The Exiled Blade (The Assassini) - By Jon Courtenay Grimwood Page 0,12
army that had camped on its edge, had left . . . Tycho doubted Frederick’s army would have a good time of it in the snows. He didn’t envy the Byzantine fleet the storms that would buffet the last of their journey. But those were not his problems.
I have the girl, I have the title, I have the gold . . . Half the nobles in the city envy me. The others want me dead so they can take my place. Why had tightness gripped his chest the moment he entered the palace? Why this dread as he climbed the marble stairs to the Millioni chambers, passing sour-faced dukes staring from paintings, and tapestries exaggerating how great their victories had been? Tycho knew something was wrong the moment he reached the landing.
His jaw ached so fiercely the pain stopped him dead.
As walls and windows, tapestries and a guard outside Leo’s nursery fell into sharp focus, his dog teeth threatened to descend and Tycho recognised the smell of Millioni blood tainted with shit and the smell of fear. The guard stepped back as Tycho hurtled towards him.
“My lord . . .”
Leo’s nursery was locked.
“There’s a new woman tonight, my lord. I heard her lock the door behind her. Perhaps she’s embarrassed about feeding?”
“Leo’s weaned.” Anyway, it wasn’t a wet nurse’s job to be embarrassed about breastfeeding a baby; it was what she did, fed a child and kept it safe. “Stand back,” Tycho ordered. Twisting, he side-kicked the lock.
By the time a second guard came running the door hung on one hinge, Tycho having aimed for a point behind it. The stink of Millioni blood was overwhelming. At least, it was to him. “Get Duchess Alexa . . .”
The new guard froze. Tycho might be noble, Lady Giulietta’s lover and rumoured to have powers, but Alexa was sole Regent now Alonzo had sailed. She couldn’t simply be sent for.
“She’ll have your head if you don’t.” Yes, thought that would convince you. The man ran and the other guard tried to look past Tycho into the blood-splattered room beyond. “Stay back and stay out.”
“My lord . . .”
“This is blackest magic.”
The guard instantly averted his eyes.
Taking a deep breath, Tycho forced himself inside. Spilt blood, a discarded knife, open shutters to a window with the glass cut out, a grappling iron and a rope still hanging from the sill beyond. A single glance was all it took to know the world had changed. Tonight’s nurse had been ripped open and her guts bulged in coils through the edges of the cut. Leo’s cradle lay overturned on a carpet that was dark and sticky with blood. Not that. Anything but that.
Tycho upturned the cradle to reveal the dead child beneath.
Very small, very precious, and very broken. Sliced cloth and the pucker of a wound showed where Leo had been stabbed in the heart. Other wounds disfigured the tiny chest. His mouth was open in a silent cry. Tycho felt sick at the sight, raw with grief and riven with unfitting hunger.
Hunger? The thought brought him up short.
The child at his feet was dead, and yet hunger tightened his throat so viciously his teeth threatened to descend. One of them was still alive. Swinging round, Tycho dropped to a crouch beside the nurse. She was young, dark-skinned and on the very edge of death. “Look at me,” he ordered.
Dark eyes opened and struggled to focus.
At the far end of the corridor halberds crashed as guards came to attention. The nurse tried to speak but her throat was ruined. A flat-handed strike had been used to silence her. He could read the mute desperation in the woman’s eyes. She was desperate to say something. He could feed, of course, take her memories and use what he learnt to hunt down whoever did this. Because he would hunt them down. The cold fury where his heart should be guaranteed it.
Raising his head, Tycho let dog teeth descend, blood filling his throat from where they cut his gums, but he was too late. He felt rather than heard Alexa behind him. “Leo’s dead?” she demanded.
Tycho knew he looked strange, crouched over the nurse, his hand over his mouth as if to stop himself vomiting. Alexa had come alone.
“Tell me.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“I will crucify him between the pillars. I will cut down his bloody olives, destroy his precious villa and sew his land with salt. His name will be cut from public plaques and his portraits burnt.”