The Outcast Blade (21 page)

A kick at the door made her step back.

“Wait…” Iaco’s voice came from beyond, sounding sly. “My lord, this is not seemly. Talk to my lady when your fury has cooled.”

“You
know
she betrayed me.”

“There may be a simple explanation,” Iacopo said. “I might be wrong in what I saw. I might have misunderstood. It was dark, my lord.”

“It’s no use…” Atilo snarled. “I know the truth when I hear it.”

“
What am I meant to have done?
”

“Where were you tonight?”

“Here…” Desdaio shouldn’t have faltered. People like her were bad liars; and hers was a life of little lies. Her lips had twisted and her expression become shame-faced. It was as well she had the door to hide her.

“You swear it?”

“My lord…”

“You swear it on your soul? May it destroy your hope of salvation for ever if you lie. Do you?”

“Atilo, my lord…”

“Swear it.”

“Why?” Desdaio wailed.

“Because I want to hear you damn yourself.”

This was obviously an Atilo unknown to her. Not the warrior who’d faced down Prince Alonzo and asked for Tycho’s life on her behalf. Nor the serious, poetry-quoting suitor who’d wooed her. This man had sacked cities and hung mutineers. This was Duke Marco’s Admiral of the Middle Sea.

“I have done nothing wrong.”

“Why would I believe you this time?” His voice was bitter. “I trusted you once when you’d betrayed me.”

“Nothing happened.”

“You lied about going to his room.”

“I told you the truth.”

“Having lied first. Show me the shift you put on this morning and the handkerchief I gave you. The linen one with Maltese lace and your initials.”

Lady Desdaio put her hand to her mouth. She clearly wanted to say something but the words weren’t so much not coming as stuck in her throat. She looked locked into panic. “Why?” she managed.

“Because I’m asking you.”

“
How…?
” It was a whisper.

Alexa knew what Desdaio wanted to ask. How did Atilo know
she’d lost it…? Except the little fool hadn’t lost it, had she? The only way her beloved could know was if someone had followed Desdaio and told him. And if someone had been following then that person knew where she’d been.

And so did he, clearly.

“Let’s talk about this in the morning.”

It was the wrong thing for her to say. A heavy thud shook her door on its hinges, dropping plaster like snow to the boards at her feet. And in the fall of snow Desdaio’s happiness withered and died.

Alexa was worried enough to sweep her fingers across the water in her bowl and pull a small boy’s face from the broken reflection. She wanted to stay at Ca’ il Mauros but she wanted to track Pietro more.

Where was Tycho when she could use him?

Ringing the little bell on her table Alexa told her maid to wake one of her spies. The spy should discover Dr Crow’s whereabouts and report straight back. A palace messenger was also to be woken and told to wait to discover if she would need him.

It was a difficult balance between observing and changing, between discovering what she needed to discover about Alonzo and stopping a man she’d taken to her bed making a dangerous fool of himself. Alexa understood the temptation of simply letting what wanted to happen happen. Just as she understood that every change came at a price and a short-term gain could cause a long-term loss. The Venetians were so used to thinking in terms of gold that they often forgot other people dealt in more complex currencies.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Swinging round, Pietro put his hand to his belt, ripped free the blade he carried and dropped to a fighter’s crouch. Only to have the dagger swept from his fingers with a roundhouse kick that left him clutching his wrist.

Duchess Alexa recognised his opponent instantly.

Silver thimbles danced at the end of her hair and she could swear the Nubian girl had blood on her hands. Licking her fingers, Amelia rubbed them on her ragged dress. Boy and girl stared at each other.

“You should be in bed.”

“So should you.”

Glancing at the new moon, the Nubian said, “No. Tonight is mine, and tomorrow I leave for Paris. Lord Atilo’s orders.”

“To kill the king?”

Amelia snorted. “To kill the only doctor who might cure him of madness. A mad king of France is a safe king. Although with the Valois how can you tell? Go home, let me about my business.”

“
Lady Desdaio…
”

“What about her?”

“My lord Atilo is drunk and shouting for her. He means her harm and Iacopo is behind this. I must find Sir Tycho.”

The Nubian girl’s gaze sharpened. “What’s Tycho got to do with this?” Her fingers became hooks in Pietro’s shoulder. “Tell me.”

“Lord Atilo thinks Tycho bedded her. He’s drunk and beside himself with anger. He has…”

Amelia waited.

“Blood on a handkerchief.”

“Sweet mother.” The Nubian checked to make sure Pietro was serious, and then the boy found himself being dragged through Dorsoduro towards San Polo at speeds that intrigued Alexa. The girl used back alleys the duchess didn’t know existed, took
sottoportegos
so dark they looked like mouths to hell and cut through squares full of Nicoletti bravoes, who glanced over and looked away.

A few crossed themselves.

Before Alexa realised it, the Nubian girl was hammering at a black-painted door. Not bothering with the knocker, she pounded her fist to a rhythm Alexa suspected was an Assassini signal. When Tycho answered the door he was wide awake and fully dressed. In his hand was a dagger. Behind him hovered a dark-haired servant who returned upstairs the moment Tycho ordered.

“Invite me in,” Amelia demanded.

Startled by the sound of a knock at her own door, Alexa covered her jade bowl with a cloth despite knowing only she could see its other reflection. A spy had returned to say Dr Crow slept in his own bed.

“Fetch me a pen, ink and paper,” Alexa ordered. “Tell the messenger he’s to take a note to the alchemist.”

Pushing Pietro ahead of her, Amelia entered Tycho’s house as if she owned it; turned in a swift circle and sniffed the hall air like
an animal, her nose wrinkling and her mouth twisting. There was a strangeness to her eyes Tycho barely recognised.

“Did you fuck Desdaio?”

“Did I what?”

“Didn’t think so,” she said. “Not your type. You’d need to be a poor little rich boy who wanted to fuck his mummy. So what did you do to her?”

Tycho stared at her.

A slow gaze that saw her for the first time. Tycho had the sense of being trapped in a bubble where time moved differently and colours changed to new hues. A rattle overhead made Amelia and Pietro glance up. The noise grew louder.

“What’s that?”

“First tell me what this is about.”

Amelia did. Relaying what Pietro had apparently told her; but using shorter words and briefer sentences. Amelia was angry, viciously angry. And it was obvious to Tycho that she loved her mistress. Desdaio had that effect on people.

“What did you do to her?”

“
Nothing
,” Tycho said fiercely.

He led Amelia upstairs to where a girl lay hunched on a bed, Pietro trailing after them until he stepped through the door.

“
How did you…?
”

Before Tycho could stop him, Pietro threw himself across the room and wrapped his arms tight around the girl, burying his face in her neck. At which she twisted her head, opened her mouth to bite and hesitated…

Intelligence flickered in her eyes.

“Thank you,” the boy said. “Thank you. Thank you…” There was such devotion in his voice that Tycho looked away.

“This is my sister,” Pietro told Amelia.

“Your sister is dead.”

The boy shrugged.

“You let
this
feed on Desdaio?”

Pietro obviously didn’t understand the turn the conversation had taken and Tycho wanted to keep it that way. Tycho also needed to consider how freely Amelia talked about feeding. She was not whatever he was. He would have recognised that. All the same, it would require thought. Just not now.

“Desdaio offered.”

“She would.” Amelia rolled her eyes.

Just don’t
, Alexa thought.
Really, don’t be that stupid
.

Desdaio’s fingers trembled as she found the key and turned it until the lock clicked with a finality Alexa knew was in her own imagination.

On Desdaio’s face were written questions to which she would never now get answers. Why had she believed she could find happiness here? How could she have imagined she’d escape the bars life erected around her?

“It is unlocked, my lord.”

Atilo tried the handle as if not believing her. Light from a lamp he carried cut like a knife round the edges of her door as it began to open. Stepping to one side, she indicated that Atilo should enter.

“Iacopo remains there,” she said.

“He is my witness.”

“To what?”

“Show me the handkerchief I gave you.”

Desdaio might have been one of his servants who’d failed in her duties, his tone was so brutal. Her chin came up and fire entered her eyes. Only to fade as she accepted what she’d always half known.

Happiness was not hers.

“It’s lost.”

“That’s it,” Atilo growled. “
It’s lost?
”

“What do you want me to do, my lord? Pretend to search for it? Turn my wooden chest upside down? Claim that Amelia,
wherever she is, must have stolen it? Along with the undergown that is also missing?”

Digging into his pocket, Atilo found the rag. “Do you deny I gave you this?”

“I’ve never denied the truth in my life.”

“How can you say…?”

“Not when it mattered,” Desdaio said, refusing to let him finish. “Not when it was a matter of honour.”

“You talk to me of honour?”

“And you talk to me?” she spat back. “Who goes running back to the duchess’s bed when called, fucks his servants and uses brothels?” Desdaio glared at him. “You think I don’t know about Amelia? About your whores?”

Desdaio’s voice broke as the duchess was still digesting that. Her voice broke, her courage failed and tears put out the fire in her eyes. Atilo began pushing his way into her room. Iacopo followed.

The land gate to Ca’ il Mauros was unlocked. That was warning in itself that something was badly wrong. A light burnt in the entrance hall and in the kitchen that Atilo had moved down from the attics.

The house itself was in utter silence.

“Upstairs,” Amelia said.

The stairs flowed beneath Tycho’s feet and he was at Desdaio’s door, his fingers twisting the handle before he registered Pietro behind him.

“No,” Amelia insisted. It was too late.

Twisting past, Pietro halted at the tableau in front of him. Desdaio was slumped in a chair, with urine spreading in a circle on the boards around her feet. Her throat was purple with finger bruises and her lip was split. It was Atilo’s dagger in her chest that froze the boy in his tracks.

“Don’t,” said Tycho.

Desdaio’s gaze met his.

Wrapping her fingers round the dagger’s handle she dragged it free. The man who’d stabbed her barely noticed the blood begin to flow between his beloved’s fingers. All his attention was on Tycho in the doorway.

“
You dare come here?
”

In Atilo’s bloody hand was the companion to the dagger he’d used on Desdaio. In true Venetian tradition the man had strangled her, then stabbed her to stop her ghost passing into him through the touch of flesh on flesh.

“She’s still alive,” Amelia said.

“Not for much longer.” Pietro’s voice trembled. He was holding Lady Desdaio’s hand, stroking her fingers, his eyes locked on hers; the tears rolling down his face.

“How could you?” Atilo asked.

“Do what?”

“Dishonour me.”

His beloved was dying, the Assassini were disgraced and maybe destroyed and this man still thought he had honour? When Tycho took a dagger from his belt he knew he intended to use it.

“Don’t I deserve an answer?”

“You deserve nothing and
her
honour is untouched. I don’t know what Iacopo told you but nothing happened tonight that besmirched her.”

“Her maiden blood…”

“
What?
”

Atilo dragged a rag from his sleeve and Tycho recognised the handkerchief Lady Desdaio had used to stop the bleeding.

“Where did you get that?”

“Iaco found it. He followed her to your house. Saw her discard this in the dirt on her way home. I gave her this handkerchief. And she used it to…”

“She bled herself.”

“You lie.” Atilo’s voice trembled.

“No,” said Tycho, stepping forward. “I don’t. You have killed the thing you loved. What else can you expect from a man who betrayed his family for a place at Duke Marco’s side?”

Atilo’s face tightened. “It was not like that.”

“It was always like that. Not only have you killed the person
you loved, you have killed the one person in Venice who truly loved you.”

“Iacopo said…”

“He lied.”

Atilo did nothing to block Tycho’s blow.

As Tycho’s hilt thumped to a halt, his blade deep in the Moor’s chest, Atilo muttered, “Finish it.
Always finish it
.”

And Tycho cut his heart in two. Although they both knew it was already broken.

Iacopo’s pleas for mercy could barely be heard over Pietro’s sobs.

“Keep the bastard quiet.”

Amelia’s knife edge against Iacopo’s throat did the job. “Just say the word,” she told Tycho. “I’ll be happy to oblige.”

Pietro had found his sister and was losing the closest thing he’d had to a mother in the same day. He knelt at Desdaio’s feet, his look so anguished even the dying woman had been forced to turn her face away.

“Please,” Pietro begged. “Help her.”

When Tycho dropped to his knees Desdaio tried to look around him to where Atilo lay. A single tear on her perfect cheek matched a drop of blood on her lip. Touching the drop, Tycho felt his throat sour.

“I can save you.”