The Exiled Blade (The Assassini) - By Jon Courtenay Grimwood Page 0,68
waiting for battle. But it was an army made of three parts, none that perfect a fit. Tycho thought this as he watched the renegade Crucifers wander outside alone to use the privies, or drag serving girls outside to use them instead. The wild archers kept to themselves. They ate Alonzo’s food but refused his drink and ignored the women. And where the Crucifers used their weapons only in drunken anger, the archers trained daily with their bows, firing and retrieving their arrows for hour after hour. When not practising their archery they tended their horses, which they treated with greater kindness than they showed each other. The last part of Alonzo’s forces was his immediate followers. Venetians, like the man now walking determinedly towards Tycho.
Lord Roderigo looked out of place among the wild archers and renegade knights who crowded the cathedral floor around them. Of course, empires were conquered with men like these and Roderigo knew that, but he looked as uncomfortable as any Venetian noble dumped in a rotting church on an island in the middle of nowhere with two hundred men who hadn’t washed for a month. Tycho knew his being there made it worse.
“Enjoying yourself?” Roderigo demanded.
“As much as you, I’m certain.”
Scowling, Roderigo snapped his fingers at a serving girl, who came scurrying. He’d never be so coarse back home so maybe the crudeness of those around him was rubbing off or he was too drunk to care. When he slapped her arse as she left Tycho knew it was the latter. “That bitch is really dead?”
Tycho nodded. He hoped his face was impassive.
“I want to hear you say it,” Roderigo said. “Say it.”
“She’s dead.”
“How? Tell me that. How did you get past her witchcraft?”
“She was old,” Tycho said. “Her magic was mostly gossip and rumour. Maybe she could see a little in the future and I don’t doubt she knew her poisons . . .”
“She was a witch,” Roderigo muttered. “His highness should have had her burnt. The Pope would have loved us then. Anyway, Alonzo was always the real duke.”
So was history rewritten. If Alonzo succeeded, then Marco the Simple’s brief reign would become a glitch in the city’s glorious history. A weak pretender, unfit to rule, put on the throne by his scheming mother and removed by the rightful heir. Looking up, Tycho realised he’d missed something. “I’m sorry . . .?”
“Venetians won’t stand for Giulietta being Regent, and Frederick as co-Regent would only make it worse. They’ll turn out in their thousands to welcome Alonzo home.”
Frederick as co-Regent?
The man opposite wore a smile that said his mention of Frederick was intended to hit home. “Haven’t you heard? Alonzo’s had news from Bribanzo in the city. Frederick sits in the Council meetings now. They were friends before, apparently. But now . . . Alexa’s death, you know. It brought them together.”
Tycho’s mouth filled with bile.
“Going somewhere?”
He’d stood without realising. “I need the privies,” Tycho said shortly. He hoped Roderigo was drunk enough to take several minutes to realise he wasn’t coming back. In the centre of the floor, a hulking renegade and an archer circled, stripped to the waist, with knives in one hand and their other wrists tied. The archer was female, her teats tiny, her torso hard as oak and dark as walnut. She was grinning at the blood running from a cut on her opponent’s shoulder.
“Five gold on the woman . . .” Tycho found no takers.
Heading for the balcony, he passed between a knight who was smiling and a servitor who wasn’t. Her protest that she was a maiden followed Tycho up the stairs; as did the ex-Crucifer’s promise to change that. By tomorrow she’d need another tune to sing. Reaching Maria Dolphini’s door, Tycho knocked heavily.
“Who’s there?”
“His highness sent me.”
On the far side of the door a bolt slid in its clasp, then another and another, three in all. The door opened slightly. The eyes of the midwife widened as a knife touched her throat. “Who is it?” someone asked
Tycho put his finger to his lips.
The midwife backed herself into the room and Tycho eased the door shut, then reached behind him to fasten the bolts. He was planning to slide their handles into their safety slots when he had a better idea. Gripping, he twisted hard and metal sheared. The other two handles followed and he dropped the broken bits on the floor.
“What was that?” The voice was querulous, spiteful.