"Signor Cardano. Signor Bagdoni. What has brought your most august persons across the ocean sea to this distant out post of Venice?"
"Quite frankly, Signor Brasini, the Doge and his lord the Great Khan are most concerned about rumors of unrest in the trading outposts Venice has founded in the New World with the permission of the Great Khan Kubodai. Most particularly, we are concerned with rumors that you, Signor Brasini, have begun preparation to declare your trading post in Appalazia an independent merchant republic of its own with the collusion of the Appalachee in Anhaica. With yourself as its Doge. Given the difficulties the Great Khan is having against his brother and cousins, the Doge has no wish to anger or trouble our most powerful trading partner. Or to lose a valuable trading post that is Venice's only link to the Aztec. We wish to ask of you, Signor Brasini, are these rumors true?"
"They...they are. They are indeed. And this...unrest is not confined merely to the few hundred Venetians who dwell here and our friends amongst the naturals. Our republic made that Devil's bargain with the Mongols three centuries ago. We betrayed God and man and all of Christendom so that we could own the Mediterranean and have those savage blood drinking beasts eliminate Florence and our other rivals while they turned every other kingdom into a bone strewn graveyard. And yes, the Doge and the Ten grew even richer off of this, but they were castrated as were we all. Not all citizens of our Most Serene Republic wish to be vassals of those bloodthirsty warlords from the Orient that burned all the rest of Christendom and reduced them to starving peasants."
"You Judas! You would prefer the alternative? You prefer their horsemen and their armies burned our city down as well and build pyramids of skulls and trample the Doge with horses in a sack, like they did in Paris, in Rome, in Berlin and Vienna? You would have us all die in some futile revolt they would see no restraint in crushing?!"
"Signor Cardano, it is hypocritical of you to lecture me of restraint, considering your attempt on my life last time I sailed home."
"I tell you, it was not me. I cannot tell you who it was, but I did not order those men upon you."
"Then it was your sister, Francesca."
"My sister had nothing to do with it!"
"Signor Cardano, Signor Bagdoni, my men tell me you have two armed vessels sitting in the Strait of a Thousand Keys. With both the soldiers of the Republic and the warriors of the Khan aboard. Is this rumor true?"
"Indeed it is. Send them in."
Four Mongols in leather armor entered behind them.
Brasini hit upon the wall behind him, signalling to the men he had in wait for such an occasion.
Eight Appalachee warriors he had recruited from the towns in the swamps entered with their bows drawn. They fired, cutting down the Mongols in short and bloody order and stood Cardano and Bagdoni up before him.
"Signor Cardano, Signor Bagdoni. The Khan's warriors are well deserved their reputation as unparalleled soldiers on land. But here, as in Cipangu, we are across the ocean sea. And the Khan's warriors are as famed for their lack of victory across water as their excess of it on land. I am indeed now Doge of Appalazia and we intend to take this entire peninsula or as we refer it "the pan's handle" as our Duchy, and we shall recognize no Mongol as our lord. You shall go and tell the Doge of this and tell him to accept it and learn to live with it...as will the Khan."
"You think these unclothed heathens with their rubber ball games and their bloodsports and human sacrifices who live in the swamps with the alligators are any better than the Mongols you castigate us for being subject to? We shall tell the Doge of your treachery that endangers our lives as soon as we return to the ships and then you see the punishment you deserve."
The Appalachee standing nearest them took a knife to the two men and held it to Bagdoni's throat.
"You will not be returning to the ships. Cambilaga...take them to the Okefenokee swamp and drown them so the alligators can make a fine meal of them."
"With pleasure. And their ships?"
"Tell your warriors to go down to the end of the pan's handle by the Thousand Keys and wait until nightfall and then send Sabriano and Distefano to them and lure them onto shore and then have your warriors kill the crews and we will take the ships for our navy."
"It shall be done. And I shall have my seat on the Ten of Appalazia?"
"You will Cambilaga. Five of the Ten shall be of the Appalachee, as it always unwise to anger one's own army."
"Very good."
The warriors dragged Cardano and Bagdoni to the Okefenokee and there they died of drowning, their corpses indeed eaten by the alligators they so disdained.
The Appalachee and the Venetian merchants among them ambushed the Venetian and Mongol crews aboard the ships three days later and took the ships for their own.
Brasini was now Doge of Appalazia and began the cutthroat work of making the pan's handle his duchy.
Cambilaga took his seat on the Ten, representing the Appalachee of the city of Anhaica, just as he began to feel very sick indeed.
To be continued...