This Rough Magic by Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint, Dave Freer Page A

"Carlo had said—"
    At first, Kat wasn't sure she heard him correctly. "Pardon— who ?" she managed.
    The boy knitted his brows in puzzlement. "You know him not? Carlo, of Clan Montescue? Is he not here? But he had said—"
    And that was when all hell broke loose.
    * * *
    Marco walked in at just that moment, which complicated matters further. Kat was weeping, Lodovico shaking the poor Vinlander boy in a way that would have made his teeth rattle had he not been as big as he was, and yelling at the top of his lungs, while the other boy looked utterly bewildered. Somehow Marco managed to separate Lodovico from his victim, get them all herded into a quiet room, and (relatively) calmed down.
    With Marco's prompting—while Kat clung numbly to his hand—the boys managed to piece together part, at least, of what had happened to her father.
    His vessel had been taken by pirates, who had, in turn, sold him to some strange Vinlander tribe in the south of the continent. He had escaped, or been rescued, by some other tribe—the boys were rather vague as to which, or how it had happened—and they in their turn had traded him up the coast until he came into the hands of the Thordarsons.
    Now, they had had to pay a great deal for Carlo Montescue, and by their custom and law, he apparently discovered that he couldn't just find a ship and come home. No, he had to earn his freedom; until then, he was what they called a "thrall." Not exactly a slave, but certainly not free, and branded as such by the iron ring around his neck. The boys were very matter-of-fact about it, and although Kat could have wept even harder with vexation, the part of her that was a Venetian trader to the core could see their point.
    At any rate, it soon was proved that Carlo was going to earn his freedom in record time, for exactly that reason. Records. Record-keeping and accounting, at which, apparently, the Vinlanders were shockingly bad.
    Lodovico grunted at that. "So not all that cursing I did when he was a boy was entirely wasted."
    Evidently not. "Our clan-folk have holdings down on the valley of the Mother of Rivers, as well as trading posts at Where-Waters-Meet upon the eastern coast," the first boy—Gulta, that was—said proudly. "Carlo made our profits to rise like a swan in flight! It was he who said that a trading mission to Europe and Venice and perhaps the silk houses of Constantinople might pay a very rich dividend. And we sent him home to await us and prepare the way, while we gathered goods and chose who to go."
    "But he never arrived." The loss in her grandfather's face made Kat gulp down her own tears. If she began crying, he might not be able to hold himself together.
    It was a crumb of comfort that the boys looked stricken, too. "We sent him home!" Gulta half-protested, as if he thought they doubted him.
    Lodovico managed to reach out and pat the boy on the hand. "We believe you, lad," he replied, his voice cracking a little. "But a great deal can happen between Vinland and Venice."
    They were all thinking it. Including shipwreck.  
    All but Marco, it seemed, who stuck out his chin stubbornly. "Not shipwreck," he said firmly. "I can promise you that. Whatever has delayed him, it isn't that. And until I hear otherwise, I will be sure it is only that—delay."
    It wasn't sane, it wasn't rational, but Kat took heart from his surety—and so did her grandfather, who sat up straighter and nodded.
    "By Saint Raphaella, Valdosta, you shame me," he said. "If you, a stranger to our family, can have such faith, how am I to doubt? Right enough. My son has survived so much else, how can he not return home to us?"
    "Exactly so, sir," Marco agreed, giving Kat's hand a squeeze.
    Now Lodovico turned to the Vinlanders. "And that being so, young sirs, please: Let us hear your plans, and how Casa Montescue means to figure into them."
    To anyone but a Venetian, that statement would have seemed callous in the extreme. Here, Lodovico's son had literally been raised