The Exiled Blade (The Assassini)

18





Rough hands reached for Tycho and he tensed until a touch at his side stilled him. Amelia was fully awake and watchful, her fingers tugging at the lace that held her ankle dagger in place.

“Hanging offence,” the man holding the sword repeated. He glanced back at his followers and seemed disappointed that they looked less enthusiastic than he expected. “Isn’t it, boys? The Pope says so.”

When you lived in a world where it was wise to nod when the Pope’s name was mentioned you nodded, and so they did. Their captain looked happier as he pulled back the covers and raised his eyebrows at the way Tycho’s and Amelia’s limbs were twisted together. As if soldiers had never clung together against the cold.

Tycho would have knocked the man’s sword aside but for a long-faced archer with an arrow aimed at Amelia’s heart. Tycho knew Amelia moved fast, she had were-blood and was Assassini trained. The question was what she could survive in the way of wounds. He’d have risked it for himself. Tycho’s smile was sour. He’d definitely have risked if for himself.

“Something funny?” their captain asked.

Tycho shrugged.

“Get them up,” the man said, and Tycho felt himself dragged from the bed. They reached for Amelia and she froze. For a moment Tycho thought she’d risk the arrow, but she allowed herself to be stood upright, her eyes never leaving the archer’s bent bow.

“Right, find me some hanging rope.”

A soldier disappeared through the door with one of the lit torches and the narrow chamber lurched into half-darkness. “And find me some more torches,” the captain called after him.

A blond, pale-skinned soldier reached for Amelia and rubbed her cheek, checking his thumb afterwards to see if any of the black came away. He scowled when one of the others mockingly did the same, miming surprise at the lack of dye. Amelia accepted their horseplay quietly. Anyone untrained might have thought she was scared but Tycho knew she’d memorised their positions and numbered their weapons, checked the exit and looked for places that could be defended.

Assassini skills stayed with you for life.

The horse-faced archer still had his bow drawn and the soldiers were careful to leave a path between his arrow and her heart. Their captain seemed unnerved by her calmness. “You can’t escape,” he said.

Amelia smiled. “Nor can you.”

The man scowled. “Hurry up and find me some bloody rope.”

A couple of others went after the first, their boots slapping on the spiral of stone steps leading to the floor below. The fort was old, built from grey stone that was crumbling with age. The floors were uneven. The ceiling beams split and twisted where broken tiles had let in rain.

A cold wind howled through the arrow slits, twitched at the drawn-back bed curtains and tumbled dust balls across the floor as Tycho made himself wait for the men to return without rope. And they would return without rope because he’d crawled all over the fort and knew better than they did what there was to be found. If they really wanted to hang him their best bet was the cord used to tie back the bed curtains and no one needed to leave the room for that.

How far had these men come – and did they imagine they’d ever reach where they wanted to go? Did he? Tycho no longer knew. He had his reasons for being here. What reason did they have for trudging through snow-filled valleys in the middle of winter? Alexa always said, know what a man wants and you know how to move him. For the duchess, all men were pieces on life’s chessboard. And which piece was he? Tycho wondered sourly. He’d thought himself a knight, perhaps a castle in time. But castles and knights were sacrificed and perhaps he’d never been more than a pawn. He wondered this in the time it took for the men to reappear.

“No rope,” said the one who’d originally gone looking. Behind him the other two nodded their agreement. One of them held a tar-dipped torch that guttered and smoked so the search hadn’t been entirely worthless.

“We could impale them,” growled the man who’d rubbed his thumb across Amelia’s face. His scowl said he needed to get some self-respect back. “That’s what they do round here, isn’t it?”

“That’s the Seljuks.”

“So what? It’s not like we’ve impaled anyone before, is it? We’ve hung lots. We’re always hanging people.” He looked round for support.

“You’re full of shit,” the archer said.

“You wouldn’t say that if you weren’t holding a bow.”

“Well, I am,” the archer said. “And you’re full of shit. Everyone knows you’re full of shit. Heathens impale people. Are we heathens?”

“Two pretty boys. It would be justice.”

“She’s not a boy,” Tycho said.

The archer and the other man stopped glaring at each other and turned to Tycho, who got a split second of their attention before they both turned to examine Amelia, as did every other soldier in the room. “He’s wearing a doublet,” the archer protested.

“And trews,” the man he’d been arguing with said. “And men’s boots. And that’s not a woman’s knife.” Dipping forward, he drew Amelia’s ankle dagger and stepped quickly back. “Toledo steel, no less.”

“Stolen most like.”

“Her name’s Amelia,” Tycho said swiftly.

“Prove it.”

“How can I prove a name?”

A jab of the sword was his answer. A trickle of blood rolled down his throat. “Don’t get clever.”

“Too late,” Amelia said.

Her voice was light enough to be a girl’s. Alternatively, it could belong to someone not yet a man. Tycho watched their captain realise this. Behind him, his men were beginning to look restless. “Show them,” Tycho said. The eyes that met his were hard and flat and impassive in the way only someone fighting for self-control and finding it can manage. He expected Amelia to reveal her teats because that’s what most women would have done. Instead she unlaced her trews and dropped them, revealing smoothness beneath. To make the point, she turned a circle.

The ugly-faced archer still had his fingers hooked round the end of his arrow but his bow was only half drawn and pointed nearly floorwards. Even their captain seemed more interested in examining Amelia than keeping his sword level.

One problem had turned into another. Everyone knew that.

“She’s better than any hanging.” Unnotching his arrow, the archer unstrung his bow and returned his arrow to its quiver without being ordered. Those keeping out of his way pushed forward into the gap.

“Captain goes first,” the blond-haired man said.

“Meaning you go second,” the archer muttered. This was when Tycho realised the man who’d checked Amelia’s cheek was their sergeant. A sergeant who hated their bowman could be useful.

“Boys . . .” the captain sighed. “There’ll be plenty for everyone.”

“No,” Amelia said. “There won’t.”

Turning to glare at her, the sergeant said, “Yes, there will . . . A woman dressed in a man’s clothes. That’s a hanging offence.”

“Burning,” the archer said.

“So you’d better to be nice to us . . .”

“Yeah,” said the archer. “You can begin by unbuttoning your doublet.” He glared at the sergeant, daring him to disagree. “In fact, why don’t we just take everything off and you can crawl back into bed?” Ignoring the sergeant’s barked order to wait his turn, the archer took a step closer and reached for Amelia’s buttons.

Two things happened.

She grabbed the man, spun him round and slammed her heel into the back of his knee, dropping him to the floor. A split second later, as she tightened the string of his bow around his neck, Tycho used his elbow to knock up the captain’s sword, twist its handle from his grip and bring its point to rest under the man’s chin. Amelia scowled and twisted her home-made garrotte a little tighter.

“Nicely done . . .”

She glared, as if asking if he really expected a compliment that thin to make up for what had gone before.

“What’s your name?” Tycho demanded of the captain.

“Towler.”

“And the name of your company?”

“Towler’s Company.”

“How original. Amelia, I really think . . .”

She loosened her bowstring slightly and the archer slumped forward, gasping hideously and purple-black in the face. He’d live, most likely. Although he’d be voiceless for a week.

“What’s a fine company like yours doing here in the middle of winter?”

The captain looked to see if he was being mocked by having his straggling troop described as fine, decided he was and realised there wasn’t much he could do about it. “Prince Alonzo di Millioni has sent out a call for good men . . .”

And you bring him these? “Alonzo?”

“You know him?” Captain Towler sounded doubtful.

“One of my closest friends.”

“It’s true,” Amelia said. “My lord and the prince are so inseparable you could barely fit a knife blade between them.”

“Your lord?” Towler seemed bemused by the appearance of a title. “Then perhaps you could put in a good word for us, my lord. I mean, if that’s where you and your . . .” The captain hesitated, uncertain how to describe Amelia, who was watching impassively. “Where you and your companion are going.”

“You go to fight the Red Crucifers?” Tycho asked.

“My lord . . .?” the man said.

Oh gods, thought Tycho, reading the anxiety in Captain Towler’s face. The Regent never intended to fight the Red Crucifers at all. He’d gone to command them. Alonzo Millioni was a trained condottiero, son-in-law to the richest noble in Venice. Left alone, the Red would decay and be destroyed or destroy themselves. With Alonzo as their master . . . “What title has he taken?”

“Duke of Montenegro.”

Of course he had. Half the city-states of Italy would recognise him now, the rest within a year if they bothered to wait at all. Alonzo was Italian and Alexa was Mongol, mother to an idiot son no one expected to rule. As for the Pope . . . All Alonzo had to do was offer to destroy the Serbian heresy, return Montenegro to Catholic rule and establish the Red as a legitimate order swearing allegiance to Rome, and the Pope would be sending him sacred war banners and a personal blessing.

If that happened Alexa would find herself with a civil war. The colonies would declare for Alonzo, Venice would split into feuding noble families and the street gangs would riot. If Alexa was lucky the Castellani would declare for her if the Nicoletti declared for Alonzo, but the chances were the gangs would combine behind Alonzo and the Watch would be unable to keep them under control. Tycho could imagine the city welcoming Alonzo simply because he offered order.

“I’m Lord Tycho bel Angelo. This is Lady Amelia . . .” Beside him, the young Nubian raised her eyebrows at her sudden ennoblement. “You see that post . . .”

Captain Towler nodded.

“Who’s your best knife man?”

The captain pointed to his sergeant.

“The centre boss,” Tycho told him. “One throw only.”

When the man pulled a knife from his belt without first checking with Captain Towler, Tycho smiled to himself. Get the sergeant obeying orders and the men would follow. He needed the man to throw well.

Amelia just needed to throw better.

“Take your time,” Tycho suggested.

It was a clean throw, hard enough to kill a man across a tavern, and left the dagger quivering to one side of the boss. The sergeant expected Tycho to throw next and looked shocked when Amelia stepped forward.

Men whistled as her knife slammed into the post just inside the first knife. Impressive, Tycho thought. Not the throw, but to beat the man by so little was subtle. The sergeant’s rueful grin said he was impressed not offended.

“Brilliant,” Tycho said.

“Not nicely done?” She turned to the sergeant. “In my country it’s the women who wage war.”

“You’re Amazon?”

“Nubian,” Amelia said. “We’re worse.”