"He won't try to come in."
"It's not Leopold I'm worried about."
Her eyes went huge in the darkness. She was the girl he'd seen in the basilica. And yet she looked different. As if life had not been kind. "He hurts you?"
She flushed angrily. "Never. Not once."
His fingers were steady as he slid her undergown over her shoulders, exposing her breasts. They were full, fuller than he expected. Tipped with dark nipples that looked engorged. He lowered her gown further, letting it drop and tugging her hand to show she should step out of it.
Small, but swollen breasts, narrow hips, and flame-red pubic hair.
"What's that?" A scar crossed her abdomen, and she shivered as he traced its length with one fingertip, halting at the end.
"You can see in the dark?"
He nodded, realised that wasn't much use, and said, "Yes, but not in the light. Tonight my sight's clearer than ever." Why did he tell her that?
"That scar," he said.
Instead of answering, she slid from his fingers, disappearing behind a curtained arch. When she returned it was with a baby swaddled in bandages so tight it could barely move. Tycho felt constricted just looking at it.
"Yours?"
She nodded defiantly.
"Someone cut a baby out of you?"
"A Saracen surgeon," she said. "Cut Leo free to save my life. He sewed me up with a tail hair from a white stallion. Said he always knew he'd need it one day." There was awe in Giulietta's voice. Women died in childbirth every day. Even a good birth held risks and offered pain.
"It's Prince Leopold's child?"
"Leo's not an it," she said crossly. "He's a he. My son… Our son." She stood naked. Slight hips and soft belly. Milk oozing from her nipples like tears, to trickle along the under slope of her breasts.
"Feed him."
"Now's not appropriate."
She tried to meet Tycho's eyes, but her room was in near darkness and he had the advantage. She reminded him of the stone mother in Pio Tera dei Assassini, his first night in this hellish city. The one the woman prayed to.
"Lie down," he told her. "And do it."
When she continued to stand there, he edged her towards her bed, pushed her on to her side, told her to stay there and took her child, unswaddling it before placing it at her breast. And then he stripped off his doublet, boots and hose. Most of his remaining weapons he put in one corner.
A single stiletto went under her pillow.
Lying behind her, he folded one arm across her stomach and shaped himself around her, feeling the curve of her buttocks, the line of her back and the slope of her shoulders. In the silence that followed he heard her crying.
"Is this so bad?" He knew it for a stupid question even as he asked it. She tensed, with him curled there. Although her child simply guzzled.
"You're young," she said eventually.
"You're younger."
"Only in years. You know he'll kill you afterwards?"
"Leopold?"
Lady Giulietta sighed. "My uncle."
"I'm not here to kill you. I'm here to kill your lover, surely you realise that? Anyway, why would I murder you? How would I even know you were here?"
She opened her mouth to say something, and closed it again.
"Leopold's krieghund," Tycho said. "You saw what he became."
"It's a curse," she protested. "You can't hold being cursed against him. And he told me about it, right at the beginning. He kept nothing back."
"Can I ask you something?"
"You half killed Leopold. You're naked in my bed. My baby lies defenceless beside me. Do you think I'd risk refusing?"
"I don't know. Would you?"
"Depends," she said.
"Why don't you go home?" It seemed an obvious question. At least, obvious to someone who didn't have a home. Who'd been born a slave, grown up a slave, and would likely die one now, probably soon.
"This is my home," Giulietta said. "Well, it was. The Ca' Ducale is simply where Uncle Alonzo and Aunt Alexa live. Plus, my cousin, of course. Poor Marco, always condemned to being mentioned last."
"He's mad?"
"They're all mad. I could join them. Or leave."
"You believe that?"
"Oh yes. Who knew being abducted from your abductors was lucky?" There was a mix of bitterness and resignation in Giulietta's voice. She understood the irony. "Let Leopold go and take the baby. Kill me, if someone has to die. It will be enough for my uncle."
"Go where?"
She shrugged. "France's out; he's not safe there. And the Byzantines would torture him both for every secret he knows."
"What about if it was all of you?"
"Cathay maybe. In the long term."
"And in the short term?"
"Cyprus. If Janus will take us."
"Won't he mind that you were meant to marry him?"
Lady Giulietta sighed. "Is this nerves? Do you always talk so much in… When forcing yourself on a woman."
"My first time."
"Your first rape. How sweet."
"My first anything."
"You're like Leopold," Giulietta said, turning to face him and using the baby to hide her breasts. "A beast inside a man. And a man inside the beast."
"No," Tycho warned her. "I'm nothing like him."
Wrapping one hand into her hair, he dragged back her head until her throat was exposed.
"You are," she whispered.
He bit her neck savagely, blood flowing into his mouth, across the baby and on to the sheets. As she screamed, and Prince Leopold began to hammer at the door, Tycho bit deeper, tasting the sweetness her life had to offer. He'd done what he did. While the baby howled and Prince Leopold beat at the door, Tycho walked Giulietta to the very edge of death's precipice. The krieghund had known what Tycho's feeding meant even if Tycho hadn't.
When Tycho opened the door the German wanted to kill him. Only Leopold was weak and wounded, and Tycho was more alive than he'd ever been. Aware of every movement in the city outside. And there was another reason for Prince Leopold's fury. One Tycho learnt when the man's anger ebbed through livid recriminations to tears and guilt. He would rather have died on the roof himself…
Tycho's kind no longer… Nephilim were…
"Save her," he demanded.
"How?" Tycho asked.
"Don't mock me."
"I'm not."
Tears rolled down the krieghund's face, his voice reduced to a grating whisper. "Your blood," he begged. "Smear it on her wounds. You can have this palace. My gold. Anything you want. Just save her."
Biting into his wrist-watched by Prince Leopold, whose gaze never left the child at his lover's breast-Tycho dripped blood into Giulietta's mouth and on to her ravaged neck, which began to heal, almost as if a saint touched her.
In place of Tycho's hunger came stillness. The wild fever that the full moon had summoned withdrew like surf on shingle now the storm was over. As Tycho stroked Giulietta's face, watching her cry wide-eyed and silent on the blood-soaked bed, he knew he loved her.
As did Leopold zum Bas Friedland, lord of the Wolf Brothers and the German emperor's envoy to Serenissima. Who loved so unwisely both her family and his would kill him without thought if they knew about it.
"Go," Tycho told her. "Get out of here. Take money, weapons, whatever your lover doesn't want found." Tycho stopped, remembering something. "Where's Leopold's sister? Atilo told me he lived with his sister."
"Atilo il Mauros?" Giulietta said. "What has he got to do with this?"
"I killed fifteen of his men." Prince Leopold's voice was flat. "About a year and a half ago. In Cannaregio. We were hunting someone and his men ended up hunting us. It was a bloodbath. He killed my men and I killed his."
"Leopold, that was…"
"Yes," he said. "We were hunting you."
"You wanted to kill me?" Lady Giulietta's voice was a whisper.
"Capture you. And I didn't know you then."
; "That isn't an answer." Shrugging on to an elbow, she realised she was still half naked and wrapped her blanket more tightly around her, completely covering her child. "Throw me that," she ordered, pointing to a robe.
Both men stood. Prince Leopold fetched the blanket, letting his fingers brush hers as he handed it over. She appeared not to notice. Tomorrow would bring fear, anger and anxiety. For the present she seemed to take almost dying in her stride.
"Tell her why you fought."
Prince Leopold glared at him. He wanted to say this was none of Tycho's business. In the end he shrugged. "Atilo heads the Assassini."
"You're wrong. That's Lord Dolphino."
"No," Tycho said. "It's not."
"Duke Marco had my father assassinated," Prince Leopold said, his voice heavy.
"My cousin?"
"Your late uncle. When they offered me Venice, how could I refuse? The German emperor's envoy by day. Leader of the Wolf Brothers by night. We were to terrify you into loving us. Terrify you into signing a treaty of friendship." Leopold scowled. "I begged for the job."
"For the chance of capturing me?"
"I didn't know you," Prince Leopold said desperately. "When I received news you'd fled Ca' Ducale I couldn't believe my luck. Every Wolf Brother in the city was called to track you. When we realised Atilo had Assassini tracking us it was too late to back down. My friends died trying to reach you."
"To capture me?"
"Or kill you if we couldn't do that." Leopold looked ashen in the candlelight. "I'm glad we failed," he said. "I couldn't bear…"
"You'd never have met me. You would never have known."
"No," he said. "I never would."
47
Atilo stood in the silence of the early morning gloom trying not to let his gaze slide beyond the palace balcony to the mist on the lagoon. Today's mist was so thick he could barely see the monastery at San Giorgio.
"You failed…" The Regent's voice was icy and his face white with fury. The cold flame of his anger was far more dangerous than his usual red-faced bluster. Prince Alonzo was afraid.
He believed Prince Leopold was alive.
Krieghund healed quickly. Leopold zum Bas Friedland had been an implacable enemy before this. As the German emperor's envoy to Serenissima he'd been bound, at least in appearances, by diplomatic niceties. Any such restraint would now be gone.
"Do you have an excuse?"
In Atilo's head were Desdaio's words.
"If you love me you'll save him." How much did Atilo love her? Enough to be cuckolded? Enough to live with the fact that Iacopo spoke the truth, later denied. Desdaio had been seen coming from Tycho's cellar.
That's what Atilo was starting to believe.
"Nothing to say?"
"My lord?"
"Don't you my lord me. You have told us that was ready. That it had the necessary skills to…" Prince Alonzo waved his hand dismissively. The Moor knew exactly what was wanted. That was what his wave meant.
"I was wrong, my lord."
"Yes, you were. Weren't you?"
That knelt silently at the feet of the throne. Blood glued his braids to his skull. Atilo's beating of the boy had been brutal, his most brutal yet. The old man couldn't work out if stupidity, ignorance or courage made the boy return to announce his failure. That was all Tycho said. He'd failed.
Behind the kneeling boy stood Captain Roderigo, looking bleary-eyed and furious. He'd been to Ca' Friedland and waited to make his report.
"We'll give him to Black Crucifers for public torture."
"Alonzo," said a voice from the doorway. Alexa's tone was surprisingly mild. Clearly, she realised how close the Regent was to doing something stupid.
"What?" Prince Alonzo demanded.
That Alexa let his rudeness pass said it all. Pointing out the obvious in front of servants to a drunken prince who should have realised it already was a delicate task. "Perhaps that's not fitting."
"Why not?"
"He's young."
"What's that got to do…?"
Children were frequently tortured. Sons required to condemn their fathers. Daughters their mothers…
"Ahh," Alonzo said, stumbling over the answer for himself.
Tycho's age was an irrelevance. Alexa simply wanted him to pause long enough to think. The torturer would discover every detail of Tycho's training. He would know about Prince Leopold's true nature. Who knew the complications that would bring?
"Wine," the Regent demanded.
The steward's eyes flicked to Alexa. The little man wouldn't dare refuse Alonzo but he could have his staff dilute the wine. He'd served the old duke and served him well. He'd have done the same for the new duke, if the young man hadn't been sitting there watching mist slowly burn off the lagoon.
The duchess nodded. Alonzo tight was easier to handle.
"You said he was ready," the Regent insisted, grabbing a goblet and emptying it in one gulp. "You said he was up to the task."
As well Roderigo was loyal. In the old duke's day Assassini matters were not discussed openly. Then, in Marco III's day, all decisions were taken by the duke, who was not given to discussion. Except, occasionally, with his duchess. And Atilo only knew that because she'd told him. They'd been in bed at the time. Glancing across, he saw her watching him.
"Well?" Alonzo said. "Are you going to answer?"
"I'm sorry, my lord."
"Sorry isn't good enough. You should pick your people better."
"The mistake is mine."
"I'm glad you admit that. We wouldn't want you wriggling out of your responsibilities. Would we, Alexa? Roderigo, tell us what you found."
"Blood on the palace's roof, my lord. Discarded weapons. A broken blade." He opened his right hand, unfolding a cloth to reveal burns. "Enchanted. It took Dr. Crow to make it safe. A woman's chamber exists on the third floor."
"His sister?" Duchess Alexa's voice was tight.
Atilo hadn't even known Prince Leopold had a sister. And Alexa's voice was much too tight for a woman of her subtlety. Now that he thought of it, she seemed less shocked than Alonzo at Tycho's failure. Though she'd been careful to glare at the boy fiercely.
"I would imagine so, my lady," Roderigo said.
"What about servants?"
"No sign of servants, my lord."
"You checked?"
"Yes. I checked. The attics were derelict." Attics were where servants slept. Hot in summer and freezing in winter, they were shared with mice, rats, pigeons and old furniture.
"Leopold zum Bas Friedland and his sister, alone together. That sounds suspicious to me." Prince Alonzo's eyes gleamed at the thought. When he waved his goblet a woman hurried forward. His gaze as he watched her pour was hungry. "Describe the state of her chamber."
"The bed had been slept in, my lord. The sheets were… in need of laundering."
"You mean what I think?"
"Possibly, my lord."
"Then say it clearly," Prince Alonzo snapped.
"The sheets were stained, my lord. With blood, urine and shit. Either she was murdered there by…"
"Her brother?"
Captain Roderigo winced. "Or Atilo's apprentice violated her first."
Prince Alonzo looked at Tycho with new interest. His eyes glancing at Atilo's impassive face. "Roderigo. Do you believe they're dead?"
The captain shrugged. A mistake.
"The mattress was drenched with blood," he said hastily. "There were also splatters of blood on the roof, and signs of a struggle and the broken sword… But no bodies anywhere. They could have been removed." They could also be alive. The more he drank, the easier the Regent was to read, and Roderigo knew his master was scared, and furious.
"Death," Alonzo said. "That's my verdict." When Duchess Alexa opened her mouth, he snapped, "You disagree?"
"This needs discussion."
"No, it doesn't… Let the Black Master extract every last secret in private. Although I've a mind to do it myself." For a second it looke
d as if the Regent was serious. "Go," he said, glaring at Roderigo. "Take him away."
"Where, my lord?"
"The Crucifer pit, obviously."
48
"Strip him…"
Tycho struggled to locate the speaker. His gaolers had him blindfolded with his hands tied behind his back tight enough to make his fingers distant memories. Shackles locked his feet. He was ungagged. Perhaps they expected him to plead.
"Get on with it."
Rough hands yanked his doublet; when the buttons failed to rip free, someone punched him and Tycho fell to the floor.
"That's enough."
A different voice this time. Behind him.
"Maybe you'd like to tell me what's going on?" There was a smoothness to the words that set Tycho's teeth on edge. A reasonableness that grated.
"Sir, we're preparing him."
"What day is it?"
"Saturday, sir." The man sounded afraid.
"And why is preparing him like this a bad idea?"
"We're not torturing him, sir. We just need to remove his clothes. It's not like…" The voice trailed into gurgling, followed by a thud. Pushing his foot to the side, as far as his shackles allowed, Tycho felt another body.
"Pick him up."
Hands hauled Tycho to his feet.
"Right," the voice said. "Free his hands, unbutton his doublet properly, throw him naked into the pit. Leave the shackles. I begin torturing him on Monday. Understood?"
"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir."
"My lord." Tycho's throat was dry. Partly fear, partly that he hadn't drunk anything since the previous night, and his head ached from Atilo's beating.
"You speak."
"Sunlight, my lord. It…"
"Burns you. So I've been told. An interesting fact, don't you think? What kind of sinner is burnt by God's own light? Only the worst, I suspect. The Regent has instructed me to question you myself. An unpleasant task, but one I shall undertake to the best of my abilities. And I wouldn't worry. Where you're going now has no sunlight, nor any other kind most of the time."
Footsteps climbed stairs.
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