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.”