43

“This had better be good…”

Atilo stood in his chamber door in a long-sleeved woollen robe, with scarlet slippers that curled at the toe. Even though Iacopo had given his name when knocking, the old man had a stiletto in one hand and a lamp in the other.

Oil thrown at an attacker was everyman’s mage fire. Ten years earlier a patrician died after a lamp was hurled by a servant whose daughter he’d raped, with the girl tossing a flaming torch after. Duke Marco let the two hang. He forbade the slitting or castrating, gutting and burning tradition demanded. A popular decision with everyone except the noble’s wife. And she was Genoese anyway.

“Well?” he demanded.

“May I enter, my lord?”

Atilo stepped aside grudgingly.

“Forgive my intrusion… You intend to test Tycho tomorrow?”

The old man’s face hardened and he sat on a wooden stool without inviting Iacopo to do the same. His eyes fixed on Iacopo’s face and held his gaze until the young man looked away. “Jealousy gets you killed.”

“I’m not jealous, my lord.” The young man shrugged. “Although I envy the speed with which he learns. And his night sight is useful. Guard dogs ignore him also. As if he wrapped himself in magic.”

“It’s not magic,” said Atilo. “He has no smell.”

Iacopo’s mouth fell open.

“You should have worked that out. Whatever sickness makes him day-blind denies him a scent. That’s why hounds never find his tracks. They’ve nothing to follow…”

A season’s lessons in how to double back, lay false scents and hide in water had been abandoned after a week. Tycho couldn’t hide in water even if he wanted to. And, since the dogs couldn’t find his scent in the first place, the rest of the lessons were irrelevant.

“No smell,” Iacopo said. “That must be useful.”

Atilo looked on him more kindly. “You’re drunk. Get some sleep and you’ll feel better. And make friends with him…” Atilo held up his hand, admitting the obvious. “Not easy for you, I know. But make the effort. Because he will join us if he passes tomorrow’s test.”

“You’re freeing him?”

“Separate the two,” Atilo said. “Training takes five years. He’s a slave. I free slaves when they complete training. If he succeeds tomorrow I free him. One follows the other.”

“No one can train in a year.”

“Are you saying I’m wrong? That I don’t know when an apprentice is ready to become a journeyman?” There was ice in the old man’s voice.

“No. Certainly not, my lord.”

“What are you saying?”

“He was trained already…” Iacopo considered his suggestion, obviously liked it. “He must have been. He came here to kill someone. To betray us. He could be working for the emperor.”

“Which one?”

“Either,” Iacopo said, warming to his theme. “German or Byzantine, it doesn’t matter. They both want Venice. How better to…”

“Iacopo!” Atilo’s tone was sharp.

“Sir?”

“Why don’t I let you street-brawl? Why aren’t you allowed to compete in sword competitions? Because you’d pick up bad habits. If Tycho had trained do you think I wouldn’t know? Every sword school boasts of a move—elegant or deadly—that only they teach. All lies, of course. Sword schools have styles. So do assassins. I’d know if Tycho had been trained. He has amazing reflexes and reactions. But he was untaught when I first met him…”

And there things might have remained if Atilo hadn’t stood, patted Iacopo on the shoulder and said, “He’s not here to betray us, my boy.”

“Not me certainly,” Iacopo agreed, turning for the door.

Fingers like claws locked him into place. He tried to twist free but he might as well have fought a gaff through his flesh. The old man’s fingers were immoveable. The utter stillness Atilo exhibited before a kill was in place.

“Explain yourself.”

“My lord…”

“Forget politeness.”

That in itself was warning. Atilo believed in the art of manners, because manners opened more doors than a crowbar. Just as a smile could kill more easily than frontal attack. Although it might hurt less to begin with and take the victim longer to die. Atilo was smiling.

That was the second warning.

I should have stayed silent, thought Iacopo, the truest thought he’d had all day. I should have stayed silent. I should have left when I could. Then I could have dealt with this in my own way.

“My lord, I’m sorry. But I saw Lady Desdaio leave Tycho’s cellar. She was dressed…” Iacopo bowed his head. “In nightclothes. A gown covered by a shawl. Her hair was down, my lord.” As an unmarried woman, Desdaio was allowed her hair down. She’d taken to pinning it up, however, the morning she joined Atilo’s household. None of his staff had seen her since with her hair untied.

“Really? When did you see this?”

“Just now, my lord. A few moments ago.”

“You swear this?”

Iacopo gulped. “Yes, my lord.”

Atilo moved so fast that no one, no matter how good, could have blocked him.

One second his stiletto was on a table beside him, the next its blade had slithered up Iacopo’s nostril and a single drop of blood ran down its edge.

Iacopo could feel the knife behind his face. To move was to slice the cavities of his face open. If Atilo pushed further Iacopo was dead. It would take little pressure to ease a blade that thin into his brain.

“Then you’re foresworn. A moment ago I was in Tycho’s room and he was alone. If you’d said Amelia, an hour ago.” When Atilo shrugged the trickle of blood from Iacopo’s nose grew thicker. “I’d have had Tycho whipped. But that wasn’t enough. You want me to sell him. And so you’re prepared to blacken…”

Iacopo thought the old man would kill him.

“Take it back,” Atilo snapped. “Withdraw your accusation. Admit you are foresworn and tried to blacken her name.”

“I would never…”

“You just did,” Atilo said coldly.

“My lord, I’m sorry. I must have misunderstood what I saw.”

The blade edged higher. He was standing on tiptoe, Iacopo realised. Drunk, with a stiletto nestling in one nostril. As if standing on tiptoe could keep the blade from entering his skull.

“I lied,” he said hastily. “I’m sorry.”

Atilo withdrew his stiletto. The next moment saw him slash it forward to open Iacopo’s cheek. Scarring him for life. “Everytime you look in a glass, remember you risked a woman’s good name to further your ambition.”

Stumbling, Iacopo turned for the door.

“Iacopo…”

He turned back.

“You sew that yourself, understand? You don’t wake Amelia. You do it yourself. And you will behave around Tycho.”

A knock at her door woke Desdaio to shame and spring moonlight. A single knock, almost hesitant. Amelia was out of her truckle bed within seconds, pulling a shawl around her and looking sleepily for orders.

“I’ll go,” Desdaio said.

She approached slowly. Her anger bright and with it her shame. He’d told the truth, damn him. She, Desdaio Bribanzo, had melted in the arms of… a strange and beautiful slave admittedly. One who read her thoughts and seemed to know her mind and understand the nature of her unhappiness.

“My lady, would you prefer…?”

“I said I’ll go,” Desdaio snapped. “Who is it?”

“Me,” said a deep voice. “Atilo.”

She opened her door slowly, knowing he’d never visited her chamber before. It was her demand that Amelia slept in a truckle at the end of her bed. A demand Desdaio made when she understood her wedding would not be immediate. A way of saying Atilo could not come to her bed without a marriage contract. Except he’d never even tried to come to her bed.

Amelia’s late nights looked like the reason why.

“My lord?”

He looked like a man undecided what to say. One whose ideas and actions and words had fallen out of step with each other.

“Is there trouble?”

“That’s it. I thought I heard someone on the stairs.”

“Iacopo, perhaps?”

“No,” said Atilo. “We’ve been talking.”

“I heard nothing, my lord.”

He was still apologising when Desdaio shut the door firmly.

Amelia had simply come in later than expected, Atilo decided, listening to bolts slide into place. Any suggestion Desdaio had been with Tycho was unworthy. Yet he was troubled by the anger in her eyes.