The Fallen Blade: Act One of the Assassini

by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

  Since the new duke could not give orders, the real Blade obeyed instructions from both Alexa and Alonzo. The ground rules were simple. Neither would order the other’s murder, nor a murder within the other’s immediate entourage. Their individual orders would remain secret from each other. Atilo’s duty was to say if this agreement was broken. A responsibility he could do without.

  He was getting old. Well, older.

  Old enough to know the Angel of Death was watching and would add tonight’s business to the scroll. Atilo wondered if those he killed in battle would count against him in the final weighing. Or only those murdered in cold blood on his master’s orders. He also wondered, and despised himself for this, if the old duke had already taken some of that weight on himself.

  It would have been quicker to reach where he wanted to go by walking through the small garden behind Ca’ Ducale, which each new duke threatened to destroy by extending the Rio di Palazzo side of the palace, and no duke had yet been able to bring himself to do.

  Cutting through the first, to a second garden beyond belonging to the Patriarch’s city residence would have been simpler. But then he might have been seen entering the Patriarch’s little study, and that was not Atilo’s plan.

  A city limited to sandbanks, surrounded by sea and supported on thousands of piles driven into the underlying sand and clay could not afford the waste of space that large gardens represented. A single poplar in a private cortile might form a patrician’s entire garden. Three trees in a campo were as close as many Venetians got to nature. At least at ground level. Many houses had altane, roof gardens decorated with flowerpots where women could sit and sun-bleach their hair.

  For the Ca’ Ducale to have gardens was a matter of pride. Although the patriarch only had one because Marco I’s respect for the Church made him divide the strip along Rio di Palazzo in two, and give the smaller section to the Church.

  The fact Patriarch Theodore had been called from his sickbed in San Pietro di Castello by a message from the Regent made the night’s work easier, sparing Atilo the burden of having to visit the eastern edges of the city.

  “My old friend.” Laying down a tiny pair of pliers, the patriarch started to stand, then sat down again. “You know I’ve been ill?”

  “Nothing serious, I hope?”

  “Old age. A sickness of the heart. You know how it is.”

  Atilo did. Picking up the ball hammer, he examined it. The hammer was too small to use on nails, even small ones.

  “For beating metal,” Theodore said, although this was obvious. The top of a hollow censer was crushed out of shape, the filigree twisted. “The provost says my altar boy dropped it. The boy denies it.”

  “If it had been dropped it would be crushed at the base.”

  “That’s what the boy says. The provost whipped him. I wish he wouldn’t. It’ll only make him more nervous. But, of course, I can’t really…”

  “Of course not.”

  To treat this altar boy differently was to recognise him as the Patriarch’s bastard. A brief moment of loneliness, several years ago. When the palace at San Pietro was cold and the Patriarch’s bed had looked warm to a novice newly arrived from the mainland. Not Theodore’s only moment of loneliness. Although his other bastards had reached maturity without their father having to protect them.

  Theodore had several nephews and nieces. Most bishops did.

  Looking round the small room, with its old manuscripts, most in Latin and Greek, the patriarch said, “I’m not sure he’s suited for the Church. I was wondering. If anything were to happen to me. Perhaps you…?”

  Atilo looked at him.

  “I’m not saying it will,” Theodore said sadly. “Just, if it does. You’re known for your kindness to orphans. I’ve always wondered,” he added, “if that was penance of some kind. If you were, perhaps…” He looked embarrassed. “We’re all atoning for something.”

  Did he know? Atilo wondered.

  “Have a look at this,” said the patriarch. He lifted a lamp so its light fell across the table, before removing a cloth with a slight flourish. Under it was the chalice the duke used to marry the sea.

  “Damaged?”

  “Yes,” Theodore said. “So much is these days.”

  The rim was dented, two precious stones missing from the base. A third stone cracked across its surface. A scratch on the bowl looked deep enough to need filling rather than simply polishing out.

  “You know I trained as a jeweller?”

  Yes, Atilo knew. The story was famous. As a young man, the patriarch heard God’s call while helping repair the rood screen in front of San Marco’s altar. He threw away the money his father had spent buying an apprenticeship. Entering the White Crucifers, he found himself making swords instead. When not giving last rites to those who died of fever and battle.

  Theodore tapped the damaged censer.

  “This, my old friend, I can mend. A little hammering, some soldering, not difficult, even with these old hands. That, however… needs someone better than me. Someone better than I would have been had I stayed a jeweller.”

  “What’s so difficult?”

  The patriarch had Atilo stand behind him, then adjusted the lamp so it threw more light. “See?” A bas-relief of vine leaves and grapes in gold and rubies circled the base, and Atilo realised they were cracked where three stems wove an intricate plait. “You think I should try,” said Theodore. “Or leave it for someone else?”

  “Someone else.”

  He nodded sadly. “You don’t mind if I say something?”

  “No,” Atilo said.

  “You should ask yourself why the chalice was left. If her abductors took the ring and took her why did they leave this?”

  “The Mamluks?”

  “If it was them.”

  “What have you heard?” Atilo’s voice was sharp.

  “I’ve heard nothing,” said Patriarch Theodore gently. “And what I suspect cannot be revealed without breaking the seal of confession. You would not expect me…” Turning down the lamp slightly, Theodore suggested they take the night air and talk further, if talking was why Atilo was here. He made no attempt to take his lamp with him, and Atilo didn’t suggest it. When he knelt on damp grass to tie his laces, holding the position longer than necessary, Atilo knew Theodore knew. Whatever had happened, Alonzo could not allow him to live.

  He cut the man’s throat fast, yanking back his head and dragging a blade through gristle until it hit bone. And in the final moment, Atilo could swear the patriarch smiled.

  “Thank you, my dear…”

  Atilo finished washing his hands in a bowl and took the towel Desdaio offered, drying his fingers carefully. Like everyone in Venice, he washed his hands before and after every meal. As surely as he washed his face each morning and before going to bed each night. As surely as he’d washed his hands before returning to Ca’ il Mauros.

  His thoughts were on what came after the murder.

  A noise…? That must be what made him go back. Mostly likely he’d heard a noise without realising it. He’d just entered Theodore’s study, with the study’s owner lying in the damp garden behind him, when he stopped, turned and hurried back. Taking the handful of steps that would change his life.

  Complimenting Desdaio on a dish involving eggs, noodles and salted mutton, Atilo took another glass of wine, and wished the storm in his head would subside; only then would be able to unpick what mattered from the rest. He’d turned back. And a boy was there.

  That was the nub of it.

  A boy had knelt over Theodore, cradling him.

  For a moment Atilo thought the figure listened to some final words. But dying men don’t speak with their voice boxes cut. They gasp air, bleed to death, and die. That didn’t stop the boy asking his question. “Tell me where she is.”

  Theodore gurgled.

  “In the basilica,” the boy hissed. “That girl. Where is she?”

  When Theodore still didn’t answer, the boy bent hi
s head and bit, adding another wound to the ruined flesh of the Patriarch’s throat. Although Atilo drew his knife, he never came close to frightening the unwelcome witness.

  Instead, the moon slipped from behind cloud to light a creature with the face of an angel and the eyes of a demon. Its hair was silver-grey, braided into snakes. Blood dripped from its open mouth. Its dog teeth were unnaturally long.

  Instinct made Atilo flip his dagger so he held it by the point. And he threw hard, allowing for where the creature would be when he realised a blade was coming. The blade still passed through empty air.

  “Fine,” the creature said. “I’ll find her myself.”

  It sounded like a boy and it looked almost like a boy, but nothing human moved that fast. Flicking its gaze from Atilo to the wall, from the garden wall to the Patriarch’s little palace. Its calculations were swift. Its answer unexpected.

  One second it stood there.

  The next? Atilo looked round. A scraping behind him made him look back, and the creature was halfway up the Patriarch’s palace, clinging to the carved balustrade of a balcony. The wall was too smooth to be climbed. The balcony far too high to reach by any other means.

  As Atilo watched, the creature rolled itself on to the balcony, jumped up on to the balustrade, crouched like the wild animal it was and unleashed a bound that carried it to the roof’s edge above. Finding an impossible foothold, it disappeared.

  Fifty years as a soldier. Twenty-six as the duke’s Blade. A lifetime staying alive against the odds. Not a single missed kill. In less than twenty seconds Atilo had been bested by what? An angel-faced thing that made impossible jumps. A creature, God help Atilo, who fed on the dying.

  So be it.

  Atilo had made his choice. That creature would be the next master of the Assassini. But first it must become an apprentice. Atilo just needed to hunt it down.

  27

  The Moors, Mamluks and Seljuks make their first call to prayer in the moment a single black thread can be distinguished from pre-dawn darkness. It had a name few Venetians knew. Anyone looking out of their window on the second to last Sunday in January, in the fourth year of Marco IV’s reign, would have assumed it was still night. Yet day and night balanced on the cusp. And though the moon, two days from being full, was cloud-shrouded, and the sun still to rise, the nature of the darkness changed. In this black-thread moment three things happened.

  The least of these was that a silver-haired boy discarded his Arsenalotti tunic and cap and wound himself in rags, like a leper. Protection against the city, other beggars and the coming sun. Had he known better, he would have protected himself from the moon, because it was the moon that drove his hunger, and his hunger that drove him to trace a scent on the wind to a square south of San Polo, where the alleys led nowhere and the only way out was back the way he’d come.

  The second thing, more important by far, was that Atilo dragged himself from his knees, having spent the night praying for Archbishop Theodore, whose murder had so shocked the city. After five days of masses and mourning, the patriarch was to be buried that day in the nave of San Pietro. Newly elected to the Ten, his election unopposed following Duchess Alexa’s nomination, Atilo was expected to attend. But then, as an old friend of Theodore, he’d have been there anyway.

  Iacopo and Amelia were out scouring the city for the boy Atilo had seen in the Patriarch’s garden. Amelia’s final test before ending her apprenticeship. So she negotiated unnamed streets, arm in arm with Iacopo, dressed as Arsenalotti or Nicoletti or Schiavoni from Dalmatia. Whatever it took to enter the areas they were searching. Another half-dozen of Atilo’s orphaned ex-apprentices, now found safe jobs as cooks, stallholders and fishermen, had orders to report what they saw.

  One of these, Junot, who fished off della Misericordia, that square-shaped bite out of the northern shore, sent news of the third, most important event of that morning. Junot’s brother-in-law had a good night’s fishing. Or so he thought, until he drew his net higher and found his catch human.

  Catching one bloated corpse was unlucky. Two was simply life being cruel. Junot’s brother-in-law knew he could not simply return them to the tides. At least, he knew that once he saw the bodies wore sleeveless mail under Mamluk robes. Had he known the mail was Milanese, he might have tipped them back anyway.

  As it was, he brought them ashore and sent word for the Watch, whose captain went cap in hand to the duchess later that morning. By noon the following day Archbishop Theodore was buried. Tycho was safely back under his sottoportego, having survived another round of fever. And Junot’s brother-in-law confessed, under torture, to killing two soldiers and dumping their bodies in the sea. For which he was swiftly executed. The Captain of the Watch, being of use to the city, was simply ordered to forget everything he’d seen.

  The fisherman had not found Milanese mercenaries dressed in Mamluk clothes, possibly similar to those worn by Lady Giulietta’s captors. There was no suggestion that anyone other than Mamluks was behind her disappearance.

  The Watch captain took those words away with him. It was, he told his men, a misunderstanding. They valued their lives enough to nod.

  The fourth and final thing was that, a few nights later, having listened to his Nubian slave’s report, Atilo decided to use the street children who told Amelia where the boy was as bait. So, as night fell, he and Roderigo headed for an underpass south of Campo San Polo; one of his bait boastful, one silent, one in tears.

  “Told you,” Josh said. “Didn’t I? He’s hunting for someone. He stands and sniffs the night wind like some dog. Said I knew. Here is where he comes most nights. Would I lie?” He turned to Rosalyn. “Would I lie to them?”

  She turned her head away.

  Josh scowled. “You’ll keep your promise?”

  “Not to kill you?”

  The youth glared. He knew, from that night in Cannaregio, this was a great lord, and so he had to tread carefully. But he was still alive, which was more than he’d expected that night last year. And much more than he’d expected when the old man appeared, just before tonight’s sunset, and reintroduced himself by putting the edge of his dagger to Josh’s throat, wrapping his fingers into Josh’s hair and dragged him from between Rosalyn’s sullen thighs.

  “To let us go,” Josh said. “That’s what you promised.” In the moonlight, the boy looked slightly younger than Atilo remembered. Small, narrow-faced and tricky, with a thin nose. His shoulders hunched round some slight he employed to justify using the other two as he wanted. The hierarchy of the dirt poor.

  “You three stay quiet, right? Otherwise…” Temujin mimed cutting their throats. “And don’t run, little rat.” He grinned at Pietro, and lifted his bow slightly. “Cos no one outruns this.”

  “Sergeant.”

  “It’s true,” Temujin told Atilo. “A galloping horse can’t outrun this. How do you think my people conquered half the world?”

  “And lost it again.”

  That wasn’t strictly true. The Golden Horde had conquered lands stretching from China to Western Europe, including India. They still owned much of their empire. But until recently it had been divided between the Great Khan’s descendants, who fought each other as bitterly as they fought outsiders. Now Tmr, known as Tamberlaine, at most a bastard of a minor branch, for all he claimed the heritage, was busy being Khan of Khans.

  “Down here, you say?”

  Josh nodded.

  “Go ahead,” Roderigo told Temujin, having checked that this met with Atilo’s approval. He followed after, leaving Atilo where he was. The Moor’s gaze never leaving the roof line above.

  “Shoot to wound,” Atilo said. “I want him alive.”

  A flick of Roderigo’s hand in darkness acknowledged this order. All might have gone well if not for Rosalyn; who took a deep breath as Roderigo and Temujin headed towards the sottoportego, opened her mouth and screamed words guaranteed to wake the entire area. “Fire. Fire. Fire…”

  “Shit,” Roderigo said.


  Flipping his knife, the old man hammered its hilt into her head. “Stop him,” he snapped.

  Stop who?

  And then Temujin and Roderigo knew.

  In the mouth of the underpass stood a gaunt silhouette, lit by pale moonlight and framed against the blackness of the passage behind. The figure glanced from Temujin to Atilo and grinned. Then it saw Rosalyn in the dirt.

  And stopped grinning. He’d hunted the scent this far. A faint trace on the night wind that pulled him here, and then left him here, unable to trace the scent further. He was stupid to have stayed in one area for so long. Tycho had known that, even as he found himself unable to leave. And now his nightmares had caught up with him.

  The old man from the garden. The soldier who cut him free. And the squat Mongol who ordered him to flay the dark-skinned girl, whose memories still haunted his head. To make it worse, at the old man’s feet lay the girl who’d dragged Tycho from the canal, the one who’d smiled at him in the night alleyways.

  He could run, of course.

  The ruined corte, with its broken well and collapsed buildings, was behind him. Its walls were unsafe, its floors unsteady. He could climb faster than them, jump further. “He’s going to run,” the sergeant said.

  “Where?” The one they called Roderigo was contemptuous.

  Raising his bow, the sergeant said, “Straight through us. If I don’t get the order to fire.”

  “Temujin.”

  “You know I’m right, boss.”

  People in this city used their real names, not knowing the danger they put themselves in. To know a real name was to own a sliver of that person. All the great shamans used this knowledge in their magic. Tycho couldn’t believe people would waste their strength so freely.

  “My lord Atilo?” Roderigo said.

  Tycho moved.

  “Boss…”

  Ducking a grab, Tycho elbowed Temujin hard, fast and brutally, finding himself facing Atilo a second later. Atilo dropped to a fighting crouch and lifted his knife. Did the old man think him a fool? That order to take Tycho alive was Atilo’s mistake, his weakness. He should want Tycho dead.