The Exiled Blade (The Assassini) - By Jon Courtenay Grimwood Page 0,38

being mocked by having his straggling troop described as fine, decided he was and realised there wasn’t much he could do about it. “Prince Alonzo di Millioni has sent out a call for good men . . .”

And you bring him these? “Alonzo?”

“You know him?” Captain Towler sounded doubtful.

“One of my closest friends.”

“It’s true,” Amelia said. “My lord and the prince are so inseparable you could barely fit a knife blade between them.”

“Your lord?” Towler seemed bemused by the appearance of a title. “Then perhaps you could put in a good word for us, my lord. I mean, if that’s where you and your . . .” The captain hesitated, uncertain how to describe Amelia, who was watching impassively. “Where you and your companion are going.”

“You go to fight the Red Crucifers?” Tycho asked.

“My lord . . .?” the man said.

Oh gods, thought Tycho, reading the anxiety in Captain Towler’s face. The Regent never intended to fight the Red Crucifers at all. He’d gone to command them. Alonzo Millioni was a trained condottiero, son-in-law to the richest noble in Venice. Left alone, the Red would decay and be destroyed or destroy themselves. With Alonzo as their master . . . “What title has he taken?”

“Duke of Montenegro.”

Of course he had. Half the city-states of Italy would recognise him now, the rest within a year if they bothered to wait at all. Alonzo was Italian and Alexa was Mongol, mother to an idiot son no one expected to rule. As for the Pope . . . All Alonzo had to do was offer to destroy the Serbian heresy, return Montenegro to Catholic rule and establish the Red as a legitimate order swearing allegiance to Rome, and the Pope would be sending him sacred war banners and a personal blessing.

If that happened Alexa would find herself with a civil war. The colonies would declare for Alonzo, Venice would split into feuding noble families and the street gangs would riot. If Alexa was lucky the Castellani would declare for her if the Nicoletti declared for Alonzo, but the chances were the gangs would combine behind Alonzo and the Watch would be unable to keep them under control. Tycho could imagine the city welcoming Alonzo simply because he offered order.

“I’m Lord Tycho bel Angelo. This is Lady Amelia . . .” Beside him, the young Nubian raised her eyebrows at her sudden ennoblement. “You see that post . . .”

Captain Towler nodded.

“Who’s your best knife man?”

The captain pointed to his sergeant.

“The centre boss,” Tycho told him. “One throw only.”

When the man pulled a knife from his belt without first checking with Captain Towler, Tycho smiled to himself. Get the sergeant obeying orders and the men would follow. He needed the man to throw well.

Amelia just needed to throw better.

“Take your time,” Tycho suggested.

It was a clean throw, hard enough to kill a man across a tavern, and left the dagger quivering to one side of the boss. The sergeant expected Tycho to throw next and looked shocked when Amelia stepped forward.

Men whistled as her knife slammed into the post just inside the first knife. Impressive, Tycho thought. Not the throw, but to beat the man by so little was subtle. The sergeant’s rueful grin said he was impressed not offended.

“Brilliant,” Tycho said.

“Not nicely done?” She turned to the sergeant. “In my country it’s the women who wage war.”

“You’re Amazon?”

“Nubian,” Amelia said. “We’re worse.”

19

A tightly wrapped German noble arrived unexpectedly at the doors of Ca’ Ducale an hour after dawn on a proud, high-stepping stallion that snorted, steamed and blew dragon’s breath at the cold air. A second grey trotted sedately behind, saddle empty. Sliding from his mount, the man landed with a bump that blew a laugh from his chest, and immediately unwrapped a huge wolf-pelt coat that he draped across his mount’s back before turning for the palace doors. That was when the guards on the Porta della Carta realised their visitor was Prince Frederick, and that he’d arrived without courtiers or bodyguards.

“Would you see if Lady Giulietta is home?”

They found his Italian hard to understand, and his stepping from foot to foot against the cold made his accent stranger still. What muddled them, though, was his politeness. “Certainly my lord . . . I mean, your highness.”

A guard abandoned his post at the gate – a whipping offence – rather than ring the bell and wait for a messenger. He hurried across the inner courtyard and up steps made treacherous by ice,