The Exiled Blade (The Assassini)

22





Somehow he was back in the fort, in the upper chamber, with its wooden bed and rotting fur, under a familiar ceiling, whose stains mapped worlds he didn’t recognise where meltwater dripped through the roof above.

“How did I get here?”

“I carried you.” Amelia turned for the door and Tycho saw a bloody bandage around her shoulder. “Bastard to kill,” she said, seeing his surprise. “And bastard you for being that stupid.” The quietness with which she shut the door was more contemptuous than any slam.

Well, I deserved that.

He thought sombrely of the climb out of the cathedral valley and the wind-swept saddleback of mountain he’d been so impressed with himself for navigating, the ice and ravines and slippery paths between that valley and this, the final tight twist of stairs between the hall below and this chamber, and wondered why he’d ever dared think he was the best the Assassini had to offer.

The thought remained with him.

After a while he realised he owed Amelia an apology. He hadn’t seen beyond her sex and her skin and her past as Lord Atilo’s ex-slave, apprentice and deadly plaything. Maybe that was how Duchess Alexa thought of him? As an exotic toy . . .

“I’m sorry,” he said, when she returned.

Walking to the bed, she felt his brow and pulled down one eyelid to peer into his eye. He knew he was being mocked and probably deserved it. “Are you hungry? she asked finally.

Tycho glanced at her bloody bandage.

“Not even if you ordered me to bleed myself.”

She shut the door with a bang and they both knew that was an improvement on the time before. An hour later she was back, head down and frost whitening her eyebrows. In one hand she held a dead rabbit and in the other a live one; both wore their winter coats. “I wasn’t sure which you’d prefer?”

Her eyes were a challenge.

He had never said he needed blood, nor had he ever suggested he was anything other than human, and yet she’d read correctly his hunger and now brought him both live and dead food. Given the weakness in his limbs it was an easy choice. He pointed at the live one.

“You died,” she said.

“Again . . .?”

She raised her eyebrows.

“I died the night I arrived in Venice. Well, I think I did. As Rosalyn dragged me up the water steps I felt my heart start again.”

“Yes,” Amelia said. “That would be a clue.”

She handed him the kicking rabbit and grimaced as he raised it to his mouth, thin blood trickling down his chin as he took away the lake creature’s foul taste. Carcase drained, Tycho offered it back in case she wanted the meat.

“Gross,” she said. Pulling flint and tinder from inside her coat, she produced twigs she’d bundled tight with an old bowstring, and, dropping to a squat, lit a fire right in the middle of the floor and skinned both rabbits by cutting once around the neck and ripping their pelts inside out.

“Some of us,” she said, “are civilised.”

He grinned ruefully, and later ate slivers of roast rabbit that were somewhere between raw and cooked and more pink than they should be. It took him a while to realise she was waiting for him to ask why she’d disobeyed his command to stay where she was. So he asked. She had orders of her own she told him, from Duke Marco. She was to keep Tycho safe, if possible. “Thank you,” he said, which surprised her as much as his apology.

“Were you expecting vodyanoi?”

Tycho paused, the final scraps of rabbit halfway to his mouth. “Was I expecting what?”

“Water demons.”

“That’s what they were?”

“Where you find vodyanoi you find domovoi, house demons.”

And I thought Alonzo was absurd to have his men smash up the ice to make a moat . . . It looked as if the Regent’s defences were better than Duchess Alexa had suspected. Somewhere between that thought and the stringy shreds of rabbit meat stuck in his back teeth, Tycho came up with a plan no more absurd than any other and substantially better than throwing himself in a lake full of water demons. As he picked his teeth with a splinter of wood and licked grease from his fingers, he ran through the plan looking for flaws before explaining what he had in mind.

“Why don’t we just kill him?” Amelia asked.

“No, we have to get inside the castle,” he started to say, then remembered she didn’t know Alonzo had Leo. Amelia thought they were there simply to kill the man. “Alexa told me to . . .”

Amelia’s face tightened. She had orders from Marco he hadn’t known about. Now she understood that he, in turn, had orders that had been kept from her. Why would either of them imagine it might be different? Tycho returned to his plan. It was the rabbits that gave him his idea. That, and knowing Alonzo’s passion for hunting. All the joy of blood and battle with none of the danger. The Regent would undoubtedly ride out early and return late, and the winter days meant Tycho would have an hour at each end to hunt the man down. Boredom would drive Alonzo from his cathedral and darkness would deliver him to Amelia and Tycho. All they had to do was watch and wait. “He’ll be better tempered if the hunt is good,” Amelia said.

“And worse if the day goes badly.”

“Then we’d better make sure it begins and ends well.”

They ran the rocky spine between valleys, the wind less cruel this time, and found a cave high above the village, with the Red Cathedral beyond. Tycho left her there, going to the edge of a small cliff to keep watch. On their second day of running the ridge and keeping watch, torches flared far below and a party of horsemen began to gather in front of the cathedral. It was more luck than he deserved.

A few moments later, when he went to check on Amelia she was already tightly wrapped in her cloak and fast asleep at the back of the cave. He scratched the sign for prey sighted into the rock and returned to his watch; the beginning and end of the day were his and the daylight hours hers.

Finding a five-point stag in a high valley, Tycho harried the beast through the narrow gap of a pass and down to where firs rose at the start of the treeline. Their trunks were twisted and old, half banked with snow and awkwardly angled from a life fighting the winds. They would survive the winter, though, which was more than the stag would have done. Its ribs jutted like bare twigs and its hips were hollows of starvation. Alonzo would still be grateful for the kill, and his men grateful for whatever meat his butchers extracted from its carcase. A snow rabbit crossed his path and Tycho let it go.

Wild pigs were in the lower valley, huddled in the dark spaces beneath the forest, where the snow had settled on top of the trees to create a hidden world where pine needles stank of urine as his feet kicked rotting scabs from the forest floor. He left the sows where he found them, circling an elderly one-tusked boar. Alonzo’s hounds would scent them easily enough.

In a narrow cave covered with more paintings of animals and stick-like hunters he found a huge bear sleeping on a litter of dry bracken it had collected for bedding. Rotting meat decayed in one corner, and white bones said the bear’s ancestors had used the cave for generations. Tycho left the great beast sleeping.

A wolf provided better prey. Tycho saw it climbing towards the pass he’d used earlier, and it saw him and began to hunt, calling for its brothers with a triumphant howl he hoped the Regent would also hear. The pack chased Tycho down a gully, certain they could tire him, until he brought them to where Alonzo’s men would ride. He left them in a burst of speed, rocks slippery under his feet as he ran a line of boulders tossed down by giants in older times. With luck, frustration would make the wolves reckless enough to risk attacking one of Alonzo’s outriders, and the Regent would have outrage to add to whatever else the hunt brought. Alonzo loved outrage.

His part done, Tycho shook Amelia awake, slumped on to the floor of the cave and slept in turn until a shake woke him again. The night sky was snow-bright and Amelia was looking pleased with herself. “A good day?” he asked.

She grinned. “The wolves were yours?”

“Alonzo liked them?”

“They killed his squire. His hunters killed five of them. Alonzo accounting for the biggest. He also took an old stag, two bucks and a hind. That probably clears the entire valley of deer in this direction.”

“Anything else?”

“Wild pigs to provide meat for the kitchens. A farmer’s daughter to provide warmth for his bed. We go down there now?”

“Yes,” Tycho said. “And swear loyalty to Alonzo.”

“What?” Amelia looked shocked.

“It’s necessary.”

“This is pretend, right?”

“I will make the full oath . . .”

“And me? Am I expected to do the same? I know you have private orders. But I thought we were here to kill him.”

“You misunderstand. I’m offering him the Assassini.”

With the Assassini came her, and everyone else in Venice’s guild of assassins who’d survived the battle against the krieghund two years earlier. True, less than a fifth remained, but it was their reputation that convinced cities to offer tribute, and made foreign princes sign treaties they disliked. “You’re giving him Venice.”

“It’s not even your city.”

“It’s the only one I’ve got,” she said flatly. “It’s where I did most of my growing up. I pledged my loyalty to the Lion of St Mark when I took the Assassini oath.”

“You’re keeping that oath.”

She shook her head.

“We must move,” he said. “Or the Regent will end the hunt before we can reach him. Run with me, and I’ll tell you why we’re doing this.” He owed her that at least.

A dozen courtiers followed Alonzo. Three wild pigs and a one-tusked boar with balls the size of oranges hung behind four different saddles. A thin-hipped stag was lashed on a litter behind another, and half a dozen hastily skinned wolf pelts dripped blood and unnerved the horses across whose backs they’d been tossed.

Flaming torches threw shadows on the forest as the hunt broke cover, laughing and shouting now the chase was done. It was obvious to Tycho that they’d been drinking and were happy with how the day had gone. Not only good sport, but also meat for those in the cathedral. Tempers would be calmer and arguments fewer in the days to come. Alonzo in particular looked pleased with himself.

“Those wolves, Roderigo . . .”

“You were magnificent, my lord.”

He shook the praise away and nodded all the same, his hand reaching over to pat the rolled fur behind Lord Roderigo’s saddle. The space behind his own was filled with a villager’s blonde daughter. She looked thin and hungry, and scared at where she found herself. Tycho wondered how Lady Maria, the Regent’s new wife, would feel and realised that didn’t matter. Maybe she expected her husband to take other women; perhaps she was even grateful.

Tycho was tempted to step in front of the Regent’s mount simply to see it shy and watch Alonzo fight to get the beast back under control. But that would make the Regent mislay his grin and his good temper and what came next would be harder. So he fell back to the open space between the treeline and the village.

The hounds saw them first. As they howled, a huntsman raced forward hoping for one final chase to close the day and saw Tycho and Amelia blocking the way. His whip sang and Amelia’s hand flicked up to catch the lash. Stepping aside, she forced the red-faced man to ride a tight circle to avoid having the whip ripped from his hands. The hunt laughed and slowed, stopping mere paces away.

“My lord Regent,” Amelia said.

Around them, men Tycho didn’t recognise lifted their torches to see who this woman was who could recognise their master in the near dark. Light spilled on to Tycho’s face and Roderigo spurred his horse forward. “Wait,” Tycho said.

Amelia was reaching for her daggers.

“My lord,” said Tycho, “I would speak with the Regent.”

“Who is it, Roderigo?”

“Alexa’s pet, and Atilo’s black woman.”

The Regent rode so close his mount nearly trampled both as he grabbed a torch from a servant and thrust it towards their faces. “Gods,” he said. “One black as sin. The other white as a virgin.”

“You know them, my lord?” a thickset man asked.

“All too well,” Alonzo said. That he didn’t simply tell Roderigo to kill them showed how successful the hunt had been. His admiring courtiers, the fresh meat they’d collected, the wild ride across frozen slopes and through dark forests were what kept Alonzo from giving the order. That could change. With Alonzo it could always change. “Sent you to kill me, did she, Tycho?”

“Yes, my lord. But she doesn’t know why I’m really here.”

The Regent’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you here?”

“My lord, if we could . . .?” He nodded at a gentle slope near the edge of the lake and the Regent hesitated. If Tycho was here to kill him then separating him from his followers was a good start.

“I have no secrets from such good friends.”

The courtiers preened at the flattery. Were they so simple? Tycho wondered. Or was it some court tradition where they pretended Alonzo’s flattery lifted their hearts and Alonzo pretended to believe them. Life in Bjornvin had been simpler. Lord Eric’s nobles were either in favour or out of favour, and those too out of favour ended with Lord Eric’s knife in their guts. “My lord, these are matters of state. Such as my late master dealt with.”

This was as close as Tycho dared go to suggesting this was Assassini business. Only the Regents and the Council of Ten knew the name of the head of the Assassini. Even Lord Roderigo didn’t know; or, if he did, he shouldn’t and Alonzo had broken his vows of secrecy.

“Really?” Alonzo demanded.

Tycho unslung his sword, unbuckled his dagger and dropped his weapons into the snow, stepping away from them. “Really, my lord.”

Raising his hand commandingly, as if an entire army needed to be told to stay where it was, Alonzo slid from his mount. “The black bitch stays there. Your responsibility, Roderigo. Come on then . . .” The Regent stalked towards the shore, although Tycho noticed he kept his hand on his dagger the entire way.

“Alexa sent you to negotiate?”

“No, my lord.”

“The Council then?”

“I am here for me.”

“For you? And yet this is Assassini business?”

Tycho bowed slightly. He knew the Regent had taken Leo as surely as he knew he’d had a surrogate killed to fool everyone into thinking Leo was dead. And Alexa was sure Alonzo was behind Marco’s poisoning, and the attempts on Lady Giulietta’s life. All it would take was a blow to the throat, or a twist of the head brutal enough to break his spine.

Tycho would have failed in his mission.

“My lord, may I speak freely?”

Although he kept his hand on his dagger, Alonzo heard something in the question that made him relax a little; self-interest probably, he’d recognise that. Nodding towards the cathedral’s black silhouette, he said, “Impressive, isn’t it?”

“Yes, my lord. But it isn’t Venice.”

“Impregnable, too.”

“My lord, an army could cross this.” Stamping, Tycho felt his heel jar as it hit rock-hard ice. Tycho was right: an army could march from here to the island near the lake’s far edge.

“You haven’t been out there yet?”

Tycho shook his head.

He could feel the Regent watching him. “We smash the ice,” Alonzo said. “To make a moat. The moat contains monsters.” He glanced at the peaks around them. “The whole bloody country contains monsters. You should feel at home.”

“I don’t intend to stay. Neither do you.”

Alonzo tipped his head to one side. An almost self-mocking expression entered his face. “Go on,” he said. “Don’t stop now.”

“My lord, it’s obvious. This is simply a stage to let you claim Venice. Montenegro gives you a land base and silver mines. There are ports on the coast where Roderigo can collect taxes. The farmers’ sons can provide you with an army, whether they want to or not. And their daughters can fill your bed.” He nodded to where the village girl still sat behind Alonzo’s saddle, little more than a child. “But this is not Venice. I’ve tasted the food here. Rats wouldn’t eat in this country. You don’t strike me as a man to settle for second best.”

“This sounds dangerously like treason.”

“My lord, Marco Polo making his dukedom hereditary would have been treason if he’d failed. Success made it glorious.”

“Are you offering me loyalty?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“You . . .?”

“Once you offered me your friendship.”

“You betrayed me.”

“No, my lord. You threw me aside when Lady Giulietta refused to marry me as we planned. You transferred your patronage to Iacopo, my known enemy. Yes, I killed him in a fit of anger but any man might do that . . .” Indeed, the Regent had once slaughtered an entire fondak of Mamluks because he thought they were behind his niece’s abduction.

“How is her child?”

“Getting so fat you’d barely recognise him.”

Prince Alonzo shot a sideways glance that was almost amused.

“And Lady Maria?” Tycho asked in his turn. “This isolation must be hard for a young heiress more used to Venice’s glories.”

“She’s pregnant.” Alonzo paused, and Tycho realised he was meant to congratulate the man, which he did. “Heavily pregnant. She keeps to her room.”

“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.”