Eric Flint: This Rough Magic

Benito laughed. "You know why?"

"No."

"Because it is his for the asking. So, if I can't have Giuliano, who do we make captain-general? Leopoldo will do for now, while he recovers, but he's good, and ambitious. Venice will move him on for sure. You're all off to the Holy Land. So who am I left with?"

"You can always do double duty while you look for someone else. And why don't you make Thalia the minister of agricultural reform? You'd get Giuliano that way. And if the island really needs him-Giuliano will be there."

"That should give the surviving Libri d'Oro the hissy-fits," said Benito, with a look of pleasure.

"When they discover what you're planning on doing about tenant farms," said Manfred cheerfully, "you might just need Lozza."

Benito grinned evilly. "No. We'll do it slowly. It's like cooking lobsters. If you start with cold water then they don't flap and snap like they do when you try to drop them into boiling water. But the system as it stands is a recipe for insurrection."

"As we saw during the siege," said Eberhard. "But you may find that loosening the bonds will lose Venice this island."

Benito shrugged. "The system as it is will definitely lose it. I plan to work on ties of trade and blood instead."

"You'll make a good deputy governor," said Manfred with a chuckle. "Keep the taverns in trade anyway."

"For four months of the year," said Maria sternly.

Benito looked at her. There was a sadness in his eyes, but acceptance, also. He put an arm around her. "It's not every husband-in all but name, anyway-who gets a four-month holiday."

Spiro came up with a Venetian glass of tawny liquid in hand. "Here you are Beni. Kakotrigi. You'd better get used to it, if you're going to be our governor."

"That's your third," said Maria, taking it herself.

Benito shook his head. "I should have said it is not every man who needs a four-month holiday. Ow! I was only joking, Maria! You'll get 'Lessi wet if you pour it over me."

Maria looked sternly at him. "I have walked among the dead and asked them secrets hidden from ordinary mortals, Benito Valdosta. And among them I found out your weakness. Tonight, I am going to tickle you."

The last part was said with a Maria smile, full of promise, full of loving. An older Maria, confident at last of herself. Of being loved enough. Of being someone who no longer felt insecure about her station, about being a canaler with a Case Vecchie man. She had something now that made her realize just how irrelevant these things were.

Maria pointed a finger at Spiro. "You. Fetch us two more glasses of this-this kakotrigi. I didn't like it much at first sip, but I'm finding it better and better."

"It grows on you," said Benito, putting his arm around her again. "Part of the magic of this place."

Eneko Lopez tasted the wine. "Rough magic," he said with a grimace.

"But good and strong," said Maria, laughing.

In the high valley in the shadow of Pantocrator, the faun played on his panpipes a part of the ancient dance that is love, life, death, joy, sorrow and Corfu.