The Exiled Blade (The Assassini) - By Jon Courtenay Grimwood Page 0,62

him from prison, ended his life as a street rat and made him his own page. Pietro would be dead if not for Tycho. Dead, or starving in a gutter. But the boy’s face was hollow with guilt and horror, and she knew he’d asked himself those questions already. “Speak,” Marco said.

The boy gulped and held the dragonet tighter. “I saw Lord Tycho in the window, before he threw himself to the ground. Dracul saw more, he saw him arrive and followed when he left. He was met on the edge of the ice by a boat that rowed to a ship further out. The sailors sank the boat.”

How could he know these things? Why didn’t Marco ask how he knew? “I suppose the lizard talks to you?”

“We share thoughts,” Pietro mumbled.

Marco looked intrigued. “Think c-carefully. You share, or you k-know dracul’s?” This new Marco was scary, so icily measured Giulietta wondered if he’d even loved his mother.

“I know his thoughts,” Pietro said finally. “Except they’re not thoughts. I see what he has seen but he doesn’t understand it and I do.”

“Let me.” Taking the winged lizard, Marco put his forehead to the creature’s skull and trembled. His face was unreadable when he gave dracul back. “Clearly it only w-works for you.”

Pietro bit his lip.

“Now t-tell me again how you come to have my m-mother’s gift from the Khan?” The boy repeated his story of sitting outside Lady Giulietta’s door listening to her sob, and how the duchess sent him away. Giulietta wasn’t sure which surprised her most. The boy being there in the first place, or Alexa not being furious to find a page wandering the family floor . . .

“And later,” Pietro said, “she brought me the dragon.”

“She brought you the dragon?” Giulietta said.

“She told me to put my head to his, my lady. Then took the beast away as he had one last task to perform for her.”

Marco looked very thoughtful indeed.

27

Horns blew and scared away any quarry not already gone to ground. The early morning hunting party that rode out from the Red Cathedral had gone in search of sport and food. The sport was all Alonzo’s men talked about, their voices warmed by pre-dawn goblets of hot wine mixed with honey and strong local brandy, but it was food they needed and only a fool would think the hunting had been good.

Luckily there were enough fools among Alonzo’s followers to make the silence of those who understood how desperate things were look like distemper or a hangover. From his vantage point, Tycho watched a dozen men ride out of the dark forest towards the village and frozen lake beyond.

Alonzo led them. But close behind, holding a flaming brand and grinning widely, was a thickset man, wrapped in a lavish fox fur that glowed smoky red in the light from the torch he held. A local princeling? Too neatly barbered and too well dressed. And unless that cloak’s curing was very good indeed the fur must stink enough to have told the prey they were coming. So either it was cured, or the man with the oiled beard was too important for Alonzo to offend. Tycho wondered if he’d seen the man before and decided not.

Lord Roderigo rode a horse’s length behind, looking unhappy to find himself relegated to a lesser place. As for those who followed, few were Venetian, most Montenegrin or renegade Crucifer. These last looked a little wilder, talked a little louder and had clearly drunk deeper than their companions. Their noise was such that the man with Alonzo looked back in irritation. His glare stilled them into silence.

Interesting, Tycho thought.

Standing, Tycho shook snow from his cloak and waited for one of them to see him. It was a local huntsman, who brought a life’s experience of looking for prey in the half-dark of dawns and twilights. The man spurred his horse forward, drew closer to Prince Alonzo and pointed . . .

“You’re back.”

“Obviously, my lord.”

The Regent flushed and Tycho cursed inwardly. He needed to learn to hold his tongue around this man. Without Alonzo’s blessing he would never find his way past the demons in the makeshift moat. “I’ve brought you gifts.” Unbuckling a satchel at his side, Tycho produced a cloth-wrapped parcel and revealed Alexa’s bowl.

“What is that meant to be?”

“The most valuable thing in Venice.”

Alonzo scowled, obviously wondering if Tycho was mocking him. He refused to take the bowl from Tycho’s hands. “And then there’s this.” Tycho held up a