The Fallen Blade: Act One of the Assassini

by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

  “My engagement. All anybody talks about.”

  “She’s interesting.”

  Captain Roderigo regarded the merchant’s wife with surprise. She was certainly blonde, and pink-skinned, big-breasted and big-boned. With thighs made to cushion a man’s head. But interesting?

  “I meant your Lady Giulietta.”

  Both men glanced towards the Millioni princess.

  Her family had worn the biretum, that oddly shaped cap adopted by the doges of old, for five generations. Earlier dukes were elected, however corrupt that election. Marco Polo’s descendants claimed it by birth. Their palace was grander than the Medici’s. Their mainland estates wider than the Pope’s own. They were aggressive, avaricious and scheming. Essential qualities for a princely family. To these they added a fourth, murderous. Their arm was long. The blade it held sharp.

  “The Millioni have kept us free.”

  “From whom?” Sir Richard asked, sounding surprised.

  “Everyone. Venice balances on a rope, with predators waiting in the pit below. They see us dance elegantly, pirouette daintily; dressed in our gaudy clothes. And never ask the reason we stay high on our rope.”

  “And who are the predators?”

  Roderigo regarded him sharply. “We have the German emperor to the north. The emperor of Byzantium to the south. The Pope has declared the Millioni false princes. Making them fair game for any penitent with a sharp dagger and a guilty conscience. The Mamluks covet our trade routes. The King of Hungary wants his Schiavoni colonies in Dalmatia back. Everyone offers to protect us from everyone else. Who do you think the predators are?”

  “So you marry Giulietta to Janus because it will help protect those trade routes? Poor child…”

  Finding them watching her, Giulietta turned away.

  “She makes no pretence to be pleased,” said Sir Richard, then shrugged. “Why would she? Janus is years older. I imagine she dreams of the Florentine.”

  “Cosimo?”

  “He’s… what? A few years older than her? Educated, loves music, dresses well. He’s even said to be handsome.”

  “She fancies no one,” Roderigo said. “Not even,” he said, trying to sweeten the truth, “a ruggedly handsome, war-hardened veteran like me.”

  Sir Richard snorted.

  “Anyway, she can’t marry the Medici. Florence is our enemy.”

  “So were we until your ambassador proposed this match at the funeral of our late queen. Janus was surprised by your timing.”

  Roderigo wasn’t.

  Venice’s ambassador to Cyprus had the patience of a baited bear and the subtlety of a rampaging bull. He’d been given the post because Duchess Alexa couldn’t stand his presence in her city any longer.

  “Look,” said Roderigo. “You should tell Giulietta that Cyprus is beautiful. That Janus is struck dumb by the beauty of her portrait.”

  “I’m a Crucifer.” Sir Richard said ruefully. “We don’t lie.”

  “You have to entice her.”

  “You’ve visited Janus’s island? Then you know the truth. The summers burn, the winters are bleak. The only thing he has in abundance are rocks and goats. I won’t embellish the truth to impress her.”

  Roderigo sighed.

  “On to other matters,” Sir Richard said. “Who takes the tenth chair?”

  Glancing round, as if to indicate that simply asking was unwise, Roderigo muttered, “Impossible to say. No doubt the decision will be a wise one.”

  “No doubt.”

  The city’s inner council had one seat vacant. Obviously enough, that seat was in the gift of Marco IV, reigning Duke of Venice and Prince of Serenissima. Unfortunately, Marco had little interest in politics.

  “Surely you have some idea?”

  “It depends…”

  “On what?”

  After another quick glance, Roderigo said, “Whether the Regent or the duchess get to choose.” They walked on in uneasy silence after that. Until Sir Richard stopped at a proclamation nailed to a church door.

  Wanted.

  Axel, a master glass blower.

  Fifty gold ducats to anyone who captures him. Death to anyone who aids his escape. This is the judgement of the Ten.

  The glass-blower was described as thickset, heavy of gut and white at the temples, with a lurid scar along his left thumb. If he had any sense, he’d crop his hair. Moreover, skulking in fear for his life should shrink his gut. The scar would be harder to hide, however.

  “Will you find him?”

  “We usually do.”

  “What happens to his family?”

  Roderigo checked that his charges were walking arm-in-arm ahead; one sullen, the other watchful. Being Giulietta’s lady-in-waiting was an honour, but not an easy one. “They’ll be questioned obviously.”

  “They haven’t been already?”

  “Of course they’ve…” Roderigo’s voice was loud enough to make Lady Eleanor look back. “Yes,” he hissed. “They’ve been questioned. One son-in-law and a grandchild are dead. The Council examines the others tomorrow.”

  “And then…?”

  “Death between the lion and the dragon.”

  Two columns marked the lagoon edge of the piazzetta, a small square attached to San Marco’s much larger one. One topped by a winged lion, the other by Saint Todaro slaying a dragon. It was here that traitors died.

  “Why kill them if they know nothing?”

  “What do you know about Murano?”

  “Little enough. You don’t encourage strangers.”

  “The glassmakers’ island has its own courts and cathedral, its own coinage, its own bishop. It even has its own Golden Book. A good portion of Venice’s wealth comes from its secrets.”

  Captain Roderigo paused to let that sink in.

  “It’s the only place in the world where artisans are patrician and skill with your hands earns you the right to wear a sword in public.”

  “This comes at a price?”

  Honesty kept Roderigo from lying. Glass-blowers couldn’t leave Murano without permission and the penalty for a Muranesq caught trying to abandon Venice was death. “Didn’t you need your Prior’s permission to leave Cyprus?” he added, refusing to concede the point entirely.

  “I’m a Crucifer.” Sir Richard’s voice was amused. “I wake, sleep, piss and fight on the orders of my Prior. And we should stop talking. Ignoring Lady Giulietta makes it hard for her to ignore us.”

  Roderigo laughed. “She’s young,” he said. “And Janus has…” He hesitated. “A strange reputation.”

  “For liking boys?”

  “Also pain.”

  “The last is a lie.”

  “Yet he married his late wife for love?”

  “Bedded her once. And was stricken when she died. Your Lady Giulietta will not have an easy time of it.”

  First out of the Grand Canal and already speeding towards the piazzetta, a curly-haired boy and his Nubian companion were far enough ahead to have a length between them and the first of those behind.

  Maybe the lightness of their boat made up for the slightness of its crew.

  Two boys rowing, where others had three, five or even seven working an oar. All stood, using a single oar each. There were ten thousand gondolini in Venice and each was taxed yearly. That was how their number was known.

  A hundred and fifty craft had set out, hoping to race round the city’s edge, before returning along the reversed S of the Canalasso, as the Venetians called their largest canal. Although most were gondolini, the boat in front was not.

  “What is it?” Sir Richard asked Roderigo. Then, remembering his manners, added. “Perhaps her ladyship knows?”

  “Eleanor?”

  Her lady-in-waiting didn’t know either.

  “A vipera,” Roderigo said. “Mostly used for smuggling.”

  “It’s a vipera,” Giulietta said flatly. “Mostly used for smuggling.”

  “Equally pointed at both ends?”

  Roderigo nod
ded. “Instead of turning his boat, the oarsman turns himself, while my men are still turning their gondolini. It’s rare to see one used openly.”

  “And the name is from viper?”

  “Because they strike fast.”

  “Smugglers who strike fast. Or maybe such boats have other uses?”

  Roderigo smiled at the dryness in Sir Richard’s voice. Venice was known as the city of gilt, glass and assassinations. The whole of Italy knew why the boats racing towards the finish were black.

  Eleven years earlier, in the year of Our Lord 1396, a gondola had drawn alongside the ornately painted craft carrying Giulietta’s mother, Zoë dei San Felice. The crossbow bolt that killed her passed through her oarsman first. When the oarsman crawled to her side, the late duke’s only sister was dead.

  A sumptuary law passed that evening instructed that all gondolini be painted black. This was not death’s colour in Venice, that was red. But in honour of Zoë’s elegance, all vessels would be her favourite colour. The truth was that Marco III had wanted the safety gondolini looking alike would bring his family.

  The boys in the vipera were extending their lead when the boat closest behind rocked suddenly and tipped, losing its crew with a splash. Glancing back, the curly-haired boy shouted something and his Nubian companion started to laugh.

  “That was Dolphino taking a ducking,” Roderigo said, as if this explained everything. “He can’t bear losing.”

  “You mean…?”

  Lady Giulietta curled her lip. “That was no accident.”

  “By tonight,” added Roderigo, “Dolphino will have been closing the gap and about to win. And the boys who just stopped will have sacrificed their second place to help a friend.”

  “Let’s get this over with,” Giulietta said.

  Gathering her gown, she stepped from a wooden walkway on to slippery brick and headed for the finish line. Sir Richard followed, wondering how King Janus would deal with his strong-willed bride.

  “Your names?” Roderigo asked.

  “Iacopo, my lord.” Cheaply dressed but freshly razored, the curly-haired boy bowed with lazy grace, as if born to court rather than the poverty his jacket suggested. “And this is… a slave.” The slave bowed low in the Eastern style, silver thimbles dancing at the ends of a dozen tight braids.

  “Well done,” Sir Richard said.

  The curly-haired boy smiled.

  A wide face and brown eyes. Strong arms and… His virility made obvious by the tightness of his hose and the salt spray that soaked them.

  “Eleanor,” Lady Giulietta said. “You’re staring.”

  The girl flushed with embarrassment.

  “The distance?” Sir Richard asked quickly.

  “Nine mille passum, my lord. Seven thousand paces around the edge, and two thousand back through the canal. The waves were tough to the north, but she’s good…” He nodded to the vipera in pride.

  “Yours?”

  “My master’s.”

  Realising the silence following was a question in itself, the boy added. “Lord Atilo il Mauros. He’s…”

  Sir Richard knew. “Your winnings,” he said, offering a purse.

  The young man bowed again, and couldn’t resist weighing the purse in his hand. His grin showed white, and crinkled the edges of his eyes.

  “Eleanor…”

  “I’m not the one gawping.”

  Giulietta glanced sharply at her lady-in-waiting.

  “And have this,” Roderigo added hastily, shucking himself out of his brocade doublet. It was outdated and darned, but the victor’s eyes widened and then he scowled.

  “Silver thread, my lord.”

  Tattered brocade he might get away with. However, silver thread, like gold thread, fur, enamel, silk and embroidery, was denied to servants by law.

  “I doubt the Watch will arrest this afternoon’s winner before nightfall and you can have your woman pick it clean by tomorrow.”

  “I don’t have one, my lord.”

  “You will tonight,” Sir Richard promised.

  4

  Grateful to be free of the wind in their faces, Lady Giulietta’s party were walking away from the salt spray and the bobbing boat of the victors when Roderigo became aware of footsteps behind him.

  “My lord…”

  Turning, he found the curly-haired boy. “Iacopo, isn’t it?”

  The young man was pleased the captain remembered his name. “Yes, my lord. Forgive me. You know Lady Desdaio, I believe?”

  Roderigo nodded.

  “Intimately, my lord?”

  The captain’s scowl was so fierce Iacopo stepped back.

  “I have no doubt of Lady Desdaio’s honour,” Roderigo said fiercely. “No one has any doubt about her honour. Understand me?”

  Nodding, Iacopo bowed low for causing offence. After which, he chewed his lip and shuffled his feet like the street urchin he’d probably been. His was a face found everywhere in Venice. A curving mouth and knowing eyes framed by curls. His straight, unbroken nose was less usual. It said that either he disliked fights or fought well.

  “What about her?”

  “She is betrothed to my master.”

  Roderigo was not a man of tempers.

  He did his job well and both the Regent and duchess used him when they needed a good officer. He’d reached his post as head of the Venetian customs by hard work, having entered as a junior lieutenant. All the same, there was a blackness to his gaze as it swept the herringbone brick of the piazzetta that made people look away.

  “When did this happen?”

  “Yesterday, my lord… I learnt this morning when preparing for the race. Lord Atilo came to wish me luck.”

  “I see,” Roderigo said tightly.

  Full-breasted, plump and buxom, Desdaio Bribanzo was his ideal of beauty. Hell, she was the city’s ideal. Only her hair let her down. This was chestnut rather than the reddish blonde Venice favoured.

  Unlike other girls, she refused to dye it.

  At twenty-three, Desdaio combined huge eyes, a sweet face and sweeter smile with being heiress to a vast fortune. Her father imported more pepper, cinnamon and ginger than any other noble in the city. Obviously enough, she had more suitors than any of her rivals. One of whom was Roderigo. They’d known each other since childhood. He’d thought they liked each other well enough.

  “Why tell me this?”

  “I’d heard… Your kindness. The coat…” Iacopo stuttered to a halt and went back to shuffling his feet.

  “Lord Bribanzo approves?”

  “He’s still in Rome, my lord.”

  “In which case we’ll see what he says. She wouldn’t be the first to give her heart to one man while her father gives her body to another.”

  “This case is complicated.” Iacopo chose his words carefully, keeping his face neutral as he waited for the captain to ask why.

  “So tell me,” Roderigo growled.

  “She has moved herself into Ca’ il Mauros.”

  “My God. Her father will…”

  “Be furious, my lord. None the less, if she stays even a single night there unchaperoned. No parental fury can undo the damage that does her.”

  “She has gold.” Roderigo said flatly. “It will be enough.”

  Iacopo sucked his teeth, as if to say the ways of women, particularly noble and rich ones, were beyond him. And if the brave captain said this was the case, who was he to disagree?

  The Ca’ Ducale was built using pillars, window frames and door arches looted from other cities. Its style, however, was unique. Round arches from the Orthodox East combined with mauresque fretwork and pointed windows from Western Gothic; mixed in a fashion only found in one city in the world: this one.

  This theft of materials was not the insult.

  Nor was the fact that the palace and its basilica both used materials stolen from mosques, synagogues and even churches. How could one expect better of a place where Venetian first, Christian second was said daily?

/>   The insult was more subtle.

  The palace said to foreign princes, You hide behind fortified walls in ugly castles. I live on islands in the sea. My power is so great I can afford to live behind walls so thin they could be made from glass. That fact had not occurred to Captain Roderigo until Sir Richard pointed it out to him.

  “Sir Richard, perhaps you could…”

  Indicating Giulietta discreetly, and then the nearest palace door, Roderigo said, “I have official matters waiting.”

  “You’re not dining with us?”

  “As I said, duty calls.”

  Sir Richard scowled. “I don’t suppose…”

  “Me,” said Roderigo, “the duke can manage without. You, he is expecting for supper. Well,” he added, more honestly, “I’m sure the Regent and Duchess Alexa expect you. His highness…”

  There was no need to say more.

  “This business had to do with the customs office?”

  Roderigo jerked his head at a dozen ships moored on a stretch of lagoon reserved for those in quarantine. Since God’s wrath killed half of Venice sixty years before ships now waited offshore to make certain they carried no disease.

  “We think one of those might already have taken the glass-blower aboard. We’ll be boarding the ship tonight.”

  “Which one?”

  “See the last?”

  Sir Richard peered into the sleet. After a second, Roderigo realised that Giulietta and her lady-in-waiting had joined them.

  “Moorish,” Eleanor said.

  Giulietta shook her head. “Mamluk,” she corrected. Seeing Sir Richard’s surprise, she added tartly, “When there’s nothing to do but watch ships you learn their flags quickly enough. Any fool can work it out.”

  Sir Richard’s face went blank.

  He had to confirm a treaty, collect his king’s new wife and escort her to Famagusta, where she could watch ships headed north for the Venetian ports strung like pearls between Rhodes and the city itself. After this, Giulietta’s temper was the king’s business. Sir Richard didn’t look upset at the thought.

  “What did the ship do wrong?”

  “Absolutely nothing,” Roderigo told Lady Eleanor. “It arrived, waited as told, and followed our pilot without arguing the price…”