The Exiled Blade: Act Three of the Assassini

by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

  Pulling back her scissor chair, Giulietta sat at her desk, found a sheet of velum and a quill and reached for the ink with shaking hands. When she discovered the ink was dry she gave up all thought of writing a note. What would she have said anyway?

  The bottle was one of the smallest. Dracul’s tears read its label.

  A crude glass vial with a cork stopper sealed with wax. Her aunt had medicines arranged by potency and it had taken Giulietta a while to work out the meaning of the coloured waxes sealing her poisons. Red meant death. Only this bottle was in the next row. Its wax was purple. Breaking the seal, Giulietta hesitated.

  Self-murder was a sin. She would ask God to take account of what had been done to her already when he decided what should be done to her in the afterlife for what she was about to do.

  Lady Giulietta crossed herself.

  She said the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed and Ave Maria, because those were the prayers she knew by heart without even having to think about them. After the last Amen came the poison.

  33

  You’re giving me the child?

  That was the last thing Tycho intended.

  At the thought, the foul breeze through the cave laughed. It was sour and old and carried putrid memories of someone he wasn’t. The black flames and cavernous ceilings of the memory were not his. Tycho managed five paces into the cave before the stink forced him to a stop. The cave walls were soft, spongy and warm to the touch. As narrow inside as the entrance suggested without.

  Leo was crying, pitiful whoops as he struggled for air. Tycho wished he knew how to help the child. But his own head was filled with dreams of a mother who died so he could be born. Impossible dreams. She was beautiful, distant and cold, with the same amber-flecked eyes. She walked in daylight and Tycho wondered why, if that was true, he now lived in darkness. Except why should dreams be true? “Sleep,” the voice said. “Or whatever it is you do.”

  “The child . . .”

  “Will not die while it is here.”

  He woke to putrid warmth on a bed of white fibrous rot like albino body hair. A tendril of tree root had wrapped itself round his ankle and proved harder than he expected to snap. Leo lay beside him, eyes closed and curled into a shivering ball. The voice had told the truth. The child was alive, although only just. Picking him up, Tycho staggered to the entrance.

  “What do you think?” Tycho asked.

  Apparently the infant thought nothing. At least, nothing worth more than a snuffle. The day was dying and the coming night his only chance of ending this. Fear of the cave, or the need to search the fort thoroughly, meant Roderigo’s men had yet to force the yard door. On one side of the valley beyond the fort the sides were black, on the other they were purple, and he saw the lines where they joined the sky with frightening clarity.

  “Planet,” Tycho said. “Planet, star, asteroid . . .”

  The child showed little interest in his astronomy lesson. Above the cave’s mouth the sky glittered with the objects Tycho offered the boy, while the moon cast a tallow glow across what showed of the giant crossbow, which stood undisturbed. Tycho imagined that meant the rock he’d jammed beneath the doors was still there. If there was a guard on the battlements he was sleeping, bad at his job or simply too afraid to do it properly.

  “Remember how the wild archers hesitated in front of the fort?”

  Leo didn’t but Tycho did. Only Lord Roderigo’s fury had driven them on. They were already afraid. Brave men, naturally brave men, made weak by what they feared. What you love makes you weaker . . . Tycho wiped away the thought and wished it would stay banished. Maybe they were right to be afraid. Maybe he should be more afraid than he was. From inside came the noise of men talking. Tycho listened harder. Hearing the jangle of bridles on the far side of the fort.

  “Leaving or arriving?” Tycho asked.

  Leo kept his answer to himself. But Tycho thought it must be someone leaving, a message for Alonzo perhaps saying his quarry had gone to ground.

  “Do you want to be part of what happens next . . . No? Probably wise. Princes shouldn’t be involved in things like this. Better put you back in the cave then.”

  The jangle of harness receded and Tycho let the fort settle before striding to the rear door and hammering hard as if demanding entry. As if he was not the man who’d barred the door. Inside the talking stopped. A moment’s utter silence gave Tycho his own ragged heartbeat.

  The fools should have rushed to the murder holes in the tunnel roof above and dropped stones or fired arrows through its rusting grating. Instead they erupted into shouts of outrage. So Tycho hammered again, louder and harder, furiously insistent. He could sense men gathering on the far side of the door. Bows being strung and arrows slotted to their strings. Maybe they expected him to open the door.

  In case any dawdled, Tycho hammered one final time before retreating to yank the porcupine’s lever. Three strings released with a twang, the giant bow straightened and thirty-six steel-tipped arrows, matched exactly to the steel holes in the door that would have let them fire out, hissed inwards.

  Screaming began.

  So much blood . . . The thought followed him up the fortress wall and along the top. The single sentry listening to the screaming below never heard his death coming. Tycho broke his neck with a single twist and fed briefly.

  A tiny life made of rapes and murder. Tents, ragged ponies, hours in the saddle. Years in the wrong country, speaking someone else’s language and vowing devotion to lords to whom he owed no loyalty. Tycho tossed him over the edge, hearing his body thud to cold dirt below.

  He was at the bottom of the guard steps before any realised. The distance between battlements and hall closed in a second. He stood on the edge of turning, his reflexes razor and his nerves tight. The nearest archer opened his mouth to raise the alarm and died. Tycho killed fast, but the wild-haired man beyond had time to yell before Tycho broke his neck. Around him, men drew swords or slotted arrows on to their strings. “Kill him,” Roderigo shouted.

  Now there was a refrain Tycho had heard before. He grinned, and was still grinning when an arrow hit his shoulder and ripped straight through. Looking up showed Tycho archers on a balcony above. As if they’d been waiting for his attention, the rest released their arrows. Half missed, the other half spiked him like a saint in one of Marco’s paintings. The archers lowered their bows, waiting for Tycho to drop as the room wavered around him and blackness edged his sight.

  To their disbelief Tycho refused to fall.

  Instead he flowed up the wall, spiny with arrows, rolled himself with difficulty over the balcony’s edge and dropped as half a dozen archers fired. Rising fast, he ripped two arrows from his chest and returned them to their owners. The world slowing as he spun, jabbing and slashing with steel-tipped arrows until blood sprayed, the air grew drunk on red mist and he no longer had arrows in his body.

  “Kill him,” Roderigo screamed.

  “You kill me,” Tycho shouted. “Unless you’re too scared?”

  He vaulted from the balcony and landed in a crouch, drawing the sword that hung from his shoulder as he stood. “Did he tell you I was human?” Tycho stared at the fur-jacketed archers who surrounded him. “Is that what he told you? Is that what you think you’ve been hunting?” He drew the sword across his forearm, holding it out so they could see black blood well and begin to slow, the cut crusting and the flesh around it begin to heal. They muttered among themselves.

  Roderigo’s expression said he knew he was losing them.

  “He’s afraid,” Tycho said. “That’s why he needs you to fight me instead.”

  The words drew growls from the tribesmen worthy of a dog pack disputing ownership of a bone. Several of them lowered their swords or bows. Then, somehow, they reached a silent agreement and they stepped back, leaving Roderigo standing in the middle of a circle. He could fight or lose them for ever.

  That knowledge showed in Roderigo’s eyes.

  With it returned the courage that
had seen Roderigo through many battles, or so Tycho had been told. The man would win, or die here. Tycho intended to make sure he died. “You killed the monks at San Lazar.”

  Roderigo opened his mouth to deny it and swallowed, unwilling to risk facing God with a lie on his lips.

  “You set the barrels of powder. Your sergeant lit the fuse.”

  “He died well?” Roderigo’s expression softened at the mention of Temujin.

  “Cursing his father for abandoning his mother and promising to screw his first love into the dirt of the afterlife. She died of plague before he could grow tired of her. Of course he died well.”

  An archer with high cheekbones and grey beard muttered something. As one, those in the crowd of men around Tycho and Roderigo holding bows sheathed them and drew their swords to join the others in forming a circle. Retreat too far or too fast and a sword point would pierce you. Roderigo grinned. “His highness has offered fifty thousand ducats for your head. I’m going to enjoy collecting.”

  Tycho said, “Strike the first blow.”

  “Why?” Roderigo demanded.

  “I don’t want anyone saying you weren’t ready.”

  Roderigo snorted. Raising his sword high, he held the position as he returned Tycho’s gaze. What Tycho knew about swordplay he’d learnt from Atilo, whereas Roderigo had a lifetime’s practical experience. Both men held three-quarter swords suited to fighting in Venetian alleys or indoors. You’re faster, Tycho told himself. You’re stronger. You’re the better man.

  There was a time he’d have believed it.

  He fell back on Atilo’s training. Taking the position, he waited. When you don’t know what to do, do nothing. He kept his eyes on Roderigo’s, and it was Roderigo’s eyes that betrayed the man. As Roderigo feinted in one direction, his gaze flicked in another and Tycho blocked the blow, sparks jumping from their blades and the clash of steel echoing off the stone walls.

  The fight was quick and brutal after that, and Roderigo nearly made good his promise when Tycho slipped on blood and rolled backwards as Roderigo’s blade came crashing down to smash a flagstone. Tycho took a face full of granite chips from the blow that stuck to the sweat on his face. He climbed unsteadily to his feet, blocking Roderigo’s next blow.

  The cold slowed Tycho down. What feeding had given him, his arrow wounds and the cold had stolen. He needed to kill Roderigo; either that, or fight free of the wild archers in a circle around him, save Leo from the cold and hunger that were undoubtedly killing him and escape. But the real battle was with himself. All the battles that really mattered were with yourself.

  Stepping back, Tycho flinched as a sword pricked his shoulder. The wild tribesmen grinned at his surprise. Lord Roderigo was also smiling. He was taller and broader, more experienced in battle and held the slightly longer sword. But he’s not me, Tycho reminded himself. And this battle’s not over.

  “You should have surrendered,” Roderigo mocked.

  Tycho slashed furiously. Roderigo’s retreat gave Tycho space to launch another blow that was blocked in turn. The two men stepped back from each other and Roderigo raised his sword high. For here he could strike to either side or straight down. The position let him block, while offering blows that would take Tycho off at the leg. Around them the wild soldiers fell silent, having decided the fight was nearing its end. All anyone could hear was wind along the valley and the drumming of a shutter somewhere above.

  “Afraid?” Roderigo asked.

  “Tired of this,” Tycho said. It wasn’t the answer Roderigo expected. The ex-Dogana captain had his legs apart to steady himself. His sword at the balance point to let him take its weight. If Tycho stepped back another pace he’d spear himself on the sword wall. If that happened he might as well let Roderigo take his head.

  Tycho watched Roderigo’s eyes.

  In the final moment, they narrowed and flicked to one side and Tycho read the warning in their movement and caught Roderigo’s blade on his, feeling both blades shatter. One clattered to the ground, the other scythed into the crowd and ripped a man open at the hip.

  “Shit,” said Roderigo, grabbing for his dagger.

  Tycho was already moving. Having launched forward, he dropped and slid feet first between Roderigo’s legs, slashing upward with his broken blade. Roderigo screamed like a gelded horse as blood spurted from his groin. By then, Tycho had rolled sideways, climbed to his knees and sliced the man’s hamstrings.

  Turning for the rear doors of the fort, Tycho felt rather than saw the wild soldiers move aside to let him through. He stepped over the bodies of those killed by the porcupine, opened the rear door enough to slip through and shut it behind him. Up ahead he could see the slit in the cliff and the steps that led to it.

  The wild archers let him go without protest.

  A few minutes later he felt rather than heard them go. They left their dead unburied and their captain castrated on the fortress floor. If they had any sense they’d find a new captain and a different war.

  34

  “Prince Frederick, this is not fitting . . .”

  The chamberlain’s voice was distant and disapproving. The man was the oldest of the servants at Ca’ Ducale. Marco the Just had lately been knighted when he joined the palace staff. Serving the Millioni had been his life. An emperor’s bastard wanting to stand guard over the body of his late master’s niece . . .

  Nothing in a long life of studying etiquette and court ritual told him what to do. He wished Duchess Alexa were alive. At least Lady Giulietta imagined he did. He sounded like he wished something.

  “She’s alive,” Frederick said.

  “Your highness . . .”

  “I’m telling you. Giulietta lives.”

  “She has been examined by the best doctors. She has neither heartbeat nor reflexes. Her eyes do not react to the light.”

  “Her body is uncorrupted.”

  “The vitality of youth and the sanctity of a life well lived. She will be buried tomorrow . . .” The chamberlain caught himself. However much he obviously wished that to be true, the ground was too hard for burial. He amended his words to “She will be taken to the crypt tomorrow to await burial.”

  “I saw her breathe.”

  “I’m sorry, your highness.”

  “Just now. I’m telling you. I saw her breathe.”

  “The doctor held a mirror to her mouth and nose. The glass remained clear and unfogged. I’m afraid . . .”

  “He should have held it there for longer,” Frederick said fiercely. “You must summon him now so he can try again. I’ll wait here.” His voice fierce. “I’m not moving. You’d better understand that.”

  The chamberlain sighed.

  It was a sigh of half-surrender. In demanding the return of the court doctor Frederick had earned himself the right to hold vigil over her body. Lady Giulietta listened to the chamberlain explain politely, because this was the Emperor Sigismund’s bastard, and it paid to be polite, that the doctor could not be sent for twice. Her death had already been recorded in the Golden Book and the warrant announcing it sealed with the great seal of Venice, which showed the winged Lion of St Mark holding the shield of the Millioni. Sadly, tragically, Lady Giulietta was dead.

  “You’re wrong,” Frederick said.

  The chamberlain left muttering some commonplace about the harshness of death and the kindness of time. And, dare he say it, how much harder the young found the thought of death than those of his age. Then he shut the door of the great hall behind him and left Frederick to his grief.

  The old tales of souls remaining chained to their bodies for three days had to be true because Giulietta felt inside her body and yet not. Her fingers would not move when she flexed them. Her tongue refused to frame words. Her eyes would not open. And her heartbeat was slower than time. Either she was dead, or this was the subtlest of her aunt’s poisons. Though Frederick said he saw her breathe she wondered if it were true.

  “I’m so sorry,” she heard Frederick say.


  For what? Giulietta wondered.

  “I should have said . . .”

  The bier on which her coffin rested creaked as he knelt beside her and though she floated without feeling she guessed he’d taken her hand. Her guess proved right, when he said, “So cold, your fingers . . .”

  Perhaps she was dead after all?

  “I should have told you my father sent me. I wanted to tell you from the moment we met. You looked so cross at having to meet me and every bit as beautiful as Leopold boasted.”

  Leopold had thought her beautiful? He’d written to say that? She’d known the half-brothers wrote to each other but not what their letters said.

  “I’m sorry Leopold died and Leo was stolen. I’m sorry Tycho left you and changed sides. I shouldn’t be . . . Because it let us be friends, but being friends wasn’t enough, was it? Most of all,” he said, “I’m sorry I caused this.”

  She heard a sob.

  “My father told me to make you fall in love with me – and all that happened was I fell in love with you instead.” His voice choked, and Giulietta could imagine his bitten lip and tearful face. “I know my being here is based on a lie. But the rest is true. I know what it’s like to lose someone you love. I know what it’s like to lose a child. To want to be dead.”

  He was weeping openly, she realised.

  “If Leo’s alive I’ll find him for you, I swear it. And I’ll kill Alonzo.” He hiccuped. “For all the good that will do.”

  Through his sobs, she heard the words of the Creed, then the words of the Pater Noster and finally those of the Ave Maria. She thought it odd and touching the prayers he spoke from instinct were those she’d said before poisoning herself. The prayers you learnt in childhood and knew by heart.

  It’s not your fault, she tried to say.