The Exiled Blade: Act Three of the Assassini (26 page)

He vaulted from the balcony and landed in a crouch, drawing the sword that hung from his shoulder as he stood. “Did he tell you I was human?” Tycho stared at the fur-jacketed archers who surrounded him. “Is that what he told you? Is that what you think you’ve been hunting?” He drew the sword across his forearm, holding it out so they could see black blood well and begin to slow, the cut crusting and the flesh around it begin to heal. They muttered among themselves.

Roderigo’s expression said he knew he was losing them.

“He’s afraid,” Tycho said. “That’s why he needs you to fight me instead.”

The words drew growls from the tribesmen worthy of a dog pack disputing ownership of a bone. Several of them lowered their swords or bows. Then, somehow, they reached a silent agreement and they stepped back, leaving Roderigo standing in the middle of a circle. He could fight or lose them for ever.

That knowledge showed in Roderigo’s eyes.

With it returned the courage that had seen Roderigo through many battles, or so Tycho had been told. The man would win, or die here. Tycho intended to make sure he died. “You killed the monks at San Lazar.”

Roderigo opened his mouth to deny it and swallowed, unwilling to risk facing God with a lie on his lips.

“You set the barrels of powder. Your sergeant lit the fuse.”

“He died well?” Roderigo’s expression softened at the mention of Temujin.

“Cursing his father for abandoning his mother and promising to screw his first love into the dirt of the afterlife. She died of plague before he could grow tired of her. Of course he died well.”

An archer with high cheekbones and grey beard muttered something. As one, those in the crowd of men around Tycho and Roderigo holding bows sheathed them and drew their swords to join the others in forming a circle. Retreat too far or too fast and a sword point would pierce you. Roderigo grinned. “His highness has offered fifty thousand ducats for your head. I’m going to enjoy collecting.”

Tycho said, “Strike the first blow.”

“Why?” Roderigo demanded.

“I don’t want anyone saying you weren’t ready.”

Roderigo snorted. Raising his sword high, he held the position as he returned Tycho’s gaze. What Tycho knew about swordplay he’d learnt from Atilo, whereas Roderigo had a lifetime’s practical experience. Both men held three-quarter swords suited to fighting in Venetian alleys or indoors.
You’re faster
, Tycho told himself.
You’re stronger. You’re the better man.

There was a time he’d have believed it.

He fell back on Atilo’s training. Taking the position, he waited. When you don’t know what to do, do nothing. He kept his eyes on Roderigo’s, and it was Roderigo’s eyes that betrayed the man. As Roderigo feinted in one direction, his gaze flicked in another and Tycho blocked the blow, sparks jumping from their blades and the clash of steel echoing off the stone walls.

The fight was quick and brutal after that, and Roderigo nearly made good his promise when Tycho slipped on blood and rolled backwards as Roderigo’s blade came crashing down to smash a flagstone. Tycho took a face full of granite chips from the blow that stuck to the sweat on his face. He climbed unsteadily to his feet, blocking Roderigo’s next blow.

The cold slowed Tycho down. What feeding had given him, his arrow wounds and the cold had stolen. He needed to kill Roderigo; either that, or fight free of the wild archers in a circle around him, save Leo from the cold and hunger that were undoubtedly killing him and escape. But the real battle was with himself. All the battles that really mattered were with yourself.

Stepping back, Tycho flinched as a sword pricked his shoulder. The wild tribesmen grinned at his surprise. Lord Roderigo was also smiling. He was taller and broader, more experienced in battle and held the slightly longer sword.
But he’s not me
, Tycho reminded himself.
And this battle’s not over.

“You should have surrendered,” Roderigo mocked.

Tycho slashed furiously. Roderigo’s retreat gave Tycho space to launch another blow that was blocked in turn. The two men stepped back from each other and Roderigo raised his sword high. For here he could strike to either side or straight down. The position let him block, while offering blows that would take Tycho off at the leg. Around them the wild soldiers fell silent, having decided the fight was nearing its end. All anyone could hear was wind along the valley and the drumming of a shutter somewhere above.

“Afraid?” Roderigo asked.

“Tired of this,” Tycho said. It wasn’t the answer Roderigo expected. The ex-Dogana captain had his legs apart to steady himself. His sword at the balance point to let him take its weight. If Tycho stepped back another pace he’d spear himself on the sword wall. If that happened he might as well let Roderigo take his head.

Tycho watched Roderigo’s eyes.

In the final moment, they narrowed and flicked to one side and Tycho read the warning in their movement and caught Roderigo’s blade on his, feeling both blades shatter. One clattered to the ground, the other scythed into the crowd and ripped a man open at the hip.

“Shit,” said Roderigo, grabbing for his dagger.

Tycho was already moving. Having launched forward, he dropped and slid feet first between Roderigo’s legs, slashing upward with his broken blade. Roderigo screamed like a gelded horse as blood spurted from his groin. By then, Tycho had rolled sideways, climbed to his knees and sliced the man’s hamstrings.

Turning for the rear doors of the fort, Tycho felt rather than saw the wild soldiers move aside to let him through. He stepped over the bodies of those killed by the porcupine, opened the rear door enough to slip through and shut it behind him. Up ahead he could see the slit in the cliff and the steps that led to it.

The wild archers let him go without protest.

A few minutes later he felt rather than heard them go. They left their dead unburied and their captain castrated on the fortress floor. If they had any sense they’d find a new captain and a different war.

“Prince Frederick, this is not fitting . . .”

The chamberlain’s voice was distant and disapproving. The man was the oldest of the servants at Ca’ Ducale. Marco the Just had lately been knighted when he joined the palace staff. Serving the Millioni had been his life. An emperor’s bastard wanting to stand guard over the body of his late master’s niece . . .

Nothing in a long life of studying etiquette and court ritual told him what to do. He wished Duchess Alexa were alive. At least Lady Giulietta imagined he did. He sounded like he wished something.

“She’s alive,” Frederick said.

“Your highness . . .”

“I’m telling you. Giulietta lives.”

“She has been examined by the best doctors. She has neither heartbeat nor reflexes. Her eyes do not react to the light.”

“Her body is uncorrupted.”

“The vitality of youth and the sanctity of a life well lived. She will be buried tomorrow . . .” The chamberlain caught himself. However much he obviously wished that to be true, the ground was too hard for burial. He amended his words to “She will be taken to the crypt tomorrow to await burial.”

“I saw her breathe.”

“I’m sorry, your highness.”

“Just now. I’m telling you. I saw her breathe.”

“The doctor held a mirror to her mouth and nose. The glass remained clear and unfogged. I’m afraid . . .”

“He should have held it there for longer,” Frederick said fiercely. “You must summon him now so he can try again. I’ll wait here.” His voice fierce. “I’m not moving. You’d better understand that.”

The chamberlain sighed.

It was a sigh of half-surrender. In demanding the return of the court doctor Frederick had earned himself the right to hold vigil over her body. Lady Giulietta listened to the chamberlain explain politely, because this was the Emperor Sigismund’s bastard, and it paid to be polite, that the doctor could not be sent for twice. Her death had already been recorded in the Golden Book and the warrant announcing it sealed with the great seal of Venice, which showed the winged Lion of St Mark holding the shield of the Millioni. Sadly, tragically, Lady Giulietta was dead.

“You’re wrong,” Frederick said.

The chamberlain left muttering some commonplace about the harshness of death and the kindness of time. And, dare he say it, how much harder the young found the thought of death than those of his age. Then he shut the door of the great hall behind him and left Frederick to his grief.

The old tales of souls remaining chained to their bodies for three days had to be true because Giulietta felt inside her body and yet not. Her fingers would not move when she flexed them. Her tongue refused to frame words. Her eyes would not open. And her heartbeat was slower than time. Either she was dead, or this was the subtlest of her aunt’s poisons. Though Frederick said he saw her breathe she wondered if it were true.

“I’m so sorry,” she heard Frederick say.

For what?
Giulietta wondered.

“I should have said . . .”

The bier on which her coffin rested creaked as he knelt beside her and though she floated without feeling she guessed he’d taken her hand. Her guess proved right, when he said, “So cold, your fingers . . .”

Perhaps she was dead after all?

“I should have told you my father sent me. I wanted to tell you from the moment we met. You looked so cross at having to meet me and every bit as beautiful as Leopold boasted.”

Leopold had thought her beautiful? He’d written to say that? She’d known the half-brothers wrote to each other but not what their letters said.

“I’m sorry Leopold died and Leo was stolen. I’m sorry Tycho left you and changed sides. I shouldn’t be . . . Because it let us be friends, but being friends wasn’t enough, was it? Most of all,” he said, “I’m sorry I caused this.”

She heard a sob.

“My father told me to make you fall in love with me – and all that happened was I fell in love with you instead.” His voice choked, and Giulietta could imagine his bitten lip and tearful face. “I know my being here is based on a lie. But the rest is true. I know what it’s like to lose someone you love. I know what it’s like to lose a child. To want to be dead.”

He was weeping openly, she realised.

“If Leo’s alive I’ll find him for you, I swear it. And I’ll kill Alonzo.” He hiccuped. “For all the good that will do.”

Through his sobs, she heard the words of the Creed, then the words of the Pater Noster and finally those of the Ave Maria. She thought it odd and touching the prayers he spoke from instinct were those she’d said before poisoning herself. The prayers you learnt in childhood and knew by heart.

It’s not your fault
, she tried to say.

Frederick was sniffling and swallowing, and sounded so much like a young man trying to pull himself together she wanted to smile. Her aunt had called him
that boy
. But he was more than that. He was
krieghund
for a start. Having banished the tremors from his voice, Frederick began to tell her about his childhood in Austria, about meeting and marrying Annemarie. How proud he’d been she was having a child. They’d gone to bed the night before he rode out. His first campaign. She’d sat in the darkness above him, all soft curves and full of life. He’d never told anyone that but he could tell Giulietta because . . .

That produced another sob.

He’d ridden home so proud and found his father waiting at the edge of the estate. Frederick had known instantly something was wrong. The emperor’s presence said that. For weeks Frederick begged the plague to take him, too.

The finest marble, and the best sculptors worked on her tomb. His brother rode halfway across Austria to be with him. Leopold sat beside his bed at night to stop him harming himself. He helped interview Italian sculptors. Annemarie’s finished likeness was so perfect it could have been her sleeping. His daughter lay beside her, eyes closed and a smile on her tiny mouth. Angels guarded Annemarie’s head and stood at her feet. It was a work of art. Unlike any tomb before it.

Sounds beautiful
, Giulietta thought.

“I took one look and never returned.”

It seemed the church still enjoyed Frederick’s patronage: he had masses said monthly for Annemarie’s soul and lilies placed on her tomb every year. The closest he came to returning was with his pack, when they left the high valley and their usual hunting grounds and descended to the edge of the churchyard one summer night. He was talking about his Wolf Brothers, Giulietta realised. She’d thought them war monsters. He made it sound as if they were really wolves.

“And then I met you . . .” His voice broke, like the newly bearded youth he was. “Leopold had written but I thought he exaggerated. He said I would love you and teased me that he’d got there first. Leopold could be cruel like that. It was unthinking cruelty. All his cruelty was unthinking.”

And his kindness . . .

You had to give Leopold that. His kindness was as instinctive as his cruelty. With her, though, he’d been thoughtful. Although Giulietta still didn’t understand what made him kind to her when he was so brutal to so many of Aunt Alexa’s ladies-in-waiting. He’d bedded more than half and treated them all disgustingly, while leaving her unbedded and being unfailingly kind. They were a strange family.

Mind you, who were the Millioni to talk?

“
Where is he?
”

Voices laughed in the warm darkness.

Tycho drew his sword. “Give me the child.”

“Or what, highness? You’ll slice the air to shreds?” The voice was mocking, slightly bitchy. Like one of the eunuchs in the palace of a Mamluk sultan.
Had he ever been in the palace of a Mamluk sultan?

A creature came out of the cave’s darkness in a halo of sullen light. Its face was narrow and nose slightly hooked; weirdly narrow eyes were made stranger by slightly pointed ears. Chest hair gave way to goat fur at the hips, with the greying fur thickening towards the hooves. It was the testicles Tycho really noticed, grotesquely large, hanging like grapefruit beneath a child’s penis.