The Exiled Blade (The Assassini)

8





“Come in . . .” Alexa’s voice was firm.

Hesitating, Tycho wiped frost from the infant’s hair and nodded to the guard on Alexa’s door. She had trusted guards, as Alonzo had his. Almost all the guards he’d have expected to find in the corridors were gone, however, and the marble floors echoed with silence. Sent home with orders to say nothing, probably.

Not that they’d know much. The guard on Leo’s door was dead, and the other guard had been sent to fetch Alexa before Tycho discovered the baby dead. At worst, there would be rumours of a failed attack, and not even that if Duchess Alexa got her way, and she usually did. “It’s done?”

Tycho bowed.

Without another word, Alexa crossed her study to take the shivering child from his arms. She stripped off its rags, turned it over and considered it carefully. Tycho knew what she was thinking. About the right age, about the right colouring; dress it in Maltese lace and give it an ivory teether and few would know the difference from a distance. Giulietta would, of course.

He doubted she’d go near the child Alexa would put in Leo’s place.

“She’s asleep,” Alexa said, answering his question before he could ask. Catching his expression, she added. “Poppy in brandy. It’s quick and will keep dulling her pain provided we don’t use it for too long.” Casually, she stripped off her shawl and wrapped it tightly around the grizzling child, considering the result. “I’m going to . . .” A knock at her door prevented Tycho from discovering what.

“You’re back.” Tycho said, although it wasn’t his place to speak. The Nubian woman in the doorway nodded.

“Obviously.”

Tycho was grateful for the smile.

“A job well done,” said Alexa, and it took Tycho a second to realise she meant Amelia’s job, which should be obvious. Little enough about tonight’s events was well done. “She killed the Valois king’s physician. Using her . . .” The duchess hesitated. “More unusual skills.” Amelia’s smile was cat-like. Praise given, Alexa switched subjects. “You’ve heard the palace rumours?

Amelia shucked herself out of a snow-flecked coat. She wore daggers on both hips and her braids were frosted. “An attack?”

“Yes,” Alexa held up Francesca’s child. “They almost got Leo.”

Tycho glanced at the duchess and held his peace, waiting to discover how Alexa wanted this to unfold. He watched her walk the room with the changeling in her arms, tracing a path across a priceless Persian carpet. The restrained fury of her steps and the preciseness of her route reminded Tycho of one of the panthers in the duke’s zoo. In one corner of her room, curled around itself but watchful, was her winged lizard, a gift from the Chinese emperor.

Tycho wondered how far Alexa had made it fly and in what conditions. She used the dragonet as her eyes. If Alexa was holding back from sending Assassini after Alonzo she had a reason.

“You will guard this child,” Alexa told Amelia.

The Nubian nodded.

“And me,” Tycho demanded. “What do I do?”

If Amelia was surprised he spoke so freely it was because the rumours that he was Giulietta’s lover hadn’t reached her. The fact he wore the duke’s ring, which had been relegated to a copy, since a copy had been declared the original, hadn’t escaped her, though. The duchess had noticed, too, and Tycho was impressed by her refusal to ask where the ring came from. “You wait for me to tell you.”

“How long will Giulietta sleep?”

Alexa’s face softened. “Until tomorrow. Do you want to see her?”

“She’s not in her chamber?”

“She’s in mine. And there she’ll stay until I’m happy she won’t harm herself.”

“Yes,” she said, seeing Tycho’s shock. “She threatened to kill herself. First my husband, now my child. Why would I want to live?”

Because I’m still alive? Wrenching his thoughts from the cut Alexa’s words inflicted, Tycho wondered if it was cowardice or common sense that made him change the subject to something safer. “What do you know about the nurse? Apart from the fact she came from the mainland . . .”

“Walk with me,” Alexa said.

The family chambers were on the floor below, with government offices on the ground floor below that. The civil service used the procuratie buildings along one side of Piazza San Marco, the customs had their own offices on the far side of the Grand Canal and the mint was in a small building next to the campanile. With the guards sent home, Ca’ Ducale felt as empty as a drum, their footsteps chiming on cold marble as Alexa led Tycho towards the main stairs.

“The nurse,” Tycho reminded her gently.

“I asked Giulietta when the poppy was just beginning its work. She said Francesca recommended her and she was Francesca’s cousin. My niece trusted Francesca and took her recommendation. Why wouldn’t she?”

“Francesca thought the baby was to be abducted.”

“Did she now?” The duchess considered that point. “No doubt her man was loyal to Alonzo. But she was Leo’s nurse so she was told Leo would be taken and he was killed instead. What worries you about her replacement?”

Tycho tried to pin down his thoughts.

“Tell me later,” Alexa said. “We’re here now.” She opened the door to her chamber and waved Tycho inside. There was a guard by the window. A sergeant whom Tycho recognised from his time in the palace. A hard-faced man with cropped hair who nodded abruptly and opened the inner door at Alexa’s command.

“I’ll join you later,” Alexa told Tycho.

The guard shut the door behind him. The clothes and rolls of cloth that had filled this tiny wardrobe were piled in one corner, and one of Alexa’s servants sat in a chair. She almost tripped as she scrambled to her feet. “My lord . . .”

“Stay there.”

Smoke thickened the air from herbs charring on a brazier. A silver goblet was sticky with residue, and Tycho dipped a finger into the tar. His skin sizzled slightly where it touched the silver. Opium . . . He knew the taste and the effects, which would last far longer on Giulietta than him. His body sublimated wine, opium and other drugs. The girl he loved was so deep in dreams he doubted she could find the door between worlds even if he called her. So he knelt by the bed, folding her fingers into his and wished he could do more. “Go,” said a voice behind him. It was Alexa dismissing the servant.

“You love my niece, don’t you?”

“Of course . . .”

“There’s no ‘of course’ about it,” Alexa said cuttingly. “Most men want Giulietta for her lands, her fortune. Even the fools have worked out she’ll probably be Regent after I die. The clever ones have worked out she might be duchess.”

“Marco’s dying?”

“We’re all dying. Well, most of us.” Alexa’s voice was dry.

Sometime in the last few months she’d decided she could talk to him freely. Perhaps she hadn’t had anyone to talk to since her husband had died – except there had been Lord Atilo, obviously. Tycho’s old master had been her lover. The fact she now felt free to talk to Tycho was a compliment. It was also dangerous.

Alexa left a trail of dead. For all he admired the duchess and even in some strange way liked her, he’d be a fool not to fear her. They might be allies for the moment, but who knew how long that would last?

“He’s made for another world.”

Tycho knew she was talking about her son.

“The black moods take him and . . .” Alexa shrugged. “Who will stop him harming himself when I’m gone?”

“You will live for years yet . . .”

“You think I’m immortal?”

The thought had occurred to him. He knew the duchess was far older than she looked and wore her veil to hide her youth as much as in mourning for the late lamented Marco the Just. One of the few men for whom the words late and lamented always went together and were meant.

“I have a year at most. Perhaps less.”

“My lady . . .”

“Magic, potions and self-control can only do so much.” Opening a small alabaster box, Alexa took a handful of herbs and scattered them on the brazier, letting sweet smoke fill the tiny room.

Alta Mofacon . . .

Tycho recognised the scent carried on the previous summer’s winds when he’d stayed at Lady Giulietta’s manor on the mainland. Lavender, hops and dog rose. Something medicinal hid under it.

“Wherever she is I want my niece happy.”

“How long will she be like this?”

Duchess Alexa considered the question. “A week at most. Any more than this and I risk addicting her. Even that long may be too long.”

“And me?” Tycho asked. “What do I do?”

Alexa smiled bleakly. “Sharpen your daggers. You seem to enjoy doing that. Sharpen your daggers and prepare yourself for a trip to Montenegro. You’re to kill Alonzo . . . I should have had you do it sooner.”

Tycho kept his silence.