by Robyn Young
‘You mean his bastard.’
Rage took Jack full in its red jaws. He lunged at Adam, standing there remorseless.
He was grabbed by Ned, the larger man halting his strike. ‘Damn it, Jack!’
‘No, Ned, let him come,’ Adam growled, fists clenched.
Titan was barking madly, jumping in distress around Ned and Jack as they wrestled, knocking into the table, which screeched across the floor, the candles almost flickering out. David was shouting, hands planted on Adam’s chest. Suddenly, a scream tore across them; a ragged, piercing sound that stopped them all in their tracks.
Jack, gripping hold of Ned, turned to see Amelot, her mouth still stretched open, but now in silence. Her eyes were wide, as if she were as surprised as the rest of them at the sound she had made. She focused, her gaze meeting Jack’s. Slowly, she raised her hand, pressed her palm over half her face, just as she had done in the palazzo. Only, now, Jack felt something go through him at the gesture: a cold, creeping chill. He had seen that gesture before tonight. Amaury had made it, imitating Amelot’s description of the masked man.
In his mind, Jack saw his mother’s murderer, towering over him as he lay sprawled on the floor of the Ferryman’s Arms, that white mask covering half his face. ‘The pope’s man?’ he murmured, dropping his hold on Ned, all thoughts of avenging himself on Adam gone. ‘The one who was after the map? He is here?’
Taking her hand from her face, Amelot raised her arm, finger pointing towards him. You, it said. He’s come for you.
‘Jack?’ questioned Ned, eyes flicking between him and Amelot.
‘The man who killed my mother. The one who attacked us in Southwark.’ Jack turned again to Amelot before Ned could respond. ‘Do you know where he is?’ When she nodded, he reached under Ned’s pallet, fingers snagging hold of the rags he’d bound his father’s sword in. Jack drew it from the scabbard Grace had given him. ‘Show me.’
‘I’ll go with you,’ Ned said quickly.
‘No,’ answered Jack, eyes on Adam. He went to Ned, clasped his shoulder. ‘I need you to guard him,’ he murmured, nodding to the prisoner. ‘Make sure he stays here. That no one sees him.’ The stranger, who had tensed during the argument, seemed more alert now, dark eyes straying to the door where Valentine still stood. He had come willingly from his prison in the palace, but Jack doubted he would agree to stay locked in another for long. He lowered his voice further. ‘There’s a chance I can salvage our deal with Lorenzo. Make this right.’
Outside, the night air cooled his face. As Amelot led the way down the alley, Jack followed, gripping his father’s sword. The mercato opened suddenly before them, its emptiness eerie. Atop the pillar in the centre, Abundance was an ashen goddess in the moon, arm thrust aloft, still broken at the wrist. Jack thought of the trembling earth and crumbling stones, Laora’s hand tight in his. But as they passed out of the moon-washed square and plunged once more into darkness, all thoughts of her – of anything other than his enemy – vanished. There was room only for vengeance; a single heartbeat pounding inside him.
They heard the noise first. Then, turning a corner near the Ospedale degli Innocenti, they were confronted with scores of people milling in the street, many dressed in nightclothes. Torches had turned night to blazing day and in among the sleep-dazed citizens Jack saw the city watch, tunics decorated with symbols of the gonfaloni. Amelot pointed to a tall building, around which most of the watchmen were gathered. In their midst was a cart, something stretched out upon it. Stepping through the throng, Jack saw it was a body.
Ned glanced again at the man, seated on the edge of the pallet. So far he’d remained silent, except to politely decline a cup of wine. The stranger had not made any move to leave, but while pulling a tunic on over his undershirt and hose, Ned had surreptitiously slipped a dagger into his belt, now hidden in the small of his back.
Valentine was sitting on a stool by the table, brow puckered, fingers tapping on the wood. Adam and David were by the window, speaking in heated tones. David was demanding why his brother had gone behind their backs, Adam was angrily justifying himself. Ned’s gaze flicked to the door. He shouldn’t have let Jack go alone. He remembered well the man in the mask – still had the scar where the brute had stabbed him.
‘Where you from?’ Valentine spoke roughly in the silence. ‘Spain?’
The stranger met his gaze, but didn’t answer.
‘Can’t speak English, no?’
Titan, curled on Ned’s pallet, lifted his head from his paws. Jumping down, the dog trotted to the door, paws clicking on the boards. He stood facing it, nose pointing forward.
‘Jack not tell you who he is, Ned?’
‘Valentine . . .’
‘I’m just . . .’ The gunner trailed off, seeing Ned fixed on Titan. A low growl was coming from the little dog, the fur on his back starting to stiffen and bristle. Valentine rose slowly.
Ned reached under his tunic, fingers brushing the cold steel of the dagger. Adam paused in his argument with David, seeing the two men rising to face the door.
‘Is that him back?’ Adam was striding across the room before any of them could react. ‘We’ll settle this now, God damn it.’
‘Adam!’
Not heeding Ned’s shout, Adam grasped the door and opened it.
For a moment, nothing happened. Darkness filled the passage beyond. Titan’s growling was the only sound. Then, there was a sharp click, followed by a rush of disturbed air.
The crossbow bolt buried itself in Adam’s chest, throwing him off his feet. He landed on one of the stools, which shattered beneath him. David roared and dived towards his brother, as Ned threw himself at the door. He crashed against it, shouldering it shut and shoving the bolt across, as another quarrel punched through the wood, the barb emerging inches from his face. ‘Help me!’ he shouted, reeling away to grab hold of his pallet. Valentine, seeing what he was doing, moved to aid him.
Together, they hauled the block of wood, with its straw mattress, to wedge it against the door. It wouldn’t keep anyone out for long, but it would slow them. David was on his knees by his brother, shouting into his upturned face. The bolt, protruding just above Adam’s sternum, had gone in deep. Blood was blooming on his shirt. More trailed in a line from the corner of his mouth, which was opening and closing, a wet gurgling coming from his throat.
The stranger, who had leapt to his feet, was staring at the weapons and armour that had been hidden beneath the pallet, now revealed. At a shout from the passage, his head snapped up.
Ned wasn’t sure what had been said. It sounded like gem. More shouts followed, a stream of words he didn’t recognise, the language fast and harsh. The stranger, however, clearly did understand, his dark eyes narrowing in recognition. ‘They’ve come to take you?’ Ned questioned, striding to the weapons and snatching up his sword. He brandished it at the stranger.
‘No. To kill me.’
‘Valentine!’ Ned began, turning. But the gunner was already going for his arquebus.
Snatching up the gun, Valentine upended his sack, the apostles of powder tumbling out on the floor, along with a pouch of shot, a ram-rod and tufts of wadding. There was a rattle as someone tried the door, then a determined thudding as the men beyond attempted to shoulder it open.
‘David! Your bow!’
But David wasn’t listening, still holding his brother, shouting for him to get up.
‘Let me go to them,’ said the stranger to Ned. ‘See to your friend.’
Ned shook his head, Jack’s words in his mind. ‘We stay together.’ The thudding on the door was louder, the bolt rattling in its fixings. ‘Down!’ he yelled, racing to Adam and grasping the man’s shirt in his free hand, dragging him back, as Valentine pushed over the table, bowls and candles falling. David, coming to his senses, scrabbled back, helping Ned pull his brother behind the table. As the stranger ducked down with them, Ned saw he had taken up one of their swords.
Valentine was stuffing shot and wadd
ing into the barrel of the gun. ‘Fuse, Ned!’
Snatching up a trailing length of hemp, Ned held it to one of the fallen candles, the wick still alight, fluttering in a pool of molten wax. The brutal banging of the door filled the room. As the fuse smouldered to life, Valentine opened an apostle with his teeth and shook the powder into the barrel and the priming pan, some trickling over his hand and on to the floor in his haste.
‘Titan!’
The little dog, cowering under the remaining pallet, scrabbled out at Ned’s shout to leap into his arms, then the door heaved open, the wedged pallet falling with a crash.
For a moment, the only sounds were the faint trickle of falling powder and Adam’s wet breaths. Then, they heard footsteps and a heavy scrape as someone shoved aside the pallet and mattress. Valentine grasped the stock of the gun, God’s Messenger carved into the pitted wood, the fuse gripped in his fist; no time for him to fix it in the jaws of the serpentine.
‘Jesus!’ hissed Ned, stuffing Titan, struggling, into his shirt with one hand and trying to hunch his shoulders up around his ears, as the gunner sucked in a breath and turned, aiming the barrel over the edge of the upturned table.
There was a warning shout from one of the men who had entered. Valentine set the lit fuse to the priming pan and the powder burst into life. Sparks exploded across his fingers and into the hole in the barrel, igniting the powder within, the shot launched with a flashing hiss and an ear-blasting bang. Valentine, on his knees, rocked back with a grunt, the stock jamming into his shoulder. The shot struck one of the men in the doorway full in the chest. He flew back in a burst of red, knocking one of his companions off his feet.
Valentine was already stuffing more shot into the barrel, but the men were in the room now and even with the ringing in his ears, Ned heard the rasp of swords being drawn. Then, he was pushing himself up, no time to think, roaring as he went, barrelling through the blue haze of smoke, sulphur stinging his eyes as he swung at the first comer: a short, wiry man with a dark beard and fierce black eyes. The man ducked his strike, then thrust in, hard and fast, Ned only just managing to batter the blade away. He switched back with a cutting sweep to the man’s side, which was neatly blocked, the man gritting his teeth, yellow against his ruddy skin, as he lunged for another jab.
Out of the corner of his eye, Ned saw the stranger had been set upon by three of the men. He flicked expertly out with the sword, slashing one across the cheek, sending him reeling away, then clashed with another, their blades locking. The third lunged in, sword raised. Ned, smacking away another of the wiry man’s vicious strikes, yelled a warning.
Something punched into the third attacker’s back, sending him staggering forward, sword clattering from his fingers. David had risen behind the table, crossbow in his hands, face pale in the guttering light of the remaining candles, his fingers already slipping another quarrel into place. Valentine was with him, aiming his gun at another man who staggered in through the door, spattered with the blood of his fallen comrade. The arquebus exploded in another vicious flash, the bang resounding around the room. The man entering was spun by the impact, half his face shattered away.
Ned saw the stranger stamping and thrusting now with only one opponent, focused and skilled. The fight seemed personal, the fire of rage in both their faces. Distant shouts sounded, footsteps pounding on the floors below. People waking, alerted by the sounds, or more men come for the stranger? Titan, still stuffed in his shirt, scrabbled at his chest, claws raking his skin. It distracted Ned enough for his opponent to step in and stab him in the thigh. As he stumbled, the man caught Ned’s blade with his cross-guard and twisted it out of his hand.
Ned collapsed to one knee, pain screaming through his leg, blood pulsing from the wound. Titan’s barks filled his ears, the dog desperately trying to get free. The man cried out in triumph as he leapt forward. Ned reached round to his back, wrenched free the dagger stuffed in his belt and jammed it in the man’s groin. He freed it with a savage twist that felled the man instantly. He went down mewling, blood spurting from the severed artery.
Ned, sagged on his knees, saw the flame of one of the fallen candles gust across the powder-speckled floor around Valentine’s feet, where the man had dropped another apostle to reload. He yelled a warning. Too late. The powder flared to life at the kiss of flame and flashed into the half-full apostle, which erupted in a chest-shuddering bang, sending the table, and Valentine, flying. Ned just had time to see more sparks hissing across the floor, following the scattered lines of powder to where the other apostles lay in a heap.
‘Oh, Mother Mary,’ he breathed, as the explosion ripped the room apart.
The corpse was not that of his enemy; that much was apparent in the dimensions of his body. Jack, forcing his way through the onlookers, had glimpsed a man in a blood-soaked nightshirt lying on a litter, face smashed beyond all recognition. Amelot had pointed to the hostelry around which the crowd was clustered, telling Jack that was where she had seen the masked man, but with the city watch guarding the entrance, he’d not been able to get inside.
His enemy had been there, though, that much he’d discovered from one of the onlookers. An elderly man, shivering in his nightclothes as the guards questioned witnesses, had spoken of a monster in a mask, fleeing the building, covered in blood. The same monster, it was believed, had terrorised the city these past months. Jack had been stunned by the words. Had his mother’s murderer been here all this time? Under the same sky? Breathing the same air?
With no sign of his enemy and the guards urging people inside their homes, Jack had been forced to turn back. Vengeance, unsated, was sour in him, bitter as bad wine. But, as he neared the Fig, Amelot struggling to keep up with his furious stride, all thoughts of his long-dreamed revenge were swept aside.
They saw the glow around the tavern several streets away – the livid pulse of a large fire. Jack broke into a run, Amelot at his side. Turning down the street they were greeted with the sight of flames streaking from the inn’s upper storey. Part of the top floor was completely gone; a jagged hole where the wall had been, smoke billowing from it. Below, the street was littered with rubble and charred pieces of timber. Screams echoed above the snap and crackle of flames, some people dashing from the door, others running in, carrying buckets of water and sand – goaded by the innkeeper, shouting, red-faced, in the heart of the chaos. A bell was clanging an alarm. Other people spilled from nearby buildings, some to help, others to stand and gawp.
Jack entered the confusion, searching frantically for Ned and the others. Hearing a dog barking, he elbowed his way through the tumult, in the direction of the sound. There, bent double, hacking dryly as Titan barked at his feet, was Ned. The large man was in a state. Half his shirt had been blasted from his body, the rest, blackened and torn, hung in flapping rags on his torso. His hose were soaked with blood and his thatch of brown hair had been burned away on one side, his scalp and face blistered.
The man started as Jack grasped him. His dazed eyes focused. ‘Jack!’ His voice came out as a hoarse shout.
‘What happened? Where are the others?’ Even as he asked the question, Jack saw Valentine sitting on the floor, his arquebus lying beside him. The gunner was less bloody, but just as singed, wiggling a finger deep in his ear and turning to spit out a plug of black phlegm. Jack could smell the sulphur on him. Glancing up at the blasted hole in the tavern, he knew only gunpowder could have done such damage. ‘Ned, what in hell . . .?’ He trailed off as the crowds parted and he saw two men on the ground close by. One was on his back, the crossbow bolt sticking out of him an obscene exclamation. Adam. The other, crouched over him, face and arms scorched by fire, was David. The younger man was weeping, clutching at his brother’s clothes, trying in vain to force life from his corpse.
‘They came for him.’
Jack turned at the croak, to see Ned’s eyes on a figure who was watching David’s anguish in silence. What was left of the prisoner’s nightshirt was soaked in blood. Mor
e slimed the blade in his hand. Jack crossed to the man. ‘Who were they?’ he demanded, turning the prisoner to face him. ‘Who came for you?’
‘Assassins,’ the man answered, after a pause. ‘Sent by my brother.’
‘Your brother? Who are you, God damn it?’
The prisoner met his gaze, his eyes full of flames. ‘I am Prince Djem, son of Sultan Mehmet, whom your people called the Conqueror. Half-brother to Bayezid, the pretender. And rightful heir to the throne of the empire.’
Goro stood on the fringes of the crowd outside the burning tavern, the flush of fire warming his face. The chaos was like a dance, people weaving in and out of one another, their screams and cries the music.
He had followed James Wynter and the girl from the hostelry, where he’d been hiding, watching the guards carrying out the monsignore’s broken body. While the first sighting of the man who killed Carlo di Fante had been a shock, the second had been a prayer answered. Now, at last, he would put his master’s soul to rest. The stiletto dagger, gripped in his fist, would be his benediction; a gift from the man whose life Wynter had taken in that Southwark alley.
In killing the monsignore – who so callously refused his request to take Wynter for himself when they entered the palazzo – Goro had ended his tenure as the pope’s interrogator. But he cared not. The death of Battista di Salvi had liberated him; those words, so many barbs in his soul, plucked free. He didn’t need the pope, nor anyone else. With the realisation he had felt a soaring sense of release, as though he were being pulled anew from Sforza’s dungeon. Once he killed Wynter and avenged Carlo, he knew he would truly be free.
A harsh cry jolted him from his focus on Wynter, now crouched beside a dead man. Goro realised an elderly woman was pointing at him. There was something in her face – fear, yes – but something else too. Recognition? Other eyes turned in his direction at her frantic gestures and more shouts sounded. The monsignore had been the expert in the Tuscan tongue, but Goro caught a few words he recognised. Among them, blood. Glancing down, he realised his cloak was open, revealing his tunic, still spattered red from Battista’s broken skull.
