The fallen blade at-1

by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

  Atilo described Temujin's weapon.

  "That's the one," she said. "So, this thing caught an arrow, and returned it hard enough to split horn scales. It did split the scales, didn't it?"

  "Yes, my lady."

  "Tell me more… No." She shook her head crossly. "Tell me everything. Especially the things you don't think important."

  So Atilo did, from beginning to end, admitting finally that the boy, the creature, whatever this thing was, might not have killed the patriarch after all. He might simply have seen the murder. At which, Alexa said she could see how that might make Atilo want to find him. A point to which he had no answer.

  "And it killed the beggar who led you there?"

  "Broke his neck. Almost broke mine."

  The duchess looked thoughtful. "To kill without spilling blood even when the moon is fat, while sparing the beggar's girl and her brother. That shows…"

  "What, my lady?"

  "Self-control."

  "It twisted the boy's head half round."

  "Believe me, it could easily have ripped his head right off."

  "You know what it is…?" Stupid comment, Atilo told himself. Her words made it obvious she did.

  "It's our answer to the krieghund."

  Alexa laughed at Atilo's shock.

  "We've been losing the secret war for too long. It's about time we found a way to fight back. You think I didn't notice when you changed killed Archbishop Theodore to might have witnessed his murder? You hate my brother-in-law… No, don't bother denying it. Yet you let his captain help your search. Admittedly, Theodore was a friend of yours. But you're not sentimental. Certainly not enough to hunt down this boy for him. I doubt you're sentimental about anything. Except, perhaps, that little chit you plan to marry."

  Atilo shivered, remembering the boy's threats.

  "So why all this effort? The answer is you think this creature useful. Am I right?"

  "He's my heir."

  Duchess Alexa froze. "Everyone desires old magic. No one really knows what it will do when it arrives. Catch it, train it. We can talk about it being your heir later. Meanwhile, I'll write to my nephew…" She meant Tmr, newly created Great Khan of Khans and conqueror of China.

  "I'll ask what his librarians know of creatures like this. It will take a year for my request to arrive, be deciphered and his answer to return."

  Duchess Alexa hesitated. Whatever doubts she had about what she wanted to say, they lasted long enough for Atilo to fill a glass of wine and empty it in slow sips, while looking around at her room. It was small, but its paintings, statues and tapestries would buy a city. He'd just realised every single thing here once belonged to her husband when Alexa leant forward, her decision made.

  "Once upon a time," she said, "angels fought. They fought high up in the wastes of space, where the stars are. This was long ago. When the gods still walked the earth openly and the oldest of the old kings ruled. When power meets power terrible things happen. The gods died, the kings died, the angels died… Whole forests burnt in the blink of an eye."

  Atilo stared at her.

  "This is a tale from my childhood. How the gods became the sky god, who watches everything but interferes little. A handful of angels escaped to wander, bitter and alone, in the wilderness. They moved like lightning. Killed without thought. Regarding us as we regard the animals."

  "As food?"

  "Among other things. But the last of them died in the year Kublai Khan was born. My nephew's librarians will know if it is otherwise. That's why I will write to him. You have the year it takes."

  "To capture this creature?"

  "No, Lord Atilo. To capture it, break its spirit, and make it our answer to the krieghund. If that can't be done, kill it. However, I would regard that as failure."

  Discovering her water jug was empty, the duchess reached for a bell to summon a servant, then changed her mind. "Marco, my husband, believed talking of demons brought bad luck. That evil comes at the sound of its own name. He was wrong. It enters when invited. So, the real question is… Who invited it?"

  Atilo had never heard her talk like this.

  He had never heard her refer to the late duke by his first name or call him simply my husband. And he had never, in the times they'd met in public or private, heard her talk about her childhood, about being Mongol, about being foreign in how she thought. It made him uneasy.

  "Come here," she said, patting her seat.

  He could obey, or find a reason to leave. The first might make her an enemy, eventually. The second would make her one now. When Duchess Alexa lifted her veil she was smiling. And, Atilo couldn't answer anyway. Her face's beauty stole his breath away. Words for a poet, he told himself crossly. I'm not one of those. But it was the face of a girl a quarter her real age. Bright-eyed and innocent, knowing and inviting. Atilo shivered.

  "Come on," she ordered.

  He did. If her face was flawless and her eyes undimmed, her body belonged to the daughter she never had, if not that daughter's daughter. Alexa di Millioni's skin was the yellow of fresh velum and soft as Moroccan leather. With her head thrown back and her face safely veiled she rode him to some place he could never reach. And Atilo realised there were more things in heaven and earth than dreamt of in anyone's philosophy, and he was looking at one of them. "Your turn," she said.

  Feeling every ache in his spine, Atilo wrapped one arm about her waist and twisted them both round, so she lay flat and he rested above.

  "You've done that before."

  "My lady, I'm sixty-five. I've done everything before."

  "I'd tell you my age," she said lightly, "but you wouldn't believe it. And I'd tell you what I've done. But it's best you don't believe that either."

  Then she said nothing much, because Atilo shifted his position and she gasped and grabbed his hips, forcing herself against him savagely. He ploughed her with an intensity that surprised him, collapsing on top of her when it was over. But felt his pleasure was more ordinary, less unknown.

  "I take it you haven't bedded that chit of yours yet."

  Raising himself on to his elbows, Atilo glared at the woman sprawled naked beneath him. Her voice was mocking enough to make him grab her upper arms. He rode her harder this time. Knocking gasps from her body. Until he collapsed breathless across her, his forehead pressed into the pillow.

  "I guess not," she said. In the early hours, after a maid arrived to take that day's orders, replace the tea and trim the wick, without once appearing to notice anyone else slept in her mistress's bed, Alexa woke Atilo with the sound of pissing in a pot.

  "Have you met my stregoi?" she asked, dropping her gown.

  He shook his head groggily. Alexa had a stregoi?

  A wild witch child…

  "You should," Duchess Alexa said. "In fact, you must. Send word to Desdaio that you've been detained by Council matters. And order your household to continue as normal. It's time we came up with a plan."

  "For tonight?"

  "No," said Duchess Alexa, kissing Atilo's cheek lightly. "We have a month to lay our trap. Requisition silver from the treasury and have it made into wire. Send the wire to the rope walk at Arzanale. I'll give orders that it be woven into a net. You can leave the rest to me."

  Atilo tried not to shiver.

  29

  Velvet soiled. How easily Giulietta never realised, not having had to wear any garment for more than one day at a time. Locked in a cold attic, she still wore the red houppelande gown and fine woollen chemise she'd worn the night she was abducted. Which was, it happened, what she'd worn that time with the boy in the cathedral.

  A tiny slit in the houppelande showed where she'd put the dagger to her chest, unwittingly ruining embroidery her mother had sewn. And she could still remember her trembling hands undoing mother-of-pearl buttons and slipping aside her chemise to put the point to her skin. Giulietta blushed.

  The memory of that silver-haired boy refused to leave her. It left her troubled, sleeping badly and waking ear
ly. Part of her had always believed he was searching for her. There had been other fondnesses, of course. Other crushes. No matter what her aunt and uncle thought. A lute player, chestnut-haired and slight, with soft brown eyes that captured everything in their gaze. His fingers held her shoulders as he kissed her lightly on the lips. A sweet sin that would have seen them both whipped had she told anyone. Which she hadn't, except Eleanor, who could keep a secret.

  The eyes she thought of now were not soft. Their owner not slight… Wiry, maybe. She could imagine his fingers on her shoulders. Elsewhere too.

  A single look, and his memory burned.

  Giulietta shook herself crossly. Of all things to think about, a boy had to be the most stupid. So she thought of her mother instead. More stupid still, since her eyes backed up with tears, overflowed against her will and kept falling long, long after she willed them to stop. Her mother was even less able to help her than a stranger seen across a darkened nave.

  Wishes granted kill you. Her mother had whispered that.

  Curling up on the floor, Giulietta tried to sleep; but the memories of her mother were too strong. She'd been assassinated three days after that whisper, at the age of thirty-six. Her marriage to a Visconti had been unhappy.

  Her death a release. The old duchy included Venice itself, and the towns, villages and estates on the mainland inland for a day's ride on a fast horse. The estates boasted fortified houses, built of brick and limed with stucco. Those towns not built with limestone-faced defensive walls had made good their lack in the last few generations.

  By accident, long before returning merchants brought Chinese cannon to Serenissima, the creators of the first town walls provided protection against not-yet invented weapons. The stone-faced walls split, but the compacted earth inside withstood the impact of a cannonball.

  The young woman curled on the attic floor-hips stiff, swelling breasts pressed against cold boards-owned two estates, three towns and more villages than she'd bothered to count. She could recall, if she tried, the names of the ones she'd ridden through as a child, when they still belonged to her mother.

  At dawn, she gave up trying to sleep and went as close as she dared to her only window. It was locked and shuttered and, from what she could see, looked out on broken roofs and a part of the city she didn't recognise. A church tower in the distance looked ready to topple. The houses opposite were ruined, or near-ruined. None of them seemed occupied.

  Unbuttoning her gown, the girl weighed one breast as a cook might examine a plump capon. It was definitely bigger. This would have delighted her a year ago. Now she was simply scared. Her nipples, usually pale, were puppy-tongue pink and hurt to touch. She prodded one all the same.

  "You're safe," said the note she'd found on waking.

  She didn't feel safe, and she didn't understand the bit about not stepping outside the circle until she realised it meant an oval of salt trickled round the edges of the room. That amount of pure salt was expensive. So she obeyed, being as yet too afraid of what might happen if she broke the command.

  Her breasts ached, her flux had stopped its tides and her belly, she could swear it was swelling. Added to which, she'd worn the same gown for days. In a world where poor women wore rags that rotted with sweat under the arms, beneath the breasts or across their buttocks that would be unremarkable. But Giulietta changed her dress regularly, washed daily and bathed weekly.

  At least she had, until that night in the cathedral.

  Now she stank like a servant. And her food would disgrace an almshouse. Bread so stale it needed soaking. Rancid cheese that clogged her nails as she picked free the mites. Always served on a filthy pewter plate.

  In one corner a bucket was hidden under her discarded chemise. She could wear the chemise and suffer the stink of her own shit. Or cover her bucket and freeze. From the scratches on the wall, she'd covered the bucket and been frozen for the best part of six weeks.

  "You're a fool," she told herself.

  It made a change from her uncle being the one to tell her. So many memories and so few of them good. "You have your health," Giulietta snapped. Something her nurse used to say. It made little enough sense then. She had her health, and her life.

  Didn't expect that, did you?

  She'd taken to talking to herself. There being no one else to talk to. This made her think of Lady Eleanor, her long-suffering lady-in-waiting…

  Well, Giulietta didn't think she was long-suffering. But she'd heard it said, more than once, and been so offended she slapped Eleanor next time they met, and demanded to know what she'd been saying. The memory made her ashamed. At least, she assumed that was the feeling. It made a change from rage, and fear and despair. These being her usual responses to waking in this attic.

  She never saw who collected her bucket. She never saw who delivered her food. The one time she stayed awake to find out, her slop bucket went unemptied and her plate unfilled. No one arrived to clean the mess when she kicked her bucket over in fury. Only the memory of cleaning it herself stopped her from doing so again.

  Damn it…

  She could scream and shout for help. But what was the point? The last time she tried she screamed herself to a frog's croak and damaged her throat so badly it hurt to swallow. Her nails not encrusted with rancid cheese she'd broken scraping mortar from around the door that kept her prisoner. Someone had thought about this. Her prison was filthy, its floor splattered with pigeon shit, its ceiling sticky with cobwebs, in which dead flies and desiccated spiders mixed equally.

  Only the door was new, its hinges freshly oiled. When she woke, still rolled in the carpet, it was the hinges she noticed after struggling free. Now she wondered if the carpet was more significant. Still here, looking rich and out of place.

  Like me, Giulietta thought.

  Except she and squalor were proving to be closer bedfellows than she liked. The dirt troubled her less than it did. Her bucket's stink was bad, but she was close to choosing warmth over her sensibilities. And she was regarded as having delicate sensibilities indeed. She was changing, and that scared her too. Because the change that scared her most was the one she didn't dare think about.

  A vicious wave of fear broke over her, tumbling her emotions in its wake, and then swept back, threatening to drown her al-together. What, she wondered, feeling tears fill her eyes again. What if it was even worse than she thought? People said Dr. Crow called up demons, captured djinn in bottles.

  What if she carried a monster?

  30

  Men were watching for Tycho's return. A collection of restless Dogana guards, changing every few hours and all grateful to be relieved. Who knew what the captain told them? That they faced a demon, probably.

  On the wind was the scent he hunted.

  So slight and fragile he heard it as a perfect chord, a single bell-like note in the silence of his mind. He could not ignore its call. He could not stay away. Nothing in his life came close to how the scent made him feel. Hollowness and hunger ate away at him, bringing him to the edge of despair.

  Above him, the sky was piled high with cloud. The full moon a sullen circle behind this masking. A fact for which he felt grateful. The sunlight burnt him, but the full moon hurt in other ways. So he stood in the squalid cave of an upper room, staring at the campo floor through broken shutters, and tried to master his emotions as he sought the scent he was tracking.

  Red hair, blue eyes and a defiant glare. He could smell her, only too aware her scent might be in his head, with no right to compete with the stink of this world.

  Eyes glared from under rotting floorboards and Tycho glared back.

  The cat blinked first. Tycho wasn't the only predator in these ruins, simply the largest. The tom was sandy, little more than skin over bone. An Egyptian desert cat, from a ship that abandoned it by accident. The home-grown Venetian ignored them both. The lesser animals stayed away. When mice scattered below him, Tycho knew people were coming.

  Few people were stupid enough to wander thi
s way by accident. And fewer still came to ruined squares like this one by choice. So he knew the hesitant steps belonged to someone who had none.

  Sharpening his senses, Tycho let go the scent that brought him back here and concentrated instead on who was approaching. He did this from instinct. Unaware he had until the rotten doors and broken shutters of the square became so clear he could see beetles scurrying, and hear the nervous breath of a girl entering the square, loud as shingle on a beach.

  She was naked. A black tangle of hair between her thighs.

  Rosalyn, shivering with fear. Her emotion so extreme fear barely began to describe it. Instantly he could taste her terror. Like the promise of rain before a thunderstorm.

  Up here, Tycho thought, stepping from the shadows.

  As she looked for him, something clattered from her fingers to the campo floor. Its loss dragging a swallowed sob from her throat. Falling to her knees, she scrabbled with her fingers, searching frantically.

  She's blind in the dark.

  Of course she is. How could he forget that being blind in the dark was normal…? It had been normal for him too once. Now he had trouble knowing the normal from the passing strange.

  Let me help you.

  Dropping three flights, Tycho landed on heaped rubble, sliding the final stage to stop a dozen paces from the girl. She was sobbing openly now. Her shoulders quivering and her face twisted in misery.

  "I won't hurt you."

  You will. Tycho heard the words clearly in his head. He was trying to pin down how that worked when her fingers found the dagger and she stood, facing him as heavy clouds finally parted and moonbeams lanced down.

  "Don't," he said.

  But she did it anyway.

  Raising her blade, Rosalyn put its point to her shoulder. And before he could stop her, hacked diagonally across herself from collarbone to hip, the blade negotiating the valley of her breasts. Skin peeled, blood flowed.