The stench was unbearable, clinging to the thick, damp air like a suffocating cloak. No amount of incense could chase it away, and the servants' scrubbing only left the room reeking of wet stone, sweat, and decay. Michael sat on the edge of the bed, hands limp on his knees, staring at the floor.
He could still see Theodora's pale face, though she had been buried for days now. And their child, gone before she ever drew breath. He had wanted to save them both, yet he had been powerless.
Every piece of this world pressed in on him, the filth, the cold, the dark. He had adapted to none of it. Since her death, everything smelled like rot.
They had not been married long, and most of it he had spent in workshops and council rooms. He had known little of her. She sang Italian songs under her breath. She had been teaching the cook's daughter her letters, and the girl could write her own name now. In the last months they had begun talking more in the evenings.
The door creaked. Lukas, one of the young servants, came in with his head bowed and the chamber pot cradled in his arms. Michael looked away from it.
"Just...take it and go," Michael murmured, his voice rough. He pressed two fingers to his temple.
Lukas hurried. A corner of the rug caught his foot, and the pot went out of his hands and broke on the stone. The contents spread into the joints of the floor.
Michael froze. Theodora's final moments came back to him: the rasp of her breathing, the spark of life flickering in her eyes, the helplessness that had smothered him then, and smothered him now.
"Goddamn it!" He came off the bed. A pulse hammered in his ears.
Lukas scrambled back. "My lord. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
"Shut up!"
Lukas dropped to his knees and began scooping the mess together with his bare hands.
Michael struck him across the face. The boy went over sideways and stayed down, one hand against his cheek.
Michael looked at his own hand. He recognized the madness in his own actions. None of this was Lukas's fault. The stench, the anguish, Theodora's death, his child's loss, it was too much, flooding his mind until he could barely tell right from wrong.
"Get...get up." It came out as a whisper.
Lukas got up. He kept his eyes on the floor. A red mark was spreading on his cheek.
"Clean it up," Michael said, and turned to the window. Beyond the hills the sky had gone dark with coming rain. "Clean it and go."
He kept his eyes on the hills while the boy worked behind him. The rustle of cloth, the scrape of broken pottery, at last the door. He thought of calling him back, and did not. The smell stayed in his clothes for the rest of the day.
Clermont, February 1430
He stood by the window, looking out across snow-dusted hills under a sky the color of ash. New York, his sons, the familiar comforts of his old life, all of it slipped a little further away with every passing day.
Work was what held. Most mornings he was at the press sheds or the arsenal before the household had finished prayers, and he stayed until the light went.
That morning it had been the sheds. He stood at a compositor's shoulder and watched the man set a page of the Vulgate, letter by letter, backward and upside down, never looking at his hands. The drying lines above the presses held the last sheets of the four hundredth Bible. The shed smelled of ink and lamp oil and wet paper. It was the only room in the Morea that did not smell of rot.
He was back at his writing table by the time the bells rang for midday, the ink smell still on his hands.
A knock at the door.
"Enter."
George Sphrantzes slipped into the room. His steady presence had been a comfort to Michael, though they seldom spoke of personal matters. "Despot," George said with a formal bow, "the council meets this morning. I thought I might find you here before we begin."
Michael nodded without leaving the window. "I'll be there."
George came a step closer and clasped his hands behind his back. "These have been hard months."
"It's not just her, George," Michael said quietly. "It's everything. Every step forward, and we're still barely keeping our heads above water."
"There is progress. The arsenal takes shape, the presses run. The new furnace was finished this month, and the first of the Drakos guns are proofed, and..." George stopped himself. "Your people see what you are trying to do."
Michael almost laughed, bitterly. "Yes...my people," he repeated, though in truth, he still felt like an outsider in a borrowed life.
George let that sit a moment. "There is word from Ioannina as well. Carlo II has succeeded his uncle, and the bastard cousins have appealed to Murad against him, Memnone and the rest. They say an Ottoman force under Sinan Bey is already moving."
Michael turned from the window. Carlo was Theodora's brother. Her family, an Ottoman army on the road to them, and nothing he could send.
"We focus on what we can control. Secure the traders, sell what we must. The Ottomans we deal with when we have to. Right now our survival depends on trade."
The door opened, and it was Lukas who came in, a small bundle of letters held in both hands. Three months, and the boy still moved through these rooms like a man crossing ice. He set the letters on the far corner of the table, where he would not have to come near, said "Despot. These arrived from Constantinople," and was gone.
Michael took them. The first seal was his mother's, Helena Dragas, from her monastery in the capital. He broke it and read.
"My son, I grieve with you for Theodora. No words can ease your pain, but know that I pray for her soul and for you. Grief is a burden we must all carry in this life, but in time, the weight will lessen. I am proud of all you have accomplished, and I know Theodora is watching over you from Heaven. Be strong, my son. The Empire needs you now more than ever. With love, your mother."
He read it twice. His hands were unsteady when he folded it, and he set it apart from the rest.
The next bore the imperial seal. His brother, Emperor John VIII.
"Brother, I am deeply saddened by the news of Theodora's passing. I know this loss weighs heavily upon you, and I share in your sorrow. I wanted to thank you personally for the Latin Bible you sent. It is a truly remarkable creation, and I believe it will aid in the unification of the churches, as we have long hoped. I plan to visit you in Glarentza when I can, to see this miraculous printing press you've built. You have my gratitude, and my support, always."
Michael set the letter down. John's words, while kind, were a reminder of all that still rested on his shoulders. The unification of the churches. Not everyone supported it, and the Latin Bible had already stirred resentment among traditionalists like his brother Theodore.
"Good news?" George asked.
Michael sighed. "John is pleased with the Bible. Pleased enough that he's talking about coming to Glarentza to see the press for himself."
George raised an eyebrow. "That could be interesting."
"Yes," Michael said. "Interesting is one way to put it."
The Council Meeting
Later that morning, Michael sat at the head of the large table in the council chamber. The room was sparsely lit, the fire casting long shadows across the stone walls. A large blackboard stood against one wall, a new addition to the meetings, for laying out the state of their logistics, their stockpiles, and their debts. White chalk lines crisscrossed the board, showing figures for resources, projections, and supply chains.
Around the table sat George Sphrantzes, Theophilus Dragas, two senior officials, and Petros, the newly appointed steward, who had taken the seat nearest the board.
Petros opened his ledger. He looked younger than his years, keen, a little anxious, and determined to make a good impression. "Despot. The winter damaged much of the cotton crop. Four presses running, and the paper reserves are nearly empty. Perhaps three weeks of stock at the current pace."
"And the Venetians still expect their paper shipment," Theophilus said. "Most of our stock went into the Bibles. Without fresh cotton, or another source for the vats, production halts."
Michael looked at the columns of figures. "How many Bibles do we have finished? And how many can we manage by spring?"
"Four hundred are completed. Six hundred by spring, if the paper is found," Theophilus replied. "The Venetians and Genoese will buy them."
Petros rose and went to the board. He chalked the figures as he spoke, quick sure strokes, surer than his voice had been. "Six hundred, at twenty ducats each." He drew a line and wrote the sum beneath it. "Twelve thousand. More than we owe, with something left over."
"A good number, Petros," Michael said.
Petros set the chalk in the tray and sat back down.
"Our immediate priority is clear," Michael went on. "We need to sell the Bibles and clear our debts. But we cannot overlook the paper shortage. Securing more cotton is vital, or the presses will grind to a halt. And the Venetian order we do not fail. The same houses that take our paper are buying our Bibles."
George spoke for the first time. "We have maybe a dozen new pieces, but the bronze is nearly gone, and our powder stock is dangerously low. Producing gunpowder locally has not been possible with the knowledge and materials we have." He glanced at the sum on the board. "Still. A dozen guns are enough for this year. If it comes to a choice, the foundry can bank its fires for a season. The presses cannot."
Michael looked from the sum to George and back. Sinan's army was already on the road in the north. A quiet season was more than he could promise. "Then the foundry holds its casting for now. Cotton first, as much as we can find. The sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter we buy all the same."
"To what end, Despot?" George asked.
"That is a problem for the spring. Venice's paper comes out of the count before anything else, and when the first Bibles are sold, we'll look at the bronze again. Petros, I want the true figures by tomorrow, what we owe them against what we keep."
As the meeting drew to a close and the council members began to disperse, Michael lingered by the blackboard, his eyes tracing the lines and numbers. They had come this far, and now they had a plan.
Michael's thoughts drifted to the new steward, Petros. The young man had risen quickly through the ranks. Petros reminded him of his own son Jason, not in appearance but in character. Both had the same dedication, the same sense of responsibility.
That evening he answered his brother, three lines, thanks and a welcome and a note on the spring roads. Then he set out a fresh sheet for his mother, wrote the salutation, and stopped. He sat with the pen in his hand while the candle burned down a knuckle's width. In the end he put the sheet away with the single word on it and went to bed.