The blow to his head left a hangover of giddiness. Smoke-like darkness ate the edges of his vision as the air burnt up in his chest, narrowing the aquarium dark of the world under the ice to a tight circle of light in front of him. He desperately wanted to draw a breath and knew he shouldn’t.
Come closer, he thought. Fight me.
Tycho goaded the creature with his knife, jabbing as his strength drained and the chill reached his bones. The face in front of him was familiar now, its cheekbones high and nose strong, wolf-grey braids framing a face as white as alabaster. One monster was gone and another had taken its place. Tycho was looking at himself.
Darting forward, the creature grabbed Tycho’s knife hand and twisted savagely. It had all of Tycho’s speed and strength, which was more than he had. Think, Tycho urged himself. But all he could think was, this is me, as he watched his dagger begin to spin towards the bottom. He was drowning.
The creature blew out its breath and Tycho felt them both sink after the dagger, following it towards the gravel below. The air in his own lungs was gone. He should be dead or already dying but all he felt was numb.
A numbness as bad as that he’d felt the night rip tides caught him in the Venetian lagoon and dragged him under. Finally depositing him on the stone steps at Rialto for a young street rat called Rosalyn to find. She’d thought him already dead and maybe she was right. Who would find him this time? Always assuming this winter ended and the ice melted, and this wasn’t the end of the world as more than half the people in Europe claimed. Feeling the creature wrap its arms more tightly around him, Tycho watched it smile as if reading his thoughts.
The lake was darker here but the water warmer, as if some of the last summer’s heat had survived. Maybe there was simply a warm spring venting somewhere near, or perhaps he imagined it. The water felt warmer the deeper he was dragged. A normal person would be dead by now, drowned when the last of his breath went skyward in tiny bubbles. Only he wasn’t normal, was he? And here was his proof. He was alive when he should be dead.
Fed up with waiting, the creature dragged him close and tried to squeeze air from his lungs. A splatter of bubbles was all Tycho had left. The thing looked worried now, its face less obviously Tycho’s own. In dragging Tycho close, it had given him the opening he’d lacked.
My turn, Tycho decided.
Opening his mouth, he bit into the creature’s neck and ripped, sour blood mixing with lake water in his mouth. He clung on, gripping tight with the last of his strength as the creature tried to push free, and bit again, spitting flesh into the water. All the while it bled and struggled, and bled some more, until finally it stopped struggling. Tycho held it until it stopped shuddering and then he released it and watched its corpse float gently away, carried by the rising thermal of the hot spring. In death it reverted to its natural form, looking as Tycho first saw it, like a cross between a frog and a dwarf, with needle teeth and webs between its fingers.
The world was roofed in ice. Thick and dark. As strangely jagged and cruel on the underside as it had been marble-smooth on top. If this was the way the world ended, here was where he would remain, locked on the wrong side of an ice wall.
I’ve failed Giulietta. It was a bad thought to carry for eternity.
Gripping the underside of the ice, Tycho dragged himself in one direction, ice slicing his fingers, until he decided he should have reached the makeshift moat by now if he was going to reach it at all, and began pulling himself in the opposite direction. Except how did he know which was right? The strength the creature’s blood had given him was going, leaching away into the water. And he faced a deeper fear. What would happen when the sun came up?
All that light through the ice. Would it burn him?
He suspected it might. He’d failed Giulietta, and the sun would fry him through the ice if he didn’t free himself soon. Kicking off from the ice, Tycho hit the bottom and crawled on his hands and knees until he reached an incline. The island had to be up ahead, which meant somewhere above was a circle of fine ice or dark water that made up Alonzo’s makeshift moat.
He found it eventually, a crackle of ice thin as leaves and brittle as the skim on a puddle, so inconsequential he barely noticed it as he broke through and gasped air, feeling his lungs fill and his heart restart. Above him the sky was high and clear, and the moon bright enough to show him he was back at the moat’s outer edge.
Fingers clawing ice, he fought for a grip, found one and dragged himself on to its surface, only for something to grab his ankle before he could fight free of the water. Two things happened at once. Long webbed fingers tightened their grip and began to drag him back, and what he’d thought was a mound of snow reared up, hurtled across open ice and raised a spear, hurling it into his captor.
“Have you any idea how idiotic that was?” Amelia demanded, as she ripped her spear free and bent to drag Tycho to safety. He wanted to answer but the darkness took him before he could reply.
21
As Lady Giulietta entered the family quarters she heard the sound of a harpsichord, its notes rising like birdsong. For an instant, her heart lifted and she forgot Lady Eleanor was dead, remembering a moment later when she found Frederick where her former lady-in-waiting used to sit. “You play?”
“A little,” he said, blushing.
Having thought about it, Giulietta remembered Eleanor wishing she could learn to use a sword and decided Frederick should be allowed to have learnt the harpsichord. “I was wondering,” she said. “I don’t suppose you have news from Montenegro?”
He shook his head and Giulietta’s heart sank. It was physical. Her ribs tightened and her stomach knotted, and she felt her eyes fill with tears as she stared at the distant tower of San Maggiore and willed herself not to cry.
Why not? she wanted to shout.
“It’s all right,” Prince Frederick said.
“No, it’s not.” She felt his arm go round her and tried to shake free, discovering he was stronger than he looked. After a struggle, she let him hold her, which he did gingerly as if she might break or melt against him. That was how Duke Marco found them a few moments later.
“J-J-Julie’s crying.”
“She misses Tycho.”
“Her angel? Of course she d-does. We all d-do.”
“So here you are . . .” If Aunt Alexa wondered why they were grouped by a window seat or noticed her niece was crying, she kept it to herself. Sitting almost sideways to the window, she joined Giulietta in staring over the Giudecca canal at the islands beyond. “This was my husband’s favourite seat, and his father’s before that. When il Millioni first became duke it was said he’d sit here for hours, looking at the waters . . . Couldn’t believe his luck probably. Either that, or he was hiding from assassins.”
“Aunt Alexa.”
“Oh, come on. You know he stole the throne.”
Prince Frederick was on the point of excusing himself, and had got as far as bowing politely before Alexa grabbed his wrist and patted the seat beside her. “All thrones are stolen,” she said firmly. “I’m surprised your father hasn’t told you this already.”
“He says kings are chosen by God.” Frederick sounded unhappy to be disagreeing with a woman rumoured to poison those who offended her. “That everyone knows this is true.”
“After the event, perhaps. God agrees. If God has anything to do with it at all.”
“My lady . . .”
“Listen to me,” she said. “All of you . . . A good ruler knows that thrones are stolen, and can be stolen again, and does good works to assuage the guilt of the first, and bad works to make sure the second never happens. We have our time on earth and then it’s done. What we do with those years is our choice.” She got to her feet unsteadily, kissed Marco on the forehead, hesitated and did the same to Giulietta. Then she ruffled Frederick’s hair.
“I’m glad we had this talk,” she said, before shutting the door behind her and leaving them alone in the little corridor with its harpsichord,
window seat and rotting tapestries.
“What was that about?” Giulietta’s question was for Frederick but it was Marco who answered.
“My m-mother’s scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of e-everything,” Marco replied.
He left shortly afterwards and an awkward silence fell as Frederick wondered what to say to her, leant forward and opened his mouth a couple of times and finally decided to say nothing. Only he couldn’t manage that either.
“Should I leave you be?”
They were the same age but sometimes he behaved like a twelve-year-old. She’d met newly arrived pages with stronger self-confidence. He was watching, waiting for her answer. She sighed.
“It’s just . . . You look like you want to do some thinking.”
About what, for God’s sake? She was sick of chasing the same miserable thoughts around her head: where was Tycho, why hadn’t he said goodbye, would he really be able to save Leo, what was wrong with Aunt Alexa? And that was before she began on her memories, which were worse than the questions. Uncle Alonzo and his goose quill, Leopold dying, Tycho leaving . . . She should be in the nursery convincing everyone Venice’s supposed heir was happy and alive. Instead she avoided the changeling and even her aunt had stopped scolding her for being unable to pretend.
I’m fine, she thought. I’m fine so long as I don’t think about . . .
There was her problem. Thinking about Tycho was meant to make her feel better. And when she didn’t feel better, being with Frederick and Marco was meant to make her happier. But now she didn’t really want to be with anyone. Did that make her a bad person? She knew Frederick was in love with her. She’d like to be able to say, of course he was; as if a whole succession of blond German princelings had fallen in love with her. Truth was, until Tycho men barely looked at her at all. Even Eleanor had stolen more kisses and she was three years younger. Had been, Lady Giulietta reminded herself. Now she lay beneath a marble tomb in San Giovanni e Paolo. Every year Giulietta got older Eleanor would get another year younger than her.
“What are you thinking about?” Frederick asked.
“My old lady-in-waiting.”
“Eleanor?” he said. “I know you loved her.”
Eleanor never knew that, Giulietta thought sadly. And, anyway, Eleanor loved Rosalyn, Tycho’s ragged girl. Always back to Tycho. “Could you ask your father for me again?” she said, biting her lip.
“Always assuming I’ve asked him already.”
I know you have . . . A few days back, after she asked last time, the Night Watch reported a wolf had been seen slinking from the Fontego dei Tedeschi, where Prince Frederick made his base. Two nights later the customs guard swore a wolf crossed from the mainland and was spotted slinking along the Grand Canal. The animal was said to look emaciated and starving. Rumour said one of Frederick’s men had recently died. She was cruel, she realised; cruel to ask him to get news of Tycho.
“Maybe I could see if my father’s learnt anything new.”
So sweet, thought Giulietta, then remembered the night Frederick led a snarling war pack against the Byzantine infantry. They’d ripped heavily armed spearmen to shreds, with Frederick leading. So, not sweet after all – just kind, which she was coming to realise was different. He was two people and his kindness involved not letting them overlap. Maybe all men were like that.
“My father has mages,” Frederick was saying. “One of those might . . .”
“Thank you.” Giulietta kissed his cheek.
Frederick blushed. “Or you could ask the duchess?”
“My aunt?”
“Umm . . .” Frederick took a deep breath. “You must have noticed your aunt knows most things? Things she shouldn’t know?”
“She has spies.”
“We all have spies,” he said. “Your aunt . . .” Frederick hesitated. “Perhaps hers are simply a little better than everyone else’s.” The boy looked a little thinner than when he arrived, a little more tired. His beard was still just fuzz and he chewed one side of his lip like a child. It was odd to think he’d had a wife and child.
“Tell me about Annemarie,” Giulietta said.
He looked so instantly hurt she might have slapped him. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly, “it doesn’t matter”, but Frederick waved her words away. Without realising, he’d hugged his arms to his chest, rocking his shoulders as if to ease a knot in his back. His blue eyes were as bleak as a winter sky.
Will anyone love me that much?
Instantly, she felt ashamed of her selfishness, but couldn’t stop herself from worrying at the question. Did Tycho love her that fiercely? If she died would the mere mention of her name fill his face with misery years later? Grief hollowed Frederick’s face so brutally she hardly dared look at him.
Standing suddenly, Frederick left the room. Tycho didn’t leave rooms. He glowered, smouldered and burnt, often all at once. At worst, he vanished in a swirl of his cloak. Frederick simply left as if he’d forgotten to do something or suddenly remembered he’d promised to be elsewhere. Giulietta chewed her nails and wondered when she’d started biting them again. She was pretty sure it was since Frederick arrived and that made no sense at all.
Frederick returned a day later, asked if Giulietta would receive him and was brought up to the window seat where she sat watching the frozen lagoon. He didn’t say hello or apologise for leaving so suddenly the previous afternoon, simply sat beside her and started talking as if he’d never been gone.
“After Annemarie died I had to go through her possessions. Well, I could have given the job to my chamberlain. But she was my wife and I loved her. Jewellery went back to her family, as did half of her dowry. Our marriage agreement specified she had to live five years or produce a child.”
“Frederick . . .”
“Since the baby died she didn’t count.”
His voice was flat, whether from shock or mute acceptance Giulietta couldn’t tell. Maybe the passing years had numbed his horror. Giulietta suspected it was immature to be shocked – but she felt shocked all the same.
“You know what I found?”
Giulietta shook her head.
“A letter.”
From a lover? She wondered what Frederick was trying to tell her.
“She wrote it the week we married. It was to her cousin in Bohemia.” Frederick shrugged. “They grew up together. She swore her love for him would never die. Said how much she hated being made to marry me. That she would remember him for ever. The day they swam together at the waterfall was the happiest of her life. She never sent it.”
How could he bear to tell her this?
“The priest who was with Annemarie at the end told me she swore she loved me more than she’d ever loved anyone and regretted nothing of her time with me. That she simply wanted me to be happy after she was gone, as she’d been happy during her time with me. So you see . . .”
What? Giulietta wondered.
“We change. We think we don’t but we do.”
They sat in silence after that, not quite touching in the window seat of a corridor that linked the family rooms and acted as a little withdrawing room when the official nature of the palace became too much. He’d remained dry-eyed and his voice had been level when he spoke to her, but she was sure his cheeks looked thinner and his expression a little more withdrawn. He wore a doublet in the northern style, richly decorated with gold thread, and a chain of gold and enamel links hung around his neck that fell to a little ivory dragon with ruby eyes. She wondered if anyone really saw past the clothes to the boy inside.
“I should go,” he said.
“Of course . . .” She stood, embarrassed, wanting to apologise for asking about Annemarie and afraid to make matters worse. So she talked idiocies about the Watch finding it hard to march on ice, and the price of fish now holes had to be cut in the ice, and recut the next day, and how fishermen were complaining they were being turned into sculptors or carpenters.
“Do you
have enough food?” he asked suddenly.
She looked up, surprised by his question. “There’s enough to feed an army in the storehouses beyond the kitchens.”
“I meant the city.”
Giulietta flushed with shame. “I don’t know,” she admitted.
“Maybe your aunt knows. In fact,” he said, “I’m sure she does. We had reports she was buying grain last summer. I wouldn’t be surprised if she knew the cold was coming.” His comment returned her thoughts to what he’d said earlier, about her aunt knowing things other people didn’t, even those with their own spies . . . The more Giulietta thought about it the more she realised it was true. Frederick obviously suspected something. She needed to find out what.
“Why don’t we take a walk on the ice?”
So, Alexa thought, which thread to follow now?
Of course, there were always two threads, do this or do that. Two threads for every single second of every single minute of every life: and there were self-created flaws in those threads, the things you did half well, the things you did intentionally badly, the things you did too early (usually less critical than the things you left too late). Of such was life woven until death stilled the loom.
Those were not the threads Alexa meant, although she knew she was watching her niece wrestle with the simplest of girlish questions. Who do I want to be? Whom do I love? Is it wise? The question troubling Alexa was which thread would keep Venice safest? Tycho’s or Frederick’s.
Sigismund’s bastard had been right.
She’d been buying grain for months. All the same, there would be food riots eventually, because hunger already ate at the poor. But they would arrive later and be less serious than in other cities. Her subjects might not like eating bread when they were used to fish, they might accuse her of having cupboards full of figs and cheese, but the point was, they ate.
The Exiled Blade: Act Three of the Assassini Page 12