The Exiled Blade (The Assassini)

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.

Frederick was sniffling and swallowing, and sounded so much like a young man trying to pull himself together she wanted to smile. Her aunt had called him that boy. But he was more than that. He was krieghund for a start. Having banished the tremors from his voice, Frederick began to tell her about his childhood in Austria, about meeting and marrying Annemarie. How proud he’d been she was having a child. They’d gone to bed the night before he rode out. His first campaign. She’d sat in the darkness above him, all soft curves and full of life. He’d never told anyone that but he could tell Giulietta because . . .

That produced another sob.

He’d ridden home so proud and found his father waiting at the edge of the estate. Frederick had known instantly something was wrong. The emperor’s presence said that. For weeks Frederick begged the plague to take him, too.

The finest marble, and the best sculptors worked on her tomb. His brother rode halfway across Austria to be with him. Leopold sat beside his bed at night to stop him harming himself. He helped interview Italian sculptors. Annemarie’s finished likeness was so perfect it could have been her sleeping. His daughter lay beside her, eyes closed and a smile on her tiny mouth. Angels guarded Annemarie’s head and stood at her feet. It was a work of art. Unlike any tomb before it.

Sounds beautiful, Giulietta thought.

“I took one look and never returned.”

It seemed the church still enjoyed Frederick’s patronage: he had masses said monthly for Annemarie’s soul and lilies placed on her tomb every year. The closest he came to returning was with his pack, when they left the high valley and their usual hunting grounds and descended to the edge of the churchyard one summer night. He was talking about his Wolf Brothers, Giulietta realised. She’d thought them war monsters. He made it sound as if they were really wolves.

“And then I met you . . .” His voice broke, like the newly bearded youth he was. “Leopold had written but I thought he exaggerated. He said I would love you and teased me that he’d got there first. Leopold could be cruel like that. It was unthinking cruelty. All his cruelty was unthinking.”

And his kindness . . .

You had to give Leopold that. His kindness was as instinctive as his cruelty. With her, though, he’d been thoughtful. Although Giulietta still didn’t understand what made him kind to her when he was so brutal to so many of Aunt Alexa’s ladies-in-waiting. He’d bedded more than half and treated them all disgustingly, while leaving her unbedded and being unfailingly kind. They were a strange family.

Mind you, who were the Millioni to talk?