The fallen blade at-1

by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

  "Even Francesca the cook?"

  "Yes, my lady," Amelia nodded.

  "What were you going to say? About chopping things?"

  "Francesca lets you in the kitchen, because…"

  "She can't refuse?"

  "Yes, my lady. You are the mistress of this house. Me, I'm not welcome in her kitchen. No one is. Francesca's been with Lord Atilo for a long time. Even he knocks before he enters."

  "Then we'll knock too," Desdaio said brightly.

  25

  For the second time in days Giulietta felt smothered by the Persian rug in which she'd been rolled. She'd never felt so helpless. Not even when the abadessa held her wrists, Dr. Crow froze her tongue and Mistress Scarlett forced her knees apart…

  Hot tears filled her throat. All that did was make it hard to breathe when her nose started running. And it was hard enough to breathe wrapped in a carpet anyway. She tried to concentrate on what was happening outside. She was in a boat of some kind. But whether it was a small boat or a large galley…

  How would she know?

  When she heard the keel grate on gravel she realised they'd reached land and she had her answer. A small boat and a short ride. Having been carried ashore, her smothering prison was tossed down and picked up just as quickly when someone hissed with anger. "It's Persian. I'm not paying you to get shit on it."

  The men answering sounded Schiavoni.

  Hoisting the carpet on to their shoulders, they began to carry her up a slight incline. While inside, now gagged, and with her hands trapped by the carpet's tightness, Giulietta heard the curses of men struggling through mudflats. Her journeys had been so brief she suspected she was back where she had started. In Venice, or on the Venetian mainland. But not, it seemed, near the Riva degli Schiavoni.

  Uncle Alonzo? Aunt Alexa? Patriarch Theodore?

  Who would do this to her and why?

  Were the men who stole her from the basilica the ones who delivered her to the little temple in the walled garden? If so, who were these? And why were they in league with krieghund?

  Lady Giulietta had wanted excitement her entire life. She'd wanted it through Fra Diomedes's lessons, Sunday services in San Marco, formal meals with her family. Something more real than ritual and gossip. Now that she had it, she wanted her own boring life back.

  Somewhere behind her… In the ruined furniture of a little temple's hallway, on a leather divan in the Sala de Tortura, on a stinking road through Cannaregio, in a throwaway comment that she'd kill her husband if not allowed to kill herself, were the pieces of her broken childhood.

  Unable to help herself, Giulietta started sobbing.

  The old man had died instantly. His throat torn out in a sweep of claws from the monster in the doorway. The krieghund's second blow removed his head, the squelch of it landing still sounded in her ears. The old woman had clapped hand to her own mouth, looking hideously sick. Then turned abruptly to Lady Giulietta.

  "Hide…" The word was silent. When she didn't move, the old woman pushed Giulietta towards her bedroom.

  You can survive rape.

  You can't survive what krieghund do to you.

  The old man's death, Atilo's brutal words and her own terror made her scrabble as she grabbed the key from the lock, slammed her bedroom door behind her and locked and bolted it from inside. She dragged a chest in front of the door, then her bed in front of that. And, finally, she looked round her.

  She had her bed, her blanket, her mattress. A bowl of water to wash her face, which would do for drinking. A bucket for pissing. And a thick door between her and the danger beyond. Nothing she could use as a weapon.

  Hammering began at the door.

  "Go away," she shouted. "Go away…"

  By then there was no one left to hear but the monster outside. A night of sobbing, raging and promises to God on Lady Giulietta's part gave way in the morning to surprise when, after an hour or so's silence, someone knocked softly at her bedroom door. The voice accompanying the knock was also soft, and very human. The man on the other side offered her safety. All she had to do was turn the key and undo her bolts, lie face down on the floor and shut her eyes.

  "What about the monster?"

  The silence was eloquent, followed by a deep sigh. "What choice do you have?"

  "And if I don't trust you?"

  "The monster will be back."

  He was right, of course. What choice did she have? What choice had she ever had? Lady Giulietta's whole life was one of duty and demands. Why should today be any different? On the plus side, she was alive, which was surprising. And she wasn't on her way to marry King Janus… Patriarch Theodore always said concentrate on life's goodness. And being alive after being abducted was good, wasn't it?

  So Giulietta unblocked her door, half expecting the monster to burst in immediately. And then she lay face down and closed her eyes, keeping them tightly shut when the door began to open. The man who came in, gagged her, blindfolded her and used the rug from the sacristy to roll her tight.

  And, following a short boat trip, she found herself here. Wherever that was. "My lord," she heard a Schiavoni whisper.

  "Not far now," someone whispered in return. "Not far at all.

  26

  "Wait here," Atilo ordered.

  Iacopo bowed, checked the knots holding the gondolino were secure enough to defeat the waves washing over the Molo, and glanced longingly towards the food stalls lining the muddy start of the Riva degli Schiavoni.

  Darkness came early in winter. But the city still ate late.

  The Riva looked crowded; with sailors seeking employment most likely, and captains seeking new crews. A tenth of the hiring was paid in advance and went just as fast on one of the whores plying their trade along its length. Another fifth was collected on boarding, and the rest paid at the journey's end.

  "I mean it," Atilo said.

  Iacopo looked up, surprised.

  "Wait here. Buy yourself a pie if you want." Atilo tossed a coin, watching in amusement as Iacopo checked if it was bronze or silver. "But no taverns and no brothels. I expect to find you here when I get back."

  Iacopo's bow was even lower. So low Atilo didn't see his face.

  Leaving his servant beside the black gondolino, Atilo stepped between a captain and an Arab who was insisting he knew every sandbank in the mouth of the Nile. When he looked back, Iacopo was staring longingly at three nuns leaving a convent where the novices were known to be young, beautiful and friendly.

  Sucking his teeth, but not crossly, Atilo changed direction.

  A guard stepped aside at that night's password, and the Moor swept through an open door, turned right immediately and negotiated the benches of an empty audience room. Well, its lobby. That particular audience room was now locked for the day. Checking the corridor beyond was empty, he slid behind a tapestry. The ducal palace was riddled with secret doors. Listening posts, too, recesses hidden by panels or wall hangings where spies could note what was said that shouldn't be said. Most secret doors led from one floor to another, as hiding a spiral of stairs was easier than building a passage down which a man might walk.

  Such passages existed, however.

  It was along one of these that Atilo strode, his outstretched fingers dusting cobwebs from brickwork. Touch told him how far he'd gone, since every ten paces or so the walls were marked with the bat-winged patera. If only two patera were visible in Venice, there were ten hidden in this corridor alone.

  Behind him Atilo dragged five centuries of history, the names of the twenty-seven previous Assassini masters, and the worry he could offer no name to follow his. Every master proposed his successor. The final choice was the duke's, but in five hundred years no recommendation had been refused.

  Iacopo hid ambition behind a smiling face. Some masters believed this was an essential quality. An assassin with a smile could open doors shut to those who frowned. Atilo was unconvinced. To his eyes-old as they were-the essential quality was an ability never to reveal your
calling.

  On the Canalasso this night, the old-House patricians-those whose families had graced the Golden Book five centuries before Ca' Dolphini was built-would flatter their host, whose grandfather bribed his way on to their company. The Dolphini fortune was one reason. The other, that Lord Dolphino-by nudges and winks, sly boasts and strategic silences-claimed, without claiming, to be the duke's Blade. His son Nicolo had bedded more than one virgin from a family in trouble enough to believe the Assassini could help.

  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 his 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.