The Exiled Blade (The Assassini) - By Jon Courtenay Grimwood Page 0,21
the foulness of its taste and scrubbed the back of his hand against his mouth. When he’d finished spitting, Marco held up his candle and stared at him, fierce intelligence in his eyes. “Well?”
“She has Millioni blood.”
“My mother would say that’s impossible.”
“Highness. I can taste it. She and Giulietta share . . .”
Marco’s nod was abrupt and Tycho realised that being told the intricacies of Tycho’s and Giulietta’s relationship by Giulietta was one thing; having it confirmed by Tycho was another. The duke took a moment to find his thoughts. “There’s no doubt?”
“None, highness.”
“Well,” he said. “She’s not Alonzo’s. He’d never be able to keep a daughter hidden from my mother. She’s obviously not mine. Which makes her my father’s . . . You realise this means Alonzo knows more about you than you thought?”
Yes, Tycho did.
“The n-night you found Leo dead. What h-happened?”
That was the question. He’d run into the nursery, smelt Millioni blood and known Leo was dead. Only, what if he wasn’t? What if an imposter, a changeling, was dead in Leo’s place? Everything suddenly made sense. The Regent’s sudden marriage and willingness to accept exile, his almost perverse enthusiasm for the tasks the Council had set him. How long would Alonzo need to stay away?
Three years, four . . .?
Would anyone really notice if Maria Dolphini’s son looked a little more grown up than he should? At five he would be precocious. At nine less so. At thirteen . . . Who would notice? Alonzo could pass Leo off as his son.
A new heir for Venice.
The twisted brilliance was that Leo was Alonzo’s son. He was Alonzo’s son because Alonzo had his niece impregnated with his seed using a goose quill. The late Dr Crow had ensured the seed quickened into a boy.
“Fiendish, isn’t it?” Marco said.
Tycho nodded.
“My uncle k-kills my half-sister to make you think he’d k-killed my nephew. What a f-family.” The duke sounded like he meant it. “We’d b-better look at the other h-half of his t-trick.”
Across the infant’s chest was a short, slightly ragged scar that had healed at both ends. It was newer than Leo’s scar, it had to be. Leo and Giulietta had returned to Venice over six months before and Leo was just over a year old. Was this Dr Crow’s work? Tycho wondered. The scar on the imposter was so precise someone had to have examined Leo closely and made drawings.
This was not a new plan.
By now Tycho knew the dead infant was a stranger’s child but he still tasted its blood, knowing how vile it would be. Once again he spat, gagged and wiped his mouth. Then pulled up the grave sheet and stood while Marco recited a prayer. “Someone’s d-daughter. Someone’s s-son,” Marco finished, when his prayer was done. “You must tell Giulietta and my mother. Leave me being here out of it.”
“Highness?”
“I am my father’s ghost. Far less visible than my uncle’s ambition or my mother’s guilt . . . Like you, I am here and not here. Like you, I live for the shadows.” With that, he was gone. A swirl of black cloak, a toss of his head and Marco, duke of Venice and prince of Serenissima, blew out his candle and disappeared into the dark twist of stairs beyond. Tycho suspected he was being mocked.
11
The guard on Alexa’s door was unwilling to knock, uncertain if he was allowed to let Tycho do so and afraid of making the wrong decision. No doubt he had a wife, children, and a house that was falling down and in need of repair. Pretty much every man in Venice did. Tycho sighed. “State business.”
The words were enough to make the soldier step back.
The duchess was famously unforgiving about being disturbed without satisfactory reason. A servant of Alexa’s came to the door, realised it was Tycho who wanted entry and vanished again. A few seconds later the door opened for a second time and the servant slid through it, hastily dressed in a thick cloak.
“The duchess is waiting inside . . .”
Tycho should know the girl’s name. He should know the name of all Alexa’s staff, but since she called them you – and they looked interchangeable, being soft-faced and wide-eyed and scared of him – Tycho hadn’t bothered. He knew them by sight. If he was honest, he knew them by smell and the waves of interest and doubt they left in the air as he walked past them.