The Fallen Blade: Act One of the Assassini (39 page)

“Her brother?”

Captain Roderigo winced. “Or Atilo’s apprentice violated her first.”

Prince Alonzo looked at Tycho with new interest. His eyes glancing at Atilo’s impassive face. “Roderigo. Do you believe they’re dead?”

The captain shrugged. A mistake.

“The mattress was drenched with blood,” he said hastily. “There were also splatters of blood on the roof, and signs of a struggle and the broken sword… But no bodies anywhere. They could have been removed.” They could also be alive. The more he drank, the easier the Regent was to read, and Roderigo knew his master was scared, and furious.

“Death,” Alonzo said. “That’s my verdict.” When Duchess Alexa opened her mouth, he snapped, “You disagree?”

“This needs discussion.”

“No, it doesn’t… Let the Black Master extract every last secret
in private. Although I’ve a mind to do it myself.” For a second it looked as if the Regent was serious. “Go,” he said, glaring at Roderigo. “Take him away.”

“Where, my lord?”

“The Crucifer pit, obviously.”

“Strip him…”

Tycho struggled to locate the speaker. His gaolers had him blindfolded with his hands tied behind his back tight enough to make his fingers distant memories. Shackles locked his feet. He was ungagged. Perhaps they expected him to plead.

“Get on with it.”

Rough hands yanked his doublet; when the buttons failed to rip free, someone punched him and Tycho fell to the floor.

“
That’s enough.
”

A different voice this time. Behind him.

“Maybe you’d like to tell me what’s going on?” There was a smoothness to the words that set Tycho’s teeth on edge. A reasonableness that grated.

“Sir, we’re preparing him.”

“What day is it?”

“Saturday, sir.” The man sounded afraid.

“And why is preparing him like this a bad idea?”

“We’re not torturing him, sir. We just need to remove his clothes. It’s not like…” The voice trailed into gurgling, followed
by a thud. Pushing his foot to the side, as far as his shackles allowed, Tycho felt another body.

“Pick him up.”

Hands hauled Tycho to his feet.

“Right,” the voice said. “Free his hands, unbutton his doublet properly, throw him naked into the pit. Leave the shackles. I begin torturing him on Monday. Understood?”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

“My lord.” Tycho’s throat was dry. Partly fear, partly that he hadn’t drunk anything since the previous night, and his head ached from Atilo’s beating.

“You speak.”

“Sunlight, my lord. It…”

“Burns you. So I’ve been told. An interesting fact, don’t you think? What kind of sinner is burnt by God’s own light? Only the worst, I suspect. The Regent has instructed me to question you myself. An unpleasant task, but one I shall undertake to the best of my abilities. And I wouldn’t worry. Where you’re going now has no sunlight, nor any other kind most of the time.”

Footsteps climbed stairs.

“I can open it myself,” he said.

A second later hinges creaked, then the door shut again. Every gaoler listened to check the man was gone. And then a punch to the kidney dropped Tycho to the floor. A vicious kick took air from his lungs and filled his throat with bile. “You cost me a man,” a voice snarled.

“Boss…”

“
What?
”

“He comes back and sees this we’re all in trouble.”

“You afraid?”

“Of course I’m shitting afraid. I almost piss myself every time the Black Master enters a room. You want him angry, fine. I want to keep living.” There was muttered agreement.

“Throw him in the pit then,” the boss said.

The gaolers freed Tycho’s hands but left him blindfold, his feet shackled by a short chain joining two crude iron fetters, with a single silver wire welded to the inside. The fetters tore at his ankles, which was the point. There was no space to run where he was going.

“Too pretty for his own good,” a gaoler laughed. “Dee, then Blue. After that Federico. The others later.”

“He’s only there two days.”

“Long enough,” the voice said. A fist caught Tycho in the back and he stumbled, ankles burning as he took three quick steps to regain his balance.

“Here we go.”

A clang told Tycho a hatch was opening.

“Don’t fight it,” a voice muttered in his ear, sounding almost sympathetic. “It’s going to happen anyway. So soak it up, and work out who you can take your revenge on later.”

“
What are you telling him?
”

“That he’s going to get his good.”

“Damn right. All that sweet flesh. Too bad I only like slit…”

“And this one’s so pretty,” said another voice. “Put him in a dress and you couldn’t tell the difference.” The man guffawed. “Like to try it. Dee would be good for gold.” He stopped, realised what he’d said. Waited for the inevitable question.

“You saying Dee’s still got coin?”

“He’s got friends. They’ve got coin.”

Hands gripped Tycho’s shoulders and walked him to the edge. A gaoler dragged free his blindfold and Tycho twisted, avoiding a vicious jab to his side. He’d seen someone liver-punched. If all you did was vomit, shit yourself and black out briefly you were doing well.

“Slippery bastard, isn’t he?”

“Yeah,” said Tycho, juggling numbers. Three gaolers here, four guards at the top of the stairs, two levels and three doors between
him and freedom. Acceptable odds, if he could change. Against that, he was shackled with silver wire, stark naked and it was daylight if he made it as far as outside.

And he deserved to be here. All the same, he planned on evening the odds. Grabbing a rusting dagger from a gaoler’s belt, Tycho stepped backwards and dropped into hell, falling for two seconds before hitting something soft, which swore, and dislocated.

“Fuck,” it snarled.

Tycho had landed in an oubliette.

Flooded, except for a tiny island on which three men huddled. Half of the remaining prisoners crouched in stinking water, some of them up to their waists, others to their necks. Against a wall, a huge treadwheel was turned by the rest, who swore and whimpered as they worked. A single torch lit the fetid pit from the far side of a grate high above. That was the trapdoor.

“Which one’s Dee?” Tycho demanded.

“I am, you fuck. And you’re going to die hideously.”

If Prince Alonzo got his way Tycho’s death would undoubtedly be hideous. Since he mended fast and died slowly it would be more hideous than the Regent realised. The man with the dislocated shoulder intended to get there first, however…

“And Blue?”

“What’s it to you?” said a man behind Dee, answering Tycho’s question anyway.

“I guess that makes you Federico?”

The third man scowled in the half darkness. Instinctively, he’d shifted into a street fighter’s stance. He was younger than Dee and Blue, his muscles less wasted and his skin healthier.

“Keep the wheel turning, you bastards…”

Dee’s order had the pump working again. Prisoners climbing from step to step, their chains clanking as the wheel kept the water from rising further and the small island from being drowned.

“I’ll fix your shoulder, boss,” Blue told Dee. “Then you should get some rest. Give your muscles a chance to mend.”

“If you think,” Dee said, “I’ll fall for that.
You get some sleep and I’ll just break him in for you.
You think I’m shitting stupid?”

“Don’t think you’re stupid at all, boss.”

“No,” Federico said. “We don’t think that.” The slipperiness in his voice suggested others did.

“Bugger this.” Slamming his palm into his twisted shoulder, Dee grunted as his arm slid into its socket. “That’s better. Now bring him here. I’ll show you who’s stupid.”

The
bucintoro
, Marco’s ceremonial barge, was scrubbed, painted and newly gilded. Its hull was free of barnacles, the caulking between its planks freshly tarred. New-woven ropes guided its triangular sail, and the lion flag of Serenissima flapped high above. The flag was the height of a man, with St Mark’s winged lion picked out in gold on a white background.

When not flying above the
bucintoro
, the flag lived in a jewelled case behind the altar of San Marco. The duke’s annual marriage to the sea, and his leading an army into battle, were the only reasons to remove it.

On the black throne of the Millioni, Duke Marco IV hummed softly, watching the seagulls that followed his barge. The gulls were hungry for the scraps and fish guts usually found in the wake of fleets this size.

For once the Regent was not centre stage.

He had no right to marry the sea. And Alexa, being a woman, could not. Marco IV would marry the sea for them, and for the whole city and its empire beyond. His mother doubted her son even realised the ring on his little finger, the one he would toss into the Adriatic at a nod from her, was fake.

A good fake, of course.

The lapis was real and the gold pure. The design exact. Even the scratches around the old-fashioned Byzantine setting and across the shank were lovingly recreated. Fake only in that it wasn’t the original. Alexa regretted having to kill one of Venice’s
finest jewellers but regarded it as a price worth paying. Her only worry about offering the sea a perfect replica was that the sea might reject it.

The problem with Westerners was that they fulfilled their rituals carefully, without understanding the reasons behind them. Half of the nobles thought this day stupid superstition. The other half imagined it a gaudy display designed to overawe the
cittadini
and keep the Arsenalotti in their place. None considered what the sea’s rejection of this marriage might mean… Fierce storms at the very least. Ships lost at sea and fishermen returning with their nets empty.

At the lagoon’s mouth, the surrounding flotilla slowed its pace and came to a halt, the oarsmen holding their place against the pull and push of the tide. Only the
bucintoro
went on.

“You have the list of prisoners?” Alonzo asked.

“Yes, my lord.” Roderigo’s voice rang clear across the deck. Tradition demanded Marco free one prisoner in honour of his marriage. Vast sums changed hands, with families desperate to buy freedom for one of their own. Sometimes the money went to someone who could actually influence the choice. More often than not, it made no difference.

“Read it, then.”

The captain bowed. Being one of the Regent’s favourites was a double-edged sword, and sometimes even the handle was too dangerous to hold.

“Federico, an expert forger and murderer. Who claims to have sometimes given aid to this city…” As close as anyone would get to admitting he was a spy. “Giovanni Cisco, salt dealer. Murdered his wife, wrongly. She was not cuckolding him as he suspected. Lord Gandolfo, accused by his enemies of false witness.”

Captain Roderigo’s money was on Gandolfo.

Not literally. He was too close to the Regent to find anyone willing to take his bet. Even old friends assumed he knew something they didn’t.

“Those are the names?”

Tradition demanded three. So three was what they got. Tradition also demanded that question. And that Captain Roderigo answer it. “Those are the names, my lords.”

“Then let our duke show justice.”

Roderigo was thinking how hard Alonzo found it to say those words, acknowledging his nephew’s rule as they did. And wondering whether Marco would be able to repeat the name his mother had just whispered to him, when a sob broke the uneasy silence.

“You have something to say?”

Everyone looked at Duke Marco in shock. Their gazes flicking to the sobbing Desdaio a moment later. Every patrician there knew who she was. Not one had acknowledged her on arrival, although they’d all been careful to recognise Atilo. He was one of the Ten. And, quite possibly, Duchess Alexa’s lover. A fact that might help explain the stiffness between Atilo and the woman beside him.

“Well?” Alexa said.

“Tycho should be included.”

Prince Alonzo raised one eyebrow. “
Who?
” he said.

“The boy you sent to…”

“Do what? We sent where?” Duchess Alexa’s gaze settled on Atilo. He shook his head slightly.

“I don’t know.”

“Atilo’s slave is charged with treason.” Alonzo’s voice was firm. “The sentence for treason is death. It cannot be revoked.”

“Slaves can’t commit treason.”

Someone gasped. Technically, it was true. Slaves could commit murder, rape and steal. All of these counted as treason against their master. But they could not commit treason against the state. This was the act of freemen. Such acts belonged to their masters.

“Do you understand what you’re saying?” Alexa asked.

If treason was proved and the penalty was death, and Atilo’s
slave could not be held responsible, then the only person who could was Atilo.