The Exiled Blade (The Assassini) - By Jon Courtenay Grimwood Page 0,32

oldest enemy. “You were saying,” Duchess Alexa murmured. “About being in disgrace?”

“Out of favour might be more accurate. My father is busy besieging heretics in Bohemia. Life on campaign is . . .” Frederick hesitated. “Less fun than it might be. So I thought . . . And I did want to say how sorry I was.” His smile faded at the mention of Giulietta’s dead child.

Lady Giulietta wondered if she should tell him Leo was still alive.

16

In the hours that followed, Prince Frederick and his small court settled themselves at the Fontego dei Tedeschi, his father’s warehouse just below the Rialto Bridge. Rooms were cleared and stables found for the horses. The land on which the warehouse stood was German, according to the rules governing fondaci. The land was German and so were the laws applied inside. By the time night fell – which was early, this being the start of winter – Frederick had made the rounds of his men, checking they were housed properly and settled into their chambers.

The last thing Frederick did before retiring was send for one of his men and give him a message for his father. Frederick had let Alexa believe he was here without the emperor’s blessing. In fact, he had left court with permission. It was time to make his first report.

“Yes, highness . . .” The man bowed low.

Standing at the window a few minutes later, Frederick watched a young wolf skulk out on to the ice of the Canalasso and disappear into the night. The journey across the snows would be brutal, but his message would arrive. If anyone could clear the distance and arrive safely it was them. They were krieghund.

In the same hour, on the far side of the Adriatic Sea, which glittered with white crests on black waves, halfway into a range of mountains that rose for ever, the man named earlier as Lady Giulietta’s next husband scowled at the crude walls of that night’s shelter and thought about Venice not at all. Tycho was too cold and too hungry and too worried to think about anything other than the yard in which he stood.

The map Marco had provided was crude, but the fort was on it and had always been marked as one of their stops. Everything about the place felt wrong, starting with its shape, which was a quarter-circle of grey stone, built across the narrow head of the valley, with rising cliffs and a slit cave behind. At first Tycho thought the fort must protect a silver mine because what else in this godforsaken country would need protecting? Only the arrow slits faced in both directions, down the valley and into this tiny yard behind. No force big enough to trouble a fort could gather here so why did the arrow slits exist? The other reason the cave couldn’t be a silver mine was that the track marks where sleds had been dragged from underground were missing.

The heaviest wall was on this side rather than facing into the valley. The door on the valley side was thick, but the door to the yard thicker still and fat-hinged, with a steel plate set into it through which three dozen arrows could be fired simultaneously from a three-stringed porcupine.

The layout made so little sense that Tycho began to explore. Under the roof a dormitory full of abandoned bedrolls, saddles and curved sabres showed that cavalry had manned the fort until recently. At ground level the empty cupboards in the kitchen showed they’d taken any food with them. And they’d obviously left in a hurry because a half-cooked but now frozen deer carcase rested on an iron spit above a cold fire pit. In the yard someone had killed a horse and flensed its carcase, cutting all the flesh from its bones. Tycho could imagine how hungry cavalry would have to be before they ate their mounts.

A well in the cellar held water sealed with ice that clattered three seconds after Tycho dropped a stone. His second stone was larger, broke the ice and brought Amelia running . . . “Found anything?” she asked.

Tycho shook his head. “You?”

“Well, maybe . . .” she admitted. Amelia was wrapped in furs that stank even in the cold, unless the stink was her and that was possible. “There’s burnt-out mage powder on the armoury floor.”

That begged two questions. How Amelia recognised mage powder, because he didn’t think he would. And what the hell it was doing in a crumbling