The Exiled Blade: Act Three of the Assassini (39 page)

“What are those?”

“The solution to that.” He’d saved them the night Giulietta insisted they were unnecessary. Lying in his arms, she sworn she’d love him for ever.

“And what,
exactly
, do they do?”

The balance between Amelia and him had changed. She was mistress of the Assassini and took the responsibility seriously. She spoke from the assumption that she had a right to ask and he would answer.

“Well . . .?

“Dr Crow made them.” A reply that did little to reassure her. “Remember the feast for Frederick?” Tycho asked.

“I was in Paris, remember?” She flicked her gaze to where the patriarch was asking Duchess Giulietta if she took Prince Frederick as her husband. Her answer was flat but it was still yes.

“She’s in shock,” Amelia said.

Tycho looked at her.

“The duchess is sleepwalking through this. She’s been sleepwalking through everything since you and Marco died.
What would Aunt Alexa do?
I’ve heard her ask it aloud. Everyone close to her has heard it.”

What would Aunt Alexa do?

“Aunt Alexa would want her to take these.”

“Convince me,” Amelia said.

The kitchens were steamy and filled with cooks screaming at undercooks about their failings. In one corner, a confectioner reduced his young assistant to tears with a fluency and viciousness that stunned Tycho. It seemed an egg white had not set properly.

An ox roasted on an iron spit over a fire pit. In the chimneys, whole hogs cooked on lesser spits turned by children over hissing charcoal that singed bristles as dripping fat sent flames jumping. The area smelt of crackling. Vast pies of salt pastry not meant to be eaten were being filled with a mix of hot mutton, black pepper and steaming winter vegetables. The last peacock in the zoo was honey-glazed and almost roasted. Barrels of red wine stood warming. More barrels of strong and weak beer were being trundled across stone floors towards a trestle table that held clay jugs for lower tables and glass ones for high tables.

The crowd in the banqueting hall beyond the doors were drunk and already half stuffed with fresh bread, their fingers slick with oil from a stew of chicken and root vegetables better suited to the table of a
cittadino
. Barely a scrap remained on the dishes being returned to the kitchens. Tonight might not be the richest feast Venice had seen but it was better than any given in recent months.

The great banqueting hall, first demanded by Marco the Just, and overseen by Duchess Alexa, had been finished on the orders of Marco the Great, the late and much lamented duke. Its panelling was waxed and the painted ceiling finally in place; even the windows had been fitted. Politeness demanded that no one mention the last time Prince Frederick attended a feast in that hall assassins had tried to kill him.

“Over there.” Amelia nodded to the far side of the kitchens.

Two White Crucifers stood by a table watching the preparations carefully. Every so often, one would abandon his post to test food, sniff meat or examine dried peppercorns before allowing them to be ground. They were Giulietta’s and Frederick’s official food tasters. The Crucifers looked up suspiciously.

“Duchess Giulietta’s orders,” Amelia said.

For a second it looked as if the men would demand her right to use the duchess’s name, then they took in the richness of her gown and the value of the gold chain around her neck and accepted she’d be stupid to use the name without authority. They had the closed faces of men who didn’t like women at the best of times, certainly not ones who met their gaze. “And him?” the taller demanded.

Tycho was dressed simply, his robes long and priest-like.

“An alchemist,” Amelia said. “Also here on her orders.”

The priests scowled as Tycho guessed they would.

“You taste the food first,” Amelia told them. “We taste it second. Only then does it go through to the duke and duchess.” The Crucifers thought about that and scowled at each other as they tried to come up with a reason that having the food double-tasted was a bad idea beyond hurt pride.

“The first dish has already gone.”

“True,” Lady Amelia admitted. “But since Giulietta and Frederick have yet to seat themselves they will not have eaten it . . .” Maybe it was the familiarity with which the richly dressed young Nubian used the royal names, and used them with confidence . . . Perhaps it was simply that she knew the couple were not yet seated, which he didn’t, but the elder Crucifer accepted defeat.

“We’ll be watching.”

“Especially him.” The younger one nodded.

They were true to their word. They watched carefully as Tycho dug his borrowed spoon into a bowl of fish soup they’d already tasted, and barely bothered to watch Amelia take her turn afterwards. Over the next hour and a half they watched Tycho chew a slice of beef, pinch a succulent sliver from a piglet, and spoon mutton and winter vegetable pie into his mouth.

Food tasters kept their employers alive. They tasted the wine and the water, the bread and the meat and the wizened winter vegetables that had been plumped up by soaking in water and seasoned with black pepper and cinnamon to hide their bitterness. They tasted everything. “I think we’re done,” Tycho said.

Lady Amelia nodded.

“You don’t intend to taste that?” The younger Crucifer pointed at a heart-shaped sweetmeat of diced fruit, honeycomb and spices carried by a young page. The heart was cut diagonally so Giulietta could take the top piece and her new husband the bottom. “You,” the Crucifer said. “Here.”

The boy glared at him.

He wore Millioni scarlet, decorated with gold and silver. At his hip hung an ornate dagger that he could only be wearing by dispensation of the duchess herself. “If you would,” the priest added, more politely.

The boy brought his dish across.

His eyes widened as he glanced at Tycho’s hooded face and his mouth opened. He was trembling when Lady Amelia stepped forward and gripped the boy’s cheeks with fingers that dug into his skin. “Has anyone else touched this?”

She tapped the dish – in a rapid sequence that announced
Assassini business.
When she released him, Pietro bowed. “No, my lady.” He hesitated. “I mean, the confectioner obviously, but . . .”

She waved his fumbling away.

The priests tasted it first, taking tentative scoops from beneath both bits of the heart. Lady Amelia’s interrogation of the page had given them a new respect for her. She had to be someone if she treated a royal page like one of her own. They watched Tycho, although less closely than before. There was little enough for them to see. He scooped out sweetmeat, tasted it and did his best to smooth the sides. His smile was bleak as he nodded to say he felt no ill effects.

It was Lady Amelia’s turn. But the Crucifers were watching the page, wondering why he was standing so rigidly to attention and obviously fighting his emotions. The boy glanced at the hooded figure, who said, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

The page stared at him.

“Your master, Tycho bel Angelo. I’m told he drowned in Montenegro trying to save Duke Marco after the duke slaughtered his traitorous uncle . . . It must be hard for someone so young to handle the loss.”

Pietro’s chin came up.
I’m not so young
, his gesture said.
Of course I understand.
A second later, he asked. “You think he’s really dead?”

“So everyone says.”

The boy nodded sadly and turned his attention to Lady Amelia, who was smoothing the exact points on the sweetmeat heart where the happy couple could be expected to scoop the first mouthfuls to offer each other. “Everything is as it should be,” she said.

Pietro bowed to her, nodded to the Crucifers, considered carefully . . . And bowed deeply to the hooded figure, touching his clenched fist to his heart. Then he picked up the sweetmeat and turned for the door.

Inside his hood, Tycho smiled sadly.

So much to give away in one day. His heart, his happiness, Giulietta’s love for him, now Pietro “You want to see how this ends?” Amelia asked sympathetically, her voice pitched too low for the priests to hear.

Tycho didn’t but he knew he should.

A balcony ran the length of the banqueting hall, fretted with gilded wood to let women watch from above without being seen by men at the tables below. It was years since feasts had been for men only, but the new hall had been designed by the late duke’s father and Marco the Just had insisted on a balcony in the old style. Looking at the archers stationed behind the fretwork Tycho decided the old duke had known precisely what he was doing.

“The
krieghund
are targeted,” Amelia said, nodding down to where Frederick’s companions sat together. “But they can’t prove it.”

At the top table Giulietta and Frederick ate in silence. Every so often, Frederick would glance across and look away if she caught him watching. Occasionally, she’d look at him. There was something hard in her gaze. Yet puzzled, as if she wondered how she found herself sitting next to him.

“He’s terrified of her,” Amelia said.

“Why?” Tycho demanded.

“Because she’s terrifying.”

Is she?
At times, she’d seemed to him spoilt, unhappy or miserable . . . At others, kind, gentle and thoughtful. One didn’t make the other untrue. People were complicated.

“Are you leaving Venice because of Frederick?”

“No,” Tycho said, “I”m leaving because of me.” He looked at Giulietta and his mouth twisted with sadness. “Well,” he corrected, “I’m leaving because of us. Giulietta made me happy.”

“And you?” Amelia asked.

“I made her scared.”

Amelia looked surprised. “You knew that?”

Not until the words came out of my mouth just then
, Tycho thought. Although he didn’t say it. “Watch,” he said.

Part of him was scared Dr Crow’s pills were too old to be potent, and part of him hoped that was true, the dark part. Why should he want to help them fall in love with each other? Pietro was approaching the top table, carrying the gold salver containing the sweetmeat heart. He carried it steadily, staring straight ahead. Stopping in front of Giulietta and Frederick, he knelt and held out the plate.

Tradition said they should take the heart, lift it together and put it between them on the table. When Giulietta did nothing, Frederick reached for the salver and she hastily grabbed the other side. The plate tilted and the banqueting hall fell silent, fearing a bad omen. The dish made it to the table with only a slight clang.

Frederick’s sigh of relief was so explosive Giulietta smiled, despite herself. She opened her mouth for the forkful he offered and her hand touched his as she steadied his fingers. Frederick looked as if he might cry in gratitude and Tycho had to remind himself that this was a
krieghund
.

At the high table, Giulietta lifted her own fork to Prince Frederick’s mouth, nodding to say they could both now eat. He ate from the fork she offered, just as she ate from the fork he held, their arms twisted through each other’s as tradition demanded. Both chewed as one, but Giulietta swallowed first.

Leaning forward, she asked something softly.

Prince Frederick looked at the crowd and nodded carefully. He swallowed his mouthful and asked something in his turn. It was like watching two children navigate their way through a field of thorns. Frederick’s fingers touched the back of her hand and she smiled. It was sad but kind. He risked saying something else, something that mattered, because her lips trembled.

She wiped her eye crossly, then shrugged and nodded.

Frederick dried her tears as tenderly as if the great banqueting hall were empty and they were the only people there. No, as if they were the only two people in the world. “Remind me again how this works?” Amelia said.

Tycho ignored her.

The couple at the top table sat with their heads close together. He seemed to be apologising and she was apologising back. That was how their marriage would work out. She’d be protective, and he’d have fits of unexpected fierceness if he felt her threatened or slighted. They’d muddle through because that’s what people did. Those on the lower tables returned to their own meals and conversation grew loud in a mixture of drunkenness and relief. The banquet would be remembered fondly and be coloured by myth. A feast to celebrate the end of winter as much as their marriage or Giulietta’s coronation. A winter when ice covered the lagoon and the Grand Canal was so frozen carriages used it as a road. When hunger drove wolves down from their mountains, and Marco the Simple became Marco the Great in a single night by killing his uncle and clearing the way for Giulietta to take the throne.

“You’re smiling,” Amelia said.

“Look at them.”

He had to be happy for Giulietta; how else could he survive without going down there and slaughtering the lot of them? She had her head bent even closer, and when Frederick dipped to kiss her forehead, she smiled. How much of it was Dr Crow’s pills? How much forgiveness happened before the love potion had time to work its effect. Tycho didn’t know and refused to let himself wonder.

“She’ll forget you?”

“Not exactly. I’ll simply stop mattering.”

“And Leopold . . .?

“Only Frederick will matter.” Tycho glanced down and corrected himself. “
Only he matters.
The rest of us? Fond memories at best.”

Frederick would be faithful and Giulietta would be faithful, and they would become that most unlikely and dangerous of hybrids, co-rulers who liked and respected each other. She would deliver Sigismund a city. He’d give her imperial protection. The issue of an heir was already decided.

Tycho had no doubt she’d give Frederick children and he’d dote on them, the memory of his lost daughter ever in his mind. Smiling again, Tycho straightened his shoulders. Who knew what the future would bring? What he would see, what he would learn, what he would do. “I leave the city tonight . . .”

“You travel alone?” Amelia asked.

“Of course. Who would come with me?”

The night he dived off the edge of the waterfall Tycho acted on impulse. After the chaos of his early months in Venice, he’d wanted to believe life unfolded to a plan but that night he simply reacted. Marco was the one with a plan, he realised now.