The Fallen Blade: Act One of the Assassini

by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

  Having chosen his weapons for the evening, Tycho found the darkest corner of an already dark room and folded his cloak into a crude pillow, closing his eyes and imagining water flowing through him as Atilo had taught.

  “Your face?”

  “Attacked, my lady. Three robbers.” Iacopo smiled modestly. “I managed to fight them off.”

  Desdaio looked at him. “I heard you were drunk.”

  “You heard?”

  “I mean…” She blushed. “I heard you come in last night, and thought you were drunk. I didn’t realise,” she looked at the crude stitches on his cheek, “you’d been injured.”

  “It’s a dangerous city, my lady. Particularly for those who wander where they shouldn’t at night. No one remains lucky forever.”

  Nodding, Desdaio glanced at the cages making up the duke’s zoo. The morning air was chill enough for her to see her breath, but warmed by the scent of caged animals. The smell reminded her of stables. Although it was obviously ranker. “You are clever. How did you get permission?”

  Iacopo sketched a bow to acknowledge the compliment, and smiled for the first time that morning. “A friend’s father.”

  The truth was he’d blackmailed the son of an official in the Office of the Duke’s Animals, who couldn’t afford to pay the sum Iacopo won from him an hour earlier at breakfast. A game where Iacopo supplied the dice. That Desdaio Bribanzo was Iacopo’s guest made the visit easier to arrange. And brought a warning. Don’t let her near the tyger. Iacopo grinned when he learnt the reason why, almost hearing the final part of his revenge fall into place.

  Three clerks from the zoo sat on a wall, smirking at the in-famous heiress. Iacopo cursed them and himself. He should have insisted he, Desdaio and Amelia had the place to themselves. Preferably without Amelia, who was relieving herself after accompanying her mistress on the walk from Ca’ il Mauros.

  “Iacopo…” Amelia had just noticed his face. “What happened?

  “Cutthroats. You know what this city is like.”

  “He fought them off,” Desdaio said.

  As Amelia tipped her head to one side the silver thimbles on her braids clattered. “Looks professional to me. Unlike the stitching.”

  “Amelia…”

  “Not that I’d know, my lady.”

  “I was attacked,” Iacopo said stiffly. His beloved beard was gone, with the lower end of the livid cut extending far below the shaving line to the edge of his jaw.

  “And you fought them off?”

  “Obviously,” Desdaio said. “Since he’s here. Now let’s all look at the animals.” She refused to think about bad things today. Sometimes she thought it was all Atilo could talk about. Politics, violence, old wars, and…

  The duchess.

  That was his other topic. Alexa’s name slipped in and out of conversation like that of an old friend. Or an old lover, Desdaio thought bitterly. The rumours were impossible to miss, even for her. Old friends who hadn’t talked to her in a year went out of their way to make sure she knew. And Amelia… Maybe Desdaio had misunderstood what Atilo meant. And maybe not.

  “A tyger, you say?”

  “Yes, my lady. To go with the camel bird.”

  “I thought Marco had a rhinoceros?”

  “It died. They say it mourned the old duke’s passing and refused to eat.”

  “Probably ill,” Amelia said. “Ill and bored. It probably died of being ill and bored. If it didn’t simply die of boredom.”

  “What’s wrong with you today?” Desdaio’s words were sharp.

  “Look around you, my lady.” She indicated the iron bars, the walls edging deep pits, the fishermen’s mesh overhead that kept exotic birds from flight. “This place is a prison. It’s loathsome,” said Amelia, loudly enough to make Desdaio turn to see if anyone had heard. The only people who might were the clerks and they were too busy giggling.

  “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 Tmr 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 fac
e 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.”

  Tycho nodded.

  “I’ll go now,” Iacopo said. “You’ll need time to prepare. But let me have some of that small beer first.” Taking the jug, he began filling a rough-blown glass, his grip suddenly slipping and the glass crashing to the floor to roll away unbroken.

  “Shit,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “No matter. The glass isn’t broken.”

  “That’s not what I’m worried about.” Producing a scrap of velvet, Iacopo wiped beer from the back of Tycho’s boots. “That’s more like it,” he said.

  45

  The carving above the door of the Golden Horse, a
narrow tavern between narrow houses in a street south of the Grand Canal’s northern mouth, looked more like a donkey. Once cheaply gilded, it now peeled in patches. The bits not peeling were the hue of rancid fat. Tycho wasn’t surprised to hear a man pissing outside call it the Mouldering Mule. The man stank, as did the tavern and the street in which he pissed. Anywhere near a tannery always stank.

  Shit shovellers and tanners’ boys bathed daily. Probably the only people in the city to do so. Except for the very rich, for whom bathing was an expression of power. The difference was that the rich bathed inside, sitting on huge sponges, their baths shrouded by tents to preserve the heat. While the shit shovellers and tanners boys bathed in canals that were frozen in winter and rancid in summer. So rancid that their sole virtue was that they stank less than those bathing.

  The man leaving the Mouldering Mule worked a shit boat. From the smell of him he’d decided to have a drink or three before facing the waters of the canal.

  “What are you looking at?”

  Ignoring him, Tycho turned to go in. He wore his black leather coat, collar turned up. Black doublet, black codpiece, black hose, black boots. Maybe these made customers stare when he began to push his way through. Many glanced up, most glanced away. A human response to seeing someone pass.

  A few kept staring.

  He could stare back or look away. The first a challenge, the second surrender. So he glanced away, heard a snort and glanced straight back, hardening his gaze. It left his mocker uncertain. Shouldering him aside, Tycho found a table near the back. A one-eyed ex-soldier sat with a heavy glass in front of him.

  “This stool free?”

  The man spat into the sawdust. “What do you think?”

  Tycho sat himself and smiled at the man’s scowl. After a moment, the soldier went back to examining his mug of wine. The woman who came over to take Tycho’s order was Schiavoni, large and busty. In a Venetian her tied-up hair would make her married. With the Schiavoni who knew?

  Apart from another Schiavoni, obviously.

  “Well?” she demanded.

  “Barolo… A jug.”