The fallen blade at-1

by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

  "Will you find him?"

  "We usually do."

  "What happens to his family?"

  Roderigo checked that his charges were walking arm-in-arm ahead; one sullen, the other watchful. Being Giulietta's lady-in-waiting was an honour, but not an easy one. "They'll be questioned obviously."

  "They haven't been already?"

  "Of course they've…" Roderigo's voice was loud enough to make Lady Eleanor look back. "Yes," he hissed. "They've been questioned. One son-in-law and a grandchild are dead. The Council examines the others tomorrow."

  "And then…?"

  "Death between the lion and the dragon."

  Two columns marked the lagoon edge of the piazzetta, a small square attached to San Marco's much larger one. One topped by a winged lion, the other by Saint Todaro slaying a dragon. It was here that traitors died.

  "Why kill them if they know nothing?"

  "What do you know about Murano?"

  "Little enough. You don't encourage strangers."

  "The glassmakers' island has its own courts and cathedral, its own coinage, its own bishop. It even has its own Golden Book. A good portion of Venice's wealth comes from its secrets."

  Captain Roderigo paused to let that sink in.

  "It's the only place in the world where artisans are patrician and skill with your hands earns you the right to wear a sword in public."

  "This comes at a price?"

  Honesty kept Roderigo from lying. Glass-blowers couldn't leave Murano without permission and the penalty for a Muranesq caught trying to abandon Venice was death. "Didn't you need your Prior's permission to leave Cyprus?" he added, refusing to concede the point entirely.

  "I'm a Crucifer." Sir Richard's voice was amused. "I wake, sleep, piss and fight on the orders of my Prior. And we should stop talking. Ignoring Lady Giulietta makes it hard for her to ignore us."

  Roderigo laughed. "She's young," he said. "And Janus has…" He hesitated. "A strange reputation."

  "For liking boys?"

  "Also pain."

  "The last is a lie."

  "Yet he married his late wife for love?"

  "Bedded her once. And was stricken when she died. Your Lady Giulietta will not have an easy time of it." First out of the Grand Canal and already speeding towards the piazzetta, a curly-haired boy and his Nubian companion were far enough ahead to have a length between them and the first of those behind.

  Maybe the lightness of their boat made up for the slightness of its crew.

  Two boys rowing, where others had three, five or even seven working an oar. All stood, using a single oar each. There were ten thousand gondolini in Venice and each was taxed yearly. That was how their number was known.

  A hundred and fifty craft had set out, hoping to race round the city's edge, before returning along the reversed S of the Canalasso, as the Venetians called their largest canal. Although most were gondolini, the boat in front was not.

  "What is it?" Sir Richard asked Roderigo. Then, remembering his manners, added. "Perhaps her ladyship knows?"

  "Eleanor?"

  Her lady-in-waiting didn't know either.

  "A vipera," Roderigo said. "Mostly used for smuggling."

  "It's a vipera," Giulietta said flatly. "Mostly used for smuggling."

  "Equally pointed at both ends?"

  Roderigo nodded. "Instead of turning his boat, the oarsman turns himself, while my men are still turning their gondolini. It's rare to see one used openly."

  "And the name is from viper?"

  "Because they strike fast."

  "Smugglers who strike fast. Or maybe such boats have other uses?"

  Roderigo smiled at the dryness in Sir Richard's voice. Venice was known as the city of gilt, glass and assassinations. The whole of Italy knew why the boats racing towards the finish were black.

  Eleven years earlier, in the year of Our Lord 1396, a gondola had drawn alongside the ornately painted craft carrying Giulietta's mother, Zoe dei San Felice. The crossbow bolt that killed her passed through her oarsman first. When the oarsman crawled to her side, the late duke's only sister was dead.

  A sumptuary law passed that evening instructed that all gondolini be painted black. This was not death's colour in Venice, that was red. But in honour of Zoe's elegance, all vessels would be her favourite colour. The truth was that Marco III had wanted the safety gondolini looking alike would bring his family. The boys in the vipera were extending their lead when the boat closest behind rocked suddenly and tipped, losing its crew with a splash. Glancing back, the curly-haired boy shouted something and his Nubian companion started to laugh.

  "That was Dolphino taking a ducking," Roderigo said, as if this explained everything. "He can't bear losing."

  "You mean…?"

  Lady Giulietta curled her lip. "That was no accident."

  "By tonight," added Roderigo, "Dolphino will have been closing the gap and about to win. And the boys who just stopped will have sacrificed their second place to help a friend."

  "Let's get this over with," Giulietta said.

  Gathering her gown, she stepped from a wooden walkway on to slippery brick and headed for the finish line. Sir Richard followed, wondering how King Janus would deal with his strong-willed bride.

  "Your names?" Roderigo asked.

  "Iacopo, my lord." Cheaply dressed but freshly razored, the curly-haired boy bowed with lazy grace, as if born to court rather than the poverty his jacket suggested. "And this is… a slave." The slave bowed low in the Eastern style, silver thimbles dancing at the ends of a dozen tight braids.

  "Well done," Sir Richard said.

  The curly-haired boy smiled.

  A wide face and brown eyes. Strong arms and… His virility made obvious by the tightness of his hose and the salt spray that soaked them.

  "Eleanor," Lady Giulietta said. "You're staring."

  The girl flushed with embarrassment.

  "The distance?" Sir Richard asked quickly.

  "Nine mille passum, my lord. Seven thousand paces around the edge, and two thousand back through the canal. The waves were tough to the north, but she's good…" He nodded to the vipera in pride.

  "Yours?"

  "My master's."

  Realising the silence following was a question in itself, the boy added. "Lord Atilo il Mauros. He's…"

  Sir Richard knew. "Your winnings," he said, offering a purse.

  The young man bowed again, and couldn't resist weighing the purse in his hand. His grin showed white, and crinkled the edges of his eyes.

  "Eleanor…"

  "I'm not the one gawping."

  Giulietta glanced sharply at her lady-in-waiting.

  "And have this," Roderigo added hastily, shucking himself out of his brocade doublet. It was outdated and darned, but the victor's eyes widened and then he scowled.

  "Silver thread, my lord."

  Tattered brocade he might get away with. However, silver thread, like gold thread, fur, enamel, silk and embroidery, was denied to servants by law.

  "I doubt the Watch will arrest this afternoon's winner before nightfall and you can have your woman pick it clean by tomorrow."

  "I don't have one, my lord."

  "You will tonight," Sir Richard promised.

  4

  Grateful to be free of the wind in their faces, Lady Giulietta's party were walking away from the salt spray and the bobbing boat of the victors when Roderigo became aware of footsteps behind him.

  "My lord…"

  Turning, he found the curly-haired boy. "Iacopo, isn't it?"

  The young man was pleased the captain remembered his name. "Yes, my lord. Forgive me. You know Lady Desdaio, I believe?"

  Roderigo nodded.

  "Intimately, my lord?"

  The captain's scowl was so fierce Iacopo stepped back.

  "I have no doubt of Lady Desdaio's honour," Roderigo said fiercely. "No one has any doubt about her honour. Understand me?"

  Nodding, Iacopo bowed low for causing offence. A
fter which, he chewed his lip and shuffled his feet like the street urchin he'd probably been. His was a face found everywhere in Venice. A curving mouth and knowing eyes framed by curls. His straight, unbroken nose was less usual. It said that either he disliked fights or fought well.

  "What about her?"

  "She is betrothed to my master."

  Roderigo was not a man of tempers.

  He did his job well and both the Regent and duchess used him when they needed a good officer. He'd reached his post as head of the Venetian customs by hard work, having entered as a junior lieutenant. All the same, there was a blackness to his gaze as it swept the herringbone brick of the piazzetta that made people look away.

  "When did this happen?"

  "Yesterday, my lord… I learnt this morning when preparing for the race. Lord Atilo came to wish me luck."

  "I see," Roderigo said tightly.

  Full-breasted, plump and buxom, Desdaio Bribanzo was his ideal of beauty. Hell, she was the city's ideal. Only her hair let her down. This was chestnut rather than the reddish blonde Venice favoured.

  Unlike other girls, she refused to dye it.

  At twenty-three, Desdaio combined huge eyes, a sweet face and sweeter smile with being heiress to a vast fortune. Her father imported more pepper, cinnamon and ginger than any other noble in the city. Obviously enough, she had more suitors than any of her rivals. One of whom was Roderigo. They'd known each other since childhood. He'd thought they liked each other well enough.

  "Why tell me this?"

  "I'd heard… Your kindness. The coat…" Iacopo stuttered to a halt and went back to shuffling his feet.

  "Lord Bribanzo approves?"

  "He's still in Rome, my lord."

  "In which case we'll see what he says. She wouldn't be the first to give her heart to one man while her father gives her body to another."

  "This case is complicated." Iacopo chose his words carefully, keeping his face neutral as he waited for the captain to ask why.

  "So tell me," Roderigo growled.

  "She has moved herself into Ca' il Mauros."

  "My God. Her father will…"

  "Be furious, my lord. None the less, if she stays even a single night there unchaperoned. No parental fury can undo the damage that does her."

  "She has gold." Roderigo said flatly. "It will be enough."

  Iacopo sucked his teeth, as if to say the ways of women, particularly noble and rich ones, were beyond him. And if the brave captain said this was the case, who was he to disagree? The Ca' Ducale was built using pillars, window frames and door arches looted from other cities. Its style, however, was unique. Round arches from the Orthodox East combined with mauresque fretwork and pointed windows from Western Gothic; mixed in a fashion only found in one city in the world: this one.

  This theft of materials was not the insult.

  Nor was the fact that the palace and its basilica both used materials stolen from mosques, synagogues and even churches. How could one expect better of a place where Venetian first, Christian second was said daily?

  The insult was more subtle.

  The palace said to foreign princes, You hide behind fortified walls in ugly castles. I live on islands in the sea. My power is so great I can afford to live behind walls so thin they could be made from glass. That fact had not occurred to Captain Roderigo until Sir Richard pointed it out to him.

  "Sir Richard, perhaps you could…"

  Indicating Giulietta discreetly, and then the nearest palace door, Roderigo said, "I have official matters waiting."

  "You're not dining with us?"

  "As I said, duty calls."

  Sir Richard scowled. "I don't suppose…"

  "Me," said Roderigo, "the duke can manage without. You, he is expecting for supper. Well," he added, more honestly, "I'm sure the Regent and Duchess Alexa expect you. His highness…"

  There was no need to say more.

  "This business had to do with the customs office?"

  Roderigo jerked his head at a dozen ships moored on a stretch of lagoon reserved for those in quarantine. Since God's wrath killed half of Venice sixty years before ships now waited offshore to make certain they carried no disease.

  "We think one of those might already have taken the glass-blower aboard. We'll be boarding the ship tonight."

  "Which one?"

  "See the last?"

  Sir Richard peered into the sleet. After a second, Roderigo realised that Giulietta and her lady-in-waiting had joined them.

  "Moorish," Eleanor said.

  Giulietta shook her head. "Mamluk," she corrected. Seeing Sir Richard's surprise, she added tartly, "When there's nothing to do but watch ships you learn their flags quickly enough. Any fool can work it out."

  Sir Richard's face went blank.

  He had to confirm a treaty, collect his king's new wife and escort her to Famagusta, where she could watch ships headed north for the Venetian ports strung like pearls between Rhodes and the city itself. After this, Giulietta's temper was the king's business. Sir Richard didn't look upset at the thought.

  "What did the ship do wrong?"

  "Absolutely nothing," Roderigo told Lady Eleanor. "It arrived, waited as told, and followed our pilot without arguing the price…"

  "That's it?" Giulietta's lady-in-waiting sounded surprised.

  "Paid harbour dues, bought fresh water. They didn't even try to bribe their way out of quarantine…"

  Lady Giulietta snorted. That was suspicious indeed.

  5

  Inside the customs house, Venice's famous Dogana fortress, men had been gathering since sunset. Roderigo was the last to arrive.

  "Hey, chief…"

  The man who spoke was shorter than his commander and half as broad again. He had the wide face, Mongol eyes and tallow skin of his father. After fifty years on God's earth, he still spoke like his mother, a Rialto fishwife.

  "What?"

  "Guess that answers that."

  "Answers what?"

  "I was going to ask if you were all right."

  Roderigo had found Temujin drunk in the street begging for alms. In two years he'd gone from mopping floors to sergeant. He fought dirty, drank hard and paid his debts; and the troop respected him for it, or had the sense to keep any doubts to themselves.

  "Everyone here?"

  "One's ill. I've borrowed him instead."

  Temujin pointed to a rat-faced man in a Castellani smock, overlaid with a leather jerkin so filthy he could pass unseen on a moonless night. The composite bow over his shoulder fired arrows of a kind the captain hadn't seen in years. Taking another look, he noted the shape of the man's eyes.

  "I can find someone else."

  "No need." The Mongols kept a fontego in the city. A trading post where Mongol law applied. Like every other race, they left their bastards.

  Taking another salted fish, Roderigo chewed it until it was just about soft enough to swallow. He wanted wine to remove the aftertaste, but once ordered the temptation to drink would be impossible to bear.

  Atilo il Mauros had to be sixty-five at the least. His name wasn't in the Golden Book, the list of noble families with a right to sit in Council. Worse, he wasn't even from Serenissima. He spoke Italian with an Andalusian accent.

  "Find me wine," Roderigo demanded.

  Temujin looked at him, but sent a trooper for a fresh jug and a squat tumbler on which fading saints stared ghost-like. Having filled his glass, Roderigo returned the jug. "Tip the rest away."

  "Chief…"

  "All right. All right. Share it around. But if one man gets drunk I'll have him whipped. If someone dies through his folly I'll have him hanged. Make sure they know that."

  The men filled their mugs anyway.

  "The boats are ready?"

  Of course the boats were ready. The boats were always ready. But Temujin made do with a brief nod before asking if there was anything else his captain wanted.

  Other than the head of Atilo on a spit?

 
The upstairs office to which the Captain of the Dogana took himself had a fire laid, and a stout woman knelt before it. Who, Roderigo suspected, could be laid with little enough trouble herself. Maria was Temujin's woman and the customs house's unofficial maid.

  She had an almost full set of teeth, wide hips and low breasts that shifted as she moved to light his fire. Still crouching, she turned and he saw darkness between her thighs. "Is there anything, my lord…?"

  "No," Roderigo said.

  He wanted Desdaio. Who didn't?

  In the corner stood a pair of grinding wheels.

  One was coarse, the other so fine he'd never seen another like it. Their combined weight was hard to start rolling but they kept revolving longer than a single stone. Sharpening his sword with casual competence, Roderigo honed edge and point until both could slice leather, this being what most sailors wore as armour.

  Temujin knocked as midnight struck.

  "Ready when you are, chief."

  The sergeant had checked his men's weapons but Captain Roderigo rechecked them anyway. Temujin would be disappointed otherwise. After the fug inside the fortress, the night felt colder than it was. Drizzle coming in sheets on the wind. With luck, it would turn to sleet and fling itself in Mamluk faces, providing cover and allowing Roderigo's men to approach less carefully. Staring into that wind, Roderigo felt tears fill his angry eyes and cursed himself for stupidity, glad of the darkness. He'd watched Desdaio grow from pampered child to a young woman desperate for the freedom her young cousins still had.

  Of course, her fortune would have helped his. His own house was a ruin, his salary from the Dogana less than he spent. All the same, Roderigo hadn't lied when he told Desdaio he loved her. For her to sneak into another man's house…

  Into another man's bed.

  "Chief…"