The Boy Who Wept Blood

by Den Patrick

  A crowd had gathered outside the gates, indistinct in the darkness. The lantern above the shop sign had guttered out. Dino flicked his gaze to the Myrmidons at the brazier, who roused themselves but made no move to apprehend the disguised Orfano, instead troubling themselves with the bar that would secure the gates once the riders had passed.

  ‘Dino,’ hissed Stephania. The Orfano glanced up and felt his heart sink. The crowd beyond the gates was no crowd at all. A dozen Myrmidons levelled halberds at the horses. The capo stood at their centre, raising a lantern to his perfect, smirking face.

  ‘Going somewhere?’

  53

  Fiorenza’s Requiem

  – 30 Agosto 325

  The only light issued from the man who held up a lantern as if it were a crown. Guido di Fontein, capo de custodia, grinned.

  ‘My Lord Erudito.’

  ‘Guido. Strange to see you awake at this hour.’

  ‘I take my duties very seriously.’ The capo preened.

  ‘Perhaps the Domina’s abed with some other bravo tonight?’

  Guido’s smile slipped before he pushed back his shoulders. ‘Lady Prospero.’ The capo inclined his head. ‘It would seem I won’t be carrying out that inspection of your apartment after all.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll survive the disappointment.’ Her words were acid. ‘It’s not as if you’re unfamiliar with the bedrooms of House Prospero, is it?’

  The capo winced. ‘I’ll need to ask you both to dismount. You’re no doubt aware I am to apprehend you for the murders of Duke Fontein and your maid, Dino. What was her name?’

  ‘You know what her name was, just as you know it was Marchetti who killed her.’

  ‘Oh yes. Her name.’ The capo smirked. ‘Uh, Fiorella?’

  ‘Her name was Fiorenza. Did you give Marchetti the order or was that the Domina?’

  ‘Such lies.’ The capo scowled. ‘I knew you were pathetic, Dino; I never thought you’d stoop to killing women.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ The Orfano flashed an unfriendly smile. ‘I could stoop to killing you.’

  The Myrmidons advanced with their halberds, causing the horses to rear. Dino regained control of his steed with gritted teeth, Stephania turned her mount expertly, trotting back to the courtyard, hooves clattering on the cobbles. The Myrmidons passed through the gate, fanning out into a semicircle, halberds pointed at their quarry, dull spikes in the gloom of the courtyard. The gatekeepers waited until their kin had passed through, then pushed the heavy studded doors closed. Dino swore as the bar fell into place with a dull thump. There would be no escape now. The capo passed the lantern to a subordinate and drew his blade.

  ‘If you will not dismount we will kill the horses.’

  ‘If you so much as touch my horse I will string you up, you perfumed fop,’ said Stephania.

  Orfano and noblewoman stepped down from the stirrups, chagrin weighing on them as feet alighted on cobbles. Stephania clutched the sack containing Achilles to her chest. A Myrmidon closed and drew a sword.

  ‘Leave them!’ The capo managed a note of command he’d never master with more human soldiers. ‘The Orfano killed my duke. I will have my revenge on him in person.’ He drew his blade to reinforce his intent.

  ‘The Domina ordered the duke to be killed, you idiot.’

  ‘Dino should receive a trial,’ called out Stephania.

  ‘We’re long past the sanctuary of law,’ grated the Orfano.

  The Myrmidons had the sense to back off, spreading out to let the capo have his entertainment.

  ‘I’ve been training for this moment a long time.’ The capo smiled.

  ‘I rather hope so, for your sake’ said Stephania sweetly.

  Dino pushed the messenger’s tabard over his head, knocking the tricorn off in the process. He drew a knife from his boot and cut through the sleeves of his shirt, revealing his bandaged forearms. Two more jerking cuts and the bandages lay in pools of spooling fabric.

  ‘Showing your true colours?’ sneered the capo. Dino looked down at the dark blue tines growing from each forearm. How many mornings he’d bound them so as not to draw attention to his otherness.

  ‘They’re sharp, you know,’ said Dino calmly. He tested one tine with his finger . ‘You might say I’ve been dealing with pricks my whole life.’ He smiled at the capo. ‘I really can’t see why you’d give me any trouble.’

  The capo surged forward, two slashes the same tempo followed by a thrust that was sudden but not unexpected. Dino stepped beyond the range of the first two attacks and parried the third with his dagger, every sense intent on Guido: his footwork, the set of his shoulders, the direction of his eyes, his grip on the hilt and the positioning of his blade. He drew his own sword, the silver drake pommel now familiar under his gloved fingers. Dino flashed a terrible smile, eager for the violence to come. It was all for nothing, of course. Even if he defeated the capo he’d be cut down by the Myrmidons, just as Emilio had been. This thought leaked through his mind and caught fire like oil from a lantern.

  The capo turned aside his opening thrust but almost lost his footing such was Dino’s fury, a slash threatening to remove one leg at the knee. Guido flinched away with widening eyes. He batted off another slash that would have opened his face and bisected his pretty nose. A grunt, a curse, a flash of steel. The fighters parted and circled each other. The capo drew a dagger from his belt and rolled his shoulders. Dino snorted a derisive laugh; Guido was struggling to find his rhythm.

  ‘I’ve always hated you. You, Lucien, Anea, even Golia. All so smug and sure of yourselves. Eradicating the Orfani is an ambition I’ve long nurtured.’

  ‘I’ve often found ambition exceeds ability. In your case doubly so.’

  The capo thrust. Dino responded with a low slash at his front leg, easily avoided. They stumbled past each other, the backhanded swing that would have opened Guido’s vitals deflected by a dagger. The fighters pivoted and came about. A thrust at the capo’s face. This deserved a full parry with the sword; everyone knew how handsome Guido was, not least himself. Dino took advantage, landing a solid kick between the capo’s legs. He was rewarded with a muffled cough. It was a petty move but a deserved one.

  ‘Strega scum.’ Guido staggered back with tears in his eyes.

  And then Dino fell on him like a raven, threatening to rip the capo apart in tiny increments.

  ‘You can’t eradicate the Orfani, you idiot.’ Dino thrust again, found his blade turned aside by the dagger once more. ‘Myrmidons, Orfani; they’re all one and the same.’ A slash, opening the capo across one shoulder, jacket tearing, resistance as the blade met leather beneath. ‘All twisted ancestry from the same source.’ The blade found its mark again, sank deeper. ‘Only the titles make us different.’

  ‘The Myrmidons answer to us,’ sneered the capo; ‘they answer to the throne.’ He slashed back, but it was a reckless backhanded strike. Dino ducked beneath it, then parried the returning slash as if it were no more than practice.

  ‘They answer to humans,’ sneered Guido. ‘They know their place.’

  Dino’s mouth twisted. Demesne hated difference. The nobility sneered at the cittadini; those fully human were unnerved by the Orfani; women were treated as slaves or objects by men; the majority felt disgust for Cherubini and his preference. All were united in their hatred of the Myrmidons, and the Myrmidons no doubt harboured their own grudges. Landfall did not encourage difference, did not welcome individuals. Soon it would be as uniform as any ant colony. A colony designed by Erebus.

  The two men clashed, coming together and drawing apart, circling, then lunging again with awful intensity. Guido’s dagger, the instrument of many parries, gouged Dino’s side beneath his ribs. Stephania cried out, her voice rising above even the pitch of the clashing steel. The Orfano staggered back, throwing up an arm protectively at the sword falling toward him in a blur. The steel slashed down at a shallow angle onto the blue tines of his forearm, snapping them, smashing through, but not cutting
the flesh beneath.

  Dino chewed off a curse.

  The capo struck again, shocked his blade hadn’t severed Dino’s arm; the attack he launched hasty and ill prepared. Dino took the hilt of his blade in both hands, steel clashed upon steel before he made a circling motion ending in a sharp flick. The capo’s sword was wrenched free, skittering across the cobbles. Guido stood before the Orfano empty-handed.

  ‘Her name was Fiorenza,’ hissed Dino.

  Dino’s overhead strike was caught on the flat of Guido’s dagger. The metal snapped and the capo was forced to his knees. A seasoned fighter, he used the opportunity to draw another knife from his boot, surging to his feet. Dino raised his left arm and backhanded the noble across the face, rending pretty skin with tines. Guido stepped back in horror then slumped to his knees, a whimper escaping his shivering lips. His grip on the knife slackened in numb fingers.

  ‘Witchcraft,’ whispered the capo, lips turning blue.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Dino, breathing heavily, ‘although I tend to call it poison.’

  The capo clutched at his throat as it began to constrict, each breath more tortured than the last.

  ‘My maid’s name. What was it?’

  ‘Vai al diavolo,’ wheezed Guido.

  Dino ran him through the chest with his sword and watched the man’s eyes widen in shock.

  ‘Her name.’

  ‘Puttana.’

  Dino drew his blade from the capo’s chest, a wet rasp in the awful silence. He twisted the steel as it came loose, eliciting a shriek from the defeated capo. The Orfano leaned in close. ‘Her name was Fiorenza, you fuck.’

  The capo tried to stab him in the chest with the dagger, the strike weak and unfocused.

  Dino caught his wrist with ease. ‘Say it.’

  Still the capo tried to stab him, face purple, veins blue against his skin. Dino’s grip was absolute. The dagger trembled but came no closer to its prize.

  ‘Her name was Fiorenza.’

  ‘Just another whore,’ wheezed the capo, ‘in a maid’s uniform. They’re all whores, Dino.’ He flashed a look of hatred at Stephania. ‘Salvaza, the Domina, all of them.’ He clawed down another breath. ‘But you wouldn’t know. You’ve been too busy fucking men.’

  ‘Duty makes whores of us all,’ whispered Dino. He stepped back from the capo and watched him die. Watched the poison surge through every vein.

  The Myrmidons showed little concern for the loss of the capo but remained in a loose semicircle around the fugitives.

  Stephania pressed herself to the Orfano and looked down at his forearm, eyes rich with concern, mouth a twist of worry. She took his arm and regarded the smashed and broken tines.

  ‘Don’t worry about those,’ he said wearily. ‘They always grow back. How is Achilles?’

  ‘Still wriggling,’ she replied, hefting the sack. He picked up his tabard, pulling it on under the blank gaze of the Myrmidons and their curving helms. Stephania took his hand and thrust out her chin.

  ‘I command you to stand down.’ They made no move, might have been carved from granite for all of her imperiousness.

  Stephania attempted to lead Dino toward the gates, but the points of halberds prevented her. They found themselves pressed up against the well, the Myrmidons closing in around them.

  ‘Won’t you let us go? We just want to leave,’ she pleaded. No response, but neither did the Myrmidons seek to harm them. ‘Why aren’t they attacking?’ she whispered.

  ‘Because they know what I know,’ said Dino. ‘Them and me, we’re not so different. Just on different sides.’

  It was then that the Domina appeared with Marchetti at her side. Dino felt his blood run cold. He eyed the veiled Myrmidon and saw someone whose anger eclipsed his own, someone eager to carry out any atrocity, someone with no compunctions, someone prepared to kill women. The Domina muttered to the assassin, and Marchetti nodded then drew his blade and crossed the courtyard.

  ‘We don’t have to stay and fight,’ whispered Stephania.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ replied Dino, not taking his eyes from the assassin.

  ‘There are tunnels beneath Demesne; we can find another way.’

  Dino eyed Stephania, remembering the promise he’d made to her mother. Marchetti was close now, perhaps twenty feet away. The moon shone from his blade, his eyes reflected silver.

  ‘Are you ready?’ said Dino.

  ‘Of course.’

  The Orfano lifted Lady Stephania Prospero over the side of the well and dropped her, throwing himself after.

  54

  A Drowning

  – 30 Agosto 325

  Dino fell, the well shaft a blur of grey and an occasional smear of green. Moss most likely. A vision of Emilio in the graveyard flashed before his eyes. Again. The cold water stunned the air from his lungs. He kicked for the surface, a glimmer of light his only hope, paddling with one hand, the other clutching the sword. He broke the surface and gasped down air, floundering. A quick look confirmed his fears. No Stephania.

  A dim light filtered down the shaft, the pale moon penetrating even here, deep below Demesne. A maestro di spada drowned in a well, drowned beneath the very castle he sought to protect. Hardly the stirring victory a real swordsman yearns for, muttered the shade of Duke Fontein in his ear.

  ‘Shut. Up,’ the Orfano grated, then began to slip beneath the water once more. A flash of light from beneath, the silver pommel of his sword reflecting the moonlight. The weapon he’d spent a lifetime mastering was going to drag him to the bottom. What he depended on for his survival now a tool of his demise. He kicked and cursed, boots full of water, slowing his efforts. His chin dipped beneath the water again, a mouthful swallowed, then coughing. He redoubled his efforts but the messenger’s tabard added to his sodden weight. He was beneath the water now, looking up from below, snatching breaths when his mouth breached, swallowing yet more water when he timed it wrong. His kicks slackened.

  Something snagged his collar; the light came closer, air caressed his skin. He dragged a shuddering breath and coughed and hacked on the exhalation. A shape in the water beside him, lithe and strong. Then an arm around his neck slender and cold. Surge and lull, surge and lull through the water. He blinked and sampled life by way of small gasps.

  ‘Hold here.’ Stephania guided his hand to a ledge and then pulled herself out. She was a faint outline in the darkness, gleaming wetly. After a moment she relieved him of the blade, then pulled him from the water.

  ‘Where did you go?’ he said between coughing fits.

  ‘I was making sure Achilles didn’t drown in the sack. Seems I should have been more worried about you. Could you wait a little longer before committing suicide?’

  ‘I wasn’t committing anything; we need a sword if we’re going to escape.’

  ‘I thought Anea was stubborn.’ Stephania rolled her eyes. ‘Seeing you cling to that sword makes me think it’s a family trait.’

  ‘It’s one of my more attractive qualities, you know?’ He tried for a smile but surrendered to a racking cough instead.

  ‘Perseverance is attractive; stubbornness is something else entirely.’ Stephania shivered. ‘They’re not the same.’

  ‘Pedant.’ He grinned, flushed with adrenaline, trembling with shock. ‘You took your time, didn’t you?’

  ‘Don’t mention it, my lord.’ She stood and found her weapon and boots in the darkness. ‘I can throw you back in if you’d prefer?’

  He shrugged, busying himself with Achilles as she dressed. The reptile took his place on Lucien’s shoulder, clinging to the nape of his neck. A scaly tail slid under his collar, seeking warmth.

  ‘It’s nice to see you too,’ whispered Dino, laying a hand on the reptile’s flank.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ asked Stephania.

  ‘No. Mercifully.’ He pressed a hand to where the capo had gouged him, then stood with care; the ledge was not wide. ‘Thank you for saving me.’

  Stephania gave a shrug as if it was
of no consequence, a pouting smile betraying her pleasure. His eyes grew accustomed to the reduced light. The chamber they occupied was round, like so many of the training rooms of House Fontein. The roof swept up to an inverted funnel narrowing into the well shaft. Its stone walls were immaculate and smooth, the joins almost too fine to see. He removed a sodden glove and traced a line with a fingertip.

  ‘This place is …’

  ‘Huge,’ supplied Stephania, now dressed except for her tabard. ‘I had no idea structures like this existed.’ Certainly there were no columns holding the courtyard aloft.

  ‘Are you ready?’ asked Dino. ‘I think there’s a way out over there.’ He pointed to a small oval of deeper darkness in the curving wall of the chamber.

  A blur from the well shaft startled them. Falling, flailing. A splash and a series of ripples. A figure breached the surface and turned its head this way and that, face lost to shadow.

  ‘Marchetti.’ Dino struggled to remain on the ledge. He waited, sword ready, as the figure sank below the surface. A hand clawed up, paddled, sought purchase. Marchetti slipped below once more. The water was now churning around the drowning Myrmidon. Dino guessed the assassin had discarded his armour before his plunge into the underworld. The water’s motion settled to a bob and swell. Bubbles broke the surface in profusion.

  ‘I’m not so inclined to rescue Fiorenza’s killer.’ There was a darkness to Stephania’s voice that Dino hadn’t heard before.

  ‘Neither am I.’

  ‘Come on.’ Stephania gazed at the middle of the cistern, the water now still. There was no trace of the fallen Myrmidon. ‘You can let this vendetta go, Dino. He’s gone.’

  They exited the chamber, shivering and wet.

  The passage was cramped, the stone rough and unfinished. A spiral staircase ascended into darkness. Sounds of dripping and the burbling of rivulets filled their ears. Sodden boots scuffed at steps blindly as they climbed, hand in hand, Dino leading the way. Cobwebs dragged at their faces and clung to shoulders. The air turned rancid, then became entirely unwholesome. Light filtered down and the Orfano and noblewoman emerged into the warm, golden glow of lanterns. They stood on another ledge, looking through endless rows of archways vaulting the ceiling above. Demesne pressed down, the weight of so much stone like a guilty conscience. A rank sea of pale brown water extended in all directions.