The Fallen Blade: Act One of the Assassini

by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

  His answer was in his silence and the stillness of his stare. She knew he could outwait her. He’d done it before over lesser things. Things that didn’t matter. Not in the way this mattered. Although they’d felt important at the time.

  “Well?” he said.

  “No,” Desdaio said. “I didn’t.”

  She saw doubt in his eyes, and grabbed his hand before it could grow greater. He was stronger than her, experienced in battle as well as the ways of the world. He could free himself easily. But she held his wrist so tight, and looked so frightened at where she found herself, he didn’t break her grasp.

  Instead he waited for her to say more.

  Desdaio breathed a sigh of relief. She couldn’t say why but he smiled slightly, and some of the warmth came back into his eyes. “A little guilt,” he said. “But only a little. I’ve judged people,” he added, as if she didn’t know. “People have hung on my assessment of their innocence or guilt.”

  That she didn’t know.

  She wanted to tell him the truth, and she wanted him to respect her. She couldn’t have both, and she was a coward. Desdaio knew that. To risk everything on a simple statement of the truth. I went, nothing happened. She lacked the courage, the certainty he loved her enough to believe and forgive. Her life was full of the little truths she’d never managed to say. How could she start with a truth so big?

  Atilo was staring at her, she realised.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “I entered his room. Nothing happened.”

  Atilo’s gaze sharpened. “Why?” he demanded.

  “I asked Amelia if you’d free him. She said maybe. Some you did. Others you sold. It depended on a test… No,” Desdaio said, seeing him frown. “She didn’t say what the test was. I asked, she refused.”

  “We come back to, Why?”

  “I like him.” Desdaio said, risking a little truth. Maybe she shouldn’t have said that. But Atilo simply nodded.

  “Do you like Iacopo equally?”

  “No.” Desdaio shook her head. “I don’t trust him,” she said. “Iacopo gives me the creeps. Always watching. Always so polite it feels like mockery. And he… he lusts after Amelia.” She blushed at her own words.

  Then blushed again at what she saw in Atilo’s eyes.

  He wanted to tell her everyone lusted after Amelia. With her long legs and narrow hips and black skin she was an exotic gazelle. Maybe even a tyger. As fierce as anything in the duke’s zoo. If Amelia was a tyger, Desdaio didn’t want to think what animal that made her.

  “I swear on my life nothing happened.”

  “Should I be worried that you like him?”

  Desdaio hesitated. “I know what he is,” she said. “He’s never said. But I’ve worked it out. And it must be so sad…” Stepping close, she whispered in Atilo’s ear. Hearing his hiss of surprise.

  “Desdaio.”

  “What?” she asked. “Am I wrong?”

  “A fallen angel exiled from hell… Because his enemies paint themselves red? And his house burnt down? And he fears daylight?”

  “Don’t laugh at me.”

  “I’m not.” Atilo cupped her chin in his hands and raised her face to smile at her. “You’re beautiful,” he said. “Rarer than gold. Far sweeter than honey. I’m sorry things have been,” he glanced towards Alexa, “complicated… We’ll marry this summer, I swear it.”

  “You’ll save him then?”

  Atilo’s smile faded slightly.

  “You believe me? That I’m not wicked? That nothing happened. That I would never do that to you?”

  “Yes,” Atilo said. “I think so.”

  “Then prove it. Save Tycho.”

  Atilo’s face set hard. It was the face of a general weighing his choices before battle. Considering what price he was prepared to pay for victory. And as Desdaio decided she’d asked too much, that she should take her words back, he nodded…

  “This should be interesting,” Alexa said.

  49

  Steam from the heat of a hundred bodies sweated the dungeon’s stone walls and rose from the water’s filthy surface in a parody of lagoon mist. It swirled through rotting tread steps, disturbed by the wheel’s movement. Settling only when a shift changed, breaking into fresh flurries as soon as the wheel resumed turning.

  The faces around him were also parodies. Deprived of light, bleached by the mist. Skin withered and puckered and rotten from years of immersion.

  Sometime later, the flickering torch visible through the grating burnt out to leave the pit in darkness. It had to be late, because the gaolers barely bothered to rattle the grating as they passed. Contenting themselves with pissing through the grill, or defecating and kicking their shit on to the prisoners below.

  Tycho slept in shallow five-minute naps.

  A skill he’d developed in childhood, when not rushing to answer Lord Eric’s call meant a beating and even less food. He could flash from slumber to fully awake in an instant.

  “Why did they put you in here?” Tycho asked Pietro.

  “Didn’t want me to talk about that night, did they?” he replied with the certainty of an eight-year-old who’d thought it through.

  “When Rosalyn died?”

  Tycho held Pietro by his shoulders while the small boy fought bitter sobs and won. He felt embarrassed comforting the boy. When Tycho held it was to kill, or take. But the boy mourned his sister. And Tycho having killed Rosalyn’s murderer was not enough to make that good. Not even close.

  “Found yourself a friend?”

  Spinning, Tycho saw a red-headed girl in rags.

  A’rial was older than Pietro by a few years. Her hair tied up in a clumsy knot and fixed with a raven’s bone. She stank like a fox. A purple light shimmered around her. When Pietro crossed himself, she grinned, her teeth glowing white.

  “No one else can see us,” she said.

  Sure enough, a translucent haze enclosed the three of them and the pump’s noise had faded.

  “I’ve come with an offer.”

  “For me or him?” Tycho said, nodding towards the boy.

  “You, obviously… The duchess knows.”

  He’d upset A’rial with his flippancy. Because she stopped there, leaving him to imagine what Alexa knew. That Prince Leopold was alive? That Tycho let him get away. That Lady Giulietta also lived…?

  “Yes,” A’rial said. “That one.”

  Pietro was staring at the oubliette beyond the edge of A’rial’s magic. He’d moved as far from her as he could without actually touching the shimmering bubble that contained them.

  “Go,” A’rial told him, tearing a gap in the haze.

  Tycho grabbed the boy. “He stays.”

  “Collecting pets?”

  “Is that what the duchess does?”

  Tycho’s blow struck home, because flint entered A’rial’s eyes. Thinning the haze, she pointed to the relentless wheel and the oubliette’s dripping walls. “You want to stay here?”

  Even inside her magic the air was fetid, hot and stinking.

  “Except you can’t, can you?” she said. “At one minute after midnight the Black Master arrives to question you himself.”

  Pietro gasped. “Kill yourself while you can. Use the knife.”

  “What knife?” A’rial’s gaze sharpened.

  “This one,” said Tycho, putting his blade to her throat. What Pietro saw was Tycho face one direction, then suddenly face another. But Tycho knew he’d moved the way a normal person moves, simply faster. Much faster. A’rial’s fingertips lit and Tycho twitched his hand. “I can strike faster than you.”

  “Impossible.”

  “You willing to risk being wrong?”

  Tension drained from A’rial’s body and she smiled. He waited for her to try to trick him but she kept smiling. Looking for all the world like an eleven-year-old told to deliver a message by her mother or mistress.

  “The duchess watched you fight Prince Leopold. She says you were magnificent. But
you can be more. Embrace your nature. Complete the…”

  Tycho wasn’t listening. He was more concerned with another question. How could she have watched? His guts churned. What had she seen? The start of the battle? He could handle that. Giulietta’s sudden appearance? The girl offering herself in return for Prince Leopold’s life?

  “Yes,” A’rial said.

  “Stop that.” Tycho raised his blade.

  A’rial shrugged. “I’ll try, but it takes effort. And you do the same, don’t you? You do it all the time.”

  “I need touch to sense thoughts.”

  “No. You just think you do,” she said crossly. “You’re your own worst enemy. My mistress can save your life.”

  “And in return?”

  The small girl sighed. Reaching for Pietro, she wrapped her arm round his shoulder, and drew him close. For a second, the small boy rested his head against her, believing the embrace genuine. But the face she showed Tycho was distant and strange. “Make Alexa an army of immortals.”

  “No,” Tycho said, stepping back.

  Pietro looked between them, his face puzzled.

  “He’s going to die anyway. After you’ve gone, they’ll kill him simply because you favoured him. So what difference does it make? Come to that, why this fuss about feeding. You’ve done it before. And beggar children? A dozen die every week of cold or hunger. Do you try to save them?”

  “That’s different.”

  “No,” A’rial said. “It isn’t. Claim him. Save yourself.”

  The calm of feeding on Giulietta was beginning to fade, and Tycho’s hunger was tiny threads of twisting smoke looking for a way into his mind. With A’rial’s words came knowledge that there was a step beyond where he was. There would always be another step until he was no longer human.

  If he’d ever been human.

  Remembering Prince Leopold’s agony as his muscles ripped and tendons broke, and his body became wolf, Tycho said, “I won’t.”

  If he closed his eyes he could see it happen. Skin splitting, flesh tearing and bones being twisted into new shapes by invisible hands. Bad enough the Black Crucifers would torture him. Why would Tycho do it to himself?

  “That’s twice,” A’rial said. “I won’t offer a third time. But you call, I’ll come to you then.”

  “Never.” Tycho was firm.

  “Don’t count on it,” A’rial said.

  There were two tides a day. A low and a high. The first mattered neither here nor there to those in the pit, who were removed from the festering mud banks of Venice’s edges, and the stink of sour water, as backstreet canals revealed rubbish, puddles and the occasional corpse with every ebbing tide.

  The second did concern them.

  At high tide, lagoon water flowed along ditches, for a few minutes to as much as an hour, and splashed into the oubliette below. One day’s tide left half the central island still exposed. Two days’ drowned it, but left prisoners able to stand. Three days’ killed those unable to swim. Only by constantly working the pump could everyone stay alive. Exquisite cruelty. Hard work for the sake of it. More than this, it stopped prisoners trying to escape. You worked the wheel; slept, woke and worked again. No one was allowed to slack. The oubliette was self-controlling, self-containing.

  In it, Tycho saw Serenissima.

  The varied councils, the courts within courts, the Arsenalotti at war with the Nicoletti, the cittadini jealous of the patricians, the patricians divided into old house and new, rich and poor. No one in Venice got off the wheel.

  Beyond the city, Serenissima’s colonies fed the capital, the Venetian navy fought the Mamluk pirates; the Moors allied themselves with whoever the Mamluks opposed. The Germans offered support, claiming Byzantium was Serenissima’s greatest threat. The Byzantines claimed the German emperor’s ambition was a greater threat and offered support in turn. Tmr’s Mongols conquered ever larger slices of the world, threatening to recreate the sprawling empire of his hero Genghis Khan.

  And the wheel went round and round and round…

  “What did she mean save yourself?” Pietro said. The first words he’d spoken since A’rial vanished.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  The boy looked embarrassed to be caught asking. But he continued watching Tycho with concern. High above them guards arrived, bringing fresh torches. “If you can save yourself, you should.” Pietro sounded far older than his age.

  “How did you first get involved in this anyway?”

  Pietro told him.

  Being hunted by Wolf Brothers sounded terrifying. And listening to the boy’s tale of street rumours and outright lies, Tycho realised this was an old battle, one begun long before he reached the city. Maybe before Atilo even controlled the Assassini.

  “We should have hidden,” Pietro admitted.

  That was what he’d been told to do. And that’s what he’d done, as had his friends, until the battle was almost over. They had seen only the end. Admitting it, after Tycho had been captured, was their mistake.

  “Tycho…” a guard yelled.

  Pietro grabbed him. “It’s the Black Master,” he whispered. “Into the water. Hide now.”

  The grate clattered as it was thrown back. Crossbowmen pointed their weapons into the pit and a long wooden ladder dropped, squelched into the mud and sank several inches. This was enough to stop those on the wheel. For a second, total silence filled the pit, then a voice shouted, “Tycho, move yourself.” Captain Roderigo stood lit by torchlight. He had his hand to his nose to shield himself from a rising stink Tycho had already forgotten existed.

  “I said no,” Tycho protested.

  “No what?” Roderigo shouted down.

  Tycho couldn’t remember the stregoi’s name. He knew it once but he’d forgotten; perhaps that was part of her magic.

  “The duchess’s… girl,” he finished lamely. “That red-headed one. She asked… She said…” He didn’t know how to finish that sentence.

  “Up here now,” Roderigo barked. “Stop wasting my time.”

  Tycho pushed Pietro ahead of him, jeers and sneers following after. Pietro refused to climb. Tycho made him. And faced with Tycho armed here, and crossbowmen above, Pietro chose to avoid the here and now. Atilo would cure him of that weakness, Tycho was sure.

  Roderigo stood beside the Black Master, who wore nightclothes. His lips were thinned to a slash of fury. Behind him waited a gaoler and a turnkey, in a uniform of filthy silk with a tatty and sad-faced winged lion embroidered on his chest.

  “Who’s this?” Roderigo demanded.

  “Atilo’s new apprentice.”

  “My lord…” The turnkey said. “Your order specifies one only.”

  Until then, Roderigo intended to toss the boy back. Now his pride refused. The turnkey opened his mouth to insist and shut it at a snarl from the Black Master.

  “The duke is waiting.”

  50

  Marco IV sat on his black throne gripping its arms like a sailor holding a rail in fear of being thrown overboard in a storm. His grip was hard enough to turn his knuckles white. Ignoring the unshackled child who shuffled ahead of Tycho, Duke Marco said, “Behold, the Grievous Angel.”

  Shackles made Tycho’s answering bow clumsy.

  Standing to one side, Atilo saw the duchess smile at her son. The Regent simply sighed. “Didn’t it occur to you to wash him first?” he demanded of Roderigo, finding somewhere to aim his anger.

  “My orders said bring him straight here, my lord.”

  “You always obey to the letter?”

  The captain nodded.

  “How admirable.” The bite in Alonzo’s voice ensured everyone knew he meant the opposite. “You,” the Regent said. “Step forward.”

  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.