56
“You gave your mother’s brooch? Dolphino’s earrings. The bracelet Gian Maria sent you…?” Atilo’s mouth was a tight line. He put one hand to his dagger, although that was for Tycho, who stood to one side.
They were in an upper chamber of the Priory.
A stark and coldly decorated room, made hot by Atilo’s anger and a night wind smelling of smoke and herbs. Sheep were roasting over pits outside. Food for the Crucifers who would fight tomorrow’s battle.
Every ship in the Cypriot fleet would carry a mix of galley slaves and free sailors. Also Crucifer knights, crossbowmen, soldiers and pikemen. Those vessels carrying mage fire needed masters to fire the flame, work the bellows and keep the deadly mixture from killing those it should protect.
Mage fire won battles.
Stealing its secret from Byzantium had been the Crucifers’ making. It also explained the hatred existing between them. Mage fire won battles and it lost them. Ships had been destroyed by the fire they carried before. They would be again.
None of that concerned Atilo now.
“How could you?” The pain in his voice was so raw that Desdaio blinked, tears filling her eyes and her bottom lip quivering. Atilo barely noticed. “I said I’d deal with it. After I talked to King Janus.”
“They were selling him…”
“I’d have bought him back. You went alone to a slave market. You gave your own jewels for a disgraced slave.” He shot a vicious glance at Tycho, who stayed silent.
“You have no idea.”
“No idea what?”
“What it feels like to be for sale.”
“And you have?”
“Of course I have.” Desdaio was furious. For a second, Atilo feared she would hit him. Should he let her? Or catch her wrist? How hard should he grip?
“Listen to me,” she shouted. “Don’t do that with your face. I don’t want to know you’re thinking. I want to know you’re listening to me…”
Tears rolled down her cheeks.
“You went into his room,” Atilo said, a statement of fact.
“Yes,” she said. “I went into his room. To warn him about the test. Nothing happened. He told me to leave.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Look at yourself,” she said. “Standing there with your hand on your dagger. Why do you think I didn’t tell you?”
Tycho caught the moment the Moor’s gaze shifted from Desdaio to where he stood a couple of paces behind her. Barefoot, half-starved, draped in the discarded blanket with which she’d wrapped him at the market.
“Is that all you’re good for?” Atilo hissed. “Hiding behind a girl?”
“Give me a knife, old man. We’ll see.”
Atilo’s mouth fell open.
“Even weak like this,” said Tycho. “I can kill you.”
“You’re past it.” Tycho’s voice was cold. “You’ve lost your strength, your nerve, your reflexes. All you’ve got left are your skills and they’re not what they were, are they?” He could see the truth in Atilo’s eyes. The man didn’t believe all that was true. But he was worried it might be.
“Not yet ready for your grave?”
Turning his back on his old master, Tycho glanced at the darkness outside. Past midnight by an hour or so. He had two hours, maybe three, before he needed to protect himself against daylight.
And the sad thing, the thing that twisted Tycho up inside, was that he missed the sun. Missed its warmth and its brightness, its warmth on water and the smell it gave to bare skin. Memories of sunlight reminded him of the boy he used to be… Every time he changed the sun scared him a little more. Without his doublet and without Dr. Crow’s ointment he had no choice but to hide.
“Face me,” Atilo said.
“Why would I bother?”
Closing the gap in three steps, Atilo slapped him.
Tycho laughed. So Atilo backhanded him hard, obviously expecting the boy to go down. But Tycho stood his ground, grinning through bloody lips. “Is that the best you can do?”
The third time Atilo struck, Tycho caught his hand, held it briefly and then tossed it away, as if discarding rubbish.
“Don’t you mock me,” Atilo hissed.
“Someone has to.”
Drawing his dagger in a single sweep, Atilo put its point to Tycho’s chin, where a blade can pass through muscle, tongue and palate, entering the cavities behind the nose to pierce the brain.
“I let you do that.”
The dagger’s point jabbed tighter. “No, you didn’t.”
“Are you sure?” The question earned Tycho the dagger point digging through skin until blood ran sluggish and black down the outside of his throat.
And Atilo did. Tycho could see that from the old man’s stillness and his widening eyes. Atilo’s spare dagger was at his own balls. Tycho had removed it from his belt without the old man even noticing.
“Do they still work?”
“Stop it,” Desdaio shouted.
Tycho had no idea which of them she was talking to. Nor did Atilo from his face. That thought only made the man angrier. The Moor’s eyes were cold, his mouth above his sharp beard set hard. He wanted to hurt Tycho. Wanted to punch his blade into Tycho’s brain. But the dagger at his groin froze his courage. And Desdaio’s presence prevented him.
“Am I interrupting something?” said a voice from the doorway.
“You… Here?”
Tycho could have killed Atilo then. Instead, he stepped back, shooting the newcomer a twisted grin. While Atilo was still staring, Tycho returned the spare dagger to Atilo’s belt with a flourish and gave their guest a bow.
Prince Leopold laughed.
“You must be Lady Desdaio. As beautiful as rumour says…”
She was staring from Tycho to Atilo, and then at the elegantly dressed stranger, wondering who he was and why the man she hoped to marry hated him even more than the boy he’d just wanted to kill.
“Tell me what’s going on,” Desdaio demanded.
Sweeping her a bow, Prince Leopold zum Bas Friedland introduced himself by name, late of Venice and recently of Cyprus. “Three killers, one innocent. Unless there are things about you I don’t know…?”
Prince Leopold smiled.
“No? Thought not.”
“Atilo’s a soldier,” Desdaio protested.
“Some wars are honourable,” said Prince Leopold. “Others less so. He fights a darker war. As do I. If we fight the other type it’s by accident. As for him…” He nodded towards Tycho. “His war’s so dark he barely knows what it is.”
“He’s my slave,” Atilo said dismissively.
Prince Leopold raised his eyebrows. His gaze slid to Desdaio, who’d gone tight-lipped. “I think your beloved might disagree. I hear she gave her mother’s jewellery to buy him.”
“Among other things,” Atilo said. “I’ll buy it back.”
On Desdaio’s face was an expression Tycho hadn’t seen before. Somewhere between anger, stubbornness and irritation. Although her stance, feet planted as if she’d just stepped up to the mark on a punta di Puglia, suggested determination too. Meeting her eyes, Prince Leopold grinned.
“Tycho’s nobody’s,” she said crossly. “I bought him. I freed him.”
“We’ll discuss this later.”
Nobody saw Tycho move. One second he faced Atilo, the next he was stood behind the man, his finger drawing a line across Atilo’s throat. Smiling, he stepped back and sketched another bow.
“You lose,” he said.
“No,” Leopold said. “He wins. He told Alonzo you had potential. Told Alexa too…” The prince shrugged apologetically. For mentioning Atilo’s lover in front of his beloved probably.