The Exiled Blade (The Assassini) - By Jon Courtenay Grimwood Page 0,101

wave being Marco’s knights, fifty archers in wagons dragged by horses specially shod for the task, and spearmen who were expected to walk for themselves. A final cart was loaded with barrels and planking.

Ahead of them the Red Cathedral waited on its island.

Not a single sentry could be seen on the balustrade circling the bell tower that stood slightly apart from the bulk of the cathedral, no guards stood positioned on the sharply sloping roof beneath its cascade of onion domes, the great doors were shut and the rocks in front of the church looked deserted. The moat Tycho had warned Frederick about wore a thin crackle of ice.

“You don’t think it’s deserted?” Frederick asked.

“W-where w-would they g-go?” Marco demanded. “H-how would they g-get past us? No, they’re in there all r-right.” He glanced round and saw a troop of locals who’d been conscripted into their own company of archers. “P-put the bridge in p-place and s-send those m-men across first.”

The archers looked terrified at being singled out.

Lady Giulietta didn’t blame them. The cathedral looked ominous and darkly silent. She wished Tycho was here and immediately blushed guiltily because Frederick nudged his mount closer as if reading her fear. One of the archers was arguing with a Venetian sergeant. After a second, the sergeant went to talk to his captain. This was strange enough to make Marco jig his reins.

“C-come with m-me.”

Marco’s horse edged forward and Giulietta followed, Frederick kicking his mount to a slow amble behind her. Marco sighed.

“Yes. Your s-shadow can c-come too . . . Right, w-what’s going on?”

The captain was so horrified to be addressed directly by the duke that his mouth opened and shut wordlessly and it was his sergeant who answered. “The heathen wants to talk to you, sir.”

“They’re E-Eastern C-Christians.”

The sergeant shrugged. “Don’t sound very Christian to me, sir. Sounds distinctly heathen. If you’ll forgive me.”

“Talk,” Marco ordered.

The archer glanced at the cathedral, glanced at Marco and then looked desperately at his companions. It was an older man who stepped forward and bowed. It took Giulietta a moment to recognise him as the village priest. He addressed Marco in Latin and spoke slowly as if trying to remember the language.

“May we speak alone?” he said.

“This is my cousin. This is her friend. You may speak in front of them.”

Maybe the priest knew he would probably die that day, perhaps he was simply too desperate to worry about manners or maybe he simply didn’t care. “Fine,” he said, “keep your devil dog and your demon’s whore. It won’t help you if you try to burn the Red Cathedral. Kill the scum inside by all means, kill them and sodomise their dead bodies . . . But if you try to harm the cathedral its protectors will destroy you.” The man spat and those behind them who didn’t speak Latin and were too far away to hear anyway realised he’d insulted their duke.

Marco smiled. “T-tell me about these p-protectors.”

“Hell will open and demons come through.”

“Heaven using h-hell to p-protect a r-rotting cathedral stolen by t-traitors? Isn’t that a little s-strange?” Marco looked at the captain. “Get the bridge into p-place over the m-moat and send in the archers. This m-man will l-light the arrows.”

“I refuse,” the priest said.

“I’ll b-burn your c-church in the village if you d-do. And put all the r-remaining villagers inside it f-first.” Giulietta couldn’t tell if this was simply a threat or if her cousin meant it. “Besides,” Marco said, “if you h-hate us that much I’d think you’d be delighted to see us d-destroyed.”

“Why hasn’t Alonzo come out?” Giulietta whispered.

Frederick shrugged. “Maybe he thinks the walls will protect him.”

Leaning across, Marco said, “T-too exposed.” He nodded at the wide expanse of ice around the moat. “We h-have more archers. Your lover s-saw to that.” He smiled sweetly when Giulietta glanced at Frederick, who scowled.

Up ahead, sappers rolled barrels to the edge of the cracked ice, lashed them into a double row using rope hoops already in place, and pushed them in. Two roof beams from a broken house came next, long enough to stretch across the moat, and the sappers lashed them tight to support the whole. Planks ripped from the side of a house came last. “Will it hold?” Giulietta asked.

“Let’s find out,” Frederick said.

The villagers shuffled forward under the glare of the Venetian sergeant and strung their hunting bows. At a barked command, they slotted arrows wrapped with naphtha-soaked bandages on to their strings and the bearded priest,