The Exiled Blade (The Assassini) - By Jon Courtenay Grimwood Page 0,119
Giulietta did and had done since that hideous morning on the ship at Sveti Stefan, when they brought her news of Marco’s, Uncle Alonzo’s and Tycho’s death had been based on what she thought Aunt Alexa would do.
Aunt Alexa would demand Giulietta be crowned before being married so no one could doubt she married Frederick as a reigning duchess. If the basilica was clean, aired, swept and lavishly decorated for the wedding it was because Giulietta had demanded her coronation that morning be magnificent. Aunt Alexa would have wanted it magnificent. She would have wanted Giulietta to marry Frederick, too. So that was going to happen.
He was Sigismund’s bastard. Her city had thrown in its lot with the Holy Roman Empire, allied to it but not part of it. Byzantium was an enemy now. Sigismund’s power was needed as a counterweight. The only problem with this was that Giulietta and Frederick had barely exchanged a word since she received the news on the quayside at Sveti Stefan of Marco’s death.
Maybe it was guilt? Frederick had thrown guilt in her face.
Why else would she refuse to talk to him? Why else would she refuse to let him talk to her? He’d greeted the news that she’d agreed to go through with the marriage suggested by Emperor Sigismund with disbelief, fury and then contempt. Having disappeared for three days, he was found drunk in a brothel. Far from being publicly outraged, Lady Giulietta let it be known she was delighted to have proof his interests ran in the right direction, unlike his half-brother Leopold. That bit went unspoken – at least by her.
Aunt Alexa would have been proud.
Just as she would have been impressed by the icy dignity with which the Duchess Giulietta entered the basilica and made her way in stately procession through the nobles and richer cittadini gathered under the stern gaze of the messiah painted on the dome above. Prince Frederick stood before the altar, dressed in magnificent silks and velvets. His entourage occupied one side at the front of the congregation. They were as magnificently dressed and as unsmiling. It had taken a direct order from his father to make this marriage happen. His friends knew exactly how Frederick felt about that and their scowls showed they felt the same.
They believed he’d rescued Lady Giulietta from certain death, and his reward was to be cold-shouldered and treated with contempt. The two Venetian knights who rode with the krieghund to the coast agreed. Giulietta’s reading of this . . .? If Frederick had stayed he could have stopped Marco’s stupid duel. Everyone was talking about how magnificent his death was. Marco the Simpleton finding his common sense and courage and beating his fearsome uncle in hand-to-hand combat, just the two of them, under traditional rules.
How could anyone be stupid enough to let Marco fight a duel? Why had Tycho not stopped it? And why had he then been stupid enough to die trying to rescue Marco from the pool into which he’d thrown himself? They had fought in armour. How could Tycho possibly think he could save Marco?
Ahead of her, someone coughed discreetly.
Looking up, Lady Giulietta saw the Patriarch of Venice, magnificent in his embroidered robes. “Your highness . . .?”
Giulietta nodded. She was as ready as she’d ever be.
A dozen Assassini were hidden unobtrusively among the congregation, a noble from the mainland here, a cittadino no one quite recognised there. They were the only people in the basilica carrying hidden weapons. At least Lady Amelia hoped so.
She watched Duchess Giulietta from an upper balcony. Newly made mistress of the Assassini, she had her best people in the crowd. God knows, they were few enough and she’d be recruiting for months and possibly years to come. She’d summoned back every agent she had, using the month between Giulietta’s landing and her coronation to send for Assassini from Paris, Constantinople and Vienna.
Her earliest shock, apart from Lady Giulietta accepting Tycho’s recommendation of her without question, was how efficient his archives had been. For a libertine said to live in exotic squalor his notes on which agent was where, how many retirees could be drawn on and who had failed testing but could still be used in emergencies were frighteningly clear.
The squalor had been a disguise, Amelia decided.
Along with Tycho’s house in San Aponal she’d inherited a Jewish servant called Rachel, who ran Tycho’s house with quiet efficiency and knew more about the workings of the Assassini than Amelia expected or