The Exiled Blade (The Assassini) - By Jon Courtenay Grimwood Page 0,40

she had been so miserable her memory blanked.

“You all right?”

It was the smell of horses, she realised. The sweet stink that rose from Barrel beneath her. “Bad memories,” she said. “I told you I was carried once. A long-time ago when I was still a small child.”

“Through the high pass beyond Monfalcone?”

“How do you know about that?”

“Everybody knows.”

That didn’t make her feel any better. Having checked his own stirrup leathers, Frederick vaulted on to his mount with the ease of someone who had grown up around horses, slid his feet into his stirrups and leant forward to grab her leading rein. Lady Giulietta expected him to turn for Piazza San Marco but he rode instead towards the edge of the Molo, the hooves of his horse ringing loudly on the frozen brick, her own mount sounding muted behind. A moment later they stepped down on to the ice of the lagoon, and a wide expanse of white stretched before her all the way to the sandbanks guarding the lagoon mouth.

Is it safe . . .? She kept her question to herself.

Wind had scoured snow from the ice to leave a hard surface that rang like glass as they rode over it. The sky gleamed like turquoise mined in Persia, bright blue without a single flaw. When Giulietta turned to look at the city behind her, she saw Venice glittering and clean, cut from ice and set in a marble sea. The air above the mainland was so clear the high peaks of the Altus showed sharp in the distance, closer than she’d ever seen them.

Frederick grinned. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Beautiful,” she agreed.

The saddle was awkward beneath her, the stirrups too wide for her feet to stay in place easily, Barrel bumped up and down with every stride; but she didn’t mind and it didn’t matter. The freedom of being out alone on the ice was all.

He led her out towards the middle of the channel so they passed between the island of San Maggiore, and Castello, the westernmost of the sestieri, the districts Venice had been divided into in its earliest days. Then he leant over and looped the leading rein around the top of her saddle.

“I can’t . . .”

“Of course you can.” Frederick dropped his reins to the neck of his horse, which lowered its mouth to the ice and shook its head crossly at finding nothing worth eating. “Fold them through your fingers like this. And don’t pull unless you want Barrel to stop.” As they were riding in a straight line and Barrel walked on when she kicked her side at Frederick’s suggestion, Giulietta held her reins and did nothing else, because that was what he was doing. To their left was Castello, and to their right, beyond San Maggiore, the bigger island of Giudecca.

He saw her look and nodded grimly.

His friends had died there, more than a dozen. They fought Tycho, and then changed their minds and joined Tycho to rescue her and Leo, and fight the Byzantines. That Frederick was still alive was a miracle. That she was alive was an even greater one. Why would he come back? Why would he return to a place where something like that had happened?

“Why are you really here?” she demanded. “I mean, you didn’t have to come.”

“I know that. But Leopold was my brother, and Leo his son. I know what it’s like to lose . . . His face shut down and he stared hard towards the low line of snow-covered sandbanks framing the lagoon. One hand gripped tight on his reins, and his other rubbed crossly at his eyes. That was when Giulietta knew she had to explain. Anything else was unfair. She didn’t want to be unfair.

“Listen,” she said. “Leo isn’t dead . . .”

“Giulietta.” He turned then, and she saw the tears streaking his cheeks and dampening the upper edge of his slight moustache. “I know it’s hard, God knows, I know it’s hard.” Reaching across, he grabbed her hand, gripping so tightly her fingers hurt. “But you have to accept . . .”

“Frederick . . .”

He let her fingers go.

“Leo isn’t dead.” She held up her hand. “Just listen, all right. Yes, the infant in Leo’s nursery at Ca’ Ducale is an impostor. Yes, I know there’s a dead baby in the crypt. He’s a changeling, too. The real Leo was stolen by Alonzo.”

“God’s name why?”

“Because he’s the child’s real father.”

The horror on Frederick’s face made her redden. “Not like that. His