Afrior looked doubtful, but then she was a girl and naked. Looking at her, one man muttered and a second laughed. Both silenced by a snarl from their chief. At his command, they grabbed Afrior the moment she climbed from the water.
Tycho attacked on instinct.
And fell to a blow to his head. Having kicked the air from his lungs, and what was left of the piss from his bladder, the chief stopped when Tycho shat himself. It wasn’t a serious beating. More a warning not to be stupid.
Then another Skaelingar picked him up and turned him to face Afrior, who was struggling with her own captors. When one dug his thumb into her elbow, she started to cry instead.
“I am to translate,” the half-Skaelingar said. “Have you seen what we do to your women? Yes, or no?”
Tycho hadn’t. But he’d heard it whispered.
“We take these,” the translator said.
Their chief gripped Afrior’s breasts, lifting slightly.
“Cutting like this.”
The chief’s hand traced a circle, sloping in so that Tycho understood they cored a pit to take what was behind as well. Afrior might have been an animal for all the attention the man paid her.
“And we take this.”
She screamed when the chief dropped his hand. Tycho didn’t think he hurt her; it was the shock of having him grip her there.
“And, finally, we slit from here to here.” The chief traced from blonde body fur to the arch of Afrior’s ribs. “And pull out what we find.” He stepped back, offended, as she soiled herself.
“You understand?”
Tycho nodded dumbly.
“There is another choice,” the chief said, his words translated through the half-Skaelingar. “Would you like to know it?”
“Yes,” he said. “I would.”
Having glared, to make sure Tycho paid attention, the chief unslung his flint knife, grabbed Afrior between her legs and cut. She jerked in her captor’s hands. And then the chief scattered pale hair at her feet.
“This is all that will happen.”
Tycho looked in disbelief at the man translating, then at the chief whose words these were. He wondered if the ex-slave translated right.
“No harm will come if you do what we ask.” And then the Skaelingar told him what was wanted. Since it seemed the two Viking slaves should not be out together, their chief would not find it strange if one returned alone. Sometime tonight Tycho would unlock Bjornvin’s gate. If it was not unlocked, his lover’s mutilated body would be left at the gates at dawn. If it was, both would have safe passage through Skaelingar territory to the lands beyond.
“The next tribe will kill us.”
“What you should consider,” the chief said, “is that we will not.”
Tycho could have let Afrior die. With her would have died the risk of anyone finding out what had happened. He could have return to his life as Lord Eric’s wolf dog, continued to ignore the hard-faced bitch he called mother.
He was a slave. Lord Eric said do this, he did it.
Running faster than the others, jumping higher, hunting swiftly and silently didn’t make him valuable. It simply made him hated. Most days, he got up at daybreak, obeyed orders till nightfall, then slept. Saving Afrior meant betraying everyone else. How could that be right?
He could tell Lord Eric what had happened.
The beating would be terrible but he’d survived others. But Afrior would die and Tycho wanted her. So he killed the gate guard instead. Hitting the man clumsily, clubbing him from behind. When the guard was dead, Tycho lifted the bar to Bjornvin’s gate.
The first thing the Skaelingar chief did on entering Bjornvin was yank back the head of the naked, bound and gagged Viking girl in front of him, spit into her face and rip his blade across her throat.
Afrior bled out before she hit the dirt.
Tycho’s attack would have made him a hero had any lived to sing of it. Grabbing the fallen gate guard’s sword, he flung himself at the chief and plunged the blade in the man’s guts, twisting in his fury.
Then Lord Eric was there, broad-shouldered, more grey than red in his beard. A bloody battle-axe in hand. He believed his slave was guarding Bjornvin’s gate. In three blows Lord Eric killed another three Skaelingar. Then he turned, clapped Tycho on the shoulder. “Wake everyone,” he ordered.
Tycho would have done.
But his mother grabbed him before he reached the great hall. The first thing she told him was that she wasn’t his mother. The next, that he was neither Viking nor Skaelingar, but Fallen. She said this through gritted teeth, hatred in her face. “Where’s my daughter?”
“Dead. The Skaelingar killed her.”
Withered Arm slapped him. “You killed her. You think I didn’t know?”
Her eyes were hard, her voice cold as winter. Tycho had no doubt she wanted him dead. Would like to kill him herself. Instead, with battle raging, she hurried him to her quarters, and told him to spread the straw from her mattress in a wide circle.
“Do it now,” she ordered.
Outside the slaughter continued.
Individually, Lord Eric’s warriors were better armed. Their swords, chain mail and the helmets brought from Greenland gave them an advantage. But they were outnumbered. The Skaelingar had been closing on the village for years. When Withered Arm returned it was with a flaming brand.
“My mistress told me how to do this before she died. Maybe she knew…” Withered Arm stopped, face bitter. “Oh, she knew all right. She died in birth so you could live. And I knew it for a bad bargain then. Now we die so you… Who knows what? Who will be left to even care?”
Pushing him into the middle of the circle, Withered Arm set fire to the straw, stepping back as flames crackled around him. And then he felt ice instead of flames, and a rushing like wings, and a vicious wind as if he was falling from a great height. The last thing he saw was the hatred in her face.
“That’s true?” Desdaio asked. She was blushing furiously. At the things he’d said about Afrior and the river, Tycho realised.
“It’s what I remember.”
“Does Atilo know?”
“No, my lady. He never asked.”
“You stepped into the flames of where you came from. To find yourself in my world?”
Tycho nodded.
Crossing herself, Desdaio scrambled to her feet and returned staggering under the weight of a leather-bound Bible. “This was my mother’s,” she said. “Take it from me. Use both hands.”
He did as she demanded. Watching her chew her lips.
“What did you think would happen?”
“I thought you’d go up in flames.”
“Why would I…?”
“If you were a demon you would catch fire. I thought…” She looked embarrassed. “It sounds as if you came from hell.”
“I thought this was hell,” Tycho told her truthfully. “When I first arrived. All these people crowded on to misty little islands. And the water here… In Bjornvin I’d swim when I could and it always made me happy. Here, simply crossing the canals sickens me. The air stinks of smoke and shit.”
“But you were starving. You said so. We have food here.”
“Some people have food here. And why shouldn’t there be food in hell for some. Do you think Satan lives in squalor?”
They sat in silence on a bench after that. Desdaio fed him wine and cake, which he barely drank and didn’t touch respectively. And, finally, she asked him where he went at night, on the occasions he accompanied my lord Atilo.
“Council meetings,” Tycho lied.
Dog days, full moons, his training kills. Tall scratches for men, shorter ones for women. A single dot for an infant, all that stood between Venice and an estate on the mainland, a dying count’s new grandson. The truth was scratched on his cellar wall. All of it, apart from Atilo’s visits to Duchess Alexa.
There were too many of those.
Nine deaths in total. Fewer than he expected. Lord Eric had killed more th
an that in a single battle. A dozen Skaelingar, their guts steaming and their eyes fresh for the crows. Almost all of Tycho’s kills had been clean. Atilo was impressed at first, worried later. More worried still when Tycho’s final kill in San Pietro di Castello proved so much bloodier than his previous eight.
41
During the year that Tycho trained Iacopo grew a beard. A soldier’s beard to make him look older, fiercer. He used masks less these days. No longer needing to hide his youthful softness in the company of others.
A tumbler of wine sat in front of him. The last of this year’s wages glinted on his chest. A steel breastplate in the Aragonese style. A scratch below its left armhole suggested its previous owner died in battle or was knifed in his sleep.
Iacopo wasn’t superstitious, and that sign of ill luck was enough to bring the armourer’s price down to something he could almost afford. Although it had taken a dagger borrowed from Atilo’s collection to seal the deal. The Schiavoni claimed the scratch was simply where the breastplate fell and the piece was worth double Iacopo’s final offer. But he spat on his hand and shook on it just the same.
“New?” someone asked.
Looking up, Iacopo saw Captain Roderigo. So he smiled modestly, and let the captain believe that if he wished. The last year had seen Venice split between Prince Alonzo and Duchess Alexa’s factions. Almost by accident, Roderigo found himself on one side. And Atilo found himself on the other. Positions worsened after last week’s incident with Tmr bin Taragay’s messenger.
A minor prince from Tmr’s wife’s family, the Mongol refused to deliver his message to the Ten, talking only to the duchess and leaving immediately. No one knew what Tmr’s message said. The duchess simply burnt it after reading and refused to say. So now, Prince Alonzo found himself trapped between caution and fury. Never a good place for someone like him to be.
“Captain.” Iacopo raised his glass. He saw no point in making unnecessary enemies. Life at Ca’ il Mauros was complicated enough. Lord Atilo and his betrothed keeping separate quarters. Everyone knew they would marry. No one knew when. Some said not until Atilo left the duchess’s bed. Others, that the Moor would be stupid to exchange vows if he had any chance of marrying Alexa instead.
And then there was the freak, with his strange spectacles, priest-coloured doublet and hateful silences. Tycho didn’t talk to Iacopo, he didn’t not talk to Iacopo. He barely noticed Iacopo’s existence. Desdaio and Amelia, on the other hand…
Iacopo sucked his teeth.
“Problems?” Captain Roderigo asked.
“Such is life,” Iacopo replied. Realising the captain was about to move on, he found his smile. “Let me buy you a drink, my lord.”
“It must be my turn.”
Iacopo looked surprised.
“After you won last year’s race. We drank at the Griffin behind St Bartholomew, remember?”
“How could I forget, my lord. I’m simply surprised you remembered yourself.” He’d overdone it. The captain was glancing round the tavern, not finding who he’d come to see, and framing reasons for refusing the offer. Iacopo could see it in his eyes. Although why a man like Captain Roderigo would bother to excuse himself to a servant like him…
Because that’s what he was, Iacopo thought bitterly.
A servant, for all he owned a breastplate and greaves and a sword. His training was secret, the tasks he performed for his master equally so. No one knew the secrets he carried. No one was allowed to know. There were days he found this harder to bear than others. “An honour to buy you a drink,” he said, forcing a smile. “An even bigger honour to leave you with a hangover.”
Captain Roderigo laughed.
“Who were you looking for, my lord?”
“My sergeant. He’s off duty but we have business tomorrow that needs discussing today.”
Iacopo nodded sagely.
He had an idea what that business might be and had sense enough to say nothing. Today was Maundy Thursday, one reason the tavern was full. Obviously enough, tomorrow was Good Friday, when the devout flogged themselves through the streets, and the rest avoided sex and gambling, and a long list of other vices the new patriarch had recently read from the pulpits.
It was to be the day of Tycho’s testing. Just as it had been the day of Iacopo’s testing. And Amelia’s, and all those who went before. All those who died nearly two years back in the slaughter at Cannaregio.
“Perhaps I will have a drink,” Captain Roderigo said.
“This might even be the real thing,” Iacopo said, wiping blood-like drops of wine from his beard. The tavern keeper claimed it was Barolo and it looked dark enough.
“I agree,” Roderigo said.
Iacopo had never tasted Barolo in his life.
“So,” Captain Roderigo said. “How are things with you?”
“Much the same. His lordship attends Council. Dotes on Lady Desdaio. Visits Duchess Alexa for advice.”
The captain grinned.
Iacopo thought he might.
“And how is Lady Desdaio?” Even if Iacopo hadn’t known the captain for an ex-suitor, the careful nature of his question would have announced it.
“As sweet as ever.”
Roderigo took a sip of wine. “It’s none of my business, obviously. But what news of their marriage?”
“None I would know.”
“No,” Roderigo admitted. “I don’t suppose you would.” Holding his glass to the light, he examined the contents critically. “I’m not sure this is Barolo after all.” But he emptied it quickly enough. And Iacopo was careful to demand Barolo when he bought the next jug.
“Yes, my lord.”
Iacopo checked the tavern keeper wasn’t mocking him, but the man seemed serious enough. “Open a tab,” Atilo’s servant ordered. “I’ll send my man to settle tomorrow.”
“That’s Good Friday, my lord.”
“Maybe so. You’ll still want paying, won’t you?”
The tavern keeper nodded and filled a jug to the brim from a barrel apart from the others. Even if it wasn’t Barolo, it was obviously special enough for him not to want jugs given away by accident.
“What is it really?” Iacopo demanded.
The tavern keeper glanced round. “It really is Barolo,” he whispered. “Just not a very good one.”
Iacopo laughed loud enough to make the hazard players look over. He met their gaze and they saw a stranger with a sharp black beard, wearing a stylish breastplate, taking a jug of the best wine. A couple of them nodded, one even smiled.
“Friends of yours?” Roderigo asked.
“Not really,” Iacopo answered, leaving it understood he knew them, just not very well. His embroidering was interrupted by the tavern keeper, who carried a bowl of stewed mutton, which he ladled in heaped spoonfuls on to thick slices of stale bread. The captain ate his mutton and left the bread. So Iacopo did the same.
“I should go,” Roderigo said. “Temujin’s probably drunk by now.” He stood unsteadily, appeared on the edge of saying something about his own state and shrugged. “Bloody man,” he muttered. “Always causing trouble.”
Iacopo hoped he was talking about the sergeant.
“About Desdaio…” Roderigo said a few minutes later.
“My lord?”
“Is she happy?”
“Oh yes, she’s…” Iacopo stopped. “Well, as happy as can be expected. It must be hard to be disowned. And she… My lord, may I speak plainly?”
“Feel free.”
Roderigo waited.
“What,” he asked finally, “did you have to say?”
Iacopo sucked his teeth. “Maybe she’s not that happy,” he said. “She expected to be wed by now. But my lord Atilo is always busy. And it must be a lonely life for a healthy young woman…”
“You have her confidence?”
“No, my lord. She confides in Amelia, her maid. And…” Iacopo hesitated again. “Atilo has a slave.”
“The blind boy?”
�
��He’s not blind, my lord. But light does hurt his eyes. So he wears strange spectacles and avoids daylight whenever he can.”
“So I gather,” Roderigo said shortly.
“My lord, if I’ve offended you…”
“I’ve had dealings with the boy.”
Iacopo caught himself and kept drinking. Something in the captain’s voice was too casual. If Iacopo hadn’t known better, he’d say Captain Roderigo feared Tycho. “My master intends to release him.”
“So soon?”
“Soon, my lord?”
“I heard Atilo kept his slaves and bondsmen for three to five years before releasing them. To release them at all is ridiculous. No offence, of course. But to get only one year’s work.” Captain Roderigo shrugged. “How long before he freed you?”
“I was not a slave or bondsman.”
“Really? I thought…”
“I was an orphan, true enough. My father died on the galleys.”
Iacopo had no proof of this, since his father was unknown. But Venice held a special place for freemen who died in battle protecting the city’s trade routes or opening other avenues of trade. And Roderigo’s approving nod said this mythical father counted in his favour.
“Why is Atilo freeing this one so soon?”
“He learns fast,” Iacopo said flatly. “Table manners. Italian. All that Desdaio teaches him. He’s even starting to learn to write.”
“You don’t like him.” Captain Roderigo said this as a fact.
“I don’t trust him, my lord. And Desdaio watches him,” he said carefully. “I used to think she was afraid of him. Now I’m not sure. They spend a lot of time together.”
“Desdaio and the slave?”
“Lady Desdaio, the slave, sometimes Amelia,” said Iacopo, forcing a worried smile. “Hours alone in the piano nobile while Atilo is away. And the slave accompanies them on evening walks. Sometimes they go for hours. I’m sure nothing happens…”
“He’s a slave.”
“Indeed, my lord.”
Captain Roderigo looked disgusted.
42
“Iacopo?” asked Tycho, hearing his door begin to open.
The Fallen Blade: Act One of the Assassini Page 22