The Exiled Blade (The Assassini) - By Jon Courtenay Grimwood Page 0,4

man may say goodbye to his friends. Especially when he goes to risk his life for his city. Any Venetian knows this.”

“And I’m not Venetian?” Alexa’s voice was tight.

Alonzo smiled. “As you say . . .”

“S-s-snow.” Marco said suddenly. The room stilled as he unfolded spidery legs, abandoned his throne and wandered to the window. He opened an inner shutter, peered through a small circle of bottle glass and sucked his teeth at the darkness beyond. “It’s going to s-snow. Look . . .”

Stars that had been high and bright when the meeting began were now shrouded by cloud, and the moon a sullen glow on the far side of a slab of grey. It was cold enough in the chamber to need a brazier in the fireplace, but snow? Snow was rare in Venice. At least flakes that lasted beyond a few days.

“Isn’t it, T-Tycho? Y-you’ve seen snow. D-doesn’t it feel like snow to you?”

What’s behind that smile?

“M-my uncle will need a big b-blanket, and an army for when he g-goes to M-Montenegro. Well, g-gold to buy an army but in such a good cause. And a n-nice thick coat for M-Maria for when he’s not k-keeping her warm in b-bed.”

“Montenegro?” Alexa asked.

“He can fight the Red C-Crucifers. He’ll l-like that.” With this, Marco abandoned his window, wandered to the door, which he opened for himself, and ambled away whistling “Touch Her Teats First”, a song usually heard at peasant weddings on the mainland. The meeting broke up immediately. Marco was duke; without him there was no meeting to be had.

“My lord . . .” Bribanzo bowed to Alonzo. “May I offer you my congratulations on your forthcoming marriage? This is unexpected, but welcome.”

“Not so much forthcoming, Bribanzo, as immediate. I go to the basilica now. Come with me and be my witness.”

Lord Bribanzo looked flattered.

The Regent owed him several thousand gold ducats, and undoubtedly hoped to put off repaying the loan for some while yet. Tycho watched Prince Alonzo and Bribanzo leave together and saw three Council members follow after. Turning, he found Alexa beside him.

“Find my niece,” she said, “escort her to the basilica.” Seeing Tycho’s expression, she added, “Alonzo is a prince of Serenissima, the late duke’s brother and the new duke’s uncle. She will be there to see him marry, so will Marco, whether they want to or not. We will all be there.”

We will all be there . . . Tycho took the words out of the chamber and along a servants’ corridor he used to pass discreetly through Ca’ Ducale, the Millioni’s palace overlooking Piazza San Marco. He’d been born an orphan, and the discovery of that had been a relief, since he hated the bitch he’d believed his mother. Now he had a girl who loved him, who had a baby who loved her. While Alexa, who had every reason to hate him, since he had arrived in Venice with the sole purpose of killing her, included him when she spoke of we.

He was still smiling when he reached Lady Giulietta’s door. If they were a few minutes late in arriving and Giulietta seemed a little breathless . . . Well, they were young and what could anyone expect?

3

When the patriarch called San Marco “Europe’s most beautiful basilica”, he wasn’t simply pandering to Venetian pride. By the year of Our Lord 1408 there had been a church on the site of San Marco for six hundred years; admittedly not the same church, and the basilica had been rebuilt, extended, had new domes and new frescos until few could imagine what the original must have looked like, but there had been a church and it had been famously beautiful even back then. Now the wedding congregation stood before a flamboyantly jewelled rood screen, beneath a stern-faced Christ, while a fretted brass censor swung overhead beneath the largest of the five domes. Venice was once a colony of Constantinople, and it showed in the basilica’s Eastern architecture.

Lady Giulietta had never doubted it was beautiful, for all it was from here she’d been abducted the night before she left to marry King Janus of Cyprus, a marriage that never happened. Since Janus had been a Black Crucifer and his previous marriage had been complicated, she was glad.

“You’re safe,” Tycho whispered.

“What?”

“You shivered.”

Folding her fingers into his, she gripped tight and smiled when he turned to watch her, nodding at the couple before the rood screen to say he should be watching them instead. For once her