The Exiled Blade (The Assassini) - By Jon Courtenay Grimwood Page 0,31

broad-shouldered young man in a wolf-fur coat looking entirely too pleased with himself. “That one?”

“No,” Alexa said. “Over there.”

A narrow-shouldered youth was climbing from the last coach and looking nervously around him. He stamped the ice as if three carriages, five horses and a dozen people weren’t test enough of its strength. Turning, he noticed Lady Giulietta staring and hesitated. She watched him force himself to approach – and somewhere in the handful of steps between his carriage and where she stood his face changed, losing its nervousness and filling with a terrible sadness.

He stopped, and reached for her hand. Lady Giulietta expected him to kiss it, but he simply held it for a few seconds longer than he should then let it go. He looked as if he wanted to hug her and didn’t quite dare. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “Really sorry. I know how it feels.”

“Your highness?”

“To lose a child . . .”

He should be paying his respects to Duke Marco, or kissing Aunt Alexa’s hand, but his eyes were for her and they were brown, intense and bright as cut agate. His face was raw with sadness.

“Who said anything about a child?” Giulietta demanded.

“Our spies say Leo is dead and a substitute takes his place.” The boy looked beyond Giulietta to the scowling duchess. “At least, until your aunt decides her next move. It must be brutal having to pretend.” His beautiful brown eyes filled with tears. “Prince Frederick . . .” The Duchess Alexa stepped forward.

“I was married,” Frederick said simply. Maybe he read Giulietta’s thoughts that said he was too young to have lost a wife and child. No one had told her this when he was mentioned as one of her suitors. “Your wife died in childbirth?”

“Plague.” The prince gulped and Giulietta realised how much it hurt him to talk of it. “I was thirteen and she was fifteen. My father wanted to cement an alliance and . . .”

Yes, Giulietta knew how that worked.

“Annemarie,” Frederick said. “We fell in love.” His shrug said stranger things had happened. “And she had a child a year after we married.”

“A boy?”

“A girl. While I was on campaign, plague swept the castle and both died . . .” This time he did reach for her, although it was to grip her shoulders rather than hug her. “So I know what it feels like. I’m sorry.”

“When did this happen?”

“Four years ago.”

Four years? Lady Giulietta thought about that. Four years and Frederick was still mourning the loss of his wife from an arranged marriage and a child who wasn’t even a boy? Behind her, someone stepped forward.

“T-these are d-deep matters.”

“I’m sorry . . . I should have . . .”

Duke Marco waved away the young prince’s apology. “If I w-was you, I’d h-have wanted to talk to her first, t-too. But you’d better . . .” He smiled and pointed to his mother, who accepted Prince Frederick’s bow with a thoughtful expression.

“You understand,” she said. “I have no idea what you’re talking about?”

“Of course.” The prince bowed again to show he did.

“So . . . Accepting that. You came all this way to tell my niece how sorry you were for this thing that we don’t accept has happened?”

Prince Frederick hesitated. “I wanted to tell her how sorry I was. That I knew how much it hurts to lose a child. Also, we never got a chance to meet.”

“You thought you might try wooing her again?”

The prince looked shocked. “Oh no,” he said. “I know she’s going to marry Lord Tycho. All Europe knows.” He meant the thin sliver of the nobility who cared about such matters.

“But it doesn’t hurt to be seen trying?”

He blushed, looked behind him to check his courtiers weren’t listening. “It gave me an excuse to leave court. I’m still in disgrace, you know. Although not as much as I could be. Since I returned something my father wanted.”

“The WolfeSelle.”

His shocked expression made Giulietta smile.

“One of the worst kept secrets in the city,” Alexa said tartly.

The WolfeSelle was the krieghund’s totem, an ancient sword revered by the Wolf Brothers and wielded by their leader. It seemed absurd that this should be the shy young man standing in front of Giulietta, but she’d seen him fight in wolf form that night on Giudecca, when Tycho offered to return the WolfeSelle if the krieghund would join him in rescuing her. They’d fought and mostly died, and Tycho kept his word, returning the blade to the Assassini’s