairs. And I don’t give a dried fig who is watching the windows!"

"The floor will hold, caro mio. It is marble, and the mason swore to it, and he was right about everything but the staircase. Ah. Of your stockings I answer for nothing. I have seen them, caro mio. Mi, le go viste."

Caterina shifted Lucrezia to her other arm.

They walked back along the sala to the courtyard end, where narrower stairs climbed to the family floor and Marouda was hanging her bronze bell on its nail at the head of the stairs.

The corridor ran from there to the canal front, with every family room opening off it. Walking toward the canal, they passed Lucia’s room first on the left, while Leo’s room stood opposite Lucia’s on the right and the baby’s lay beyond it.

Lucia placed her hand flat against her door and left it there. Among the Barozzi, that could be as much as a deed. Leo put his hand against the door opposite, and they now had rooms across a corridor from each other, which was better than having a wall between them.

Marouda took Lucrezia from her mother’s arms and laid her in the cradle. The girl frowned at the beams overhead, apparently finding there that didn’t meet her approval, before Marouda looked down the corridor at the double doors.

A small staircase off the corridor climbed to the lofts, and at the far end stood the double doors of the office.

Marouda sent the twins into the baby’s room, and Vito and Caterina continued alone. Vito opened both leaves at once. A man who owns two doors has no business opening only one.

The office was a grand room, with painted beams and a four-light window glazed with clear glass overlooking the canal, beneath which stood the old oak table. The walnut shelf on the left wall had acquired a fifth tier, with the relics arranged in their old order and the new tier still empty.

On the right wall hung the old chart, with its sea serpent and pins, beside the printed calendar, while a high chair with a carved lion on its back stood near the table.

Caterina sat in the carved chair first, to find out whether it might bite. It did not, so she kept it, while Vito hung the Councilor’s stick on a peg beside the chart, where it looked very small against the sea serpent. It was, after all, only a stick.

The master chamber lay beyond a second door behind the table, and its windows also overlooked the canal. The bed was wide, with curtains made from the house’s cloth, while the Panagia’s lamp was already burning in its corner.

A flask of scented water stood on the chest, and the bolt on the door between the two rooms was new.

"Ostrega, moglie, varda che leto! You could seat the Six on it, all six, and still have room for the Doge’s cushion! Mi, I sit only the Councillor for Cannaregio. The other five I fine for trespass and send to count tiles in the corridor, che i conta, i conta!"

"The Palace has your mornings, caro mio, and mi, I gave them to it. But this door, this one, shuts when the lamps are lit."

She put her hand on the edge of the door, beside the bolt.

"Sì, moglie mia. When the lamps are lit, mi lo zuro. Not a breath before, not a minute after."

He lit the lamp on the oak table.

Down in the courtyard, Gasparo’s chain rattled at the land gate, and the house settled on its piles. The sea would remain closed until March, and nothing was owed on the house.

At first light, the jurists named to gather the laws would meet for the first time, and the barge to the palace would leave from the water-gate of the very sestiere whose name the hall had given him.

The display came into the lamplight for the new house.

?? [HOLDING — CA’ DEL LEON, CANNAREGIO]

Status : Occupied (Seat of the Household)

Governance : Barozzi del Leone (Fraterna), Household of Vitale Barozzi and Caterina Contarini

Population : 98 (Family 6, Servants 38, Clerks and Hands 24, Company 30)

Courtyard : Wellhead, Cistern, Fig, Vine, Herb Pots, Armory, Drill-Sand

Land Gate : Gatehouse, Chain

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

Ground Floor : Androne, Ewer, Scale Hall, Counting Hall, Eight Bays, Strongroom

Low Floor : Buyers’ Rooms, Clerks’ Rooms, Notary’s Room

Sala Floor : Sala, Loggia, Dining Hall, Reception Room, Book Room

Family Floor : Children’s Rooms, Baby’s Room, Office, Master Chamber

East Wing : Kitchen, Larder, Scullery, Laundry, Bake Oven, Servants’ Hall, Sewing Room, Linen Store, Family Rooms

West Wing : Guard Room, Barracks, Chapel of Santa Lucia, Guest Apartment

Storage : Approximately 420 Tons (72 in Use)

Defense : Water-Gate Grille, Land Gate, Wall, Company Watch

Fixed Assets : Printing House, Sugar House, Scented-Water House, Cloth Industry, Soap Industry, Distillery Islet and Stills, Murano Glasshouse, Silk-Throwing Frame, Fondaco di Candia, Fondaco di Soldaia

Foreign Seats : Phasis Quarter (Consul’s Seat Held for the Republic)

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

Kin House : Ca’ del Leon, Castello