The Exiled Blade (The Assassini) - By Jon Courtenay Grimwood Page 0,55

guards came to attention, Frederick said. “Ask your aunt the truth of it. She has a way of knowing these things. She can tell you if it’s untrue.”

“It’s a lie,” Giulietta said firmly.

She went inside without saying goodbye, dismissed Pietro to wherever he went when dismissed and made straight for her chamber, where she locked the door behind her and curled into a ball on her bed, letting the sobs take her. The afternoon had been going so well until Frederick ruined it. She hated Venice. She hated Frederick, too.

24

The sound of Lady Giulietta’s tantrum brought Marco from his chamber to find Pietro crouched across her doorway. “Y-you shouldn’t be here.”

The boy scrambled to his feet. He was thin and tousled-haired, still a child. Better fed, however, than when Marco first spared his life. Finding his courage, the boy said, “Lord Tycho . . .”

“Said you s-should l-look after her?”

Tycho’s page nodded.

“Then, of c-course, you m-must.”

Turning the corner into this conversation, Duchess Alexa smiled. It was exactly what she expected Marco to say. He seemed so much clearer about what was going on around him since his uncle had gone. It would be terrible to discover Marco’s idiocy . . .

I’m not even going to finish that thought. Alexa had always prided herself on facing difficult truths head on, but tonight was different. Neither her son nor Pietro knew how different, and how could she tell them? “What is he doing here?” she demanded.

The page choked on his answer.

“H-he’s with me,” said Marco, earning a glance so grateful Alexa knew the duke had a follower for life.

“In that case . . .” Alexa ruffled the child’s hair.

The boy would remember that, too. No matter how old he grew or what he became in later life he would remember the night the duke of Venice lied for him, and the duke’s fearsome mother ruffled his hair. Of such tiny memories were lives made.

The night was so cold that frost bloomed inside the glass, and all the fire did was fill the corridor with smoke and make their clothes smell.

“You must to bed,” she told Marco. “Tomorrow will be a hard day, take my word for it.” Leaning forward, she kissed him, whispering sorry as her mouth touched his ear. Let him decide what for. Going to Alonzo’s bed had been a mistake. Not realising Alonzo would take the act as proof they’d formed an alliance and kill her husband was a worse one.

“I’m glad you’re getting better.”

Marco’s eyes went huge as he considered this. His father had been a simple man. His nickname the Just a tribute to his ability to see everything as black or white. She doubted her son had ever seen the world in anything except complex shades of grey. She’d come to realise he’d seen too much.

“Bed now,” she insisted.

Leaning forward, he kissed her back. He was intuitive enough to know something was wrong and discreet enough not to ask what, although he would know soon enough. Sighing, Alexa watched her son return to his room, humming some ditty about icy hearts and frosted thighs. It was a plea to reluctant maids to give what they held dear, since the world was ending and what use were honour and virginity now . . . Half the young men in the city were singing it. Where did he learn these things given that some days he barely left his room?

“Sit by the window,” she told the boy.

The first time Alexa knocked Giulietta didn’t hear. At least, her sobbing didn’t stop or her sniffing change pitch. So Alexa knocked harder and heard Giulietta groan, “Go away.”

She was seventeen, Alexa reminded herself. At seventeen, she’d been as unhappy as this, that was the truth of it. Some girls were born happy and remained so through their storm years – the late Lady Desdaio, for example – but Alexa had not been one of them and neither was her niece.

“Giulietta . . .”

“I said go away.”

At which Alexa knocked hard enough to make her knuckles hurt, and loudly enough to have two guards come running. In a final act of kindness she decided to give them their lives, although she doubted they’d understand this was what she’d done or believe it of her. “Leave,” she said. “Do not return.”

They hesitated.

“Did you hear me?”

The men glanced at each other, some thought passing in a flicker, and they bowed, leaving quickly and not glancing back. They would report her order to their sergeant