The Exiled Blade (The Assassini) - By Jon Courtenay Grimwood Page 0,39

even though they’d been scraped the previous evening. Prince Frederick watched him go and, after a while, asked if he could come inside. A few minutes after this a door opened on to a gallery above and a young woman strode down the stairs. “Your highness . . .”

“Frederick,” he said, smiling.

Lady Giulietta shrugged. “Frederick.”

“My lady . . .”

She smiled. A brief flash of amusement.

Meetings between people of their importance were usually arranged in advance. There were protocols in place to agree suitable times and neutral locations, with some clue given in advance as to the reason. “Has something happened?”

“I upset you yesterday.”

Giulietta checked to see if the nearest guard was listening. Even a year before she wouldn’t have noticed he was there, except in the way she knew wardrobes and cupboards existed. The guard’s face was impassive enough to suggest he was. “That doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it does.” He hesitated. “Well, it does to me.”

“You’d better come in.”

He almost did, and then she saw him find his courage and come to a decision. “I have a better plan.” He put his hand under her elbow and turned her towards the door behind them. It was a tentative touch and he looked ready to let her go if she protested. Giulietta’s mouth quirked. Beyond the door stood two horses, one high and sleek with a swan-like neck and noble forehead, the other squat and almost shaggy. Her heart sank. Surely he didn’t mean . . .

It turned out he did. “Her name’s Barrel.”

“How does she stay upright?”

Frederick looked at her and Giulietta shrugged. It was an obvious enough question. Everyone in the city kept slipping over. Surely having hooves instead of feet simply made things worse?

“Look . . .” Frederick bent Barrel’s leg as easily as a Venetian boy might loop a rope around a gondola post and tie it off. “She won’t hurt you . . . See,” he said.

See what?

When he took her hand and touched her finger to the horse’s shoe, Giulietta found herself blushing, damn it. But Frederick was peering at the horseshoe and waiting expectantly, so she ran her finger over ice-cold metal and felt jagged edges beneath her fingers. “There are ridges.”

Frederick smiled.

“Chevrons,” Giulietta added, naming the heraldic vees sometimes found on shields in battle. “Dozens of them.”

“My design. My blacksmith made them.”

“You brought your blacksmith?” Lady Giulietta was surprised. Venice was a city of foundries and metalworkers. Actually, it was a city of everything workers, from boiled leather to finest gold.

“And my cook, and armourer, and doctor.”

“Why?”

“Well, the cook’s obvious . . .” His tone was light, but it was clear he meant it. Until recently he’d been their enemy. Venice was as famous for her poisons as she was for her gilt and glass. He’d be a fool not to bring his own cook and food tasters, and the same applied to his doctor. “Besides, they’re my friends.”

It seemed unlikely enough to be true. The guards on the Porta della Carta were watching her from the corner of their eyes, and a cittadino family on their way home from mass had stopped to stare openly. If she turned round, she’d probably find her aunt staring down from the central balcony. Lady Giulietta had always hated being watched. “I should . . .”

“Yes,” Frederick said. “You should.”

Before she could protest, he dropped to a crouch and folded his fingers together to make a step. That’s not what I meant at all. Still, a Schiavoni trader dragging a cart had now joined her audience, stilled by the sight of horses, the lavishness of Frederick’s cloak and the realisation that the girl hesitating to mount was Lady Giulietta Millioni. How did I let him do this to me? She knew she should be furious, but he looked so anxious that she put her foot in his hands, blushed scarlet as he saw her lower leg in a swirl of skirt, and let herself be boosted up on to a side saddle.

Snow and ice on a high pass through the wintry mountains.

She’d been sitting in front of the grey-bearded Moor, who’d wrapped his cloak around her to keep her warm although he was freezing himself. Inside her cloak, she stank of fear and not washing and having soiled herself, because he refused to stop. At the time she’d thought him unkind. Now she realised Lord Atilo’s refusal to stop had probably saved her life. She could remember riding in front. When he tied her behind him,