When his mother looked worried, he winked.
"Marco…?"
The duke nodded towards the door.
The old man entering wore a Moorish gown, a turban round his head, and turned-up leather slippers. A silver sheath jutted from his belt, but its blade was gone, removed on his arrest. His beard was dyed, although grey flecked his temples.
"Atilo…"
The duchess was on her feet before common sense kicked in. Sitting, she gripped her chair.
Prince Alonzo smiled.
"You knew about this?" she asked angrily.
"About what?" Turning to Bribanzo, he said, "Are you saying this is the villain responsible…?"
Atilo stepped forward.
"Later," Prince Alonzo snapped. "You will be told when to speak. I am addressing Lord Bribanzo. Well?"
"It is, excellence."
"Then the betrothal is void. You cannot have a betrothal where marriage is banned. Suitable candidates for Lady Desdaio's hand include foreign princes and families in the Golden Book. Lord Atilo is neither a recognised prince nor in the Book. We do not grant permission."
By we he meant the Ten. At least, Alexa hoped he did.
"However," Alonzo added. "My brother, the late duke, had faith in this man's abilities. Because of that he will be spared public punishment."
Lord Bribanzo scowled. A quick scowl, speedily swallowed. "No punishment at all, my lord?"
"He has done my city some small favours."
Your city? Small favours?
The duchess was glad to have a veil to hide her anger.
Atilo had won a dozen battles. Never mind the services he rendered as head of the Assassini. And hadn't he sacrificed almost every one of his men to keep Giulietta out of the hands of the Wolf Brothers? What more did Alonzo want?
Alexa wished she'd followed her instincts the morning the late duke died, and had Alonzo killed immediately. If only her husband hadn't made her promise to let him live. Marco III had been known as the Just and the Wise. In this, she doubted both his justice and wisdom.
"I am right," Alonzo was saying. "Your name isn't in the Book?"
"No, my lord." Atilo shook his head, his face tightening behind his beard.
"Then this matter is done. Lord Bribanzo may take his daughter. And you can be grateful for our mercy. Now let the Ten consider more important business."
"You can't make me."
Desdaio's protest echoed off wood-panelled walls. Both her father, and Atilo, moved to comfort her and stopped, glaring at each other. While Desdaio stood uncomforted between them, her shoulders shaking with sobs.
Little idiot, Alexa thought.
But a buxom little idiot. Of the kind Venetians find irresistible, burning themselves like moths against her need. Looking into the eyes of her late husband's favourite, the duchess saw real pain. Atilo il Mauros, the man who turned back German cavalry on the marshes of the Veneto, had fallen for the ephemeral charms of a woman a third his age.
Duchess Alexa sighed.
Throwing herself at the feet of Duke Marco's throne, Desdaio gripped its carved legs as if guards were already trying to drag her free. "Please," she begged. "Help me."
The duke kicked his heel hard. He glared at his mother. He glared at Atilo. He glared at a spare chair. An empty, gilded chair. Sitting back, he rammed his thumb into his mouth, scratched his crotch openly and scrunched his eyes.
"I think…" Alonzo began to say.
But the duchess was standing. Moving swiftly, she stopped opposite Atilo as the court pushed back their chairs, hurrying to stand in their turn. Pausing just long enough to heighten their expectations, she clapped Atilo on the shoulder.
"There is my choice," she said loudly. "My husband's old adviser, this city's faithful servant for the Tenth Chair."
Utter silence filled the room.
"Alexa…" Prince Alonzo hesitated. Obviously choosing his words with care. "This is not wise. You know there are reasons why…"
"It's my turn."
"No," said Bribanzo. His fleshy face red with the effort of controlling his temper. "You can't."
"My lord…" Alexa's voice was icy. And Bribanzo went stock still. He might only be five years older than Atilo, but there the likeness ended. Lord Bribanzo was a coward, albeit an ambitious one.
"You presume to tell me what I may do?"
After Bribanzo had grovelled, Alexa glared round the room, daring anyone else to disagree and, for a second, her gaze halted at the sight of her son smiling sweetly. She could swear he blew Desdaio a kiss.
"Do you accept the chair?" Alexa asked Atilo.
"My lady…"
"Do you?"
Sinking to his knees, Atilo il Mauros kissed the ring her husband had placed on her finger on their wedding day years earlier. "As always, I am yours to command." Amending this, he said. "As the duke, the Regent and you command."
"Delighted to hear it," Alonzo said.
Turning to a scribe, Alexa said. "Have Lord Atilo's name entered in the Golden Book immediately. He will lead the hunt for my niece."
"Roderigo will accompany him." Prince Alonzo's voice was firm.
To Bribanzo, the duchess said, "Make your peace. My niece must be found and this seat needs filling. Atilo is a trusted servant. As are you." The compliment sounded hollow even to her.
It would help if she could put warmth in it. Give Bribanzo a smile he could interpret as the promise of her future favour. Unfortunately, she loathed the man. Alexa liked her favourites lean and hungry.
"My daughter?"
"Milan will not take her now," Alexa said flatly. "As for other suitors…" If they have any sense, she thought, they'll accept defeat to avoid upsetting the Ten's newest member; a man dangerous in ways most didn't know.
An ignorance that came close to bliss.
"You may g-g-go," the duke said. He'd taken his thumb out of his mouth and was pointing at Bribanzo. "N-n-now."
At the door, Lord Bribanzo turned, and his words were heard by those in the chamber, and by those in the corridor outside. By nightfall, they were known everywhere in the city. A declaration of hatred for Atilo, although he directed his venom at his daughter.
"You, I disown."
His voice was the hiss of a snake. His eyes flat, beyond fury, in a state where he would kill her without regret. "You were never mine. It is not that you died for me this day. You were never born."
19
News of Bribanzo's feud with Atilo was overshadowed by rumours that the Mamluks had abducted Lady Giulietta il Millioni to prevent her marrying King Janus, because an alliance with Cyprus would have given Venice the mouth of the Nile. Rumours that grew from abducting, to abducting and probably raping, and then to abducting undoubtedly, raping and probably murdering, as days turned into weeks.
The Cypriot ambassador said goodbye.
Regretful but implacable, Sir Richard Glanville boarded his ship and hoisted his king's colours, and the colours of his Priory, and slipped through the sandbanks at the mouth of the lagoon into the Adriatic beyond.
His was the only vessel allowed to leave.
The ship that had sneaked from the lagoon was chased, stopped and boarded. It turned out to be Mamluk, but Lady Giulietta was not aboard. And its crew swore they had not put ashore since leaving Venice. Their captain died under questioning, still protesting he knew nothing about an abduction. He was a simple smuggler.
Trade ceased on the lagoon for the first time since Marco the Cruel overthrew the Rebel Republic fifty years earlier. Gulls still swept the waves, cormorants dived from posts holding fishing nets. They were the only movement. Food piled up on the mainland. Night soil was not collected. Cittadini made deputations citing loss of profits. Leaving shocked by Prince Alonzo's contempt for their worries.
The city's fishing nets, as famous as San Marco itself, hung from crossed poles, dry and unused. The small boats that should have collected the dawn catch remained beached on Venice's mudflats. Ships at anchor remain
ed there. Those waiting to enter stayed beyond the lagoon or found another port. Salt barges were refused leave to set out for the mainland. New barges, loaded with dried fish, salted beef and wizened fruit stored the previous summer remained on their mainland moorings, their produce slowly rotting.
"You must show yourself," Duchess Alexa told the Regent. "Let the people see you. Reassure them."
"You show yourself."
"I'm in mourning."
"It's three years," he said crossly. "Enough of the hiding in darkened rooms and refusing to appear in public. Take Marco and let the city see you."
"Impossible," the duchess said. "You know…"
"He can't be let out in public?"
"Alonzo…"
"It's the truth. And, speaking of truth, are you behind this?"
"Behind what?"
"Giulietta's abduction?"
"Why would I do that?"
"Answer me."
"If you remember," Alexa said tightly, "I suggested her marriage to Janus. We need Cyprus to secure our trade routes. In fact, our future wealth depends on it. You seem over-friendly with the sultan's ambassador. Should I be asking you the same?"
"Believe me, that's changing."
Stamping to the balcony, Alonzo glared through fretted shutters at a crowd on the Molo, the palace's water terrace. Beyond them, to his left, the Riva degli Schiavoni was equally thronged. Most of those gathering were Arsenalotti. "Venice needs a duke who can control it," he said.
"You, you mean?"
"It can't be you."
"Because I'm a woman?"
"And a Mongol. You know how they feel about that."
The deal Marco Polo had struck with Kublai Khan to import goods from China made the city richer than ever before. Gratitude from the richer merchants had secured Marco the throne. The doge became a duke in power as well as name. The Council became the duke's servant and not his master.
The price Kublai extracted was twofold. A fontego di khan near the Rialto from which to trade. And a guarantee that Khanic law would apply to all Mongols in Venice, whatever their crime and wherever that crime was committed. Marco III's marriage had sweetened the deal on both sides. But Marco's grip had been iron for all he claimed it velvet.
"They need a real duke," Alonzo said.
"They have one."
"Whom they see once a year. Heavily sedated. Painted white like some whore, drugged with opium, with his hands twitching like broken wings."
"My son will never abdicate."
"You mean," Alonzo said, "you will never let him…"
It was what his niece's absence represented, not the abduction itself, which drove the Regent to fury. All his plans, all his brilliance, simply wasted. He wouldn't put it past the little bitch to get abducted on purpose…
20
Rolling over, Giulietta scooped up a blanket and stood. Only to sit back down when the little room began to spin. Hunger hollowed her guts. It stopped her sleeping. Today she would make herself eat.
A fire already burnt in her grate, a large bowl of warm water stood on a stand, ready for her to wash her face. A smaller bowl would be waiting on the table at breakfast so she could wash her hands. As one had been waiting on the table at supper. This was not what she expected captivity to be like.
The first day she'd refused help dressing.
But the old woman in the doorway looked so forlorn that yesterday Giulietta relented and let her help a little. Of course, Giulietta still only had the one dress. And that now looked tired, although still cleaner than it had that night in the basilica when she got blood on it.
That barely came close to describing what happened when the strange grey-haired boy dropped from the basilica ceiling and found her half naked. Perhaps, she thought, he would have let her kill herself if he'd known what Uncle Alonzo intended to do to her.
Feeling her eyes fill, Giulietta rubbed them angrily.
The chamber in the Ca' Ducale had been well named. What they did to her in her in the Sala della Tortura was torture. The memory of having her knees forced apart filled her with helplessness. She couldn't bear to think about it and she didn't know how to stop herself thinking about it. Every time she recalled the violation she felt sick. And Dr. Crow's magic had worked; she couldn't even talk to herself about it.
At least not aloud.
But since the old woman who looked after her now was deaf as well as dumb it made no real difference. Her husband was the same. It was hard to put an age on them. To Giulietta everyone older than her looked old.
The old woman dried Giulietta's tears carefully, washed her face with a damp cloth and helped her dress, tying the ribbons with shaking hands. Giulietta did the buttons herself. Otherwise the food would be cold.
Her breakfast today was fresh bread, cheese, a wizened apple, a slice of warm sweetmeat tart, and hot wine with nutmeg to keep out the chill. Her wine tasted heavily watered. To the old couple she was obviously a child. The apple was already cut and the pie sliced. Knives had not been laid today.
"I'd like a walk," Giulietta said.
The man looked at the woman, who was the one who made all the decisions. The woman tipped her head to one side, considering. So Giulietta went to stand directly in front of her, and said, "please."
Both of them could read her lips, which told her they understood Italian. She'd already decided they'd once been able to speak or hear, or both. That made her wonder who they were. She was a prisoner. There was little doubt about that.
A prisoner in a warm, sweetly decorated prison in the middle of…
And that was where Lady Giulietta's knowledge fell apart. Obviously, she was somewhere. Since she had yet to go outside, and the shutters were locked, and the skylight showed only cloud, how could she escape if she didn't know what she was escaping from?
"Please," she said. "Let me take a walk."
Maybe it was the please that did it.
They must have known it was not a word to drop easily from the lips of a Millioni princess. Because the old man looked at the old woman and something passed in the silence between them. The woman nodded, and the old man fetched a coat of purest white fur. And this puzzled Lady Giulietta more than ever. Because a coat that rare must be priceless.
All she'd seen of her prison was her bedroom and the little room where they ate. But then the woman reached into her pocket for a key, glanced at the old man for reassurance and unlocked the world beyond.
The small hall was so full of furniture Giulietta had to turn sideways to slide between a wooden chair and a chest on her way to the door. Unhooking a heavy key from a nail, the man unlocked the front door and stepped back.
She was imprisoned in a tiny temple.
A tiny wooden temple surrounded by a walled garden run to seed, snow-flecked and stripped bare by winter. Half the trees seemed desolate, the other half looked dead. Giulietta wasn't sure she recognised any of them. The wall enclosing this desolation was higher than she was. Much higher.
"Where am I?"
The old man looked at her.
"Tell me." Since he was dumb, Lady Giulietta wasn't sure how she expected him to answer. Then she noticed him glance towards a post and she wondered if this was her answer. Two horsetails hung from a pole jammed into the snow. Since the silver decorating the pole was black she guessed it had been there for a while. The sky looked familiar and the air smelt as salt as it should.
"Am I still in Venice?"
When the old man turned away, she walked round to the other side of him and he sighed. Giulietta decided a straight question might be better.
"I am in Venice, aren't I?"
The old man shook his head, then nodded.
"What's that meant to mean?" she demanded. His smile was kind, but no more use than his conflicting shake and nod. So she headed towards the wall, hearing him hurry to keep up. There was a single door. Needless to say it was locked.
"Open this for me."
The old man shook his head.
&nb
sp; "Please," Giulietta said. "Let me see what's on the other side."
To escape she needed to know exactly where she was. And for that she needed him to open the gate. But he simply shook his head when she asked. Lady Giulietta quickly realised he could shake his head as often as she could asked. It made no difference if she begged, wheedled or commanded as a Millioni princess. He wasn't prepared to unlock the gate.
"Has someone ordered you not to open it?"
The old man nodded.
"Who ordered you?" she demanded.
It seemed he could shake his head equally well for every name she offered. Although whether that was because she suggested the wrong names or he had no intention of telling her, she had no way of knowing. So her day dragged to an end, with her feeling scarily like she was trapped in a fairy tale. One of those her mother had told her when her mother was alive. After an early supper, Giulietta decided she needed another walk.
"Please," she said.
The old man looked at the old woman, who shook her head.
"It will help me sleep later," Giulietta persisted. "You want me to be able to sleep don't you?"
At the old woman's sigh, the old man smiled. He collected the key from the wall by the door, while the woman fetched the fur coat. Once they had her safely wrapped, the old man opened the door to let in the darkness.
And a demon entered with it.
21
The Regent's temper when he showed himself to the people by walking the streets at dusk was worse than ever. Fierce enough for Roderigo to fear still for his own future. Prince Alonzo held Roderigo responsible for the delay in finding Giulietta. If he'd done his job properly, the unflagged Mamluk vessel would never have been allowed to leave port. Days would not have been wasted chasing it. The real search for Giulietta could have begun earlier. How he squared this with the fact that the Watch had turned the poor parishes of the city upside down was a mystery.
The mood in the taverns was ugly. The Nicoletti claimed the Castellani helped Mamluks carry out Lady Giulietta's abduction. The Castellani declared they would die to the last man before letting Nicoletti scum accuse them of treason.
The fallen blade at-1 Page 10