The Fallen Blade: Act One of the Assassini (43 page)

But it was the storm that stood between them and the Dalmatian coast, with its cliffs, endless small islands and rocky shoals. Italy’s own coast was a day in the other direction given wind and luck, much longer if luck was bad and the wind against them.

Captain Malo had offered two alternatives.

Hack down the mast and ride out the storm or run before it. That had been before he took another look at the wall of rain and declared he now lacked enough time for the first. So he suggested the second.

Fat-bellied, old and tired, the Greek was resigned to lugging his ship up and down sea lanes that faster vessels used daily. The
Seahorse
had been modern once. Now she was a patchwork of replaced planks. Her caulking needed redoing and she required new tree nails, those thin lengths of dowel holding her sides in place. Most days it a miracle she still floated.

He’d like to keep it that way.

Ruined galleys were found after every storm. So were dead slaves. Chained to their oars and floating or washed up on beaches among driftwood and splintered planks from the ships they’d served.

Running from the Dalmatian coast meant trying to outrun the storm, and widening the violent and nasty seas between the
Seahorse
and those cliffs. The odds weren’t great. But they were better than trying for port.

“Find land,” the boy said. “That’s an order.”

“I’m captain.”

“Not much longer if you don’t do as I say.” The boy’s words carried over a lull in the wind. “We return to port now.”

Beside Tycho, the Mamluk hawked on the deck and spat words in his own language. Tycho didn’t need a translator to know it was a curse.

“That’s bad?”

“He’s going to get us killed, snow djin.”

Adif had taken to calling him that on the first day. After Tycho unhooked his makeshift awning as night fell, and let the doublet drop from his shoulders to reveal snow-white skin.

“If they unchain us, grab an oar and kick for land.”

“Water will kill me.”

The Mamluk hissed and then nodded. Cross with himself for expecting anything else. “Then I wish you a quick death.”

Tycho and Adif sat either side of an aisle on the last bench of all. Ahead of them sat the other slaves. Immediately behind, an open-fronted shelter of canvas over wooden hoops was were Captain Malo and the owner’s son slept.

Like everyone else on the ship, they shat over the side.

The difference was they did so at will. Adif and Tycho were restricted to pissing themselves where they sat, and shitting each morning, when their hands were briefly unchained. Not all of the slaves could wait that long.

“Arnaud, make him.”

The slave master was midway in age between the boy and the captain. His face once handsome but his eyes hard and his temper brutal.

“You heard the boss,” he said.

“He’s not the boss,” Captain Malo said. “I am.”

The whip cracked and Tycho heard the captain stagger back, hissing in pain and outrage. “Return to harbour,” the slave master ordered.

“If we try, we’ll die.”

“What’s your plan then?” the boy demanded.

“Outrun it,” Captain Malo said. “While we can. If we can.” He spat, angrily. “Which I now doubt. We could head south, maybe. See if we can edge past it. But in the dark…”

“The storm’s too big,” said Tycho, without thinking.

“Who asked you?”

He heard a whip crack a split second after pain ripped across his shoulders, tearing oiled silk and skin. And then Arnaud was on the raised walkway that ran along the aisle. His boot scraping down the side of Tycho’s cheek.

A slave on the row ahead turned round to see what was happening and took the rest of the slave master’s anger.

“Enough,” Captain Malo snapped.

The slave master raised his whip, and gasped as Adif suddenly slammed his unchained hand into Arnaud’s knee. An awkward blow, but it struck lucky, dropping the man to his knees. When he came upright he was holding a knife.

“This is where you die.”

There was a dignity to Adif’s face as he braced himself to face the blade. And Tycho suddenly understood that the man had forced the quarrel, seeking a quick death instead of drowning. “Good choice,” he said.

“
Wait.
”

Anger fought obedience as Arnaud hesitated at the boy’s order.

“We’ve had nothing but shit since we took that thing on board.” The owner’s son meant Tycho. “Kill him after that one.”

The slave master was readying his blade, Adif still waited, refusing to show fear. Captain Malo’s face said he knew it ended here.

“Die well,” Adif said.

“No,” said Tycho. “It doesn’t work like that.”

Gripping silver-topped spike that nailed him to his oar, he screamed as he ripped it out, feeling flesh sizzle. And then standing, he blocked Arnaud’s dagger with his forearm, and jammed the nail under the man’s chin. Slamming it into his skull with a slap of his burning hand.

The slave master tumbled sideways.

As the slave opposite grabbed the owner’s son by one ankle, Captain Malo elbowed the boy hard in the throat, ordered the slave to let go, and flung the boy overboard to drown. “Idiot,” he said.

“
Right
,” shouted Tycho. “
Turn her to the storm.
”

“Reckon you’re a sailor now?” Captain Malo snarled.

“I intend to live,” Tycho said, surprising himself when he realised it was true. “At least, I don’t intend to die drowning. Tried it once. Never again.”

“He’s a djinn. Listen to him.”

“Well,” Captain Malo said, “he’s sure as shit not human. My lord Atilo warned me of that.”

Tycho felt his guts knot. He’d hoped Atilo felt some affection. Something behind the coldness in his face as he’d hammered the silver-topped spike in place himself.

“
Turn her. Then lose the oars.
”

“What?”

“Lose them.”

“We can stow them,” Captain Malo protested. Iron rests either side let the oars be lifted when the galley was under sail.

“It won’t be enough.”

The sea terrified Tycho. The thought of being swallowed was unbearable. He’d died, and still survived the canal in Venice. What if he sank, died and lived now? Water took his strength. Only the earth bag beneath him kept him sane. He’d be trapped in a watery half-life forever.

“You want to die?” he shouted. The silver-topped spike still jutted from Arnaud’s skull, but Tycho had the man’s dagger.

Captain Malo shook his head. “I’ll get the key.”

“No time.”

Oars were removed in harbour to stop slaves rowing away when the crew were ashore. At sea, oars were chained in place. “Turn into the storm,” Tycho ordered.

“Do it,” Captain Malo shouted.

Slaves churned oars in the gravid waves. Those on one side rowing forward. Those on the other rowing back, until the
Seahorse
turned into the wind just as the rain arrived in a rushing wall.

“Hold her steady…”

Grabbed Adif’s oar chain, Tycho snapped it and pushed the oar through the galley’s side. He managed to clear two thirds the
Seahorse
’s length before a huge wave struck, breaking over them. It hit straight on, half lifting the galley, but catching the still-chained oars of those at the front.

The
Seahorse
screamed, wooden ribs twisting and dowels shrieking as they were dragged from their holes. Oak splintered and split. The noise as she fought the sea for the right to stay in one piece was unbearable.

It was a battle between shipwrights now dead and the sea, who wanted their handiwork to join them. Mixed in with the rage of the ship, the howl of the wind and the drumming of the rain were the screams of slaves nursing broken limbs or shouting prayers.

No god would lower his hand to pluck them from the storm. Endless promises might be made. Debts racked up. They meant nothing. The only thing that could save the
Seahorse
was blind luck and the skill of those long dead.

“I’ll take it,” Tycho said.

Captain Malo glanced from the tiller to the strange youth in front of him.

Rain glued Tycho’s braids to his skull. His ghostlike flesh glowed every time lightning flickered. His eyes… Tycho could see from the captain’s face that something about his eyes terrified the man.

He hadn’t time to work out what.

Stepping forward, Tycho grabbed the rudder bar.

Fighting it, he kept the
Seahorse
into the wind. Muscles locked, sinews popping. It was touch and go if the tiller or his wrists broke first. He felt sicker than ever, numb with shock as a wall of water the height of San Marco raced towards him. And then the second wave struck.

“You’ve heard the news from Cyprus?”

“How could I…” When the news is so fresh a scroll lies curling in your desk and the wax from its broken seal still sticks to your gloves? “No, my lord,” Atilo said. “I haven’t.”

Alonzo sighed, more heavily than he needed. “You’re our spymaster within the city. Our Blade within and without. We should be able to rely on you for knowledge like this.”

“My apologies.”

“I know,” said Alonzo, “life has been tricky for you recently. That failure with your apprentice. The disappearance of Prince Leopold’s body. Those men you lost last year. Unless it was the year before. If you feel the burden of your job is too heavy. That perhaps old age is…”

“My lord.”

The Regent paused expectantly.

“I work for this city day and night. All my energy goes tracking its enemies; recording what happens on the streets; gathering information on those who pretend to be one thing but are another…”

Atilo stopped, cursing that he’d walked straight into that one.

“And you must be tired,” Alonzo said. “Rightfully exhausted by your burden. This is why important news slipped past you. As I said, if you wish for the freedom to take life more easily at your advancing age…”

“All I wish, my lord, is to be allowed to continue.”

He could remember what his own father, the idiot astronomer, said. Young men fantasise about death and fear life. Old men fear death and fantasise about youth. Atilo had dismissed it fiercely, then not so fiercely, right up to the day he discovered it to be true. He sighed.

“You’re certain? That you simply wish to do your duty?”

“Absolutely certain.”

The Regent smiled happily. “I can’t tell you,” he said, “how glad I am to hear it. That new boy of yours settling in all right?”

A little dig. Just enough to let Atilo know Alonzo had no plans to let Tycho’s reprieve go without mention.

“He has potential.”

“That’s what you said about the last one.”

“My lord, whatever I failed in, I stand by my claim he had potential.”

“To be the greatest assassin of all time? To be your chosen successor as the duke’s Blade itself. Yes, I’ve heard of your plans for that troublesome young man. I must admit to being surprised.

Heard from whom? From the duchess…?

Surely not. Alexa might have banished Atilo from her bed, but not so far from her favour that she’d share secrets with her hated brother-in-law. There had to be a spy in Atilo’s household. Amelia was possible. Iacopo? He wouldn’t want to think that likely.

“My lord, may I ask how you know?”

“Of course you may,” Alonzo answered. Obviously delighted at the thought of Atilo, Serenissima’s spymaster and chief assassin,
asking him how he’d discovered such secrets. “Lady Desdaio told me.”

“She…?”

Atilo shut his mouth, wondering where Alexa was and why he was alone with the Regent, without even the duke swinging his feet and humming to provide legitimacy for this meeting.

“Not in so many words,” Alonzo added. “She said you seemed surprisingly fond of him for you. I simply read between her words. Although your response confirms it.” The Regent beamed, pleased with his cunning.

“My lord… The reason I’m here?”

“All in good time,” Alonzo said, picking a honey-glazed almond from a Murano glass salver and sucking off its sweetness. “The duchess would be upset if I started without her.”

As if on cue, halberds slammed on the marble outside as guards came to attention and a door swung open. Duchess Alexa took one look at Alonzo behind the table and Atilo standing there in front of it and scowled.

“I thought the meeting was at six.”

“Did we say that?” The Regent sounded surprised. “I confess, I thought it was half an hour earlier. That was the time my lord Atilo arrived.”

“Having been called by your guards.”

Prince Alonzo smiled. “Perhaps we should start,” he said. “Now that you are here at last.”

The Regent pretended not to notice the tightness of Alexa’s shoulders, or her awareness that, in choosing the desk, he’d left her to stand or take one of the lesser chairs. “My lady.”