The Outcast Blade (36 page)

Have a look at…?
This was ridiculous.

“I don’t want a look at their bloody fleet.”

Aunt Alexa sighed. “My dear,” she said. “We have to house Prince Nikolaos somewhere. And it’s not as if you’re using the place.”

“Ca’ Friedland is
not
yours to offer. It belonged to Leopold. It belongs to me now. You have no rights over it.” Giulietta felt her stomach knot in anger.

“My dear…”

“Don’t you
my dear
me.”

Giulietta glared at the offending ships in the lagoon.

Frederick’s high-prowed barge in the northern style, flying a black eagle on a blood-red background. And Nikolaos’s gilded Byzantine trireme, so glittering it made Marco’s
bucintoro
look like a night-soil barge. She hated them both.

Hated everything they represented.

On her aunt’s desk were letters from the emperors. Both demanded she marry their son. Both claimed first rights over Venice’s heiress and stressed their ancient ties to the city,
mentioned the many advantages marriage would bring, and left implicit the threat of what would happen if their demand was refused.

Giulietta knew she was trapped.

She wasn’t stupid. She’d always known she was an asset, something to be traded. Leopold’s death was supposed to free her from that.

The Council of Ten had bought her time by announcing they needed two days to consider the merits of both suits. Their answer would be given the morning after next. Since to choose one made an enemy of the other and a Byzantine fleet waited off the mouth of the lagoon, just as Frederick’s army camped along the mainland shore, there was little between them.

They would have to hope the power of one provided counterweight to the enmity of the other. All that remained was for Giulietta to choose which she wanted, and Venice would
live with the consequences of her choice
.

How could Aunt Alexa even say that?

The Regent had left this bit of the conversation to them, arguing that the two women would find discussing delicate matters easier without him. Their contempt for his cowardice was the only thing on which they agreed.

“You have to choose.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Giulietta, listen to me…”

“Why would I listen to you?” Swinging round, Giulietta glared at her aunt, summoning the loathing she’d felt a second earlier for the ships. “
You
had me abducted.” She said the words coldly, deliberately. Each one a slap.

Alexa froze.

When she unfroze it was to lift her veil and stare Giulietta full in the face, as if daring her to lie. “Who told you that?”

“Tycho.”

“A dangerous young man.” Alexa’s lips twisted. “But you refused
to believe him at first, obviously. Because why would I have you abducted…?”

She sounded older than Giulietta remembered.

“I mean, why would I have my favourite niece abducted the night before she were due to leave Venice, in tears, for a marriage she would hate, in which she’d be required to kill her husband after he’d bedded her.”

Lady Giulietta felt her eyes prickle.

“You knew I was unhappy?”

“The whole palace knew. I simply decided to do something about it. I couldn’t tell you because I needed you unhappy. If you’d suddenly stopped being miserable it would have made Alonzo suspicious. I couldn’t risk that.”

“Why didn’t you…”

“I’ve just told you why. It was a good plan, too. Mercenaries disguised as Mamluks. A pavilion in the Mongol garden my husband gave me when we married to hide you. My old lady’s maid to look after you.”

“I’m sorry,” said Giulietta, remembering how the woman died trying to protect her. Her husband also. “Leopold killed them.”

“I know.”

“He was going to kill me, too.”

She wanted to say more but couldn’t decide how to frame it. Although Aunt Alexa was obviously prepared to wait until she found her courage and her tongue. “I guess he decided I was worth more to him alive.”

“And maybe it was more complicated than that.”

Lady Giulietta ignored her. “He kept me caged in an upstairs room, until I escaped the night… The night you captured Tycho.”

Looking into Aunt Alexa’s unveiled face Giulietta realised how much went unsaid, how much she knew but didn’t dare share. She’d grown up. Not as much as she thought, perhaps not as much as she should have done, but she’d grown up all the same. Having a child did that.

The one single light in any darkness.

“You’re thinking of Leo?”

Lady Giulietta nodded.

“Now you understand how I feel about Marco. Every time I look at him, I see all his father’s weaknesses and none of his strengths. It breaks my heart… Can you tell me yet who Leo’s father is?”

Lady Giulietta shook her head.

“Sometime between the original abduction and Leopold’s attack you met Leo’s father?”

“I met him before.”

“Tycho?”

“Why do you say that?”

“This tension between you. He has a claim on your soul. The kind a young girl’s first lover…”

“Tycho is not Leo’s father.”

“Then who is?” The words were sharp.

“I cannot say.”

“Giulietta…”

“
I cannot say
. Don’t you understand?”

Giulietta fought as Alexa grabbed her face and turned it to the candlelight. Whatever she found there shocked her so deeply her grip slackened and she barely scowled when Giulietta slapped her hand aside. By then Giulietta had reached the door. Not even bothering to greet Nero who hung from a picture frame.

“Wait,” Alexa said.

“I’m going back to Eleanor’s room.”

“I can have my guard prevent you leaving.”

“And I can call for help.” Beyond the window dark spread across the lagoon. “And your guards will die because Tycho will come. Wherever I am. Wherever he is. He will come.”

“Ask Tycho about the prisoner he questioned.”

“What prisoner?”

“Before you become too infatuated, ask him what he did to
the last of the assassins after the banquet for Frederick. And remember, that’s the man you’re in love with. You’d be better off with Frederick. Nikolaos, less so. Though we could always have him killed later.”

“I’m not going to…”

“
Listen to me
.” Alexa said. “The Byzantine fleet blockades the lagoon. The army Sigismund sent with Frederick controls the rim. The poor in the city are already going hungry. How long do you think we can hold out?”

Giulietta shrugged.

“I’ve fought for years to keep this city independent but that’s no longer possible and, much as I hate to say it, your Uncle Alonzo agrees. He favours the Byzantines slightly. I hate them both equally. Frederick will make a better husband, and Nikolaos’s father a less demanding ally.”

“Aunt Alexa…”

“The choice is yours. Venice’s fate is in your hands.”

“And what,” Giulietta asked, “did Venice do when my fate was in its hands?” She was pleased with herself for not slamming the door.

“My lady…”

“
What?
”

“Sir Tycho is in there.”

“Then let me in immediately.”

The young guard twisted under her gaze, wondering if he dared object again. All he said was, “Yes, my lady.”

There were now as many rumours about Tycho as there had been about Dr Crow and most were equally inaccurate. When the guard looked away as he opened the door Giulietta thought it was because Tycho scared him. It turned out he was probably just scared of seeing what was going on in the room.

“
Tycho…
”

A half-naked couple were on the bed.

Rosalyn stood at its foot, tight-faced, with her fingers clenched into fists. Eleanor was naked except for her bandage, which showed blood again. Tycho wore his hose and nothing else; he was cradling the injured girl.

His muscles were alabaster, his naked chest wet marble. Need lanced through Giulietta and she stepped forward.

“Stay back,” Rosalyn growled.

His flesh against hers, his left arm under her. He was stroking Eleanor’s cheek, kissing her forehead, crooning strange words. Giulietta didn’t know how Rosalyn could stand to watch.

“He’s singing her back from the edge. He learnt how from a slave who’d once been his enemy. The Skaelingar can do that.”

Giulietta came closer and this time Rosalyn let her. She discovered Rosalyn was telling the truth. Tycho was singing words that were high and strange, and there was an eldritch concentration in his face she found mesmerising.

“I don’t think he has enough power.”

“To do what?” Giulietta asked.

“Make Ellie want to live.”

“How did you meet?”

Giulietta meant how did you meet my lady-in-waiting, and why didn’t I know about it? Rosalyn thought she meant Tycho.

“I pulled his body from the Grand Canal.”

“His body?”

“In return he brought me back from the grave.”

Lady Giulietta crossed herself. It was habit. She’d spent her life crossing herself to ward off bad luck, at the mention of disasters, when someone said something that shocked her. She wasn’t even sure why. Mind you, she’d spent a life not knowing why she did most things.

“I’m sorry,” Tycho said.

Having rested Eleanor on the bed, he half covered her with a thin sheet and turned to Rosalyn.
I’ve seen it work
was all he said. Sweat slicked his marble skin, making him look unnervingly
like a graveyard statue. When he turned back to stand over Eleanor, Giulietta felt tearful to admit she looked the same.

“She’s dying,” Rosalyn said.

“My aunt has a new alchemist.”

“Unfortunately,” said Tycho. “He has few suggestions.”

“Then he won’t last long. Aunt Alexa likes answers not problems. If he fails in this she’ll get rid of him.”

“Even your aunt can’t stop this.”

“
But you can
,” Rosalyn almost shouted.

“He just tried,” Giulietta said gently. Surprisingly so for her. “And he couldn’t do it either. You saw him try.”

“I don’t mean songs to make her stay.”

There was a rawness in Rosalyn’s words, and Giulietta guessed some dam was breaking that had probably never broken before in her life.

“I mean, let her go and then bring her back.”

She couldn’t be suggesting?

“He did it for me. He can do it for her. He owes me that… I pulled him from the Canalasso. Without me he’d be dead.”

Rosalyn was shaking. Her shoulders hunched inside Eleanor’s old dress. When Tycho looked at her, Rosalyn raised her chin and glared defiantly; but even Giulietta could see the panic behind her eyes.

“
Rosalyn…
” Tycho said.

“I’ve never loved anyone before in my life. Never had anyone to love me. Oh, people used me.” She glared at him. “But no one
loved
me until…”

In a shockingly un-Millioni-like display Giulietta surprised herself by wrapping the sobbing girl so tight Rosalyn collapsed against her.

Tycho left them there.

“Wait for me…”

Turning, Tycho was aware of guards carefully not watching the princess hurrying towards him down marble stairs leading to the ground floor and out into darkness and fresh air beyond. “I have a question.”

“So ask me.”

“Not here…”

In that second he remembered she wasn’t that much older than Eleanor, and Eleanor was almost a child. Then he remembered he wasn’t much older than either, and wondered how he could forget that.

“I’m going for a walk.”

Giulietta hesitated, and Tycho discovered he wasn’t going for a walk after all. She didn’t want to go for a walk and she didn’t want to be where they were. Since that was on the stairs, not being watched by guards and servants passing in the courtyard below, he could understand that.

“Where’s Leo?”

“Do you want to see him?”

Tycho nodded and she smiled through her tears.

He followed her back up the stairs, under an arch and along a narrow corridor. Smaller stairs led to the floor above. Old tapestries covered the stairwell walls. A Mongol guard escorting a golden chair with red curtains. The prince at the front carried a horsehair banner.

“Alexa?”

Giulietta nodded. “She was a child.”

“No choice?”

“There seldom is. You know that.”

“I was born a slave,” Tycho reminded her. “There was never a choice. No marriage either. Women lay with whom they were told. Boys, too. To kill a slave was not murder, to force one was not rape.”

“Tycho…”

“We were not people even to ourselves. Hunting dogs were more valuable.” He shrugged, still not finding it strange. After all, hunting dogs took longer to train.

Leo’s room was next to Lady Giulietta’s new one and the woman sitting in a chair beside the cot scrambled to her feet as they entered.

“My lady…”

“It’s all right. I just wanted…”

Removing a chamber pot, which the woman covered with a cloth before carrying it past them, she dipped a slight curtsy and hurried out.

“Which one of us frightens her?”

“Both. But where I might have her whipped, you…” Giulietta took a breath. “I need to ask. What did you do to the prisoner?”

And how
, Tycho wondered,
do you know about that?

“Well?” she demanded.

“Freed him.”

“From what?” asked Giulietta, picking up her child and reaching for the buttons on the neck of her gown, before hesitating.

“From life. Do you need me to leave so you can feed Leo?”

“He’s almost weaned… And I’m not sure who comforts whom when we feed. Maybe we comfort each other.” She let her hand drop. “So tell me about the prisoner, because my aunt thinks I should know.”

Alexa was changing allegiances?

Tycho felt invisible sands shift under him.

He knew he’d only ever played a small part in Alexa’s plans. All the same, he thought they watched the world with the same dark gaze.

He could lie to Giulietta about the prisoner or tell the truth. Lying offended him. A
finesse
his slave self would regard as ridiculous, had that person known what
finesse
and
ridiculous
meant.