The Outcast Blade (16 page)

Iacopo was shocked.

“You think I’m wrong?”

The question was aimed at him.

“Well?” Alonzo barked. “Do you? Think I’m wrong to want to leave this sewer and get back to battle? To have honest Christian soldiers around me?”

“My lord,” said Iacopo, then stopped.

Since there was no right answer he fell back on flattery.

“My lord, you might want to leave Venice. But I’m not sure
Venice can afford to lose you. Even if it is to conquer heretics.”

Prince Alonzo snorted.

“I mean it, my lord. You brought the Castellani and Nicoletti together when Lady Giulietta went missing. If you were to go that would leave Venice in the hands of…” He hesitated.

“Duchess Alexa?”

“She’s a woman. Also she’s…” Scrying in her water bowl, Alexa wondered how he’d word it. “Not Venetian, my lord.”

“You mean she’s a Mongol?”

Iacopo nodded.

“Others feel like you?”

“Oh yes, my lord. Among the commons most people do. And there are many rich merchants and nobles who look to you.”

It was the right answer.

Tycho had woken at twilight to a demand from the Duchess Alexa that he present himself immediately. The guards at the Porta della Carta had admitted him without fuss. One of Alexa’s staff had hurried him past petitioners. That was how he found himself in Marco’s chamber, being asked by Alexa why he’d sent a petition asking to be allowed to talk to her, what he’d done to upset her brother-in-law, the Regent, and why her niece had locked herself in Ca’ Friedland…

He was now wondering if saying all three questions had the same answer, and then telling her the answer was a good idea.

“
You did what?
”

Tycho stepped back from the anger of the woman who sat on a low throne in front of him. Anger flared from her like flame. He imagined his skin shrivelling, his flesh burning away. Only his bones remaining.

“Go,” Alexa announced.

It turned out she meant everyone but him.

Even Marco, who trailed from his chamber looking somewhere between puzzled and sad. He was the last to leave, having dawdled to check his mother really did mean him too. Having discovered
she did, Marco trailed after the ladies-in-waiting, Alexa’s maid and two guards. Although first he touched one finger to his chin, raising it slightly.
Chin up
, his gesture said.

Tycho wondered if he imagined it.

“Well…?” Alexa demanded.

“I met with Alonzo, here…”

“Why?”

“He offered me what I want.”

“Riches?” Alexa said contemptuously. “A bigger palace? Gold chains to hang round your neck and embroidery in your cloak? A fake pedigree proving you’ve been noble all along? It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Giulietta.”

Alexa looked shocked.

More shocked than if he’d said yes to all her previous questions. Lady Giulietta was a Millioni princess. This whole problem was because she’d married one prince and another now wanted to marry her.

That someone like him might think…

He watched her catch her temper. It was impressive and a little unexpected. Alexa put her hands on the marble top of a table and held them there as if letting the fury flow from her body through her fingers. When she sat back, her shoulders were relaxed and her voice almost normal. “You realise Alonzo will kill you if he discovers you’ve told me this?”

“He said the same about you.”

“You’re very sure of yourself.”

Believe me. That is the last thing I am
.

If his face showed courage he didn’t feel he was grateful. He’d been offered a chance to woo Lady Giulietta, to win her. To get the one thing he wanted before all others. The thing he still wanted. And his craven cowardice had destroyed his chances. How hard was it to say
I love you
?

Too hard for him, apparently. He could stand here now, and
tell Duchess Alexa to her face he loved her niece and risk arrest. When it came to Giulietta, however, he hadn’t dared say the same.

The mockery in her eyes had undone him.

Pushing a pale bowl filled with water away from her, Duchess Alexa draped a cloth over the top. “My niece is sulking.”

“She is unhappy, my lady.”

Alexa sighed. “Our spies say Sigismund’s offer is talked about in Constantinople. Do you know what that means?”

How could he possibly know?

“It has been brought to the attention of the Basilius.”

When Tycho looked blank, Alexa scowled. “The
Basilius
,” she said. “Emperor John V Palaiologos. In true descent from the Caesars… A self-opinionated and superstitious old man. He has been a thorn in my side for years.”

“Why have you not sent someone to…?”

Alexa smiled. “I do believe you’d try.”

“I would prefer to travel by land. If possible.”

“That you can cross water at all is impressive. Your kind need bare earth beneath their feet to prosper.”

“My kind?”

“Everyone has a kind,” she said. “One of my nephew Tamburlaine’s scholars was recently good enough to confirm yours. Unfortunately the Basilius is so well protected I doubt even you could get through his defences though I’m tempted to try. Now, I’m going to ask you a question and I want a truthful answer.”

Tycho waited.

“What have you done to upset Giulietta?”

“I asked her to marry me.”

“You’re not listening. I don’t mean what was your last idiocy. Nor am I asking what you called her when she found you with Lady Desdaio.” Catching Tycho’s shock, Alexa said, “Yes, I know about that, too.”

“Nothing happened with Desdaio.”

“I doubt my niece believes that… I mean before all this, before you even landed at St Lazar, something happened. You will tell me what.”

“I told her a secret.”

“You told her what you are?”

“My lady,” Tycho swallowed. “I don’t know what I am.”

“I’ve heard you call your self
Fallen
.”

“That’s what my mother called herself. So I was told by a woman before… before I found myself here. No, this is different. On the night of battle off Cyprus I gave a Mamluk prince his life. In return he told me of my origins.”

“How would he know anything about that?”

“He said his father bought me from Timurid mercenaries and had mages fill my head with only one thought,
that I must kill you
. He did so at Prince Alonzo’s request. Venetian gold sweetened the request.”

“You did not say that. I did not hear it.”

“No, my lady.”

“I’m not surprised my niece is upset if you go around telling her things like that.” Raising her gauze-like veil, Alexa stared at Tycho with dark eyes set in an unlined, almost ageless face. She had the flawless tallow skin most Mongol women in the city seemed to have.

The more he stared the younger she became.

Until he was looking at a Mongol girl with huge eyes. She smiled as if amused to be recognised and his heart flooded with sadness when she lowered the veil again. “You love my niece.” She sounded surprised. “I thought you simply ambitious.”

“My lady…”

“Yes, yes, I know. Your heart bleeds to be without her. The fact marriage would make you a prince means nothing.” Alexa sighed. “You should understand that marriage is impossible. However, you could be lovers.”

Holding up her hand she stilled Tycho’s protest.

“If that becomes true, so be it. I’ll summon Giulietta again, tell her I won’t brook refusal. In the meantime, we tell Sigismund’s envoy it’s a fact.”

“Will saying we’re lovers be enough?”

“It will be for the envoy,” Alexa assured Tycho. “He’ll need to report back. Sigismund will want to discuss this
fact
with his advisers.”

“And Giulietta’s baby?”

“What exactly do you know of that?”

“May I ask what you know?”

For a moment it looked as if the duchess would order him to answer anyway, and Tycho had little doubt she had the magic to compel him. Instead she said, “I know nothing. You have no idea how worrying that is.”

“Surely, my lady. You must…”

“Oh, I’ve held the brat, looked deep into its eyes. It’s hers all right. My husband’s blood runs thick in its veins. But Leopold’s part. Sigismund’s bloodline…?” Alexa shrugged. “I have no sense of Leopold’s part.”

“The child is not his.”

“You know this?” Alexa said sharply.

“The prince asked if Leo was mine.”

“How could it be yours? When did he ask this?”

“On the day he died. We were talking before the battle and Leopold… He was troubled,” Tycho finished lamely.

“A strange and brilliant man. Who liked other men, bedded women he hated, and therefore mistreated, because the bedding was expected and he resented what he felt the world required him to do.”

“I did not know.”

“Why should you? Giulietta falls silent if we talk about this. I assume Alonzo knows that Leopold asked?” Alexa took Tycho’s silence as answer. “Then his offer makes more sense. You were to claim the child?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“And you would do this?”

“Willingly.”

Duchess Alexa sighed. “I repeat, marriage is out of the question. But I will consider the alternatives. In the meantime what have you heard about a demon on the island off San Giacomo?”

“Very little, my lady.”

“That’s about to change.”

The sexton for San Giacomo lived with his wife and daughter in a squalid house at Three-Sided Square, slightly to the west of Arzanale, and as far north as it was possible to go without hitting water. The square’s name came from its northernmost edge having collapsed into the lagoon.

The night air stank of rotting canals and sulphur from the iron foundries to the west, and of human shit from a night-soil dock a hundred paces away. It smelt no better ten feet above the ground than it did at ground level, but at least Tycho had a slight wind to soften the night’s heat. Sliding his knife between shutters, he lifted a wooden latch free.

When no one stirred, he opened one side.

A man slept on a narrow bed, with a woman on a low cot beside him and a baby in a crate at her feet. All three were covered by cloth cut from a single sheet. The sexton and his woman were younger than Tycho expected.

Tycho stilled as the sill settled slightly under his weight, but the room remained silent and the three remained sleeping, so he sheathed his own knife and took the dagger from the floor beside the sexton’s bed to place it out of reach.

Then he knelt beside the woman, tapped her face and watched her stir. The childish smile filling her face in the brief gap between sleeping and waking revealed the girl she’d once been. A split second later, she opened her mouth to scream and Tycho put his finger to her lips.

“Bid me welcome…”

She stared at him.

He had to order her a second time before she did and the ache gripping him began to fade. “Wake your man.”

“We’re married.”

“Then wake your husband.”

He could have knocked at their door, demanding entry. What he wanted, however, was the sexton off guard. One glance at the woman as she tossed her sheet aside to kneel by her husband told Tycho he had all the leverage he needed.

The woman was heavily pregnant, her stomach stretched to splitting, her breasts overfull. When the baby in the crate began wailing, she shut her eyes.

“If it’s hungry, feed it.”

She looked at him.

“Duchess Alexa sent me.”

Mentioning the duchess’s name drove all emotion from the woman’s face. He’d simply scared her more deeply. Blindly, as if asleep, she lifted the wailing baby, opened her shift and exposed a breast.

A second later the baby was feeding.

“Now wake your man.”

“Giorgio…” When he didn’t wake, she shook him. “He drinks.” Touching her belly, she added, “These are difficult times for him. And there’s something else…”

“I know,” said Tycho. “That’s why I’m here.”

The drunk scrabbled for his dagger, fingers digging at the filthy floor like a man trapped inside a coffin. Tycho pointed to a table and watched Giorgio’s eyes focus. There was enough moonlight for him to see his dagger.

Giorgio judged the distance, looked at his wife to give himself courage and hesitated when she said, “The duchess sent him.”

“Cover yourself, woman.”

“I’ll be downstairs.” She levered herself from her knees.

“Maria…”

“It’s not me he wants to talk to.”

Both men listened to her heavy steps on the stairs, the sound of a door banging and the splash of someone pissing outside. The door banged as she came back and then there was silence.

“She’s almost due,” Giorgio said.

Maybe he thought to excuse her. Maybe he thought to excuse the bruises on her face. The night was hot and sticky, the air foul from the moored shit barges. It was a bad time of year to be pregnant, and the separate beds, snapped words and tight silences said tempers were frayed between them.

“You’re the sexton for San Giacomo?”

The man nodded, his eyes watchful. A tic at one corner said he knew there was more to Tycho’s question than the words implied.

“Then you know why I’m here.”

For a moment Giorgio almost denied it. He opened his mouth to say he had no idea, only to hiccup instead. “Three barges,” he said. “Five of my men.”

“No one’s come back?”

He shook his head.

“And that’s why paupers’ corpses are piling up in the crypt?”

“I have no men,” he said simply. “No men, no barges. You think I can find men when something like this is known?”

“It’s known?”

“How not?” said Giorgio, losing his fear. “You can hear her howling from here.”

“On moonlit nights?”

“Any night. Every night. Listen…”

Tycho did. All he could hear was the slap of distant sails, the
strum of wind-plucked hawsers, the snuffle of rubbish pigs cleaning up in Three-Sided Square below. That was all Giorgio could hear too.

“Idiots,” he said.

Tycho looked puzzled.

“Some of the men said they were going to hunt her down. If she’s silent that’s because she’s eaten. She’s always silent after she kills.”