The Fallen Blade: Act One of the Assassini

by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

  “How much longer?”

  “A hundred years,” Tycho said, and then shrugged at the king’s expression. “It was just an idea.”

  59

  “Prince Leopold says now would be a good time, Sir Tycho.”

  Knuckles tapped at a box lid, then a soldier apologised roughly for his rudeness, cursed himself for cowardice and rapped harder.

  “If you’re done sleeping, Prince Leopold says…” Atilo led the fleet, but Prince Leopold represented the king. From the bitterness in the soldier’s voice, Tycho took it the battle went badly. How badly he discovered when he reached deck and found himself surrounded by a broken fleet under a darkening sky.

  Sailors were lashing Leopold’s ship, the Lionheart, to Atilo’s own.

  Grinding into her sides, a Mamluk galley had buckled the Lionheart’s planks and widened her seams enough to flood the bilges. Archers who should be fighting were bailing. Just not fast enough to keep her afloat unless tied to another.

  The sullen sun sinking into the far horizon was mirrored and mimicked by two dozen fires dotting the wine-dark sea around them. Mamluk ships burnt, but so did Cypriot and Venetian ones. The screams of shackled slaves could be heard across the water.

  “Enjoy your sleep?”

  There was strain in Leopold’s voice.

  His jest was forced, almost insulting. His expression grim, and his face grimed with soot and his beard with blood. More blood oozed from an arrow’s gash on his arm, which had been tied above the elbow. The dark eyes that had melted Giulietta’s heart looked desperate. “Where is she?” Tycho demanded.

  “You love her, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” he said simply.

  “She’s below. I should probably kill you, but…” Prince Leopold indicated the smoke and flames, the sinking ships being slowly swallowed by the sea’s flat surface. “There doesn’t seem much point. But I still want an honest answer.”

  “To what?”

  “My question. You knew Giulietta before that night, didn’t you? On the roof at Ca’ Friedland, you recognised her from somewhere else…”

  Tycho nodded.

  “Is the child yours?”

  “What?”

  Answer enough. Simply asking obviously left a taste in Leopold’s mouth because he turned his attention back to the burning wrecks around them. “Suggest something,” he said. “Suggest it quick. We can’t afford losses like this.”

  The numbers were brutal. The Mamluks needed Atilo’s ship, the San Marco, sunk or captured. The Great Lion flying from her mast was prize enough to make a pauper rich, a soldier an officer, an officer a noble of rank.

  The Mamluk’s pennant held the same value.

  Sultans feared their sons, generals feared their staff. Their admiral’s second in command would be good at provisioning but useless in battle. His third in command would be a fighter, hated by his immediate boss, viewed with suspicion by his admiral. Hindered from treason by the fact he was the admiral’s nephew, second cousin or bastard son.

  Although bastards were risky.

  They hated their fathers as much as their legitimate brothers.

  To destroy the Mamluk admiral’s flagship would weaken his fleet.

  News of his death would strengthen those Crucifers remaining on Cyprus to defend it. Knights, should they survive, would gain titles, captains become knights, sergeants become captains if they fought well. Four to one at the battle’s start. The odds against Atilo now stood at six to one. Both sides having lost twenty vessels.

  The odds could only get worse.

  “Here they come again.” Prince Leopold’s voice was weary.

  A huge Mamluk galley, its prow a castle, its copper-bound ram snaking a wake through dark water, was turning towards them, the oars along its side rising and falling in time to the beat of a drum.

  “Their admiral.” Tycho pointed.

  An ornate galley waited on their far side.

  The Mamluk admiral’s aim was to crush the Lionheart and San Marco—one already damaged and lashed to the other—with one of his far larger galleys. There was a risk, obviously. That the Mamluk galley would become trapped. But if the enemy aimed right, it would smash Sir Leopold’s ships to tinder, without destroying itself. Fine for mage fire.

  At Prince Leopold’s nod, a thickset man cuffed a boy, sending him towards a huge bellows. Another leather-aproned boy followed quickly after. The two apprentices worked a handle to pump air into a copper cylinder, where a return valve stopped it escaping. When the pressure was high enough, the firemaster stepped forward as Prince Leopold moved back.

  “Try it and hide it,” the prince ordered.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Arcing over the Seahorse’s stern, a thin jet of fire sizzled as it hit the waves, breaking into sticky globules of flame. Although the Mamluk admiral on Atilo’s far side could see this, the mage fire was hidden from the galley bearing down on Prince Leopold’s own vessel.

  “Fire ready, sir.”

  “Hold… Hold… Hold.”

  The enemy’s prow was a wall hurtling towards them.

  As the drumbeat drove faster, the ship’s ram cut more water. A white wake high and visible to Tycho in the cloud-shrouded night.

  “Sir…”

  “Wait,” Leopold barked.

  The firemaster waited, brass nozzle in gloved hand, his head helmeted, his torso protected by a hog-hide jerkin. Below this, a singed and tar-stained apron told of near misses and lessons learnt. There were old firemasters and bad firemasters; there were no old bad firemasters.

  “Fast, wide and high. Now.”

  Sweeping his flame up and over, the man undid his valve and fire whooshed into the air, blossoming into rain that soaked the enemy. Nothing would stop the Mamluk ship, but in that moment—as mage fire fell—its slaves panicked, and their oars lost their rhythm and the screaming began.

  “Sweet gods.” Wrapped in a cloak, Lady Giulietta stood next to Tycho. She was clutching a dagger in one hand.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “From Leopold.” She glanced from her weapon to where her husband stood, his whole attention fixed on the galley bearing down on them.

  Her pride was almost painful to see.

  “Brace,” Prince Leopold shouted.

  Time slowed. Inside the stretched seconds Tycho turned, took the blade from Giulietta’s hand, discarded it, and moved to take her fall.

  Tumbling hard, she drove the breath from her body. Too stunned to be embarrassed at finding him under her. Not aware yet she’d pissed herself with shock. Barely aware his arms held her and his face inhaled her scent.

  As timbers ripped, the Mamluk ram skewered the Lionheart, smashing emptied rowing benches and tearing the deck above. The trick now was to stop it escaping.

  “Grapple hooks,” Leopold ordered.

  Two land anchors curved towards the Mamluk prow, the first catching fast, the second falling back. Grabbing the rope of the first, sailors flung the rope’s end round the Lionheart’s main mast and tied it tight.

  “Your highness.”

  The grappling irons had chains spliced to their ropes to make them hard to cut free from the enemy side. High above, Mamluk axemen were hacking at the point where the rope joined chain.

  “Deal with it,” Leopold ordered.

  A Cypriot archer shot and missed.

  Grabbing his bow, Tycho saw the man’s shock turn to anger, then caution as he registered the richness of Tycho’s new doublet.

  “He’ll give it back,” Giulietta promised.

  Pulling an arrow from the man’s quiver, Tycho shot a Mamluk through the eye slits of his helmet and heard him tumble. The second joined the first moments later, followed by a third.

  In answer, iron bars thrown by Mamluks on a walkway behind their prow came raining down. One killed a firemaster’s apprentice, another injured an archer, several cracked the deck when they landed.

  “Tycho, where’s Giulietta?”

  “Wit
h me. Safe enough.”

  Leopold laughed. His laugh deep and loud.

  “Take her somewhere safer,” he said. “Understand me?” The prince had promised his wife he’d keep her at his side. Now he was breaking his promise and only Tycho knew it.

  “That’s an order, Sir Tycho.”

  Prince Leopold grinned in the darkness, his teeth white and his beard lit crimson by the flames around them. His gaze swept the deck, finding Giulietta. When she looked at him he blew her a kiss.

  The man expected to die.

  Before he did he would pass responsibility for his wife to a man who’d beaten him in battle, savaged his woman and driven him into exile… Tycho wondered if Giulietta understood what was happening.

  “And take the child,” Leopold shouted.

  “I’ll get him,” Tycho told Giulietta. “You give Leopold courage.”

  “How could he think I’d leave my…?”

  “He didn’t, his words were for me. He’s saying keep you and Leo safe until after the battle.” And beyond, Tycho thought grimly.

  The iron bars had stopped raining down, flame licked up the Mamluk prow and the grappling hooks still held. Around him, knights and men at arms were holding their breath, preparing for the real battle. What came next would be worse.

  “Go,” Tycho ordered, pushing her.

  He realised his mistake when she swung round, and a group of archers stared. “Please,” he said. “Let Prince Leopold know you love him beyond anyone else. That you’ll never love another like him.”

  Lady Giulietta covered her mouth with her hand.

  Mounting the steps from below two at a time, Tycho hit the main deck in time to see Giulietta throw her arms round Leopold and whisper something. Then she headed towards Tycho, her mouth twisted in grief, tears streaming down her face.

  When Tycho tried to comfort her, she yanked free, anger replacing her misery. “You’ll never be the man he is.”

  “I know,” Tycho said.

  “Leopold’s going to die.”

  “Gloriously.”

  “That’s meant to make a difference?”

  “It will to him. He’s fighting for you. For your baby. Whosever it is.”

  “He told you?”

  “He wanted to know if it was mine.”

  “I didn’t even kn-know you before…” Her words were fierce, her face set in fury, but there was a stumble, a looking away. That night in the basilica remained with them both.

  “Turn,” Tycho said. “Wave to him.”

  Giulietta did.

  60

  “Your orders, highness?”

  Prince Leopold looked at the Crucifer knight. Sir Richard was no fool. In his pale blue eyes, and lined, sun-battered English face the answer to his question was already written. He simply wanted it confirmed.

  “Die well.”

  Sir Richard grinned, hefted his hand-and-a-half sword, checked the war hammer at his hip and looked up at the unbroken wall of the Mamluk ship’s prow. “When do we start?”

  “Impatient to die?”

  “If we’re going to do it,” Sir Richard said, “we might as well do it while our courage is up and our strength still holds.”

  Half his men would lose control of their bladders or bowels. Not through fear, but because bodies could only handle so much at once. A man in half-armour can fight full pitch for five minutes before exhaustion sets in. Staying alive and blocking blows comes well ahead of natural functions.

  Clapping Sir Richard on his shoulder, Prince Leopold made his round of the others, joking with some, clasping the hands of others, gripping one apprentice by the shoulders, telling him he’d find courage when the moment came.

  The boy was in tears but stood straighter when Leopold stopped to talk to his master. Their talk was short and intense. There was no disagreement. Master Theobald simply wanted to check he understood what the prince required.

  At an order from Master Theobald, his apprentices began rolling red-painted barrels across the deck, stacking them below the enemy ship’s prow. They did so in the face of a shower of arrows, loosed up and over from the enemy side. Luckily, gusting night winds and the Mamluk archers’ own fear protected them.

  As the apprentices worked, Prince Leopold’s archers kept loosing their own arrows to stop Mamluk axemen cutting the grapple free. And the ship’s carpenter, a balding man, bad-tempered and stout, but good at what he did and not one to suffer fools, began to hammer a nail into the Mamluk ship.

  He worked quickly, ignoring those around him. Ignoring everyone. Even Sir Richard, who went to see what he was doing.

  “Ask the prince.”

  Sir Richard decided he’d wait and see.

  Once the nail was fixed, the carpenter forced it free with a long, split-tongued pry bar, working it so hard muscles ridged across the man’s back, his face turned red and sweat broke out across his forehead. “Done,” he said. Into the hole he fixed a hook, using his pry bar to twist it tight. “Time for another, my lord?”

  The prince shook his head. So the carpenter fixed a chain to the single hook and began to wrap it round the mast.

  “Help him,” Leopold ordered.

  Once the chain was locked in place, Leopold nodded to Master Theobald, who widened his valve nozzle, and swept flame up the Mamluk bow.

  “And beyond.”

  The last of the mage fire fell on to their enemy.

  Men screamed, axe-wielding Mamluks tried to cut the grapple, not knowing they’d been chained to their doom. They died bathed in the flames, turned to arrow-stuck candles, filling the air with the stink of meat burning.

  “Now,” said Leopold.

  Stepping forward, Master Theobald smashed a red-painted barrel and thick sticky black tar oozed around his boots. He smashed another, then another, until the deck became slick. Slivers of silvery metal in the mix began to smoke, gently at first.

  “Out of my way…”

  When Prince Leopold began to push towards Atilo’s ship, Sir Richard looked appalled, then met his gaze and felt shamed instead. It went without saying the prince would stay with those about to die. But someone had to cut the Lionheart free from the San Marco. Old enemies looked at each other.

  “Help me, and hurry.”

  “No,” Atilo said. “Move your men to my ship.”

  “They stay,” Leopold said. “It’s the only way to stop the Mamluks freeing themselves. I’m not losing the Lionheart without reason… Help keep my wife safe. And trust Sir Tycho’s instincts.”

  He grinned at the youth next to Atilo. “We’ll never get that rematch.”

  “Be grateful,” said Tycho.

  Prince Leopold laughed, and jumped on to the rail of his ship, raising his sword to begin cutting the ropes that lashed their galleys together. After a second, Tycho joined him.

  61

  Around Tycho the ocean was dotted with burning ships. The fleet King Janus and Venice had provided Atilo burnt, listed and sank. As for their crews, the lucky ones were dragged down by armour or the whirlpool around their dying vessels, the unlucky drowned more slowly.

  The Mamluk galleys stood off in a ring,

  Only the San Marco, Atilo’s own ship, remained. The Mamluks were waiting, Tycho was unsure for what. A whole day’s worth of hard-fought battle had passed. Steady attrition wearing down the Christian fleet, although they died one for one, sometimes better, the result was always going to be the same.

  And Giulietta and Tycho watched it all from under the shadow of an awning. It had been a day of thunderclouds and hidden sun, and for that Tycho had been grateful. Even wearing smoked glass spectacles his eyes had burnt at the brightness. Even coated with ointment, belatedly provided by Atilo. (Dr. Crow had given both to the old man. Just in case you meet that pretty boy again. Not daring to risk the alchemist’s anger by throwing them away, Atilo had still been slow to offer Tycho this protection.)

  Now the thick clouds that provided shelter had thinned to reveal the last rays of the setting
sun. From his place under the awning, Tycho examined the wreckage of Atilo’s fleet, which carried in its burning hulks the ruin of the old man’s reputation. It was hard to separate the Atilos he knew.

  The man betrothed to Desdaio. The magister militorum who carried a history of battles won. The head of the Assassini. He might understand the old man better if he could work out where his loyalties really lay.

  With his adopted city?

  With the duchess he’d taken as a lover?

  To the rules of the Assassini? Rules so rigid they begged for abuse from the likes of Prince Alonzo. The Regent would greet the news of this defeat with public fury and private ambivalence. The duchess’s lover dead, her faction at court suffering humiliation, the youth he’d wanted executed also dead. Only Giulietta would be denied to him. And she’d be dead too.

  “Tycho,” Giulietta said.

  He glanced back at her.

  “You’re crying.” She sounded surprised. Leaning forward, she touched her fingertip to his face, examining the proof glistening on her finger like oil.

  “Everyone has to die,” she said.

  Away to one side stood Desdaio, her head bowed and shoulders shaking with fright. She was fighting not to let fear engulf her body. Being killed would be better than being captured. At best being captured meant slavery, probably in some Mamluk’s harem. At worst, torture and a slow death.

  “You made Leopold a promise.”

  “What of it?” asked Tycho, already knowing the answer and wondering why he made her put it into words. Because he didn’t want what came next on his conscience, probably. Assuming someone like him, some thing like him had a conscience.

  “When the time comes…”

  “What?” he demanded. “When the time comes what?”

  “You’re going to make me say it?”

  Tycho nodded.

  “Kill me. Promise?”

  “I promise.” And then he realised Desdaio had come to join them, because she was there in front of him, shaking her head fiercely.

  “You can’t,” she said desperately. “What about her baby?”

  Turning to Giulietta, she said, “Do you want him to kill your baby too? It’s wrong. You’ll go to hell.”