The Exiled Blade (The Assassini) - By Jon Courtenay Grimwood Page 0,86

on the mossy floor of the cave with Leo asleep in his arms. He would have liked to dismiss his dreams, but Leo was healthy and bright-eyed, and Tycho could feel hot tears on his own cheeks. In his hands was the grave ribbon from Giulietta’s hair.

36

Lady Giulietta refused to allow her ladies-in-waiting their miracle. She’d fallen into a fever and the doctor who thought her dead was wrong . . . She’d allow him his life as an act of charity but he was banished from Venice on the understanding he spoke to no one about this and never returned. Her aunt would have killed the man. That was Alexa. She was her own person.

“Fetch back the chamberlain, tell Marco’s physician I’ll be visiting Marco later, so no sedatives, and send Prince Frederick a message asking him to visit at his earliest convenience . . .” Her lady-in-waiting curtsied and withdrew without daring to look Lady Giulietta in the face. None of them dared look her in the face they were all so certain she’d returned from the dead. It would wear off. Well, either it would wear off or she’d replace the lot of them. The missing hair ribbon was a puzzle, though.

They’d found her alive but still in deepest sleep.

She’d told the chamberlain someone had obviously stolen the ribbon from her hair. He’d have been more likely to believe her had the door of the great chamber not been locked after Frederick left. Alexa would have known what to say.

Chances were Marco would know, too.

“A sweet angel t-took your r-ribbon.”

She’d barely made it through his door when he answered the question she’d yet to ask. Behind her, two guards stiffened and she knew they were listening and were too shocked to hide the fact.

“Tell me t-that isn’t t-true?” Marco was smiling, and his eyes flicked beyond her shoulder to the guards. “A b-beautiful angel t-took your ribbon and k-kissed you on the brow and s-said, God himself was r-returning you to h-health . . .”

“You can go,” Lady Giulietta told the guards.

As the door shut, Marco grinned. “So much b-better than talk of d-demons. Within half an h-hour the whole city will k-know an angel came to earth to m-mop your brow and still your f-fever. And took only a h-hair ribbon as his r-reward. How sweet is t-that . . .”

“Marco . . .”

“Allow them their little m-miracle and they’ll stop l-looking for a big one.” He smiled at her. “P-people have been t-talking about n-nothing else all morning. I knew you’d be c-coming to see m-me.” Marco patted the seat beside him, as if she had reverted to being a child. Instead of how it really was back then – her always seeming older and him seeming little more than a fool.

“Now, the p-poison. Tell me why you d-did something that s-stupid.”

By noon, everyone in the city knew that prayer, God and Lady Giulietta’s innate virtue had saved her from the severest of fevers, and that Lord Bribanzo’s death, until lately thought a robbery gone wrong, had been at the hands of the Assassini on the orders of Duke Marco himself. The duke having firm proof that Bribanzo had turned traitor. Almost as bad, he’d been funding the ex-Regent, who had allied himself with the Red Crucifers and was threatening Venice.

The rumour that an angel mopped Giulietta’s brow and healed her with a kiss lost ground to the wonder of Duke Marco appearing in public on the Piazza San Marco, in control of his twitching and so poised that he talked to shocked onlookers with almost no stuttering at all. It was widely agreed the Millioni were blessed.

When Prince Frederick presented himself at the Porta della Carta, his entire entourage behind him and all wearing breastplates, the rumours really started. Venice was allying itself with Sigismund. The prince was engaged to Giulietta. He brought demands from his father. She’d called him to banish him.

The truth never made it to the streets. He came to apologise and tell her he was leaving Venice. He didn’t even get a quarter of a way through his apology before she told him to shut up and stop being so bloody formal. Their friendship returned more or less to normal after that; which meant he remained embarrassed and occasionally tongue-tied, and she tried not to tease him too much.

“I thought . . .” He hesitated. “I thought you’d want me to go. I should have said my father sent me.