The fallen blade at-1

by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

  If Lord Eric discovered them together, he'd beat them. Tycho was meant to be guarding goats against the wolves, Afrior grinding rye. But it was nothing to what their mother would do. Withered Arm might be old, but she was vicious with it.

  "Come here," Tycho said, grounding his spear.

  She stepped away. "We're…"

  "No," he said. "We're not."

  No brother could want his sister the way he wanted her.

  Wanting Afrior was more important to Tycho than hunting. More important than his mother's lack of love. More important than Lord Eric's hatred. And Tycho and Afrior did look different. Her impossibly blue eyes against his own's amber-flecked darkness. Her hair sun-yellow. His wolf-silver, as if he'd been born old. He had sharp cheeks and not a sliver of fat. She was all curves.

  For a second Afrior fought him, and then her mouth opened and his tongue touched hers. She was shaking when he pulled back.

  "This is wrong."

  "It's not," he said.

  But her gaze was firm. "We can't. You know that." Lord Eric would expect her untouched and know if her maidenhead was gone.

  Afrior was thirteen. Maybe fourteen.

  Her mother said thirteen, but Lord Eric and his warriors had been away fighting red-painted Skaelingar when she was born. Whispers said she lied to allow her daughter a few months' extra happiness. Given Lord Eric's temperament, it was a miracle he hadn't taken Afrior already.

  "He'd know," Afrior said.

  Tycho had tried not to let glee show in his eyes. Until that moment she'd never admitted she wanted to. He'd know was close to admitting she might if not for that.

  "Let's swim."

  Her scowl said she suspected a trick. All the same, she followed him through the speckled alder and showy mountain ash, using a path the deer cut back when they still came this way. The herd was gone these days, eaten or too sensible to venture closer. Finding a dip in the river bank hidden by wild roses, he told Afrior to turn her back and stripped off his rags. The day was hot, the sun bright on his skin and the air rich with scents of roses and grass, life's freshness and tumbling water.

  "And you," he said, not giving her time to argue.

  He went into the water fast, fighting the shock that diving into icy currents tightened around his ribs. And Afrior was crouched naked in the shallows when he turned. Lord Eric, his warriors and body slaves were raiding a Skaelingar village. That was what they called it, raiding. Mostly it meant killing women while the savages were away fighting each other.

  No women meant no babies, no babies meant fewer warriors in years to come. It was more effective to kill those who would deliver the unborn than fight those already living. "Come here," Tycho said.

  "You think I'd trust you?"

  There was humour in her voice, and enough truth to make him glance away. So he missed her edging closer.

  "You really believe we're not kin?"

  Feeling full breasts brush his chest like the touch of tiny fish, he nodded. "I'm sure," he said, banishing doubt from his voice. "We don't even look alike."

  Kissing her deeply, he registered the moment she felt him go hard. The sudden wariness that had her stepping back. So he used the gap to cup one breast, finding her nipple already erect from the coldness of the river.

  She let his hand wander until…

  "No," she said, grabbing his wrist.

  They wrestled, until she found his thumb and twisted.

  He ignored the pain for as long as he could, then stopped fighting and dipped his head to recognise her victory. She was staring at him. "I thought you were going to let me break it."

  "So did I," he said.

  Afrior's face softened. Taking his hand, she kissed his thumb, which ached with a dull pain that would last for days. And, having kissed it, she replaced his fingers between her legs. Tycho knew then he would never understand women.

  Her insides were more mysterious than he expected. Afrior moaned, her mouth nuzzling as her sounds got louder. When she froze, mid-moan, he thought he'd been too rough. But her eyes watched the bank behind him.

  "Stop," she said.

  Turning, he felt piss leave his body before his mind caught up with what he saw. A row of five Skaelingar warriors, bright red in their mixture of oil and ochre. They were naked, flint knives hanging on sinews from their shoulders. Some had sycamore bows already drawn. A sixth man stood between them. A half-Skaelingar slave who'd escaped Bjornvin the year before.

  "How interesting," he said.

  The Skaelingar chief snapped out a question, and the ex-slave's smirk closed down. His reply was humble. Whatever he said, it wasn't that this was a brother and sister. That would have earned more than the growl he got in return.

  "You're to come here."

  Afrior looked doubtful, but then she was a girl and naked. Looking at her, one man muttered and a second laughed. Both silenced by a snarl from their chief. At his command, they grabbed Afrior the moment she climbed from the water.

  Tycho attacked on instinct.

  And fell to a blow to his head. Having kicked the air from his lungs, and what was left of the piss from his bladder, the chief stopped when Tycho shat himself. It wasn't a serious beating. More a warning not to be stupid.

  Then another Skaelingar picked him up and turned him to face Afrior, who was struggling with her own captors. When one dug his thumb into her elbow, she started to cry instead.

  "I am to translate," the half-Skaelingar said. "Have you seen what we do to your women? Yes, or no?"

  Tycho hadn't. But he'd heard it whispered.

  "We take these," the translator said.

  Their chief gripped Afrior's breasts, lifting slightly.

  "Cutting like this."

  The chief's hand traced a circle, sloping in so that Tycho understood they cored a pit to take what was behind as well. Afrior might have been an animal for all the attention the man paid her.

  "And we take this."

  She screamed when the chief dropped his hand. Tycho didn't think he hurt her; it was the shock of having him grip her there.

  "And, finally, we slit from here to here." The chief traced from blonde body fur to the arch of Afrior's ribs. "And pull out what we find." He stepped back, offended, as she soiled herself.

  "You understand?"

  Tycho nodded dumbly.

  "There is another choice," the chief said, his words translated through the half-Skaelingar. "Would you like to know it?"

  "Yes," he said. "I would."

  Having glared, to make sure Tycho paid attention, the chief unslung his flint knife, grabbed Afrior between her legs and cut. She jerked in her captor's hands. And then the chief scattered pale hair at her feet.

  "This is all that will happen."

  Tycho looked in disbelief at the man translating, then at the chief whose words these were. He wondered if the ex-slave translated right.

  "No harm will come if you do what we ask." And then the Skaelingar told him what was wanted. Since it seemed the two Viking slaves should not be out together, their chief would not find it strange if one returned alone. Sometime tonight Tycho would unlock Bjornvin's gate. If it was not unlocked, his lover's mutilated body would be left at the gates at dawn. If it was, both would have safe passage through Skaelingar territory to the lands beyond.

  "The next tribe will kill us."

  "What you should consider," the chief said, "is that we will not."

  Tycho could have let Afrior die. With her would have died the risk of anyone finding out what had happened. He could have return to his life as Lord Eric's wolf dog, continued to ignore the hard-faced bitch he called mother.

  He was a slave. Lord Eric said do this, he did it.

  Running faster than the others, jumping higher, hunting swiftly and silently didn't make him valuable. It simply made him hated. Most days, he got up at daybreak, obeyed orders till nightfall, then slept. Saving Afrior meant betraying everyone else. How could that be right?

  He could tell Lor
d Eric what had happened.

  The beating would be terrible but he'd survived others. But Afrior would die and Tycho wanted her. So he killed the gate guard instead. Hitting the man clumsily, clubbing him from behind. When the guard was dead, Tycho lifted the bar to Bjornvin's gate.

  The first thing the Skaelingar chief did on entering Bjornvin was yank back the head of the naked, bound and gagged Viking girl in front of him, spit into her face and rip his blade across her throat.

  Afrior bled out before she hit the dirt.

  Tycho's attack would have made him a hero had any lived to sing of it. Grabbing the fallen gate guard's sword, he flung himself at the chief and plunged the blade in the man's guts, twisting in his fury.

  Then Lord Eric was there, broad-shouldered, more grey than red in his beard. A bloody battle-axe in hand. He believed his slave was guarding Bjornvin's gate. In three blows Lord Eric killed another three Skaelingar. Then he turned, clapped Tycho on the shoulder. "Wake everyone," he ordered.

  Tycho would have done.

  But his mother grabbed him before he reached the great hall. The first thing she told him was that she wasn't his mother. The next, that he was neither Viking nor Skaelingar, but Fallen. She said this through gritted teeth, hatred in her face. "Where's my daughter?"

  "Dead. The Skaelingar killed her."

  Withered Arm slapped him. "You killed her. You think I didn't know?"

  Her eyes were hard, her voice cold as winter. Tycho had no doubt she wanted him dead. Would like to kill him herself. Instead, with battle raging, she hurried him to her quarters, and told him to spread the straw from her mattress in a wide circle.

  "Do it now," she ordered.

  Outside the slaughter continued.

  Individually, Lord Eric's warriors were better armed. Their swords, chain mail and the helmets brought from Greenland gave them an advantage. But they were outnumbered. The Skaelingar had been closing on the village for years. When Withered Arm returned it was with a flaming brand.

  "My mistress told me how to do this before she died. Maybe she knew…" Withered Arm stopped, face bitter. "Oh, she knew all right. She died in birth so you could live. And I knew it for a bad bargain then. Now we die so you… Who knows what? Who will be left to even care?"

  Pushing him into the middle of the circle, Withered Arm set fire to the straw, stepping back as flames crackled around him. And then he felt ice instead of flames, and a rushing like wings, and a vicious wind as if he was falling from a great height. The last thing he saw was the hatred in her face. "That's true?" Desdaio asked. She was blushing furiously. At the things he'd said about Afrior and the river, Tycho realised.

  "It's what I remember."

  "Does Atilo know?"

  "No, my lady. He never asked."

  "You stepped into the flames of where you came from. To find yourself in my world?"

  Tycho nodded.

  Crossing herself, Desdaio scrambled to her feet and returned staggering under the weight of a leather-bound Bible. "This was my mother's," she said. "Take it from me. Use both hands."

  He did as she demanded. Watching her chew her lips.

  "What did you think would happen?"

  "I thought you'd go up in flames."

  "Why would I…?"

  "If you were a demon you would catch fire. I thought…" She looked embarrassed. "It sounds as if you came from hell."

  "I thought this was hell," Tycho told her truthfully. "When I first arrived. All these people crowded on to misty little islands. And the water here… In Bjornvin I'd swim when I could and it always made me happy. Here, simply crossing the canals sickens me. The air stinks of smoke and shit."

  "But you were starving. You said so. We have food here."

  "Some people have food here. And why shouldn't there be food in hell for some. Do you think Satan lives in squalor?"

  They sat in silence on a bench after that. Desdaio fed him wine and cake, which he barely drank and didn't touch respectively. And, finally, she asked him where he went at night, on the occasions he accompanied my lord Atilo.

  "Council meetings," Tycho lied.

  Dog days, full moons, his training kills. Tall scratches for men, shorter ones for women. A single dot for an infant, all that stood between Venice and an estate on the mainland, a dying count's new grandson. The truth was scratched on his cellar wall. All of it, apart from Atilo's visits to Duchess Alexa.

  There were too many of those.

  Nine deaths in total. Fewer than he expected. Lord Eric had killed more than that in a single battle. A dozen Skaelingar, their guts steaming and their eyes fresh for the crows. Almost all of Tycho's kills had been clean. Atilo was impressed at first, worried later. More worried still when Tycho's final kill in San Pietro di Castello proved so much bloodier than his previous eight.

  41

  During the year that Tycho trained Iacopo grew a beard. A soldier's beard to make him look older, fiercer. He used masks less these days. No longer needing to hide his youthful softness in the company of others.

  A tumbler of wine sat in front of him. The last of this year's wages glinted on his chest. A steel breastplate in the Aragonese style. A scratch below its left armhole suggested its previous owner died in battle or was knifed in his sleep.

  Iacopo wasn't superstitious, and that sign of ill luck was enough to bring the armourer's price down to something he could almost afford. Although it had taken a dagger borrowed from Atilo's collection to seal the deal. The Schiavoni claimed the scratch was simply where the breastplate fell and the piece was worth double Iacopo's final offer. But he spat on his hand and shook on it just the same.

  "New?" someone asked.

  Looking up, Iacopo saw Captain Roderigo. So he smiled modestly, and let the captain believe that if he wished. The last year had seen Venice split between Prince Alonzo and Duchess Alexa's factions. Almost by accident, Roderigo found himself on one side. And Atilo found himself on the other. Positions worsened after last week's incident with Tmr bin Taragay's messenger.

  A minor prince from Tmr's wife's family, the Mongol refused to deliver his message to the Ten, talking only to the duchess and leaving immediately. No one knew what Tmr's message said. The duchess simply burnt it after reading and refused to say. So now, Prince Alonzo found himself trapped between caution and fury. Never a good place for someone like him to be.

  "Captain." Iacopo raised his glass. He saw no point in making unnecessary enemies. Life at Ca' il Mauros was complicated enough. Lord Atilo and his betrothed keeping separate quarters. Everyone knew they would marry. No one knew when. Some said not until Atilo left the duchess's bed. Others, that the Moor would be stupid to exchange vows if he had any chance of marrying Alexa instead.

  And then there was the freak, with his strange spectacles, priest-coloured doublet and hateful silences. Tycho didn't talk to Iacopo, he didn't not talk to Iacopo. He barely noticed Iacopo's existence. Desdaio and Amelia, on the other hand…

  Iacopo sucked his teeth.

  "Problems?" Captain Roderigo asked.

  "Such is life," Iacopo replied. Realising the captain was about to move on, he found his smile. "Let me buy you a drink, my lord."

  "It must be my turn."

  Iacopo looked surprised.

  "After you won last year's race. We drank at the Griffin behind St Bartholomew, remember?"

  "How could I forget, my lord. I'm simply surprised you remembered yourself." He'd overdone it. The captain was glancing round the tavern, not finding who he'd come to see, and framing reasons for refusing the offer. Iacopo could see it in his eyes. Although why a man like Captain Roderigo would bother to excuse himself to a servant like him…

  Because that's what he was, Iacopo thought bitterly.

  A servant, for all he owned a breastplate and greaves and a sword. His training was secret, the tasks he performed for his master equally so. No one knew the secrets he carried. No one was allowed to know. There were days he found this harder to bear than others. "An
honour to buy you a drink," he said, forcing a smile. "An even bigger honour to leave you with a hangover."

  Captain Roderigo laughed.

  "Who were you looking for, my lord?"

  "My sergeant. He's off duty but we have business tomorrow that needs discussing today."

  Iacopo nodded sagely.

  He had an idea what that business might be and had sense enough to say nothing. Today was Maundy Thursday, one reason the tavern was full. Obviously enough, tomorrow was Good Friday, when the devout flogged themselves through the streets, and the rest avoided sex and gambling, and a long list of other vices the new patriarch had recently read from the pulpits.

  It was to be the day of Tycho's testing. Just as it had been the day of Iacopo's testing. And Amelia's, and all those who went before. All those who died nearly two years back in the slaughter at Cannaregio.

  "Perhaps I will have a drink," Captain Roderigo said.

  "This might even be the real thing," Iacopo said, wiping blood-like drops of wine from his beard. The tavern keeper claimed it was Barolo and it looked dark enough.

  "I agree," Roderigo said.

  Iacopo had never tasted Barolo in his life.

  "So," Captain Roderigo said. "How are things with you?"

  "Much the same. His lordship attends Council. Dotes on Lady Desdaio. Visits Duchess Alexa for advice."

  The captain grinned.

  Iacopo thought he might.

  "And how is Lady Desdaio?" Even if Iacopo hadn't known the captain for an ex-suitor, the careful nature of his question would have announced it.

  "As sweet as ever."

  Roderigo took a sip of wine. "It's none of my business, obviously. But what news of their marriage?"

  "None I would know."

  "No," Roderigo admitted. "I don't suppose you would." Holding his glass to the light, he examined the contents critically. "I'm not sure this is Barolo after all." But he emptied it quickly enough. And Iacopo was careful to demand Barolo when he bought the next jug.

  "Yes, my lord."

  Iacopo checked the tavern keeper wasn't mocking him, but the man seemed serious enough. "Open a tab," Atilo's servant ordered. "I'll send my man to settle tomorrow."