The Fallen Blade: Act One of the Assassini (42 page)

Tycho did. A second later, Pietro did the same.

Atilo stood to one side of the throne. Desdaio’s father and a handful of other inner council members stood to the other. Lamps flared and guttered, the night air was heavy with burning fish
oil, and most of those in the chamber looked surprised, irritated or slightly scared to be dragged from their beds.

This was the Ten, Tycho realised.

He counted off those either side of the throne, realised that Hightown Crow was amongst them, and wondered who outside the Ten knew an alchemist was a member of the inner council. A small girl half hid behind Alexa’s chair. When she met Tycho’s gaze, she smiled. A cold and cruel and brilliant smile.

“You know why you’re here?” Alonzo asked.

“No, my lord.”

“Nor do I,” the Regent said.

“Alonzo…” Duchess Alexa’s rebuke was gentle.

“This is ridiculous,” he said. “The Ten called for a matter that should be decided in private.”

Alexa’s voice hardened slightly. “My lord Atilo has a right to be heard… So,” she said, looking at Atilo, “say your piece.”

Stepping forward, Atilo dropped to his knees in front of the throne. “The city has proclaimed me
fidelis noster civis.
A faithful servant of Venice. Grant me a life,” he said. “For the services I have done.”

Marco IV picked his nose.

“I counted your father as my friend…”

Atilo’s words were measured, his voice deep and serious. No one listening could doubt the thought he’d put into his plea. “I have served Venice well. Been both Admiral and commanded your land forces. And I have,” he hesitated, “performed other tasks to keep this city safe.”

“What do you actually want?” Marco asked.

Atilo blinked.

Alexa and Alonzo usually decided affairs between them. But no one could speak when the duke spoke, and his decisions were law. Those were the foundations on which his mother and uncle built their power. The duke’s outbreak of sanity upset the balance.

“Well?” he demanded.

“Give me the prisoner’s life. Please.”

“There are two of them,” Duke Marco pointed out reasonably. “You mean the one who scares you? The one you fear fucked your beloved? Or the one who knows you lied about Lady Giulietta’s abduction?”

The chamber was already quiet. But in the seconds following the duke’s question it was utterly silent. And then Desdaio stepped forward, her face red and tears of frustration welling in her eyes.

“I would never…”

“You would,” Marco said. “You simply don’t know it. He scares you too. That’s why you like him.”

“What’s this about Lady Giulietta?”

The duke turned to face his uncle, who blushed and found himself apologising for his interruption. So the duke told him it was all right, just not to do it again. “Tell them the truth,” Duke Marco ordered Atilo.

“That first time. She simply ran away.”

“And you simply returned her?” Alonzo asked. “And forgot to mention the circumstances?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“That was the night…”

“Alonzo,” Duchess Alexa said.

“The Regent is right,” said Marco, smiling sweetly. “That was the night the Blade was broken.” Seeing the blood drain from Atilo’s face, he smiled. “Well, cracked certainly. You admit it’s cracked?”

The kneeling man nodded.

“And my mother is right.
Krieghund
, mages, death walkers, now this.” Marco IV, Prince of Serenissima, stared round the chamber, nodding to each of the Ten in turn, before finally blowing Desdaio a kiss. “It’s best to be discreet. We have so many enemies one can never tell who’s listening.”

Standing up, he descended the steps in front of his throne and
dragged Atilo from his knees. Standing him straight. “You know what saves him?”

“No, your highness.”

“I will not offend heaven. And I will not risk offending hell. Tycho’s life is spared. So is that of your next apprentice. Though I’m not sure my uncle will let you keep the demon.”

These were the last coherent words Duke Marco IV was to say for three months. No one knew that then, obviously. Except, perhaps, Hightown Crow, who hurried forward to help the duke back to his seat.

Gripping its arms, Marco clung tight as if his life depended on it. Relaxing seconds later, and kicking his heels against its base. A little while after that, he became lost in watching a moth circle a lamp. When Atilo was certain the duke’s attention was elsewhere, he glanced from Alonzo to Alexa.

“Do I have the throne’s permission to withdraw?”

“No,” Alonzo said. “You don’t.”

Alexa looked across. “Marco has given him their lives.”

“Their lives,” the Regent said heavily. “He said nothing about the slave’s freedom. The beggar brat means nothing. Atilo can keep him. But the other
is
a slave. He now belongs to the city. The city will dispose of him.”

“Let me buy him,” Desdaio said.

The Regent grinned. “I’m sure your beloved would love that. No, the slave will be sent south and sold. With those looks…”

With those looks he’d command a premium in the slave markets of Constantinople, Alexandria or Cyprus. The matter of his clothes, his fear of daylight, and the whiteness of his skin would merely add to his exoticism and increase his price. If he died there who could blame Venice? And if he didn’t, well, he’d probably come to wish he had, given time.

“How many galleys leave harbour tomorrow?”

“A dozen, my lord.”

“And where’s the first headed?”

“Dalmatia, Sicily and then Cyprus.”

“Make sure he’s on it. As a galley slave. Give orders he’s to be sold at the journey’s end and any money sent to our agents. He may wear his ridiculous clothes. Be coated with whatever repellent unguent our alchemist recommends. And an awning can be used to stop our merchandise being damaged. Other than that, he’s to be treated like any other slave.”

A knock at the door made Giulietta look up from the baby at her breast.

When she didn’t answer, the door opened slowly and Prince Leopold put his head round. “May I come in, my lady?”

“I’ve told you,” she said. “You don’t need to knock.”

“You might have been feeding Leo.”

“I was,” she said. Smiling, she folded back her gown and stroked her child’s cheek until his mouth opened and he returned to his hungry nuzzling. When Giulietta returned her gaze to Leopold, he was staring pointedly through a window at red-earthed Cypriot fields outside.

“Something interesting?”

“Farmers cutting barley on the upper slopes.”

Their friendship was sometimes fragile. So much now unspoken.

Leopold and she shared a bed, sleeping together when the baby let either of them sleep, which was more often now than in the first few months following his birth. She could have had a wet nurse; in fact, Leopold offered to have one found for her. He seemed resigned to the fact she refused. Yet he knocked at the
door before entering and looked away when she fed her child.

Such delicacy was at odds with the cursed thing he’d become on the roof of Ca’ Friedland. And at odds with the savagery of the battle she’d witnessed in Cannaregio.

The fight against the Assassini was more than a year gone, but its memory still made her shiver.

“What are you thinking?”

“Nothing,” she promised.

“About that boy,” Leopold said sadly.

“Leopold… I swear. He doesn’t even enter my head.”

It was a lie. There were moments, usually on the far side of midnight, when she woke certain the silver-haired boy from the basilica was in her room, watching her as she slept. He never was, of course.

“I saw how you looked at him.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes,” Leopold said. “It is. And I saw how he looked at you. You think he let us go because of me? If you hadn’t appeared I’d be dead. He let
you
go, and he let me go with you.”

“I love you.”

Tears were building in Giulietta’s eyes.

“And I love you,” he said. “In my way. But you dream of him. It’s as if you had one soul between you, and someone cut it down the middle. Remember, you told me how the child wasn’t Marco’s…”

“Leo, please stop.”

“Is the baby his?”

Giulietta’s mouth shut in misery.

Prince Leopold returned that evening carrying a Maltese lace shawl, half a dozen early figs and a bowl of sorbet—white wine mixed with lemon juice and crushed ice—as peace offering and apology. “I’m sorry,” he said, placing his presents on a table and turning to go.

“You can stay.”

“I’ll only say something else stupid.”

“All the same…” Giulietta patted the seat beside her. “You know,” she said, “at the court in Venice they talked of your silver tongue. My aunt was furious at the number of her ladies-in-waiting…”

“Whose heads I’d turned?” Leo said, offering her a fig.

“Although maybe she was cross about other things,” Giulietta admitted. “But I didn’t know about you being
krieghund
then. But your reputation…”

“Around you, my tongue turns to lead.”

She smiled. “Not always.” Leaning her head against his shoulder, she let him fold his arm around her. Their companionable silence lasted for the time it took a candle to burn out. And then, when Leopold stood to light another from the guttering wick of the first, Giulietta rearranged her gown. “So it’s true about the Mamluk sultan gathering a fleet?”

“What makes you say that?”

“The barley. They’re gathering it against a coming siege.”

“Possibly.”

“Leopold, where did you get the ice for the sorbet?”

“From the last of the king’s own supply.”

“Exactly,” Giulietta said. “I hear he’s also drinking his best wine and sharing out the pickles the kitchens usually keep for banquets.”

“What are you saying?” Leopold asked, fixing the candle into a holder and turning to face her.

“What will happen if the sultan does attack?”

“We’ll fight.”

“And will we win?”

When he came to sit beside her, wrapped his arm round her shoulder and kissed her gently on the forehead, she knew the answer was no. Instead of protesting or asking Leopold to lie, she snuggled against him and tried to frame the question she
wanted to ask. The fact he said nothing meant he knew… If not that she was wondering about a question, then that she was thinking.

Thinking time when you had a new baby was rare.

Well, it was if you insisted on feeding the child yourself and letting it sleep in the same room. A decision so odd, Giulietta knew she’d become a talking point among the ladies of the court. If she hadn’t been one already.

“Leopold.”

“Yes?” he said, sounding ready for whatever she wanted say.

He really did know her, Giulietta realised. Their shared time here meant he knew her better than any man had. Maybe better than any other would. Leopold knew her weaknesses. These, he insisted, were fewer than she imagined. And her strengths, which, he told her she underestimated daily. He knew her so well she wondered if he knew what was on her mind.

“If we lose…”

“Yes,” he said. “I promise.”

She kissed him on the cheek. Not knowing the right response to a man you’ve just asked to kill you rather than let you be taken prisoner. When the man promising loves you, despite the fact, if you’re honest, you dream of someone else.

Thunderclouds filled the far horizon. The light was a sullen grey, as if malign angels flew between the setting sun and the swollen sea, casting shadows over everything below. Tycho would vomit, but had nothing to throw up.

So, he hunched in his oil-silk doublet on a dirt-filled bag and hoped the rotten canvas of a makeshift awning would protect him while he waited for orders.

Everyone was waiting for orders.

The
Seahorse
was a small galley. One captain, the owner’s son, one drummer, one slave master and fourteen rows of slaves. Tycho wasn’t sure what she carried. Nothing heavy from the way she tossed on the swell.

The wind was rising. Ominously cool.

In other circumstances he might have welcomed it and been refreshed. But he learnt what it brought when Adif, the Mamluk next to him, began to count the gaps between lightning and thunder. The strikes were close and coming closer.

A wall of rain headed for them, hiding the distant lines between sea, land and sky. Behind them, night had arrived
already, constellations visible and the ocean dark and flat where it met the night’s edge.

“We must go north.”

“Sir, that’s impossible.”

The galley owner’s son stamped his foot. He was young, rich and afraid. If his father had been there to control him it might have been different. The boy wanted to be on land. In storms, orders said head for the nearest port.