The Exiled Blade (The Assassini) - By Jon Courtenay Grimwood Page 0,72

seriously, Giulietta realised, stepping back from the door. I should leave, she told herself. It’s wrong to listen at doors. God knows, that habit had got her whipped enough as a child. But how else did you discover what was going on? She stepped back a little further, knowing her hovering there no longer looked like hesitation to the guard, if he was looking her way, which he probably was.

“Poor c-child,” Marco said. “She’s friendless, p-powerless and scared. Of c-course, she’s not as f-friendless as she thinks, is she? Nor as p-powerless. And Giulietta scared is still braver than most. She would have m-made me a good wife if I was the m-marrying kind. My mother wanted that once. Of course, my m-mother wanted all sorts of impossible things . . .”

The duke turned to the window to wipe away condensation as Frederick had done earlier. He too stared at the lagoon beyond as if looking for changes. The parties on the ice were over. The gaiety gone. The poor fiercely hungry, the rich scared they would soon be the same. “Don’t h-hurt her.”

“I don’t want to hurt her.”

“She’ll find that attractive,” Marco said. “Well, I’m told girls find that attractive eventually. You love her?”

“Beyond life.”

Lady Giulietta climbed the stairs to her study, let herself in and sat at her aunt’s old desk, her feet resting on her aunt’s poison chest, the words she’d just heard going round her head. Beyond life . . . Frederick would never have dared say it to Giulietta’s face. Putting her notes in order, she carried them to her room and dressed in a daze, accepting a black velvet gown. She scolded the maid who said black velvet set off Giulietta’s hair, pointing out she was in mourning for her aunt and her hair was irrelevant. But her heart wasn’t in it, and the girl, who looked about eleven, was so crestfallen she began sniffling. So Giulietta hugged her quickly, told her not to be so silly, and waited patiently for the child to brush the shaved velvet and lace up Giulietta’s shoes.

Only then did Lady Giulietta return to the corridor, her determination to play fair and let them hear her coming strengthening as she reach the first door. Behind it, Marco sounded agitated. So agitated that she pushed her way in. Her cousin was hopping from foot to foot in excitement. “A r-rat,” he said. “I know a r-rat when I s-smell one.” Dragging free his dagger, he ran at the tapestry and stabbed viciously for the unicorn’s eye, driving his blade home.

“F-for the p-pot. A r-rat for the p-pot.”

Ripping his dagger free, he stepped back and something slumped forward as blood began to stain the canvas and the tapestry prevented that something from falling. Anguished gurgling came from behind the cloth.

Marco grinned at Giulietta. “Just in t-time.”

She looked from the blood on his stiletto to the lumpy tapestry and the shuddering shape behind. “Your highness . . .”

“C-c-congratulate m-me, t-then.”

“Well done,” Frederick said. He took the dagger gently from Marco’s fingers and led him away from the tapestry, through the door Giulietta had just used to enter and out to the landing beyond. She heard him talking to a guard, and the guard reply as if Frederick had a right to be giving him orders.

“He’s going to rest,” Frederick said on his return.

“We should . . .” Of course they should. From the moment Marco stabbed the tapestry it was obvious they’d have to see who he’d killed. She just knew she wasn’t going to like the answer.

“Bribanzo,” said Frederick, letting the body slump at his feet. The old man lay in a puddle of blood, his fat face smoothed into blandness by death. All of the avarice and scheming now gone. “Giulietta, may I get my men?”

She stared at him blankly.

“I have men in the piazzetta. May I summon them?”

“Of course,” she said hastily. If anyone queries their presence say you’re acting on my orders . . .” His smile was quizzical enough to make her wonder what she’d said. “And send me the guard outside. If he’s back from putting Marco to bed.”

The guard looked nervous when Frederick returned with three broad-shouldered Germans, wrapped in horse blankets like barbarians. When Frederick told him to step outside, he looked to his mistress for permission.

“Do it,” she said.

Frederick smiled. “Moritz, check the window in that room.”

A bearded young man disappeared into the family archives and pulled open two shutters, wrestled at the