The Exiled Blade (The Assassini) - By Jon Courtenay Grimwood Page 0,47

stopped scolding her for being unable to pretend.

I’m fine, she thought. I’m fine so long as I don’t think about . . .

There was her problem. Thinking about Tycho was meant to make her feel better. And when she didn’t feel better, being with Frederick and Marco was meant to make her happier. But now she didn’t really want to be with anyone. Did that make her a bad person? She knew Frederick was in love with her. She’d like to be able to say, of course he was; as if a whole succession of blond German princelings had fallen in love with her. Truth was, until Tycho men barely looked at her at all. Even Eleanor had stolen more kisses and she was three years younger. Had been, Lady Giulietta reminded herself. Now she lay beneath a marble tomb in San Giovanni e Paolo. Every year Giulietta got older Eleanor would get another year younger than her.

“What are you thinking about?” Frederick asked.

“My old lady-in-waiting.”

“Eleanor?” he said. “I know you loved her.”

Eleanor never knew that, Giulietta thought sadly. And, anyway, Eleanor loved Rosalyn, Tycho’s ragged girl. Always back to Tycho. “Could you ask your father for me again?” she said, biting her lip.

“Always assuming I’ve asked him already.”

I know you have . . . A few days back, after she asked last time, the Night Watch reported a wolf had been seen slinking from the Fontego dei Tedeschi, where Prince Frederick made his base. Two nights later the customs guard swore a wolf crossed from the mainland and was spotted slinking along the Grand Canal. The animal was said to look emaciated and starving. Rumour said one of Frederick’s men had recently died. She was cruel, she realised; cruel to ask him to get news of Tycho.

“Maybe I could see if my father’s learnt anything new.”

So sweet, thought Giulietta, then remembered the night Frederick led a snarling war pack against the Byzantine infantry. They’d ripped heavily armed spearmen to shreds, with Frederick leading. So, not sweet after all – just kind, which she was coming to realise was different. He was two people and his kindness involved not letting them overlap. Maybe all men were like that.

“My father has mages,” Frederick was saying. “One of those might . . .”

“Thank you.” Giulietta kissed his cheek.

Frederick blushed. “Or you could ask the duchess?”

“My aunt?”

“Umm . . .” Frederick took a deep breath. “You must have noticed your aunt knows most things? Things she shouldn’t know?”

“She has spies.”

“We all have spies,” he said. “Your aunt . . .” Frederick hesitated. “Perhaps hers are simply a little better than everyone else’s.” The boy looked a little thinner than when he arrived, a little more tired. His beard was still just fuzz and he chewed one side of his lip like a child. It was odd to think he’d had a wife and child.

“Tell me about Annemarie,” Giulietta said.

He looked so instantly hurt she might have slapped him. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly, “it doesn’t matter”, but Frederick waved her words away. Without realising, he’d hugged his arms to his chest, rocking his shoulders as if to ease a knot in his back. His blue eyes were as bleak as a winter sky.

Will anyone love me that much?

Instantly, she felt ashamed of her selfishness, but couldn’t stop herself from worrying at the question. Did Tycho love her that fiercely? If she died would the mere mention of her name fill his face with misery years later? Grief hollowed Frederick’s face so brutally she hardly dared look at him.

Standing suddenly, Frederick left the room. Tycho didn’t leave rooms. He glowered, smouldered and burnt, often all at once. At worst, he vanished in a swirl of his cloak. Frederick simply left as if he’d forgotten to do something or suddenly remembered he’d promised to be elsewhere. Giulietta chewed her nails and wondered when she’d started biting them again. She was pretty sure it was since Frederick arrived and that made no sense at all.

Frederick returned a day later, asked if Giulietta would receive him and was brought up to the window seat where she sat watching the frozen lagoon. He didn’t say hello or apologise for leaving so suddenly the previous afternoon, simply sat beside her and started talking as if he’d never been gone.

“After Annemarie died I had to go through her possessions. Well, I could have given the job to my chamberlain. But she was my wife and I loved her. Jewellery went