The Exiled Blade: Act Three of the Assassini

by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

  “Tycho asked if you’d trained me.”

  “In what?”

  Giulietta coloured. “I thought he meant the arts of love. They say . . .”

  “Of course they do.” Alexa was meant to have kept the late duke enslaved and in her power with unspeakable skills. As if a man like Marco couldn’t simply fall in love with his wife once the wedding and bedding were done. Marco could recognise good advice, even when it came from a woman and a foreigner. “What did he mean?”

  “Shielding my thoughts, I think.”

  “Of course I taught you,” Alexa said. “How could you survive in this cesspit if you couldn’t shield your thoughts? How could anyone survive? Some lessons you don’t learn by sitting at a desk with books in front of you. In fact, most lessons that matter you don’t learn like that.” Leaning forward, Alexa kissed her niece on both cheeks and then on the forehead. “Sleep well, my dear.”

  “And you,” Giulietta said.

  “I intend to . . .”

  The corridor outside was empty of guards so Alexa guessed the sergeant was still trying to wake the lieutenant or the lieutenant wake the captain. Either way, no one saw her climb the stairs to where Tycho’s page waited by her study door. “What’s your name again?”

  “Pietro, my lady.”

  “Stay there.” Vanishing inside, Alexa returned with a lizard the height of a small cat, although longer. The boy’s eyes widened as the creature turned its baleful orange gaze on him and ruffled its neck frill in irritation. A second later, it spread leathery wings and Pietro gasped. “He’s just showing off,” said Alexa, as she put the dragonet into the boy’s arms. “You’ll find he does that a lot. Now, touch your forehead to his.”

  The boy shook his head.

  “Pietro . . .”

  He flushed, torn between two fears.

  “It’s how they make friends,” she said, which was close to the truth in that it wasn’t exactly a lie, more a massive simplification. “Do it now.”

  The boy put his head to the dragon’s and flinched.

  “His name’s dracul, which means little dragon in my mother’s language. He’s yours,” she added. “Tell Duke Marco I said that. He’s yours to keep.” She ushered the page along the corridor and told him to sit with the dragonet in the window seat overlooking the Molo. “If anybody asks you have orders from me to sit there. In a while dracul will grow restless and want to fly. You will wait for his return.”

  “Will he want to fly every night?”

  She smiled at his mixture of wonder and worry. “Only tonight,” she promised. “He has one last job for me. After that he belongs only to you.” She patted the boy’s shoulder, scratched dracul under his chin and left them there. How old was he? Nine, ten . . .? She doubted the boy was eleven. With those born into poverty it was hard to tell. Old enough to be a reliable witness, though. And she’d made him invaluable; she hoped Lord Tycho appreciated the gesture. Pietro would become the duke’s eyes for as long as the dragonet lived, and they lived for a very long time. He would be the perfect spy.

  It was time, or as close as made no difference.

  Afraid? Of course she was. Who wouldn’t be? Alexa poured rainwater from a silver jug into her jade bowl with as much care and solemnity as if conducting a final tea ceremony, and she was proud of how little her fingers shook and how steadily she poured. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on what she wanted to see, pinned the figure in her mind and waited. It was a while before she heard the scratch of a knife at her window.

  “Come in,” she said. “It’s unlocked.”

  25

  “My lady . . .” Tycho swept a low bow.

  So little had changed, he thought, looking round Alexa’s study. She sat – where he’d expected to find her, if he found her awake – at her desk, with that bowl in front of her. He watched her sweep her fingers across the water inside and smile. Having dried her fingers, she covered the bowl with a cloth and settled back, studying Tycho carefully. She said, “You’re thinner. I wouldn’t have thought that possible. Have you been eating?”

  He stared at her.

  “You could feed now.”

  “My lady . . .”

  “Call me Alexa. If you can’t call me Alexa now . . . Not that it’s my name. But I’ve learnt to answer to it like some exotic pet.”

  It was as if she knew why he was here, Tycho realised. He would need something of hers, drenched in blood. Her dress would be distinctive enough. If he talked fast and moved faster, he’d have a week and maybe more to make his peace with Alonzo, trick his way into the Red Cathedral and steal back Lady Giulietta’s child before the news that Alexa still lived reached him.

  “It won’t work.”

  “My lady . . .”

  “I know what you’re thinking. It shows in your eyes. Sometimes you forget to shield your thoughts. Usually when you’re upset or worried. Like now.”

  “I need a favour.”

  “No. You need to kill me.”

  “That’s not why . . .”

  “Why you’re here? It should be. You’re the Blade. Your job is to keep the city safe. You think anything less than my death will convince Alonzo? He has spies in this court. We need to do this properly.”

  “A blood-splattered dress . . .”

  “Will not be enough. Do you want Leo to die?” She smiled sourly. “You think that’s unfair? When have I ever had the luxury of being fair? The Millioni became my family when I married Marco and I will protect them, even from themselves. This city needs Leo. Do you know why?”

  Tycho shook his head.

  “Because every throne needs an heir. There is nothing more dangerous to thrones than no heir to sit in them. It scares the loyal and tempts traitors.” Alexa sucked her teeth. “I’ve known it make traitors of the loyal. My son will not produce an heir so Giulietta’s son must do instead. Find me Prince Leo di Millioni and bring him back. It’s harder for traitors to kill two princes than one.”

  “Have you considered restoring the Republic?”

  “That’s what Giulietta wants? Of course she does, she’s young and romantic, she thinks herself a rebel. She’ll grow out of it. People rule or are ruled, those are the choices.”

  “I don’t want to rule. Simply not be ruled.”

  “Tycho . . . You’re not normal.”

  He took a chair without asking and examined the woman opposite. She was as beautiful as the last time he saw her without her veil, with an ageless face and flawless skin. Her eyes were deep brown and bright, but there was a tiredness to her smile and she held his gaze with effort.

  Tycho stared at Alexa and realisation dawned.

  She smiled at his surprise, and for a second he saw, amongst the tiredness and the lines that sickness had etched on her face, pleasure at a plan coming together as intended. “Yes,” she said. “I pushed Alonzo to this point.”

  “Why, my lady?”

  “I’m dying . . . We’re all dying, obviously, I’m just doing it rather faster than I was, and you’re doing it a little more slowly than everybody else. I have a year if I want to draw things out. Six months if I let it take me. Two years ago you came to kill me. Now finish the job. Did anyone see you?”

  Tycho shook his head.

  “You’re sure?”

  Of course I am . . . The streets and frozen canal behind the palace had been silent, the fierce cold of the night had done what Watch captains only achieved in their dreams – cleared the city of whores, revellers and robbers. The palace guard had been so cold they simply stared at their feet.

  “Quite sure,” Tycho said.

  “You need to look up more.”

  Pushing himself out of his chair, Tycho went to the window and let in the cold as he opened the shutters. A patch of darkness swept circles in front of the slender stars, showing darker still when it bisected a sliver of cloud.

  “Remember my dragonet?”

  He remembered it right enough. The little lizard had been waiting at the house Alexa g
ave him, starving seemingly. Now he suspected dracul was just greedy. It had taken Tycho a while to realise the dragonet acted as her eyes. Abandoning the dragonet to its high circling, Tycho closed the shutters and turned to find Alexa had removed the cloth from her jade bowl.

  “Take this with you.”

  “What is it?”

  “The most valuable thing in Venice.”

  Tycho glanced at the translucent bowl and thought of the pala d’oro, San Marco’s gold and jewelled altar screen with its two thousand precious stones and painting of Christ in Majesty. Nothing in Europe was more sacred or precious. So Giulietta said. He came closer. “Stare into it,” Alexa ordered.

  And see what? Clear water in limpid stone?

  “Close your eyes, think of what you most want to see and open them again.” The duchess’s voice was almost matter of fact enough to make him ignore the enamelled dagger she was taking from a drawer and placing in front of her. “Close them then. Now open them.”

  Opening his eyes, Tycho saw Giulietta naked.

  He glanced up to discover Alexa was still turning the dagger over in her fingers. “Exquisite,” she said. When Tycho returned his gaze to the bowl, Giulietta had put on a nightgown and a lady-in-waiting Tycho didn’t recognise was tying the ribbons at her neck.

  “It shows what you want to see. Occasionally, if you’re lucky, it shows what you need to see. Now, we’ve wasted enough time. You know what comes next . . .” Her hand trembled as she offered him the knife.

  “I have daggers of my own.”

  “Of course you do. But Marco gave me this when we were married. The city’s finest armourer made it. Can you imagine the outrage . . .?”

  Tycho’s mouth opened.

  “The duchess killed with her own knife. Take the dagger with you and give it to Alonzo, with my blood still on the blade.” She held up her hand to show the wedding ring Marco had placed on her finger. “And take this.”

  “My lady.”

  “Do it,” Alexa said fiercely. “The cities will talk of nothing else. Even if you arrive before the news, outrage will follow so closely it could be your shadow. Alonzo will embrace you like a brother.” Taking his hand, she folded his fingers round the enamel of the handle and put the point to her breast. Her hand trembled only slightly.

  Tycho said, “What do I tell Giulietta?”

  “Try the truth. She’s had little enough of that in her life.”

  “My lady . . .”

  “You’ve seen my niece as naked as the day she was born, if not as innocent. She will forgive you.”

  “And if she doesn’t?”

  “Then she will have to forget you . . . Those are the options. One final thing, you must drink my blood.” Her eyes narrowed at his reluctance. “You think what I know isn’t worth learning?”

  He stabbed then, seeing her eyes widen. Grating across a rib, his blade reached her heart and touched muscle.

  “Murder,” she screamed.

  Hot blood spurted across Tycho’s fingers as his blade came free with a disgusting sucking noise. She dropped and he followed, drinking straight from the wound as her fingers gripped his hair, holding him against her. Feet pounded along the corridor outside.

  A guard hammered on the door and kept hammering, Alexa having bolted it earlier. She was unconscious and close to death as Tycho crawled across her and tried to remove the ring from her finger. She must have known he’d need to saw it off. He turned, her finger in his hand, as the door smashed open and a guard howled at him to stop. Behind the man stood Pietro, mouth open and face white with shock. He looked from Alexa to where Tycho crouched and his face crumpled.

  “Don’t move,” the guard shouted.

  Tycho threw himself backwards through the window, landed clumsily in the garden below and ran for a tree he remembered climbing once before. He jumped from the tree to a wall, a narrow canal flashing below him as he leapt for a roof beyond. An arrow and then another followed . . . They were shooting at shadows for the sake of it. He could hear yells from inside. More shouting in the courtyard beyond.

  How could you make me do that?

  Tears streamed down Tycho’s face and soured his throat, as salt as Alexa’s blood and filled with as much sorrow. Her memories were his, and though some already faded like half-remembered dreams, others bedded in where they were needed. He had Mongol, a language he’d barely recognised as words before. Poisons and potions, schematics of more plots than he could imagine. Alonzo had been behind most of them; and Tycho was just one of a long line of assassins who’d failed to kill her until she let him.

  He should have realised he was not the first. The most desperate perhaps, possibly the most expensive for Alonzo to arrange, but not the first, second or third . . . That the assassin before him had been a Persian turned from his faith at vast expense told Tycho all he needed to know. He had been Alonzo’s last throw.

  After Tycho, Alonzo changed tactics.

  Around Tycho the street hunkered down in silence, little knowing the clamour and outrage the next few hours would bring. The windows stared blind and dark, the locked doors were silent mouths and sealed lips. And he sobbed as he ran, unsure what he was sobbing for, unless it was the memory of Alexa’s unforgiving courage, the shock of what she’d asked him to do. Streets became shoreline and then the ice of the lagoon, and still he ran. Where the sea became too salt and restless to freeze the lagoon ended in a ragged frill of rotten ice. The small lugger that had delivered him to the ice shelf waited off the ledge, a merchant ship waiting beyond that.

  Alonzo’s letters had smoothed the way. In some weird manner, Tycho’s demand for gold and letters allowing him to commandeer a Montenegrin ship had convinced the Regent he was serious, that he would do what Alonzo demanded. Without that, Tycho would never have been allowed to leave the clearing, while Alonzo put Amelia into Lord Roderigo’s care and the rest of Alonzo’s courtiers looked on wondering what they were watching.

  A sailor on the lugger lifted his lamp and swore at the blood on Tycho’s hands and his tear-streaked face. Tycho tossed him Alexa’s jade bowl. “What’s this?” the man demanded.

  “The most valuable thing in Venice.”

  26

  Lady Giulietta knew she should have put a wrap over her nightgown, but it was more than this that made the guards refuse to meet her eyes. Faces tight, they looked as if they wanted to hurry past. “I said, what’s happened?”

  “Giulietta.”

  The voice came from behind. Her name without hesitation or stutter. Turning, she saw Marco flanked by guards with torches. His face was pale and his gaze serious. It took her a moment to realise he was dressed.

  “You couldn’t sleep?”

  “It’s almost as if she knew,” he said.

  Who knew? Knew what? Giulietta’s fingers tightened into fists as her cousin turned for a window to stare at snowflakes falling from a grey, dark sky. On either side of him, guards came to a standstill. “But how could she know?” Answering, “This was my mother. How could she not know?”

  “Marco . . . What’s happened?”

  Then she knew because a slight body was carried from Alexa’s study on a bier. Although a blanket covered it, blood had soaked through grey wool to leave a crimson stain where her heart would be. “Don’t . . .” Marco shouted. His words came too late to stop Giulietta from lifting the blanket away.

  So beautiful . . . Aunt Alexa looked asleep.

  Lady Giulietta couldn’t help dragging the blanket down to reveal her aunt’s wound. And though Marco came to stand beside her, he let her touch her finger to the blood-soaked tear in Alexa’s gown. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  “Me too.” Marco’s arm went round her, and she leant her head into his shoulder. “Now, let them d-do their job . . .” He moved her back and one of his guards replaced the blanket before the bier was carried away. “I’ve told them to t-take her to the crypt.” Marco’s eyes were unreadable. “Many more b-bodies and we’ll have to stack them somewh
ere else.”

  Shock. This has to be the shock talking. “Who did this?”

  “That can wait. First I must s-secure the city.” Gesturing to Captain Weimer, he called the man closer. “Wake the Ten, tell them they’re n-needed now. Accept no excuses, everyone is to attend.”

  The captain was surprised at Marco’s crispness. This was not the duke he or his officers knew. This duke was already glaring beyond him to palace guards crowding the stairs as they fought to present themselves.

  “Weimer.”

  He seemed shocked Marco knew his name.

  “Throw a c-cordon round Ca’ Ducale. Put archers on the roof and wrap them warm, they’re no used to me half d-dead from cold. Have a fire lit in the s-smaller state room, if anyone comes from the embassies p-put them there. Have them g-given wine and f-food, water and food for the Mamluks and Moors. Send a m-messenger to let me know.”

  “Yes, highness.”

  The duke headed for the stairs down which his mother’s body had just vanished and his bodyguard hurried after. “If shock can make fools of men,” Lady Giulietta said to Captain Weimer, who stared after them.

  “It can make men of . . .” He didn’t dare finish his sentence.

  “He was brilliant as a child, my aunt said.”

  Captain Weimer nodded, and Giulietta left him pondering as she hurried after Marco, who was in a corridor below ordering braziers be lit in the council room and letters sent to other princes informing them his mother was dead. She wondered how Marco expected the letters to be carried in his weather and realised he regarded this as a problem for the head of his messenger service. Mostly she wondered how he could be so calm.

  You’re not a child. You’re not a child. She repeated the words every time she felt tears. She would not cry into front of all of these people. But a life without Aunt Alexa . . .

  “Follow me,” Marco said.

  Giulietta obeyed without question.

  Three guards stood in a side room, with Tycho’s page hunched on a seat with her aunt’s lizard on his lap. The boy looked frozen with horror and the guards nervous. The dragonet merely glared balefully. “So,” Marco said to the senior guard. “Tell me again why you weren’t guarding my m-mother’s door.”