The Outcast Blade (13 page)

“People generally want me for my weapons.”

“I have a gondola waiting.”

“And I’ll be walking,” Tycho said. “You can join me or we can meet there.”

As they set out for the old wooden bridge at Rialto, where they could cross the Canalasso for the lanes leading south to the
ducal palace, Tycho felt his shoulders tighten. His Assassini training turned on remaining unseen; on embracing the shadows like a lover and spreading them around him like a willing cloak. He hated being visible. Hated it so fiercely he almost
felt
the whispers of
look at him
as he turned into Vecchio San Giovanni and saw children playing football.

It helped that the alleys beyond were narrow and the tenements high. Little direct light reached him in Calle de Madonna although the open quayside of Riva dei Vin unnerved him, with its sunshine beating down on the sullen waters of the Grand Canal to make molten patches of silver.

Crossing at Rialto was hardest.

Ponte Maggiore was the city’s widest bridge and the only one to span the Grand Canal, and they arrived to find the walkway raised to let a flotilla of small boats row a lumbering Genoese cog upstream. Perhaps Tycho pushed through the waiting crowd too hard, because a broad-shouldered man swung round, saw his strangeness and began apologising for being knocked aside.

“Now you see why I avoid daylight.”

“Is it always like this?”

“My looks,” Tycho made himself step aside for a nun, who crossed herself and hurried on, “are unusual even for Venice.”

“And if you look unusual among them…” The lieutenant jerked his chin at the mix of Moors, Mamluks and Mongols who bartered on the Riva del Ferro, their eyes on profit and the next deal. “Then…”

“Yes. Exactly.”

Venice was where worlds met to sell what others lacked. Information, spices and silks, jade from Cathay, weapons, armour. Merchants bet on the next Seljuk harvest, on rates of brigandage along the Silk Road, on discovering new mines in Africa. Every skin tone, shape of the eye and hair colour could be found more than once. Except for his own.

Lord Roderigo was waiting at the top of marble stairs on which Greek statues posed in various states of nudity and disrepair. Most were chipped and a few were armless. Tycho imagined those must be the really old ones.

“You’re late,” Roderigo said.

“We walked.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to.”

“Gentlemen, please…”

Half turning, Tycho saw the Regent in a doorway.

He held a wine glass, which was not unusual, and appeared to be relatively sober, which was. Stepping back, Alonzo ushered Tycho inside. Swords decorated one wall, captured battle flags hung from another. A suit of richly chased Florentine armour stood in the corner. It would be hard to miss the Regent’s history as a
condottiero
.

When the Regent shut the door, Tycho realised he was alone and fully armed, daggers to hand, with someone he’d long wanted to kill. This man had sent him south as a slave. And, despite the claims it was a Republican plot, Tycho imagined he also planned the explosion at St Lazar; unless Lord Roderigo thought of it himself, because Tycho was damn certain Roderigo was involved. The Regent must realise he suspected that? There was something Prince Alonzo didn’t suspect, of course. That Tycho knew he was behind Tycho’s arrival in Venice all those months ago, stripped of his memories and with a single aim…

To kill Alexa.

So why was he here?

“I think we should be friends,” the Regent said.

Taking a sweetened almond, the man popped it into his mouth and looked quizzically through a window into the distance. Tycho wasn’t sure if Alonzo was considering the sweetmeat’s taste or if it was done for effect.

“Really, my lord?”

“Surprising as that must seem.”

The prince turned his back and walked to the window to stare at the glittering lagoon and a dozen ships sweltering impotently in the quarantine line. The early August sun was hot enough for the Molo below to be almost deserted.

“You saw my niece last night.”

“Her new guards are your spies?”

Alonzo laughed. “One of them. And I had a
cittadino
boy frequent your hazard games until you abandoned those. I have to say you cost me a fortune covering his lost bets and Antonio assures me he is lucky. Do you cheat?”

“I find it hard to lose at anything.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” There was amusement in the Regent’s voice, although Tycho wondered if it reached his eyes.

“How many hidden crossbows cover me?”

“None. What we must talk about can’t be reported and even I draw the line at slaughtering half a dozen of my own men afterwards.”

Turning from the window, Alonzo half filled a wine glass with compacted snow he said was brought down from the Altus inside bales of straw, and poured white wine into the glass until it brimmed. Then he handed the glass to Tycho and prepared another for himself. The real discussion had begun.

“Why did my niece visit you?”

“My lord…?

“If I’m to trust you then you must answer my questions clearly. So I’ll try again… Why did my niece visit you last night?

“She came to my house to shout at me. At least, I think that’s why she was there. She left before I discovered any other reasons.”

“That sounds like Giulietta.”

Tycho sipped the iced wine and realised it was good. As if Prince Alonzo would drink anything else. “Lady Desdaio had visited earlier.”

“As she does.”

The Regent was smiling, leaning forward slightly, and appeared
to be giving Tycho his full attention. Yet Tycho couldn’t shake the feeling there was a darker purpose to his words.

“We’re not lovers.”

“You’re the only man in Venice who’d admit that. A thousand would happily claim they’d been between her thighs.”

“She’s a friend.”

“Just as well. Atilo would kill you.” The Regent thought about that. “He’d probably kill both of you. Could he kill you, do you think?”

“It’s possible.”

“But by no means certain?”

Tycho shrugged, talking a second sip of wine.

“I’ll bear that in mind, too.” The Regent sounded as if he meant it.

“Why am I here, my lord?”

“Besides the chance to earn the favour of a prince?”

When Tycho said nothing, the Regent sighed theatrically, chewed at a handful of almonds and washed down the fragments with iced wine.

“You’ve heard about Sigismund’s suggestion?”

“You want me to kill the envoy?” For the first time since being woken Tycho felt the day might be heading in a direction he liked. Killing the messenger wouldn’t change the message but it sent a strong reply.

“No. I want you to listen.”

Tycho couldn’t help but scowl.

“Is it true you and Prince Leopold were friends?”

Since Prince Alonzo had been the man who sent Tycho to kill Leopold this was a loaded question. In sparing the
krieghund
’s life Tycho turned traitor. “We were friends by the end,” Tycho said carefully.

“And he died well?”

“Magnificently. He went to his death so Giulietta could live. His men died as bravely. It was glorious…”

“Good man.”

Tycho had known Alonzo would approve.

The Regent was a powder-keg mix of spoilt child, pampered prince and experienced soldier. Had his talents not rotted in his elder brother’s shadow, and were he not kept from the throne by that brother’s idiot son, his life might have been exemplary. Understanding this didn’t make him any less devious, simply easier to read.

“They say you fought beside him. That you fought…” Alonzo looked puzzled, too puzzled. “No one really says how you fought. Only that you won the battle.” His eyes narrowed when Tycho simply nodded. “You killed many?”

“Enough.”

“How many?”

“I didn’t count. There was no time and less point. Every time a Mamluk tried to stop me I killed him until there was no one left.” He could see the Regent was unsure about that answer.

“You fought in a blind fury?”

“Ice-cold,” Tycho said. “As if I wasn’t even there.”

“Ahh…” Reaching for his wine glass, the Regent allowed himself a sip. “It seems Alexa is telling the truth. She saw your fight in one of her dreams. Which, I must say, are becoming more frequent…”

“My lord. Why am I here?”

“Because I’ve wasted a month wondering whether or not to have you killed. And, though I may regret this, I’ve decided you’re more use alive. Emperor Sigismund’s suggestion is…” Alonzo sighed.

“Unhelpful?”

The Regent crammed almonds into his mouth, chewing noisily.
How much of this is calculated?
Tycho wondered.

“I’m going to be honest,” said Alonzo, answering Tycho’s question. Everything about this meeting was calculated. “Venice cannot afford to have Giulietta marry Leopold’s brother.”

Tycho waited to be told why.

“It will upset Byzantium. That’s the first. The second is it’s a small step from her marrying Frederick to Sigismund suggesting his bastard become duke and Giulietta duchess, thus bringing Venice under German influence. He’ll probably suggest Leopold’s son become heir.”

This time when Alonzo reached for his glass it was to empty it and pour himself another. That done, he put it on the table and turned to Tycho. “But there’s a problem with that, isn’t there?”

Tycho could think of several.

“Gods,” Alonzo snapped. “You play your cards close. Don’t blame you, I suppose. You and I
know
the brat isn’t Leopold’s, don’t we? You said as much at the banquet.”

“You’re suggesting he’s mine?”

Prince Alonzo looked at him strangely.

“Is that what you’re suggesting? That I’m Leo’s father?”

The Regent’s heavy face broke into a grin and he pulled the rest of the sweetened almonds towards him. “Dr Crow was right,” he said. “You’re good at this. Very good indeed. That’s even better.”

Prince Alonzo’s proposal was simple. The newly made Sir Tycho would woo his niece, relying for favour on their shared experiences, her unhappiness and Tycho’s friendship with her late husband.

He would bring her to the point of accepting his proposal and the Regent would quietly let it be known that Tycho had fathered her child. A shocking lapse on her part, obviously. But since the whole of Venice had already convinced itself Tycho was the bastard of a prince… And there were rumours that he and Lady Giulietta had been lovers aboard the
San Marco
.

“I’ll have the Council start proposing she accept Sigismund’s suggestion. Give her a week to get desperate and then make your move. I’m relying on you to be subtle.”

Around Giulietta?

His tongue always became lead.

If Alonzo’s plan worked, Sigismund would lose interest in the baby. In return, Tycho would have the Regent’s favour, climb the ladder of Venetian society and see his name in
The Golden Book
, that list of nobles with rights to sit in the inner council. No one would refuse this to the husband of a Millioni princess. Tycho could look forward to a secure future. A favoured future. A future in which he could count the Regent as a friend… And in which, Tycho imagined, the Regent believed he could control his niece through his new-found friendship with her future husband.

Walking home through alleys that looked both familiar and strange in the late afternoon sunlight, Tycho had the feeling Prince Alonzo believed he’d already agreed to the plan. The Regent was dishonest, self-interested and devious. Tycho had no doubt of this. But he’d just offered Tycho what he wanted more than anything else in the world –
Giulietta
.

So maybe he had agreed after all.

“You’ve heard about the demon?”

Tycho looked at Atilo’s page. The boy was growing, his shoulders were broadening. Training with Atilo had put muscle on his slight frame. Lady Desdaio obviously saw to it he was properly fed.

“Your master knows you’re here?”

The boy stopped, shuffled his feet for a second and resumed walking. Tycho took that as a no. Lord Atilo didn’t know where he was.

“Lady Desdaio knows.”

“She does?”

Pietro nodded fiercely, devotion in his eyes.

“She said not to trouble the master with my every move.”

As an apprentice assassin, the boy had every second Saturday of the month off. Tycho should have realised he’d find Pietro waiting at his door as evening fell. “Anyway. My lord is busy in Council.”

Pietro sounded proud to be serving a member of the Ten, as well he might. It was a major step up for a street boy. One Tycho had made happen earlier that spring. He had the boy’s friendship whether he wanted it or not.

“He’s considering Sigismund’s proposal?”

“Indeed. My lord is barely home.”

So, Atilo was dancing attendance on Duchess Alexa, the woman from whose bed he’d been banished? Desdaio would find that hard. If only because the Moor’s approval was the star that carried her through the world’s disdain. “Is there any date for Lord Atilo’s own marriage?”

Pietro’s mouth set to a tight line.

It was right Pietro showed loyalty to his master; and that he was devoted to Desdaio was a given. He was just old enough to be her son had she married at the same age as her friends. It was his conflicting loyalty to Tycho that troubled him.

“It’s fine,” Tycho promised.

Pietro relaxed. And in the narrowness of an almost deserted alley a few minutes later, Tycho heard a double echo to their feet, which had fallen into step as the footsteps of friends sometimes do. He counted down from fifty.

“Who’s following us?”

Tycho had to grab Pietro’s head to stop him turning to look. Ahead was a bridge that would take them across Rio di San Felice to Lady Giulietta’s house. Around them evening crowds were spilling from a tavern door.

“Walk on.”

The boy did as he was told.

A minute later, in front of families leaving late mass, Tycho snapped out Pietro’s name. The boy looked up to be cuffed lightly across the face. As Tycho did so, he tripped Pietro with a sweep of his foot. It happened so fast anyone watching would have thought his slap felled the boy.