The Outcast Blade (32 page)

“Alonzo ordered this?”

Relief flooded Dr Crow’s face. The alchemist nodding as he hurriedly agreed Alonzo made him do this…

W
hat did I miss?

Dr Crow’s ability to manipulate relied on his ability to control himself as well as others. A dangerous truth had nearly been spoken and Tycho could read its ripples in the air the way an eel reads the wake of fish recently gone. It was Dr Crow withdrawing whatever thought first occurred to him.

“That sword…”

“Is not at issue. That is.”

Dr Crow looked at the gilded eye he’d removed from the pastry peacock, and then at two replacements in his hand.

“What are those?”

A jab of Tycho’s dagger told him to answer. When he didn’t, Tycho asked a little harder and the alchemist’s face whitened. He understood what would happen if he shouted or tried to move.

“Well?”

“Lady Giulietta is upset. So upset she’s locked herself in her room. Prince Alonzo thought…”

“
What are they?
”

“Love pills. The gold is for him and the silver for her. They’re truffles,” Hightown Crow added, as if this excused it. “Soaked in brandy and wrapped in gold or silver leaf. Real gold and silver leaf.”

“They fall in love if they eat those?”

“My life depends on it.” The rawness to Dr Crow’s voice made Tycho look again. The fat little alchemist was scared. As Hightown Crow opened his mouth to protest Tycho took both pills and dropped them into his pocket.

Candles lit each table and torches flared in their wall sconces.

A thousand people sat in the banqueting hall at places laid for that night’s feast. Almost half that number of servants hovered. Fifty guards stood by doors and flanked windows, lined the walls and crouched atop scaffolding left by the builders who’d vacated the nearly finished hall to let this event to take place.

The carnival usually found in San Marco had been brought inside.

Wise-cracking dwarves lewdly caressed their codpieces. Fire-eaters blew great plumes of flame above the guests’ heads. Tumblers rolled themselves under tables and acrobats somersaulted over them. Contortionists clambered on to the tables themselves, tying their limbs in such knots they bent backwards to stare from between their own thighs.

A dozen half-naked children balanced on plinths set against the panelled walls. They were gilded or silvered, wearing feather necklaces or strings of seashells. A few were swaying with tiredness.

Tycho imagined they’d been there for hours.

Many of the guests looked bored, a few of the more choleric ones looked openly exasperated by the banquet’s late start.

As the bell in the duchess’s clock began to chime the hour Tycho read the room, found where Rosalyn crouched atop scaffolding and joined her there before the last ring echoed into silence.

“Ten by the clock.” She said it without looking round.

Her choice was good. The scaffolding covered half an end wall, almost directly above the kitchen door and in near darkness because the kitchen end of the great room was unused except by servants. Even better, silk drapes meant to conceal the scaffolding helped keep them both hidden.

A carpenter’s chisel lay next to her. From this height, dropping it would kill the boy below who carried wine to the
cittadini
’s tables. More smartly dressed servants attended the grander tables. The real feasting had yet to begin.

“Where are they?”

Rosalyn bit her lip and looked worried.

Tycho read the room for friends and enemies; except he had no friends in that room, so he read it for Frederick’s enemies first, and those most likely to kill him as an outlaw second. Fifty guards, four of which were probably imposters…

Two either side of the great doors staring straight ahead. Tycho dismissed them as there to look impressive. The ten Dogana guard along the far wall were out of sight of the high table but able to see the whole room. Four guards occupied a high windowsill on the
piazzetta
side. That would be a good place if you wanted to kill someone at the top table. But they were guards, not a sergeant among them.

Three more occupied a
piazzetta
window closer to Tycho’s end of the room. Others stood in pairs along the opposite walls. The Millioni were taking no chances.

But the four he wanted?

Having dismissed the oak beams that would support the final ceiling, Tycho tried to listen for a noise that shouldn’t be there, see a shape pretending to be something different. His problem was that noise, emotion and expectation blasted off the assembled guests as they readied themselves for the largest feast Venice had thrown since the last one.

A blare of trumpets met the slam of halberds.

The great doors crashed open and Alonzo and Frederick entered with Duchess Alexa walking a step behind. As the guests stood, Alonzo showed the German princeling to his seat, a hand resting on his elbow. The boy looked nervous and Alexa troubled. Well, she walked stiffly and sat reluctantly. What she really thought was hidden by her veil.

Everyone at the tables looked towards the door and waited and then waited some more. Eventually the great doors shut and Alonzo glared at Alexa. He would have said something if not for Frederick. Lady Giulietta was obviously proving harder to extract than they’d imagined.

In the sudden stillness of disappointment, Tycho found what he was looking for, a single note of purpose. It came from the three guards cross-legged in a
piazzetta
window. At first glance they seemed to be watching the guests. But a shadow line behind one showed where his longbow was hidden. Unless they’d brought uniforms with them, three women in this city were already widows without knowing it.

“We need to identify their sergeant.”

Tycho could almost feel Rosalyn begin scouring the room.

The sound of guards coming to attention beyond the main door distracted her. As halberds banged, one of the three guards put down his crossbow and shifted deeper into the shadows. He picked up a yard-long arrow and untied a leather cap at its point.

Poisoned, unquestionably.

Reaching behind him for the longbow he nodded to his companions, who scanned the room for anyone watching. They shook their heads.

And as the noise in the corridor became louder, the man slotted the arrow around the twisted sinew of his bow.

In the corridor outside the banqueting hall Lady Giulietta stopped, turned to her smiling cousin and said, “The sad thing is… It’s not like you really understand a word I’m saying anyway, do you?”

Nodding enthusiastically, Duke Marco turned back to a Roman lion stolen during the sacking of Constantinople two hundred years before. The majority of the most interesting treasures in Ca’ Ducale had been. He stroked its face tenderly, and kissed it lightly on the forehead.

“I don’t know why I’m even talking to you.”

“Because you have n-no one else?” Her cousin’s voice was firmer, clear and sympathetic. “We’re a lot alike, you k-know.”

She stared at him in shock.

For a second Marco looked entirely normal, no twitch to his eye or slackness to his mouth, no drooling or rubbing at his groin. He stood straighter and looked her firmly in the eye. Neither the guards five paces behind him nor those at the doors ahead could see the transformation.

“I have m-moments of clarity.”

“I’m sorry,” Giulietta flushed. “I didn’t mean…”

Even now
, she thought.
I can’t help messing up. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to go in there. I don’t even want to be at Ca’ Friedland any more
.

“Everyone needs an Alta M-mofacon,” Marco agreed, although she’d said nothing about her mother’s estate or, indeed, spoken at all. “The fact you h-have somewhere to h-hide makes you luckier than me.”

Her mouth fell open.

“I have to hide inside my h-head.”

“Inside your head?”

“Where else…? I c-can’t leave. For that I need permission from both R-regents and the full C-council. What are my chances of that? So I t-twitch and drool and disgust my d-drunken uncle and exasperate my m-mother. And he s-suspects nothing and she can’t tell suspicion from hope and allows herself neither. So far it’s been enough to k-keep me alive.”

“You pretend?”

Marco shrugged. “Not entirely. I embellish a l-little. You have your anger and t-tears and I have my t-twitches.”

“But why?”

“Alonzo nearly killed me as a child.”

“The fever that took your senses?”

“It was Alonzo. I saw him p-poison my cup.”

“They say you should have died.” And that only having a witch for a mother saved you. Lady Giulietta didn’t add the last bit.

“I k-know what they say,” Marco said. “She guarded me day and night. Alonzo w-watched and waited to see what I would r-remember. And I said n-nothing. I never remembered. I b-became Marco the Simple.”

“Marco the Harmless?”

Reaching out, Marco touched his fingers to her cheek, then twisted his hand gently into her hair, leant forward and kissed her lightly on the lips. The guards at the door carefully looked
away. “Such a p-pity we’re cousins,” he said. “And that I’m not someone else. You understand I love you? That if I d-didn’t I would never have shown you the real m-me? I wouldn’t be saying this?”

Tears spilt down Giulietta’s face.

“But you don’t love m-me. And you c-certainly don’t love Frederick, how c-could you before you’ve even met him? You loved Leopold, of course. Only even that wasn’t s-simple, was it? I mean, he didn’t even b-bed you.”

“
You know?
”

Marco shrugged. “It’s obvious.”

The waves were dark beyond the Molo, the sea air through the window rich with salt and spray and the salt stink of the sea. She could smell smoke from fire pits in the piazza. She stared at the familiar view and blinked back tears.

“My love…”

He’d never called her that; it was not appropriate.

“You do understand why Sigismund wants F-frederick to marry you? Because I won’t have children and your child will r-rule one day. That makes you Regent when my m-mother dies. Frederick would be Regent with you.”

“Why won’t you…?”

“I’m not s-sure I love even you like that. Leopold, or your p-pretty angel, perhaps. If he d-didn’t love you.” Marco smiled wistfully. “I always k-knew you loved him.”

“That’s why you made Aunt Alexa sit us together?”

“At the victory b-banquet? You were m-meant to make f-friends.” Marco’s mouth twisted. “Didn’t work, though. D-did it?”

“Leopold…”

“Was d-dead. And would have p-preferred T-tycho anyway.”

“That’s…” Lady Giulietta wasn’t sure what Marco saw in her eyes but he reached out and dried a tear with his finger, then pulled her close in a tight hug.

“Be h-happy. Be brave.”

“Marco…”

“Most days I w-wish I wasn’t m-me. Most days I wish my father hadn’t been m-murdered. He could have had other s-sons. Then the Council could confirm a d-different heir…”

“
Murdered?
”

“You m-must know that?”

“Who would dare…?”

“My uncle o-obviously.” Marco seemed shocked by her surprise. As if this was the commonest gossip. “He was having an affair with my m-mother.”

“That’s impossible.” Lady Giulietta expected him to deny it, but the face he suddenly turned to her was lopsided, a twitch pulling at his eye. Looking up, she saw Roderigo approaching. As he reached them, Marco pushed free from Giulietta and grabbed a marble faun, throwing his arms happily around its neck.

“You’re here now, my lady.”

“It would appear so.”

Roderigo flushed. “Is there a problem?”

“I’m waiting on the duke.”

“Ahh…” The question of what to do next was answered when Marco suddenly let go of his marble faun, grabbed Giulietta’s hand and began to drag her towards the banqueting hall.

“We’re l-late. Mustn’t be. Ma doesn’t l-like it when you’re…”

As guards began to drag the great doors back, a young girl in mud-splattered velvet somersaulted through the opening gap, spun once to kick the doors shut and slammed Giulietta and Duke Marco to the tiles.

With a snarl, she dragged them from the doorway, tossing them behind the base of Marco’s marble faun. When Roderigo hurtled forward, the girl ripped a knife from her belt, bared her teeth and stood over her captives hissing.

“Hold,” Marco barked.

It took Roderigo a second to realise she was protecting them.

A handful of seconds before Rosalyn bundled the two to safety, the guard on the windowsill inside the banqueting hall began to lift his hidden bow, his gaze never leaving the great door.

“Marco and Giulietta,” Tycho said.

Dropping from the scaffolding, Rosalyn landed cleanly and sprinted the length of the room, hoiking her dress to her thighs as she somersaulted over a table and then slid between the legs of a stilt-walker.

The four genuine guards in the furthest window were too busy watching Marco’s guests get drunk to worry about those on a window behind them. Anyway, they believed the three pretenders to be legitimate.

Rosalyn’s drop from the scaffolding and her spin between fire-eaters, her tumble through the rapidly shut door, was noticed by few. All of whom undoubtedly thought she was another entertainer. The man with the bow might have had his doubts. Tycho would have done in his place.

Tycho was so busy watching the bowman he barely noticed the tug at his sleeve. But he still flicked out his hand and swept the air with a dagger that only just missed a red-haired child who
dropped beneath it. Thin shoulder blades showed through her rags, one buttock showed thinner, her feet were filthy.

She grinned contemptuously.

“You’re not here.”

“Indeed,” said A’rial. “I’m abroad on orders from the duchess.”

She nodded at Tycho’s knife, adding, “Can we talk sensibly now?” Eyes old as the moon glared at him and then she nodded, somehow satisfied. “You’d have shivered once. Now you hold my gaze.”

“What does your being here have to do with me?”

“Everything and nothing.”

“I don’t have time for this.”