The fallen blade at-1

by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

  "That was just an example."

  "Something about Tycho is wrong."

  "He's been living on the streets," Atilo said. "We don't know what's been done to him."

  "It's what he's done to others that worries me. Oh, I don't know he's done anything. It's just… The way he barely speaks."

  "Give me a month," Atilo said. "If he still worries you the Black Crucifers can have him." It was a lie, of course. He could no more give him to the Crucifers than he could tell Duchess Alexa he'd changed his mind and he no longer wanted the boy as his heir. And that would be a lie in its turn. He wanted the boy, just on his own terms.

  "You'd let Crucifers torture him?"

  "My dear," Atilo began, and changed his mind. Let her think that was what he meant, rather than what he had meant. That Tycho could join the Order, being darker in temperament than even them.

  She'd let him stay now. She'd probably have let him stay if the alternative was Tycho being accepted as an order acolyte. Desdaio hated the Black, not understanding the purpose they served. The White Order protected Cyprus and guarded caravans in the Middle East. The Black extracted every last sin with torture, before forgiving the lot. The Black Order's purpose was to ensure no prisoner faced God with crimes on his conscience. "Can you row?" Atilo asked, when he and Tycho stepped on to the landing beyond the watergate of Ca' il Mauros.

  No, of course I can't… The boy shook his head.

  "Then learn quickly," Atilo growled, settling himself into a vipera and sitting back. The night was clear and full of stars, an old moon hung above the city, already tired in that way fading quarter moons are. "And when I ask you a question you answer. And you call me my lord. Understand?"

  Tycho nodded, too nauseous to speak.

  Atilo hissed in irritation.

  Their trip across the mouth of the Grand Canal was a vomit-inducing nightmare. One that took five times longer than necessary according to Atilo. Glowering at his master, Tycho wondered if he knew the only thing standing between him and drowning was Tycho's fear of being left alone on the water. Although he had been told what would happen if he rebelled. He would be given to the Black Crucifers. An order so fearful Desdaio crossed herself when he asked what they did.

  Jumping from the vipera, Tycho slipped and fell, hitting his face on the slippery boards of the new jetty. Dark water taunted him through its gaps. So he rolled sideways a couple of times to reach land, lying there gasping, while stars left trails in a spinning sky.

  Having tied the boat for himself, Atilo stamped over to Tycho and kicked him. "You're afraid of water?" Tycho's reply that water made him sick earned another kick. "This is ridiculous."

  "Not at all." Stepping out of the shadows, Hightown Crow yanked Tycho upright before swinging round to face Atilo. "Did I or did I not fashion boots he was to wear? And did I or did I not ship him to you in a cabin floored with earth?"

  The fat little man with his absurd beard and wire spectacles glared at the Moor who towered over him like a wooden carving of a hard eyed god. And all the while Tycho knelt by the jetty, hands pressed to the dirt as he willed the sky to stop spinning. A dozen late-night revellers staggered by, ignoring the little tableau as if such things happened every night.

  "We train in bare feet."

  "He wears what I provide. Unless you want this to happen every time you take him across the lagoon? God knows, he gets sick simply crossing the Rialto bridge. How can you be so stupid?"

  Atilo glowered. "Why are you here?"

  "To watch him train."

  Atilo wanted to say no one watched. But since the only other person to know where Tycho trained tonight was Alexa, Dr. Crow's presence meant she'd sent him. Which meant he stayed. Atilo was wise enough not push the point.

  They woke a cobbler at random in a tiny alley to the west of Piazzetta San Marco, a stone's throw before la Volta. Once he recovered from his fright, and realised he'd been selected not for his sins, such as they were, but because his was the first sign they'd seen, he vanished into his shop and returned with second-hand boots and shoes. Many were simply heels designed to be sewn to leggings. More than a few were designed for women. It looked as if the man had simply obeyed Dr. Crow and brought every piece of footwear in his shop.

  "Try these ones," Dr. Crow suggested.

  Having selected the softest and most worn pair, these being the ones least likely to rub, Dr. Crow ordered the cobbler to rip free their soles and heels. Then he went into a nearby campo's church, unlocked the crypt by passing his hand over the key plate and scraped dirt from the lid of an old coffin.

  The cobbler was ordered to trim a new sole from the best leather he had, cut away its centre and sew what remained to the boot. He was to fill the cutaway space with the dirt before fixing the original sole over it.

  "My lord…"

  Taking the shoes, Dr. Crow gave them to Tycho, saying, "These will also make it easier to cross bridges." To the cobbler, he said. "This never happened. Understand?"

  "I understand, my lord."

  "Good," said Dr. Crow, tossing him silver.

  They were fifty paces beyond the shop when Atilo vanished. A few minutes later he caught them up again, tossing the alchemist his coins. "There are better ways to buy silence," he said, wiping his blade on a scrap of leather.

  35

  Tycho recognised the place immediately. The Patriarch's little gardens, adjoining the gardens of the ducal palace. Ca' Ducale showed lights. The Patriarch's palace, however, was in darkness. According to Atilo, Gregory XII, the new Pope in Rome, was too busy trying to negotiate a union of the two papacies with his rival, anti-Pope Benedict XIII, to appoint a new Venetian archbishop, and, besides, he didn't like the Venetians, few people on the mainland did, so he felt they could wait…

  A very slight wind rustled the branches of the poplars; bushes looked uncared for. But staff had taken the trouble to scatter earth across any stains that might remain from Archbishop Theodore's murder. Unless that was simply the rain, sleet and snow that had filled the last few weeks.

  A girl, a young boy and a dead-eyed man stood beneath the garden's single oak. Their hands were tied, and a noosed rope around each neck threaded over the lowest branch and was pegged into the dirt behind. Tycho recognised two of the three immediately. Rosalyn and Pietro, last seen the night he was captured. The third was a broken-faced man who watched Atilo approach with the stare of someone who's seen violence before, much of it of his own making. Anger burnt off him like steam.

  Did the others know how dangerous he was? Tycho wondered briefly. He imagined they must. As he moved forward, Tycho felt fingers on his shoulder lock him to the spot. Whatever nerve Atilo squeezed cost Tycho his ability to move.

  "Look around you. Always look around you."

  An archer with a three-quarter bow stood behind another tree. An arrow already notched, his bow drawn and his fingers curled around the string.

  "Poisoned," Atilo warned.

  Where Rosalyn's hands were secured with a single rope, the man's were double tied, his ankle fixed to an iron ball by a fat chain. If he tried to run, unwise as that seemed, a second archer waited to make sure he didn't get far.

  "The garden is secure?"

  "Yes, my lord." A sergeant nodded.

  "Then give me the key," Atilo said. "And go."

  If the sergeant's gaze stopped on Atilo's apprentice it was simply his strangeness. From the speed at which the man hurried off he had little stomach for what was about to happen. Letting go of Tycho, Atilo said, "Lesson one. You have no friends." He jerked his head towards Rosalyn. "Punch her."

  "No," Tycho said.

  "You refuse to punch her?"

  "Yes, I refuse."

  Atilo pulled a dagger from his belt and reversed it across his wrist. "Then you cut her face," he said. "And if you won't do that, you'll take an eye. If you won't take an eye, then you'll take both ears and her nose. If you won't do that, the archer will shoot you…"

  "Please," Rosalyn said. "
Do what he says."

  "Never." Tycho shook his head.

  "More fool you," Dr. Crow muttered.

  Atilo's dagger slashed once and the ropes binding the wrists of the broken-faced man fell away. A second slash severed his overhead rope, leaving its noose dangling like a scarf. Lobbing him a key, Atilo said, "Free your feet… Right, now we trade." He caught the key and tossed the man a blade in return.

  "You know what to do?"

  The man's eyes slid to Rosalyn. And Tycho saw her skull beneath the skin. Her eyes hopeless in hollow sockets.

  "Don't," he yelled. As he lunged for Atilo something hit the side of his head. Turning, he saw Hightown Crow raise his walking stick. It came down a second time so hard the boy fell. When he tried to stand, Dr. Crow hit him again.

  "Stay there, damn you."

  "Make it fast," Atilo told the freed prisoner.

  Without needing to be told again, the man grabbed Rosalyn by her throat, rammed Atilo's blade between her ribs. Her little brother's scream ended when Atilo punched him in the stomach.

  "Slow is better," the flat-eyed man said.

  "How many women now?"

  "Eight, my lord."

  "Our friend tortured the last he killed. Slit her from sex to throat. The Watch captain said it took her an hour to die."

  "Longer," the man insisted. "Much longer."

  Standing over Tycho, Atilo said, "Punching her would have saved her. Cutting her face would have saved her. You could have saved her. You didn't. Learn from your mistakes."

  Ignoring him, Tycho crawled to where Rosalyn lay dying.

  And, blood falling from his wounded scalp across her face like tears, he watched life leave her eyes. Bile filled his mouth. The smell of her blood made his jaws ache so badly he felt punched on both sides at the same time.

  Above him the moon's normal hue was gone, replaced by a blood-red filter between the world and his anger. And something else… For the first time Tycho felt his body begin to change. Something black slithered inside him, strengthening his muscles, heightening his senses.

  Dragging Tycho to his feet, Atilo said, "Are you listening?"

  "No," Tycho said.

  His entire anger went into the blow that crushed her killer's voice box. Lacking a blade, Tycho dug his thumbs into the man's eyes until yolk ran down his wrists. When Atilo reached for his dagger, Tycho went for his eyes instead. He missed because Atilo blocked with the speed of a man half his age.

  "Don't," Hightown Crow ordered.

  And Tycho felt the point of a blade burn his neck. It felt colder that the coldest ice. Dr. Crow had drawn a sword from his stick.

  "Silver. From the court of the Khan," he said. He was talking about the blade. "Not pure, of course. That's too soft to take an edge."

  "Dr. Crow."

  "He must learn," Hightown Crow said, lowering his weapon.

  "Metallurgy?"

  "Everything. Those are Alexa's orders. Anything else she will regard as failure. Your failure," the alchemist added, in case this wasn't obvious. "So, now you've cleverly killed the only person he trusted, I suggest you work out other ways to influence our little friend."

  36

  Desdaio was the one who half tamed him, and asked diffidently if Atilo could stop referring to Tycho as that creature. She was the one to suggest, since daylight scared him, magic ointment or not, perhaps he should be reserved for duties that needed to be done at night.

  And Atilo, who considered every word he spoke, and judged others by what they meant rather than what they said, weighed her words and realised she meant precisely what she said; astounded by how that realisation touched him.

  Sentimentality and ruthlessness were the prerogative of old age. Sometimes he wondered if they were all he had left.

  She would never have unlocked Tycho's door had she known he intended to kill her in revenge for Rosalyn's death. And Tycho would never have found himself with the opportunity. Only to discover he lacked the desire.

  His war, Tycho's war, was with Atilo, who was away doing whatever he did when he locked Tycho in the cellar and left Desdaio alone with her tapestry.

  "My lord Atilo says I should be wary of you…"

  "Of me?" Tycho asked, bowing his way into the high-ceilinged piano nobile of Ca'il Mauros and realising she was the only other person there. Alone, defenceless, wearing a gown that barely covered her breasts. She sat near a huge fire, a scrap of embroidery on her lap. Wine, glasses, bread and cheese rested on a table next to her bench. Her face was flushed from the fire and too much red wine.

  "And I am a little afraid," she said. "Is that silly of me?"

  Tycho waited to discover what Desdaio wanted. It turned out she'd like to make friends. Since he was a slave and she was rich beyond his imagining, he wondered why he was the only one of them to see the stupidity of this.

  "What did you do this morning?"

  Stabbed corpses in a morgue until the knife was blunt and the corpses mince… Almost worth telling her to see how she'd react. Hours spent learning where to stab, followed by hours practising on the bodies of beggars, criminals and foreigners. People without friends.

  "Well?" she asked.

  "I studied with Lord Atilo."

  Desdaio sighed. "I know that. What did you study?"

  "Ask him, my lady."

  "I'm asking you." It was rare for her to frown. So rare her face looked wrong. Her nostrils flared and her lips thinned, lines appearing at the side of her mouth.

  "My lady," he said carefully. "I'm not allowed to tell you."

  "My lord Atilo said that?"

  "Yes, my lady." He'd told Tycho exactly what would happen if Desdaio discovered through him about the Assassini. Although that was something else Tycho was not allowed to say.

  "Why are you here?" Desdaio asked.

  Tycho was about to say, "You ordered me," when he realised this was not what she meant. "Because I can't leave."

  "You could run away," she said, as if discussing a game. "Steal a boat and row to the mainland. Or escape on a ship." Glancing towards a window, she said, "There are always ships."

  "Water hurts me."

  "Hurts?"

  "It tried to kill me once. And I have other reasons."

  "Really," Desdaio said. "What are they?"

  "I'm looking for a girl…"

  Laughing, Desdaio reached to cut cheese and tear a loaf to pieces. When she filled two glasses with wine from a jug in front of her, Tycho realised she intended to feed him. "My lady, I've eaten already."

  Her glance was sharp. "Amelia says not."

  Ah yes, Amelia of the silver braids and the double life. They were strangers to each other these days, as Amelia had said they must be.

  "I ate with Lord Atilo, my lady."

  "Drink, then. Drink, and tell me your life. Who are your family? Where did you live before this? I want to know these things…"

  "My lady, I'm a slave." Tycho wondered if she knew he'd used a whole fifth of his precious pot of Dr. Crow's ointment protecting himself from the weak sunset dribbling through her window. Of course not. And she knew next to nothing of her husband-to-be's life, even less about his training methods.

  Masters beat servants, journeymen beat apprentices; such was the nature of training. Atilo had shown him the whip he used to beat Amelia and Iacopo. Then the whip he would use on Tycho. This was leather and silver wire. The single lash he'd slashed into Tycho's naked back that morning made Tycho piss himself with agony.

  "I know all about Amelia," Desdaio said brightly.

  What could she know? He wondered how close it was to the truth. Reaching absent-mindedly for a glass, he looked up to find Desdaio smiling. She tapped the double seat in which she sat.

  "Come here. And tell me all."

  The rule, don't show what you feel; had kept him alive. But with Desdaio the temptation to tell her how he found himself here was overwhelming. And she might know who the girl in the basilica was.

  That would be worth disco
vering.

  "I don't know my name," Tycho said. "Not my real name. And what I remember changes. But I know I was born in a rotting town. With little food in summer and less in winter. Beyond the walls lived demons. Inside, a crippled lord and his drunken brother, their guards, their women and us. Their slaves."

  "You were a slave before?"

  "I believe so… Until Duchess Alexa trapped me this may be the only time I've been free."

  "What does Alexa have to do with this?" A sudden bleakness wintered in Desdaio's eyes.

  "I was born a slave," Tycho said quickly. "And became a dog. That much I've remembered."

  His words did what he wanted. The trouble fled her eyes. She smiled, laughed, wondered if he was serious and smiled again. "A dog?"

  "A wolf dog… Wolf dogs kill wolves."

  Desdaio leant closer. The fire was warm, her face flushed. Leaning forward shifted her breasts under silk. Tycho watched them try to overspill the embroidered scoop of her gown. "How many wolves did you kill?"

  "It's hard to remember… I mean it," he added, when Desdaio rolled her eyes. "I was… ill, when I arrived here. Remembering is hard."

  "Maybe you simply want to forget?"

  "That's possible."

  Atilo was away on Council business, Iacopo with him. Amelia? Who knew where she was? Fighting Nicoletti, probably. The cook was up in her kitchen, glad to have it to herself. There were only three people in the whole of Ca' il Mauros, and one of those was pounding dough a floor above.

  "Tell me about the wolves," Desdaio said impatiently.

  *

  Lord Eric's wolf dog was old, its temper erratic. Tycho remembered that much. And in remembering this, remembered more…

  Since there were no sheep left, owning a wolf dog was pointless. But the lords of Bjornvin arrived with wolf dogs and sheep, not to mention cattle, horses and slaves and their brats. All the things needed to settle a new land. Lessons had been learnt from earlier colonies. The lesson from Iceland was that, if you want families to come, don't name it after the cold. So Greenland, which had far more claim to be Iceland than that country ever did, was named to sound welcoming.