The Exiled Blade: Act Three of the Assassini (14 page)

Is it
safe . . .?
She kept her question to herself.

Wind had scoured snow from the ice to leave a hard surface that rang like glass as they rode over it. The sky gleamed like turquoise mined in Persia, bright blue without a single flaw. When Giulietta turned to look at the city behind her, she saw Venice glittering and clean, cut from ice and set in a marble sea. The air above the mainland was so clear the high peaks of the Altus showed sharp in the distance, closer than she’d ever seen them.

Frederick grinned. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Beautiful,” she agreed.

The saddle was awkward beneath her, the stirrups too wide for her feet to stay in place easily, Barrel bumped up and down with every stride; but she didn’t mind and it didn’t matter. The freedom of being out alone on the ice was all.

He led her out towards the middle of the channel so they passed between the island of San Maggiore, and Castello, the westernmost of the
sestieri
, the districts Venice had been divided into in its earliest days. Then he leant over and looped the leading rein around the top of her saddle.

“I can’t . . .”

“Of course you can.” Frederick dropped his reins to the neck of his horse, which lowered its mouth to the ice and shook its head crossly at finding nothing worth eating. “Fold them through your fingers like this. And don’t pull unless you want Barrel to stop.” As they were riding in a straight line and Barrel walked on when she kicked her side at Frederick’s suggestion, Giulietta held her reins and did nothing else, because that was what he was doing. To their left was Castello, and to their right, beyond San Maggiore, the bigger island of Giudecca.

He saw her look and nodded grimly.

His friends had died there, more than a dozen. They fought Tycho, and then changed their minds and joined Tycho to rescue her and Leo, and fight the Byzantines. That Frederick was still alive was a miracle. That she was alive was an even greater one.
Why would he come back?
Why would he return to a place where something like that had happened?

“Why are you really here?” she demanded. “I mean, you didn’t have to come.”

“I know that. But Leopold was my brother, and Leo his son. I know what it’s like to lose . . . His face shut down and he stared hard towards the low line of snow-covered sandbanks framing the lagoon. One hand gripped tight on his reins, and his other rubbed crossly at his eyes. That was when Giulietta knew she had to explain. Anything else was unfair. She didn’t want to be unfair.

“Listen,” she said. “Leo isn’t dead . . .”

“
Giulietta.
” He turned then, and she saw the tears streaking his cheeks and dampening the upper edge of his slight moustache. “I know it’s hard, God knows, I know it’s hard.” Reaching across, he grabbed her hand, gripping so tightly her fingers hurt. “But you have to accept . . .”

“
Frederick . . .
”

He let her fingers go.

“Leo isn’t dead.” She held up her hand. “Just listen, all right. Yes, the infant in Leo’s nursery at Ca’ Ducale is an impostor. Yes, I know there’s a dead baby in the crypt. He’s a changeling, too. The real Leo was stolen by Alonzo.”

“God’s name why?”

“Because he’s the child’s real father.”

The horror on Frederick’s face made her redden. “Not like that. His alchemist did what was necessary with a goose quill.”

It was his turn to blush. “That’s why Tycho isn’t here?”

“Yes,” Giulietta said. “That’s why Tycho isn’t here.”

“He must be brave.” Frederick’s voice was matter of fact. “To go into Montenegro alone to try to get him back.”

“You wouldn’t do it?”

“I would for you,” Frederick said firmly. “I’d want to take an army, though.”

Me, too
, thought Giulietta. And she meant it.

As they rode out towards the mouth of the lagoon, Giulietta told Frederick about Dr Crow and how her own Aunt Alexa abducted her and pretended it was the Mamluks, and how Frederick’s brother really abducted her, how she escaped and how Leopold tracked her down again. How he married her and adopted Leo . . .

Underfoot, the ice changed from marble-white to blue, its surface increasingly laced with cracks like flawed alabaster. When Frederick suggested they turn back, Giulietta agreed. She was proud that she paused, and pretended to consider riding on, rather than simply gasping with relief.

“So stunning,” said Frederick, looking at her city.

He means it
, she realised. His tone was wistful, and yet there was more to it than that. He sounded like someone saying hello and goodbye at the same time. Maybe he intended to go home? He turned, and Lady Giulietta expected him to announce he was leaving the next day or at the end of the week, or however long it would take to make arrangements for his return. Instead, he simply stared at the marbled ice stretching around them like God’s own floor and at the snow-covered mountains on the mainland beyond. When he spoke it was softly. “Do you believe the world is ending?”

“Why?” said Giulietta. “Do you?”

He nodded sadly.

“You’re wrong.” Having explained that the world could only end once all the babies were born, Lady Giulietta added that her aunt’s orders instructed that all new pregnancies be reported, and there were more than ever as couples took to their beds against the cold. If the pregnancies did stop . . . Well, he’d still have nine months to repent his sins, which she doubted were huge.

“Alexa’s astrologers worked this out?”

“Marco,” Giulietta said.

“The duke?” Frederick looked surprised, then doubtful, and finally so thoughtful that Giulietta began to suspect that she shouldn’t have said that. He was silent for most of the return journey, only finding his voice when they reached the shore and the brick of the Molo rang under their mounts’ hooves. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For this afternoon. For the ride. For trusting me.”

“Are you going to leave now?” Giulietta hesitated. “I mean . . . Now you know about . . .?” She didn’t have to say what. It was obvious she meant Leo being alive and Tycho having gone to find him. She expected an instant answer, but Frederick was looking beyond her to where guards had opened the Porta della Carta. The duchess was in the doorway, obviously unable to decide whether to be cross or amused.

“No,” Frederick said finally. “I think I’ll stay for a while.”

“I’d better go inside.”

He smiled. “Probably. Here, let me . . .”

Lady Giulietta sat still, while Frederick slid from his saddle and walked round to help her dismount, steadying her as she landed. He’d already told her he’d stable Barrel with his other horses while insisting the fat little pony really was hers.

“One thing,” he said. “If Tycho needs help . . . If
you
need help getting your son back, tell me. I’ll see what my father can do.” Climbing on to his stallion, Frederick reached for Barrel’s leading rein and turned for the ice. He would use the Grand Canal as his road. Lady Giulietta watched him go.

“My lord Tycho.”

Eat, keep the rest, and go . . .
Those were the words he wanted to say as he looked at Captain Towler’s weather-beaten face and the rat-faced soldiers behind him. Amelia had returned from a run to say a stag and three hinds had come down to the valley floor from the higher slopes, and were scuffing at the snow looking for vegetation beneath. Tycho sent her out again to stampede the animals back up the slope towards the fort and had Towler’s archer position himself in the shadows of the entrance arch. The man was good with a bow for all he stank, had sly eyes and was Welsh. Tycho didn’t understand why the last of these mattered, but it was the point to which all of the man’s companions eventually returned.

The stag died from an arrow to the heart. The largest of the hinds took to her heels with two arrows in her neck and dropped within a quarter of a mile. The others escaped but Tycho doubted they’d live long without the stag to protect them. Amelia gutted one and he gutted the other, Towler’s men lining up to drink warm blood from a rusting bucket. And when they found their strength, Tycho sent them from room to room to collect whatever wood they could and began to smoke the meat. He imagined it would taste of the burnt chairs and broken beds they brought him and doubted they’d much care.

“Send my regards to Prince Alonzo.”

Looking up at Tycho’s words, Amelia busied herself with ripping slivers of meat from a bone boiling in a pot. Tycho scowled. Amelia didn’t understand why she and Tycho didn’t simply go with them. That was because he’d yet to give her his reasons.

“My lord, tomorrow. You’re quite sure you won’t . . .?”

“Thank you. We travel best on our own.”

“And you still have things to do here?” Captain Towler looked doubtfully round the kitchen of the fort. For a few hours the room had been friendly with hot food and the fug of bodies and the echo of laughter. Here was where most would sleep, filled with grilled venison and warmed by the fire. Tomorrow they would leave and take what remained of the food with them. That was what had Captain Towler thanking Tycho in the first place.

“I have a vigil . . .”

The captain nodded. Vigils were for nobles, like sacred vows and courtly love. He knew the argument was over. He and his men would be going on alone. If Tycho wanted to kneel in the darkness and pray to some saint . . .

Tycho smiled at the man’s careful expression, and knew the captain considered himself to have better things to do. “Three days, you reckon?”

Towler nodded.

“Well, I wish you joy of it.”

“We’ll see you later, my lord. I’m sure of it.”

Not if things work out as they should.
Tycho clasped hands with the man, feeling calloused skin from a lifetime’s wielding a sword. He clapped the captain on the back and wished him a safe journey, which he meant, and promised to meet again in a week or so, which he didn’t. Buoyed up by food and the memory of warmth, they would find their way to the Red Cathedral in a few days. If they arrived in daylight, then Tycho would rely on the novelty of their arrival to distract Alonzo’s guards that night. And if they arrived at night, so much the better. He would use the distraction of their arrival to find his own way inside.

“
Why do I come here?
”

Amelia’s question had been abrupt, her voice brittle. She’d found him crouched by the rocky slit, as she’d found him the night before, and the night before that, considering its painted lips and the nub of a stone face at the top of the cleft. They both knew what the slit looked like although neither said. Amelia was watchful and her dagger unsheathed. “You’ve been here for hours.”

“Ten minutes at most.” Tycho glanced up and realised he lied. The moon’s silver sliver had shifted on the horizon. “You should have stayed inside.”

Amelia glared at him.

“And why the drawn knife?”

“Because I’m afraid.” She didn’t even look abashed. “Tycho. What’s so special about this cave?”

“Nothing. It’s simply a cave.”
Small, narrow, damp and sour.
The grit of its entrance as smooth as if raked, but with ochre drawings of twisted bison and fat-breasted women inside to say people had used it in darker times.

How could he possibly know that?

Amelia lifted the flaming torch she held. “You look . . .”

He imagined she was about to say pale, only that was ridiculous because to her he must always look pale. Anyway, anyone would be chilled by the wind that threatened the flames of her torch, especially if wearing his clothes. Amelia was wrapped in a rancid fur found in the fort, her face reduced to a strip of coal-dark skin and her strange violet eyes.

“Don’t leave tonight,” she said. “Go tomorrow.”

Tycho thought about it. For a second he considered saving his strength, but Captain Towler’s men would be arriving or might already have arrived at the Red Cathedral, and a warning on the wind was no real warning at all. “You didn’t hear anything?”

Amelia squinted, trying not to make it obvious . . .

“Well,” he said. “Did you?”

“Hear what? All I’ve heard is the wind.”

That was what Tycho had heard, too, his trouble being it spoke to him. “
Stay or go
,” it said, “
you will be dead before morning.
”

Rocky slopes plummeted away on both sides, treacherous with ice, the drop brutal and deadly; unless he really was unable to be killed, in which case he’d lie broken at the bottom until someone found him and tried to prove him wrong.

You’re happy
, Tycho thought.

The self-mockery cheered him, even as a sudden gust of ice-cold wind almost swept him over the edge, and he had to drop beneath it and hold tight until the gust faded and he could stand again. Between the fort and where he needed to be was no more than a few hours for him, but the route he chose, the quickest one, was along the granite spine of a mountain, into the face of driving snow that stripped humanity from him, until he had no space for doubts, self-pity or self-mockery, and his thoughts became mechanical and remorseless. He was going to get Giulietta’s child.

You’re going to get Giulietta’s child.

In his head the infant didn’t even have a name. It wasn’t that he was Leo, that this was Leopold’s child, that letting Alonzo claim him would clear his way to the throne of Venice. No, he was simply going to get Giulietta’s child.

The spine Tycho ran was the ridge between two high valleys in a row of mountains that climbed higher and higher, until finally the ridge began to descend and the wind became less threatening. On his left, the slope dropped to firs so far below they looked like child’s toys. A town in the valley bottom was a smudge of dirt on a white background. On his right a frozen lake lay trapped in a valley so steep at one end that only a mountain goat, and possibly Tycho, could climb it, and he’d rather leave it to the goat. The other end had a village on a silt plain that centuries of rain had pushed out into the lake. The closer he got the more miserable the village became; desolate as a beggar’s dog, huts crusted like fleas around its wooden church, shutters like scabs on a village hall, mud tracks dirty as ditches. Even from half a mile away, Tycho could sense misery clinging to it like the stink to a midden.