The Exiled Blade: Act Three of the Assassini

by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

  “My lord, I’m offering you the Blade.”

  The Regent looked at him. He stared into Tycho’s face, though the darkness must have reduced it to shadow, and then he turned and stamped his way to where Lord Roderigo stood, cutting him out of the crowd and leading him aside. The argument was fierce, and Alonzo returned with a scowl on in his face. “It’s a trick,” he said. “You must think I’m stupid.”

  “No trick,” Tycho promised. “No trick at all, my lord.”

  “Then prove it. Perform a task.”

  “Whatever you ask.”

  “You swear that?”

  “I swear it.”

  “Good.” Alonzo smiled. “Kill Alexa. Bring me proof.”

  23

  The duchess sat with her son in one of the kitchens. The staff were neither told to stay nor go, but had chosen to leave and Alexa let them. In truth, she barely noticed, being too busy sautéing snails in a hot pan.

  “Your favourite,” Alexa said. She watched her son sniff the air, grin at the smell of garlic and butter, and look puzzled. How, he obviously wondered, did Mother find snails in midwinter? She let him wonder. Lifting a lid, Alexa spooned half the snails on to a platter for him and loaded half on to another for her.

  “Eat,” she said, handing him a pin.

  The duke dug happily into a hot shell and chewed, even closing his eyes to savour the garlic as he’d done as a child, before his illness. The word tasted sour and she winkled out a snail and chewed the taste away. Marco was already swallowing his second and reaching for a third, grinning at his burnt fingers. That, too, reminded her of his childhood. He’d always mixed contemplation with sudden awkward enthusiasms. Snails would become his new favourite.

  “This one’s a-alive,” he said holding up a shell.

  “Really?” Before he could ask how an uncooked snail got into the pot she slid in a question of her own. “How would you get it out?”

  Marco dug with his pin and the snail shrivelled, retreating behind the turns in its shell until the pin couldn’t reach.

  “You could stamp on it,” Alexa suggested.

  “All that b-broken shell.”

  “Indeed.” Lifting the pot’s lid, she helped herself to a little more melted butter and diced garlic, and was about to replace the lid when Marco shook his head. Grinning, he dropped his live snail into the sizzling liquid. “Finish mine,” Alexa said, “while you’re waiting.”

  And so we teach our young. Well, so she taught Marco. One live snail among those already cooked. Had he understood the lesson? With Marco it was hard to know . . . “D-done,” he said, scooping the snail from the pot.

  “Good boy. Tomorrow I’ll have someone take you skating.”

  “On the b-big ice?”

  “The canal behind the palace,” she said and watched his face. She’d love to let him skate on the lagoon, however many guards it took, and however many times he fell over; since, not having skated before, most Venetians were clumsy . . . But that would take everyone’s eyes off Frederick and Giulietta, and Alexa had her own reasons for wanting the public to watch them.

  A cobbler in San Croce made himself rich by persuading a metalworker to fashion blades that could be nailed directly to the soles of sturdy boots. The cobbler then left a pair at the palace door for Lady Giulietta, and a pair outside the Fontego dei Tedeschi for Prince Frederick, with whom the whole city knew she’d been walking on the ice.

  Bone skates had been used for ever.

  Well, as far as Giulietta knew. A chamberlain so old his eyes were sightless and his voice a whisper remembered metal skates from the last time the canals froze, but those had been tied on and were blunt enough for their owners to need poles to push themselves along. To nail the blades directly to the boots was genius. Aunt Alexa had all but ordered Giulietta to try them out.

  Within two days the cobbler had more orders than he could meet. Other cobblers suddenly found themselves busy, and the Duchess Alexa gave dispensation for a foundry to relight its furnace and burn precious fuel turning out blades by the hundred. “She’s brilliant,” Prince Frederick said.

  He’d just turned an almost brutal figure of eight that sprayed ice and brought him back to where Lady Giulietta stood, unsteadily leaning on a stick and well aware he’d long ago abandoned his own. With blades this sharp you didn’t need to pole yourself along so those watching – and there were more people than she liked watching – knew she needed it for balance. “Who’s brilliant?”

  “Your aunt. Now, take my hand.”

  “Leopold.”

  Frederick scowled and she blushed furiously. “Frederick,” she said. “Sorry, that was really stupid. I know . . .”

  “I’m Frederick?”

  She nodded dumbly.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “Now, drop your stick.”

  He was holding out his hand and a hundred people were staring, and she knew she was blushing harder than ever, so she reached hastily for his fingers and gripped the impossibly soft leather of his gloves.

  “You’re cold,” he said.

  Her fingernails were almost blue.

  “Wear these.” He was pulling off a glove before she could refuse. The surprise was that they fitted. “Small hands,” he explained, matching his fingers to hers. “I say . . . Are you all right?”

  “My page is watching.”

  Prince Frederick let go of her fingers. “Sorry,” he said. “I forget how to behave sometimes. That’s why I like . . .” He chewed the corner of his lip, having apparently decided against what he intended to say.

  “You like what?”

  “Being with my friends. It’s more natural.”

  “Natural?” she asked. Catching the amusement in his eyes, she realised too late he meant the krieghund, he liked being with his kind. That was a discussion she felt unready to have. Certainly here, watched by every layabout in Venice. “Tell me,” she said. “Why is my aunt brilliant?”

  He grinned at her change of topic, and grinned again when she discarded her stick. She felt him take her shoulders and turn her to look at the scene behind them. A thousand people, possibly more, thronged the ice. Stalls lined the edge of the Riva degli Schiavoni. Skaters, and those who’d been walking on the ice in studded boots, formed queues to buy hot bread and warm pies. The smell of roasting meat wafting over the ice from where an ox roasted over a fire pit on the quay.

  “Other cities are rioting,” he said.

  Are they now? Aunt Alexa had mentioned nothing about that.

  “Farms are being sacked in Lombardy, and granaries broken into all across Germany. Warehouses in Milan have been gutted and burnt. My father’s had to burn the leaders of a peasant rebellion and hang a hundred of their followers. And what is Venice doing? Holding an ice party . . .”

  “You’ve had fresh news from your father?”

  Frederick’s face went still.

  He must have heard the hope in my voice. “About Leo, I mean?”

  Instantly, she felt guilty. She should have said, about Leo and Tycho. But it was kinder to let Frederick think her worry was about Leo alone. Looking up, she expected Frederick’s face to have relaxed. If anything, he looked unhappier than he had done before. “You’ve heard something about Leo . . .”

  He shook his head.

  Thank God, she couldn’t stand that.

  “Nothing about Leo, my lady. There are rumours Lady Maria is pregnant enough to keep to her room.” It took Giulietta a moment to realise he meant Maria Dolphini. “If you’re right, they’ll introduce Leo as her son soon . . .”

  “What else?”

  “My lady . . .?”

  He was too fond of her for such formality. “Your highness, what other news have you received? What aren’t you telling me?”

  “You know what rumours are like.” In her experience rumours were almost always right. He obviously read the anger in her eyes because he sighed. “I’m not saying it’s true. And you’re not going to like it.”

  “O
bviously,” she said tightly.

  “An unconfirmed report says Lord Tycho has sworn loyalty to the Regent, that he has offered Alonzo the Blade.”

  “You knew Tycho was Duke’s Blade?”

  “No,” said Frederick. “But I do now. Until a second ago it was simply rumour.”

  Lady Giulietta glared at him. “Impossible,” she said. “Tycho would never betray me . . . He’d never betray Marco. He belongs to Alexa. He knows how much I hate my uncle.”

  “Everyone knows how much you hate your uncle. No one knows why. Although there are rumours about that as well.”

  “Of course there are. There are always rumours. You said yourself they’re usually wrong. And that one’s wrong, too.” Gathering her cloak, Giulietta turned for the shoreline. “Take me home.”

  As they were approaching the Porta della Carta, just before the guards came to attention, Frederick said. “Ask your aunt the truth of it. She has a way of knowing these things. She can tell you if it’s untrue.”

  “It’s a lie,” Giulietta said firmly.

  She went inside without saying goodbye, dismissed Pietro to wherever he went when dismissed and made straight for her chamber, where she locked the door behind her and curled into a ball on her bed, letting the sobs take her. The afternoon had been going so well until Frederick ruined it. She hated Venice. She hated Frederick, too.

  24

  The sound of Lady Giulietta’s tantrum brought Marco from his chamber to find Pietro crouched across her doorway. “Y-you shouldn’t be here.”

  The boy scrambled to his feet. He was thin and tousled-haired, still a child. Better fed, however, than when Marco first spared his life. Finding his courage, the boy said, “Lord Tycho . . .”

  “Said you s-should l-look after her?”

  Tycho’s page nodded.

  “Then, of c-course, you m-must.”

  Turning the corner into this conversation, Duchess Alexa smiled. It was exactly what she expected Marco to say. He seemed so much clearer about what was going on around him since his uncle had gone. It would be terrible to discover Marco’s idiocy . . .

  I’m not even going to finish that thought. Alexa had always prided herself on facing difficult truths head on, but tonight was different. Neither her son nor Pietro knew how different, and how could she tell them? “What is he doing here?” she demanded.

  The page choked on his answer.

  “H-he’s with me,” said Marco, earning a glance so grateful Alexa knew the duke had a follower for life.

  “In that case . . .” Alexa ruffled the child’s hair.

  The boy would remember that, too. No matter how old he grew or what he became in later life he would remember the night the duke of Venice lied for him, and the duke’s fearsome mother ruffled his hair. Of such tiny memories were lives made.

  The night was so cold that frost bloomed inside the glass, and all the fire did was fill the corridor with smoke and make their clothes smell.

  “You must to bed,” she told Marco. “Tomorrow will be a hard day, take my word for it.” Leaning forward, she kissed him, whispering sorry as her mouth touched his ear. Let him decide what for. Going to Alonzo’s bed had been a mistake. Not realising Alonzo would take the act as proof they’d formed an alliance and kill her husband was a worse one.

  “I’m glad you’re getting better.”

  Marco’s eyes went huge as he considered this. His father had been a simple man. His nickname the Just a tribute to his ability to see everything as black or white. She doubted her son had ever seen the world in anything except complex shades of grey. She’d come to realise he’d seen too much.

  “Bed now,” she insisted.

  Leaning forward, he kissed her back. He was intuitive enough to know something was wrong and discreet enough not to ask what, although he would know soon enough. Sighing, Alexa watched her son return to his room, humming some ditty about icy hearts and frosted thighs. It was a plea to reluctant maids to give what they held dear, since the world was ending and what use were honour and virginity now . . . Half the young men in the city were singing it. Where did he learn these things given that some days he barely left his room?

  “Sit by the window,” she told the boy.

  The first time Alexa knocked Giulietta didn’t hear. At least, her sobbing didn’t stop or her sniffing change pitch. So Alexa knocked harder and heard Giulietta groan, “Go away.”

  She was seventeen, Alexa reminded herself. At seventeen, she’d been as unhappy as this, that was the truth of it. Some girls were born happy and remained so through their storm years – the late Lady Desdaio, for example – but Alexa had not been one of them and neither was her niece.

  “Giulietta . . .”

  “I said go away.”

  At which Alexa knocked hard enough to make her knuckles hurt, and loudly enough to have two guards come running. In a final act of kindness she decided to give them their lives, although she doubted they’d understand this was what she’d done or believe it of her. “Leave,” she said. “Do not return.”

  They hesitated.

  “Did you hear me?”

  The men glanced at each other, some thought passing in a flicker, and they bowed, leaving quickly and not glancing back. They would report her order to their sergeant who would wake their lieutenant, who would wake Captain Weimer, who now commanded the palace guard. That would take time, which was good because she needed time. Only a little of it to be sure, because that was all she had left anyway. Just enough to do what needed to be done. Knocking harder, Alexa heard sudden silence and imagined Giulietta was wondering if she dared tell her aunt to go away a third time.

  Alexa was the duchess. Sole Regent now Alonzo was gone.

  When the bolt on the door shot back, Alexa felt almost sorry that her niece had surrendered so easily. Childhood obedience was a hard habit to break and one she would need to break if she was to rule well. Being impressed because people were older, because they were male, because they were impressed with themselves made a bad foundation for choosing friends and a worse one for choosing advisers. Her niece would be surrounded with flatterers. Alexa just wished there was a way to make the next few days easier for the young woman now opening her door, the scowl on her face sulky enough to suit a twelve-year-old.

  “May I come in?”

  Giulietta looked surprised.

  So Alexa waited until her niece stepped back, opened the door a little further and waved her aunt inside. A brazier burnt in the corner, and one window was wide open. She knew she should say something about wasting coal but couldn’t bring herself to. Giulietta would discover how little was left in her own time.

  “Are you all right?” Giulietta said.

  Alexa smiled sadly. “I should be asking you that but I already know the answer.” Reaching forward, she wiped a half-dried tear from Giulietta’s face. “What did Frederick say to you?”

  “How do you know it was Frederick?”

  “Who else would it be?”

  “He said that Tycho had offered his loyalty to Uncle Alonzo. To Uncle Alonzo. How could Frederick even imagine . . . He said he’d offered him the Blade.”

  “It’s true.”

  Lady Giulietta froze.

  “I’ve had those reports, too.” The duchess hesitated, torn between being lying and the truth, between being harsh and being kind. She was happy to lie on matters of state but tried not to lie to her own family unless necessary. Who knew what was kind where Giulietta was concerned? Her pretty if vapid mother killed, her father a monster. Her late husband only happy to bed boys. As for her would-be second husband, he was another problem altogether. And then there was Frederick.

  She saw no problem with Giulietta being in love with two people at once. Men did that all the time. She’d loved Marco, and loved Lord Atilo. The Regent had been a mistake. Her going to his bed a simple attempt to protect her son. Looking up, the duchess realised her niece was still waiting for her to speak. “Your uncle and Tycho met in a forest ne
ar the Red Cathedral.”

  “You knew?” Giulietta looked as if she’d been slapped.

  “Look at strange objects from all sides before deciding what they are.”

  “That was one of my uncle’s sayings.” She meant Marco the Just.

  “Exactly. Tycho might have his reasons.”

  “Oh, he’s got his reasons all right. He leaves without telling me and then I discover he’s changed sides. I’m never going to get Leo back.”

  “Listen to me . . .” Alexa’s voice was so sharp Giulietta stiffened and Alexa sighed. This is impossible . . . I’ve made her too like me, Alexa realised. Saying goodbye to Marco had been simple. A kiss, a sorry, he’d know she’d loved him. In the red-haired girl standing in front of her, Alexa saw herself. Her hair was the wrong colour, her skin too olive, her eyes had those strange Western folds. She was scrawny where Alexa had been lithe, her hips sharp against her nightgown, but staring from those pale eyes . . . She’d proved, to her own satisfaction, it was who brought the child up, not who the parents were, that mattered.

  “I have always loved you,” Alexa said.

  Giulietta looked stunned.

  “As much as if you were my own daughter. If I could have made you my daughter I would have done. Marco wouldn’t allow it.” She smiled sourly. “He said it would turn the Arsenalotti and the Nicoletti against you. They would say it was because I wanted to train you in poisons and witchcraft.”

  Wide eyes watched Alexa.

  Oh, you’ll remember this night. For the wrong reasons at first, and later, if Alexa was lucky, for the right ones. That would make a difference in the years to come. She needed the girl to be a good Regent, to continue doing the things Alexa had always done; smoothing the way to treaties and removing obstacles when necessary. So many threads for Alexa to tie off, so little time left for tying.

  “You were a difficult child.”

  Giulietta smiled.

  “That you’re proud of it is just one of the reasons you remind me of me.” Yes, she thought that would surprise Giulietta. “I’ve tried to teach you what you need to know.”