The Exiled Blade (The Assassini) - By Jon Courtenay Grimwood Page 0,82

himself together she wanted to smile. Her aunt had called him that boy. But he was more than that. He was krieghund for a start. Having banished the tremors from his voice, Frederick began to tell her about his childhood in Austria, about meeting and marrying Annemarie. How proud he’d been she was having a child. They’d gone to bed the night before he rode out. His first campaign. She’d sat in the darkness above him, all soft curves and full of life. He’d never told anyone that but he could tell Giulietta because . . .

That produced another sob.

He’d ridden home so proud and found his father waiting at the edge of the estate. Frederick had known instantly something was wrong. The emperor’s presence said that. For weeks Frederick begged the plague to take him, too.

The finest marble, and the best sculptors worked on her tomb. His brother rode halfway across Austria to be with him. Leopold sat beside his bed at night to stop him harming himself. He helped interview Italian sculptors. Annemarie’s finished likeness was so perfect it could have been her sleeping. His daughter lay beside her, eyes closed and a smile on her tiny mouth. Angels guarded Annemarie’s head and stood at her feet. It was a work of art. Unlike any tomb before it.

Sounds beautiful, Giulietta thought.

“I took one look and never returned.”

It seemed the church still enjoyed Frederick’s patronage: he had masses said monthly for Annemarie’s soul and lilies placed on her tomb every year. The closest he came to returning was with his pack, when they left the high valley and their usual hunting grounds and descended to the edge of the churchyard one summer night. He was talking about his Wolf Brothers, Giulietta realised. She’d thought them war monsters. He made it sound as if they were really wolves.

“And then I met you . . .” His voice broke, like the newly bearded youth he was. “Leopold had written but I thought he exaggerated. He said I would love you and teased me that he’d got there first. Leopold could be cruel like that. It was unthinking cruelty. All his cruelty was unthinking.”

And his kindness . . .

You had to give Leopold that. His kindness was as instinctive as his cruelty. With her, though, he’d been thoughtful. Although Giulietta still didn’t understand what made him kind to her when he was so brutal to so many of Aunt Alexa’s ladies-in-waiting. He’d bedded more than half and treated them all disgustingly, while leaving her unbedded and being unfailingly kind. They were a strange family.

Mind you, who were the Millioni to talk?

35

“Where is he?”

Voices laughed in the warm darkness.

Tycho drew his sword. “Give me the child.”

“Or what, highness? You’ll slice the air to shreds?” The voice was mocking, slightly bitchy. Like one of the eunuchs in the palace of a Mamluk sultan. Had he ever been in the palace of a Mamluk sultan?

A creature came out of the cave’s darkness in a halo of sullen light. Its face was narrow and nose slightly hooked; weirdly narrow eyes were made stranger by slightly pointed ears. Chest hair gave way to goat fur at the hips, with the greying fur thickening towards the hooves. It was the testicles Tycho really noticed, grotesquely large, hanging like grapefruit beneath a child’s penis.

The creature sketched a mocking bow. “After all this time,” it said. “You finally deign to visit us . . .”

“You know me?”

“Highness, the whole world knows you . . .” It smirked. “Well, knows your mother. Although perhaps that should be knows her sire. Such a cruel decision to visit the sins of the fathers on the children, although I can see the attraction.”

Tycho had no idea what the creature was talking about.

Actually, he had no idea what it was or how it could have stepped out of darkness when he could see through darkness and all that lay beyond was rock at the end of the narrow cave. The creature made a show of looking around it.

“What are you after?”

“Just checking you haven’t split yourself into three, highness. Kept the best bit of yourself safe, given a lesser bit for sacrifice and slipped a sliver into some flying creature. Say a dove?” It shrugged. “No, of course, that’s taken. A bat, perhaps?”

Tycho raised his sword.

“Now now,” the creature said. “Let’s not be hasty.”

“Give me the child,” Tycho demanded.

“You left him here. Anything left here is mine. You know the rules. Ask them. They’ll tell