The Exiled Blade: Act Three of the Assassini (13 page)

“No rope,” said the one who’d originally gone looking. Behind him the other two nodded their agreement. One of them held a tar-dipped torch that guttered and smoked so the search hadn’t been entirely worthless.

“We could impale them,” growled the man who’d rubbed his thumb across Amelia’s face. His scowl said he needed to get some self-respect back. “That’s what they do round here, isn’t it?”

“That’s the Seljuks.”

“So what? It’s not like we’ve impaled anyone before, is it? We’ve hung lots. We’re always hanging people.” He looked round for support.

“You’re full of shit,” the archer said.

“You wouldn’t say that if you weren’t holding a bow.”

“Well, I am,” the archer said. “And you’re full of shit. Everyone knows you’re full of shit. Heathens impale people. Are we heathens?”

“Two pretty boys. It would be justice.”

“She’s not a boy,” Tycho said.

The archer and the other man stopped glaring at each other and turned to Tycho, who got a split second of their attention before they both turned to examine Amelia, as did every other soldier in the room. “He’s wearing a doublet,” the archer protested.

“And trews,” the man he’d been arguing with said. “And men’s boots. And that’s not a woman’s knife.” Dipping forward, he drew Amelia’s ankle dagger and stepped quickly back. “Toledo steel, no less.”

“Stolen most like.”

“Her name’s Amelia,” Tycho said swiftly.

“Prove it.”

“How can I prove a name?”

A jab of the sword was his answer. A trickle of blood rolled down his throat. “Don’t get clever.”

“Too late,” Amelia said.

Her voice was light enough to be a girl’s. Alternatively, it could belong to someone not yet a man. Tycho watched their captain realise this. Behind him, his men were beginning to look restless. “Show them,” Tycho said. The eyes that met his were hard and flat and impassive in the way only someone fighting for self-control and finding it can manage. He expected Amelia to reveal her teats because that’s what most women would have done. Instead she unlaced her trews and dropped them, revealing smoothness beneath. To make the point, she turned a circle.

The ugly-faced archer still had his fingers hooked round the end of his arrow but his bow was only half drawn and pointed nearly floorwards. Even their captain seemed more interested in examining Amelia than keeping his sword level.

One problem had turned into another. Everyone knew that.

“She’s better than any hanging.” Unnotching his arrow, the archer unstrung his bow and returned his arrow to its quiver without being ordered. Those keeping out of his way pushed forward into the gap.

“Captain goes first,” the blond-haired man said.

“Meaning you go second,” the archer muttered. This was when Tycho realised the man who’d checked Amelia’s cheek was their sergeant. A sergeant who hated their bowman could be useful.

“Boys . . .” the captain sighed. “There’ll be plenty for everyone.”

“No,” Amelia said. “There won’t.”

Turning to glare at her, the sergeant said, “Yes, there will . . . A woman dressed in a man’s clothes. That’s a hanging offence.”

“Burning,” the archer said.

“So you’d better to be nice to us . . .”

“Yeah,” said the archer. “You can begin by unbuttoning your doublet.” He glared at the sergeant, daring him to disagree. “In fact, why don’t we just take everything off and you can crawl back into bed?” Ignoring the sergeant’s barked order to wait his turn, the archer took a step closer and reached for Amelia’s buttons.

Two things happened.

She grabbed the man, spun him round and slammed her heel into the back of his knee, dropping him to the floor. A split second later, as she tightened the string of his bow around his neck, Tycho used his elbow to knock up the captain’s sword, twist its handle from his grip and bring its point to rest under the man’s chin. Amelia scowled and twisted her home-made garrotte a little tighter.

“Nicely done . . .”

She glared, as if asking if he really expected a compliment that thin to make up for what had gone before.

“What’s your name?” Tycho demanded of the captain.

“Towler.”

“And the name of your company?”

“Towler’s Company.”

“How original. Amelia, I really think . . .”

She loosened her bowstring slightly and the archer slumped forward, gasping hideously and purple-black in the face. He’d live, most likely. Although he’d be voiceless for a week.

“What’s a fine company like yours doing here in the middle of winter?”

The captain looked to see if he was being mocked by having his straggling troop described as fine, decided he was and realised there wasn’t much he could do about it. “Prince Alonzo di Millioni has sent out a call for good men . . .”

And you bring him these?
“Alonzo?”

“You know him?” Captain Towler sounded doubtful.

“One of my closest friends.”

“It’s true,” Amelia said. “My lord and the prince are so inseparable you could barely fit a knife blade between them.”

“Your lord?” Towler seemed bemused by the appearance of a title. “Then perhaps you could put in a good word for us, my lord. I mean, if that’s where you and your . . .” The captain hesitated, uncertain how to describe Amelia, who was watching impassively. “Where you and your companion are going.”

“You go to fight the Red Crucifers?” Tycho asked.

“
My lord . . .?
” the man said.

Oh gods
, thought Tycho, reading the anxiety in Captain Towler’s face. The Regent never intended to fight the Red Crucifers at all. He’d gone to command them. Alonzo Millioni was a trained
condottiero
, son-in-law to the richest noble in Venice. Left alone, the Red would decay and be destroyed or destroy themselves. With Alonzo as their master . . . “What title has he taken?”

“Duke of Montenegro.”

Of course he had
. Half the city-states of Italy would recognise him now, the rest within a year if they bothered to wait at all. Alonzo was Italian and Alexa was Mongol, mother to an idiot son no one expected to rule. As for the Pope . . . All Alonzo had to do was offer to destroy the Serbian heresy, return Montenegro to Catholic rule and establish the Red as a legitimate order swearing allegiance to Rome, and the Pope would be sending him sacred war banners and a personal blessing.

If that happened Alexa would find herself with a civil war. The colonies would declare for Alonzo, Venice would split into feuding noble families and the street gangs would riot. If Alexa was lucky the Castellani would declare for her if the Nicoletti declared for Alonzo, but the chances were the gangs would combine behind Alonzo and the Watch would be unable to keep them under control. Tycho could imagine the city welcoming Alonzo simply because he offered order.

“I’m Lord Tycho bel Angelo. This is Lady Amelia . . .” Beside him, the young Nubian raised her eyebrows at her sudden ennoblement. “You see that post . . .”

Captain Towler nodded.

“Who’s your best knife man?”

The captain pointed to his sergeant.

“The centre boss,” Tycho told him. “One throw only.”

When the man pulled a knife from his belt without first checking with Captain Towler, Tycho smiled to himself. Get the sergeant obeying orders and the men would follow. He needed the man to throw well.

Amelia just needed to throw better.

“Take your time,” Tycho suggested.

It was a clean throw, hard enough to kill a man across a tavern, and left the dagger quivering to one side of the boss. The sergeant expected Tycho to throw next and looked shocked when Amelia stepped forward.

Men whistled as her knife slammed into the post just inside the first knife.
Impressive
, Tycho thought. Not the throw, but to beat the man by so little was subtle. The sergeant’s rueful grin said he was impressed not offended.

“Brilliant,” Tycho said.

“Not
nicely done
?” She turned to the sergeant. “In my country it’s the women who wage war.”

“You’re Amazon?”

“Nubian,” Amelia said. “We’re worse.”

A tightly wrapped German noble arrived unexpectedly at the doors of Ca’ Ducale an hour after dawn on a proud, high-stepping stallion that snorted, steamed and blew dragon’s breath at the cold air. A second grey trotted sedately behind, saddle empty. Sliding from his mount, the man landed with a bump that blew a laugh from his chest, and immediately unwrapped a huge wolf-pelt coat that he draped across his mount’s back before turning for the palace doors. That was when the guards on the Porta della Carta realised their visitor was Prince Frederick, and that he’d arrived without courtiers or bodyguards.

“Would you see if Lady Giulietta is home?”

They found his Italian hard to understand, and his stepping from foot to foot against the cold made his accent stranger still. What muddled them, though, was his politeness. “Certainly my lord . . . I mean, your highness.”

A guard abandoned his post at the gate – a whipping offence – rather than ring the bell and wait for a messenger. He hurried across the inner courtyard and up steps made treacherous by ice, even though they’d been scraped the previous evening. Prince Frederick watched him go and, after a while, asked if he could come inside. A few minutes after this a door opened on to a gallery above and a young woman strode down the stairs. “Your highness . . .”

“Frederick,” he said, smiling.

Lady Giulietta shrugged. “Frederick.”

“My lady . . .”

She smiled. A brief flash of amusement.

Meetings between people of their importance were usually arranged in advance. There were protocols in place to agree suitable times and neutral locations, with some clue given in advance as to the reason. “Has something happened?”

“I upset you yesterday.”

Giulietta checked to see if the nearest guard was listening. Even a year before she wouldn’t have noticed he was there, except in the way she knew wardrobes and cupboards existed. The guard’s face was impassive enough to suggest he was. “That doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it does.” He hesitated. “Well, it does to me.”

“You’d better come in.”

He almost did, and then she saw him find his courage and come to a decision. “I have a better plan.” He put his hand under her elbow and turned her towards the door behind them. It was a tentative touch and he looked ready to let her go if she protested. Giulietta’s mouth quirked. Beyond the door stood two horses, one high and sleek with a swan-like neck and noble forehead, the other squat and almost shaggy. Her heart sank. Surely he didn’t mean . . .

It turned out he did. “Her name’s Barrel.”

“How does she stay upright?”

Frederick looked at her and Giulietta shrugged. It was an obvious enough question. Everyone in the city kept slipping over. Surely having hooves instead of feet simply made things worse?

“Look . . .” Frederick bent Barrel’s leg as easily as a Venetian boy might loop a rope around a gondola post and tie it off. “She won’t hurt you . . . See,” he said.

See what?

When he took her hand and touched her finger to the horse’s shoe, Giulietta found herself blushing, damn it. But Frederick was peering at the horseshoe and waiting expectantly, so she ran her finger over ice-cold metal and felt jagged edges beneath her fingers. “There are ridges.”

Frederick smiled.

“Chevrons,” Giulietta added, naming the heraldic vees sometimes found on shields in battle. “Dozens of them.”

“My design. My blacksmith made them.”

“You brought your blacksmith?” Lady Giulietta was surprised. Venice was a city of foundries and metalworkers. Actually, it was a city of everything workers, from boiled leather to finest gold.

“And my cook, and armourer, and doctor.”

“Why?”

“Well, the cook’s obvious . . .” His tone was light, but it was clear he meant it. Until recently he’d been their enemy. Venice was as famous for her poisons as she was for her gilt and glass. He’d be a fool not to bring his own cook and food tasters, and the same applied to his doctor. “Besides, they’re my friends.”

It seemed unlikely enough to be true. The guards on the Porta della Carta were watching her from the corner of their eyes, and a
cittadino
family on their way home from mass had stopped to stare openly. If she turned round, she’d probably find her aunt staring down from the central balcony. Lady Giulietta had always hated being watched. “I should . . .”

“Yes,” Frederick said. “You should.”

Before she could protest, he dropped to a crouch and folded his fingers together to make a step.
That’s not what I meant at all.
Still, a Schiavoni trader dragging a cart had now joined her audience, stilled by the sight of horses, the lavishness of Frederick’s cloak and the realisation that the girl hesitating to mount was Lady Giulietta Millioni.
How did I let him do this to me?
She knew she should be furious, but he looked so anxious that she put her foot in his hands, blushed scarlet as he saw her lower leg in a swirl of skirt, and let herself be boosted up on to a side saddle.

Snow and ice on a high pass through the wintry mountains.

She’d been sitting in front of the grey-bearded Moor, who’d wrapped his cloak around her to keep her warm although he was freezing himself. Inside her cloak, she stank of fear and not washing and having soiled herself, because he refused to stop. At the time she’d thought him unkind. Now she realised Lord Atilo’s refusal to stop had probably saved her life. She could remember riding in front. When he tied her behind him, she had been so miserable her memory blanked.

“You all right?”

It was the smell of horses, she realised. The sweet stink that rose from Barrel beneath her. “Bad memories,” she said. “I told you I was carried once. A long-time ago when I was still a small child.”

“Through the high pass beyond Monfalcone?”

“How do you know about that?”

“Everybody knows.”

That didn’t make her feel any better. Having checked his own stirrup leathers, Frederick vaulted on to his mount with the ease of someone who had grown up around horses, slid his feet into his stirrups and leant forward to grab her leading rein. Lady Giulietta expected him to turn for Piazza San Marco but he rode instead towards the edge of the Molo, the hooves of his horse ringing loudly on the frozen brick, her own mount sounding muted behind. A moment later they stepped down on to the ice of the lagoon, and a wide expanse of white stretched before her all the way to the sandbanks guarding the lagoon mouth.