The Fallen Blade: Act One of the Assassini (34 page)

“You can wait outside then.”

“Thank you,” Amelia said, although Desdaio meant this as punishment. Sneering at the clerks, Amelia nodded to a caged leopard as she passed. Its eyes followed her to the gate, and seemingly beyond.

“Really! I don’t know what’s got into her…”

“I’m glad we’re alone,” Iacopo said.

She blushed prettily. If he’d been Atilo he’d have taken her to bed a year ago. She was a rose, perfect in every way. But he’d have taken the bud before it had fully opened. Not waited ’til the bloom risked being blown. And that magnificent figure. There wasn’t a woman in Venice half so fine. An opinion shared by the clerks, who keep staring. But it wouldn’t last. Women’s figures never did.

If she lived through childbirth, he could see her with half-Moorish brats, feeding and spanking and cajoling and spoiling. Employing a wet nurse and day nurse and then refusing to let them do the jobs they were paid to do. Iacopo had fantasised after the slaughter at Cannaregio of becoming the Blade. Maybe even becoming Atilo’s adopted son. It would never happen. Desdaio would give him heirs. And if she didn’t, the old man’s favourite was now his white-haired freak.

“You’re scowling, Iacopo.”

“Thinking, my lady.” He swept a low bow. “I’ll try not to do it again.”

Desdaio laughed. “Think away.”

When he offered his elbow, Desdaio looked surprised, but threaded her arm through his all the same, and headed for the camel bird’s cage. Passing an empty enclosure on the way.

“What lived here?”

“Duke Marco’s unicorn, my lady. It was the last living example in existence. So I’ve heard said.”

“Really?” said Desdaio, wide-eyed. “What happened?”

“Died of old age is one version.”

“And the other?”

“Butchered and wind-dried on the new duke’s orders. Marco wanted to know if unicorn tasted like horse. I’m sure that’s a lie…”

So shocked was Desdaio, she let him wrap his arm round her for comfort, pulling away a few seconds later. As she did, his hand grazed her buttocks, which felt as plump as they looked. She flushed, and he said nothing.

Merely smiled.

The camel bird was huge and grey, with short body feathers and absurd little wings. Its feet were turkey-like but fifty times bigger. Its neck stretched so high its tiny head reared above them.

“It doesn’t have a hump.”

It did. Albeit a small one. But Iacopo had more sense than to point this out. “They live in the desert,” he told her, having learnt this at breakfast that morning. “Hence the name. They can go for a month without water.”

Desdaio was impressed.

“And the tyger’s over here,” said Iacopo, steering her to a brick hut where one wall was replaced by bars. A new ditch surrounded it. “Poor Marco,” Desdaio said, as they were approaching.

Iacopo raised his eyebrows, languidly he hoped.

“I imagine that’s to keep him away. He probably wants to feed the beast by hand.”

“You’ve met the new duke?”

“Yes,” said Desdaio, her voice neutral. “My father hoped…”

Of course he did. What Venetian father wouldn’t want to marry his virgin heiress to a duke, insane or not? A small sacrifice, when the reward was birthing the next heir to the ducal throne. Access to the Millioni millions. Trade routes to the East. And Khan T
m
r bin Taragay’s protection to use them.

“You refused?”

He’d offended her. So much so, Desdaio stopped dead, twenty paces from the hut. Sweeping a low bow, Iacopo smiled his apologies. “Forgive me. I’ve upset you.” Smiling hurt him, but he needed her favour.

“I’m a good daughter.”

Really?
Iacopo thought. Then why are you living with a Moor who isn’t your husband? Why did your father disown you? And how come I have this… He touched his new scar, feeling its crude stitches. When all I did was tell the truth about seeing you leave Tycho’s cellar?

“Let’s see the tyger,” he said brightly.

A scowling white face greeted them. The beast barely bothered to sneer as it turned tight circles, the straw beneath its feet marked by endless pacing. The stink was incredible for all that it was only spring, the sky was overcast, the sun on the far horizon and the air cold.

“I thought tygers had stripes.”

“She’s a snow tyger,” Iacopo said. “The rarest type in the world. Even the Mamluk sultan doesn’t have one.”

Desdaio looked at the beast with new respect.

“Beautiful, isn’t she? said Iacopo, as Desdaio edged closer. He stepped behind her, feeling her shift forward. Another tiny nudge put her nearer the bars.

“My god,” Desdaio said. “She’s magnificent.”

Even away from her high mountains and the snows that gave her that colour, the tygress was impressive. Also unhappy and crowded. Turning, she lifted her tail, as Iacopo had been warned she might, and squirted rank-smelling urine across Desdaio’s fur-edged cloak. A little hit Desdaio’s hand.

“
My lady.
”

“Oh my God… Foul creature.”

Desdaio was already wiping her fingers, tears of mortification filling her eyes. As she glanced back to check if the clerks had noticed it happen, Iacopo grinned.

“I want to go
now
.”

“Of course, my lady. Let me take this.” Unclipping her cloak, he folded it to hide stinking velvet and tucked it under her arm. “There’s a trough by the gate where you can wash…”

The trough was stone. Used to water horses that brought food for the duke’s animals from the Riva degli Schiavoni. Desdaio washed her hands so thoroughly in the freezing overspill that she made her fingers red.

As the late afternoon sky filled with clouds and the air prickled with unused lightning, Atilo retreated to his study with plans for the Rialto bridge. The old duke had wished to replace the existing wooden bridge with a stone one. His bridge was to have shops down both sides. Since Marco owned the bridge the rents would be his. More importantly, his new bridge would be defensible, with arrow slits, and floor gratings through which burning oil could be poured.

His plan called for ten thousand larch piles, cut by hand and hammered into the sand, clay and gravel to support the foundations at either end. The corpse of an entire forest would be compressed into a tiny area and covered with oak beams, on which rubble from Istrian stone would rest. Only then could the new bridge be built.

Three things worked against this.

Two solvable, one not. The current bridge was loved by all. This was solvable. The duke announced that San Domenico Contarini, one of Serenissima’s greatest doges, came to him in a dream to say Venice deserved a stone bridge…

The changing of the date of the duke’s marriage to the sea, from Epiphany to Easter, and the fact the dukedom should become hereditary, had both been announced to the Millioni in dreams, backed by saints. San Marco was always a good choice. Unfortunately, he’d approved the duke’s previous plan.

But if San Domenico demanded a stone bridge, then the second problem could be solved. Houses both sides of the Canalasso would have to be pulled down for a hundred paces inland to allow those foundations to be built. There would be protests. It was hard to argue, however, with a saint.

The unsolvable problem was that Marco III joined San Domenico Contarini in Heaven before the old bridge could be ripped down and the new one begun. So the wooden bridge remained while the Ten argued about the cost of replacing it.

“Come,” he said, hearing a knock at his door.

Iacopo opened it and waited until Atilo gestured him coldly inside. Iacopo’s plan, Atilo decided sourly, was obviously to bow and apologise enough to irritate Atilo into forgiving him.

“What do you want?”

“I thought… perhaps…” Iacopo took a deep breath. “Perhaps I could take tonight’s orders to Tycho? Then I could wish him luck.” The young man’s usual bravado was gone in the face of last night’s tongue-lashing. His cheek was livid, his face raw from where his beloved beard had been hacked away.

“I’ve given the job to Tomas.”

A quiet and unassuming man, quite unfit to lead, Tomas had trained with Atilo before Iacopo. He baked cakes, these days, in Campo dei Carmini, his bakery famous for pastries in the French style. His other skill, poisoning people, went unremarked upon and unadvertised. On the night of the
krieghund
he’d been in
Paris introducing a Valois prince to God with a succession of tartlets that, if eaten alone, had no effect whatever.

Atilo’s troops might have been reduced to a shell, but Tomas’s work in Paris had saved their reputation. He did more than kill a Valois. He gave Marco’s enemies something to fear. None of them yet understood how weak this city was. The average training for a member of the Assassini was five years. No empire could afford to employ so few blades. And those still living, those away that night, were ragged from moving city to city enforcing the Ten’s silent will.

Looking up, Atilo realised Iacopo still waited for an answer.

“Go,” he said. “Make your peace. Never bring Lady Desdaio’s name into your disputes again.”

Spinning, knife in hand, Tycho found Iacopo behind him.

“Don’t,” Iacopo said.

Tempting, Tycho couldn’t deny that. His rival framed in the open window of a room two floors up in a parish the Night Watch avoided. Who would know? Well, Atilo for a start. If his servant was found skewered in the dirt outside a house the Assassini owned.

“I could claim it was an accident.”

Tycho didn’t realise he’d said it aloud until Iacopo’s eyes widened. And the man glanced down and behind him, judging the drop to a muddy alley below.

“I have your orders.”

“Tomas was meant to bring those.”

“Atilo asked me. He wants us friends.” Iacopo’s scarred face and twisted smile said he knew it wasn’t that simple. But their master’s name was enough. Tycho gestured him into the room.

“What have they told you?” Iacopo asked.

“Nothing.” Surely that was the point? Orders were given and obeyed without notice. No one knew when an order would be passed or by whom. He was to wait in this room until told otherwise. Tycho guessed Iacopo was telling him now.

“Find the Golden Horse behind San Simeon Piccolo…”

That meant crossing the canal near its mouth.

“Buy a jug of wine and insist on Barolo.” Iacopo placed two gold ducats, three silver grosso and five tornsello on the table, arranging them in piles. Nudging them slightly until they were neat.

“Il Magnifico died years ago,” said Tycho. “But the ducats are new.”

“Magnificos are still minted. The Moors and Mamluks won’t take anything else. And Byzantines give a better rate for these than their own bezants.”

“Why?”

“They’re purer,” Iacopo said as if it was obvious. “The emperor can cheapen bezants if he has to. Venice can’t cheapen ducats. If we did, trade would fail.”

“And what does a jug of Barolo cost?”

“A tornsello. A tornsello and a half at most.”

Nodding to say he understood, Tycho scooped up the coins and thrust them into a leather pocket on his belt.

“Let me help you.” Pulling a scrap of fur from his boot, Iacopo thrust it quickly into the pocket and folded the leather top. “It’ll stop the coins from jangling,” he said. “One of my own tricks.”