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Synopsis
A violent attack on Lady Giulietta's son forces Tycho from his new-found happiness and back into the treacherous intrigue of the court. For Giulietta's sake he would go to the world's end to track down those responsible.
As Venice teeters on the brink of civil war, its feuding families prepare to discover who is a player and who a pawn in the coming struggle for power.
The Exiled Blade is the climactic finale to Tycho's story.
Praise for THE ASSASSINI TRILOGY
"An alternative world that lays down its own historical strata . . . the writing is spare and detached; the society described is brutal and sadistic" -- Times Literary Supplement
"Gritty, grimy, decadent and compelling" -- Sunday Times
"The writing is elegant, the dialogue razor sharp, the characters drawn economically but effectively, and the action is unrelenting" -- SciFi Now (five-star review)
"Conjures up the city so vividly that you can almost touch the place" -- SFX
Release date: April 2, 2013
Publisher: Orbit
Print pages: 432
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The Exiled Blade
Jon Courtenay Grimwood
Tycho, a youth with strange hungers
The Millioni
Marco IV, known as Marco the Simpleton, duke of Venice and Prince of Serenissima
Lady Giulietta di Millioni, his young cousin, widow of Prince Leopold, mother of Leo and lover of Tycho
Duchess Alexa, the late duke’s widow, mother to Marco IV. A Mongol princess in her own right. She hates…
Prince Alonzo, Regent of Venice, who wants the throne
Marco III, known as Marco the Just. The late lamented duke of Venice, elder brother of Alonzo, godfather of Lady Giulietta and the ghost at every feast
Members of the Venetian court
Lord Bribanzo, member of the Council of Ten, the inner council that rules Venice. One of the richest men in the city. Sides with Alonzo
Lord Roderigo, Captain of the Dogana, Alonzo’s ally
Lady Maria Dolphini, heiress
Captain Weimer, new head of the palace guard
Amelia, a Nubian slave and member of the Assassini
Pietro, an ex-street child, now a royal page
Prince Frederick zum Bas Friedland, bastard son of Sigismund, ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, one-time suitor for Lady Giulietta and a guest at the court
Late members of the Venetian court
Atilo il Mauros, once adviser to the late Marco III, and head of Venice’s secret assassins. Alexa’s lover and long-term supporter. Was engaged to the late Lady Desdaio, daughter of Lord Bribanzo
Prince Leopold zum Bas Friedland. Also dead. Until lately leader of the krieghund, Emperor Sigismund’s werewolf shock troops. (Brother of Prince Frederick)
Dr Hightown Crow, alchemist, astrologer and anatomist to the duke. Using a goose quill he inseminated Giulietta with Alonzo’s seed, leaving her with child
Iacopo, once Atilo’s servant and member of the Assassini
Captain Towler, mercenary leader in Montenegro
The Three Emperors
Sigismund, Holy Roman emperor, King of Germany, Hungary and Croatia. Wants to add Lombardy and Venice to that list
John V Palaiologos, the Basilius, ruler of the Byzantine Empire (known as the Eastern Roman Empire), also wants Venice. He barely admits Sigismund is an emperor at all
Tamburlaine, Khan of Khans, ruler of the Mongols and newly created emperor of China. The most powerful man in the world and a distant cousin to Duchess Alexa. He regards Europe as a minor irritation
The emperor rode ahead on a high-stepping stallion draped with a cloth of gold, and behind him came his flag bearer, the doubleheaded eagle of the Holy Roman Empire snapping in the winter wind. A small group of carefully selected courtiers followed wrapped tightly in furs against the early snow. Old men riding down a valley towards a troop of younger men who were the future if they lived long enough.
Sigismund of Germany had come to meet his son.
The emperor was in his fifties, long-faced and tired eyed, exhausted by the effort of controlling an empire for which he hadn’t provided a proper heir. The boy he approached was a youthful indiscretion. Well, as Frederick was seventeen, perhaps not that youthful on Sigismund’s part, but still an indiscretion.
Since he was a bastard, had lost his battle against Venice and was returning with a dispirited army, having gained little glory from his siege of the island city, Frederick wondered why his father bothered to greet him.
At a word from the emperor the courtiers halted, and though they stayed in their saddles they relaxed enough to let their tired mounts feed on the thin Alpine grass of the high meadow. The emperor rode on alone.
Sliding from his horse, Prince Frederick knelt on the damp grass, bowed his head and waited. Only for his father to vault from his saddle with the enthusiasm of a man half his age. “Stand,” Sigismund insisted, dragging his son to his feet.
Frederick said, “I apologise. The fault is all mine.”
Clapping him on the shoulder, the emperor grinned. “Nicely said. Always take the blame and share the glory. It costs nothing but words, and makes your followers love you.” He glanced beyond Frederick at the returning troops. “Sieges are always hard – especially when they fail. You could have done with a proper battle and a few more deaths.”
“Your majesty…?”
“What did you lose? A half-dozen of your friends, no real soldiers at all. Your troops need comrades to mourn and enemy outrages to make them angry. I’m riding for Bohemia to put down a Waldensian heresy, your army can join mine. There’ll be killing, mourning and drinking enough to make any soldier happy.”
“I would be honoured to ride with you.”
“And use that sword?”
How did he…? Frederick shifted uncomfortably and his father smiled.
Sigismund said, “It was well done, a fair exchange. We get the WolfeSelle.” He nodded at the anonymous-looking blade slung across his son’s shoulders. “And we gain proof that her brat is…”
“One of us?”
“One of you, certainly.” There was slight jealousy in the emperor’s voice. One Frederick had noticed before. “So, as I say, a fair exchange. I’ll be honest, I never expected you to win.”
“Father…”
“You stand here before me. The emperor in Constantinople waits to get his son back in a barrel pickled in brandy. You lost well. The Byzantines badly. Venice remains Venice and ready for the taking.” Wrapping his arm round his son’s shoulders, Sigismund hugged him. A gesture undoubtedly noticed by both the courtiers and Frederick’s friends. “Why should I not be happy?”
“I lost.”
“Who said you were meant to win?”
“You did.” Frederick’s voice cracked and he blushed, hoping no courtiers had heard. “You said…”
“Whatever I said it’s enough Byzantium is damaged. Now, I have another task. You are to return to Venice and woo Lady Giulietta. What you could not make Venice give you through force – and I’ve been unable to gain through fear – we will make them give us from love. Take your friends and go humbly. In battle, timing is all. So wait for the right moment.”
“You want me to win Giulietta’s heart?”
“And her other parts,” Sigismund said. “Make her like you. Make her love you. Hell.” He smiled. “Make her smile. That usually gets them into bed.”
Cheers greeted the news of a fresh campaign, rising loud enough to echo from the mountains when Frederick’s troops discovered the emperor himself would be leading them. Having appointed a replacement for Frederick, Sigismund ordered them to head up the valley, through the pass and keep moving until they reached the first town on the other side, where they were to billet. He would join them there that evening. His courtiers were to remain with him but keep their distance. He wished for time to say goodbye to his son.
Frederick watched and he listened and he wondered as all this went on around him. Mostly, he wondered why his father thought winning Lady Giulietta di Millioni’s heart would be any easier than conquering her city. She was notoriously as stubborn as the city was strange. He watched his own armour and baggage be sent back the way he’d come to wait for him at an inn below. His friends were gathered in a group, talking quietly. They’d asked as many questions as they dared.
“Now,” Sigismund said. “Tell me about the man who gave you the WolfeSelle.”
“Tycho,” Frederick said. “Lady Giulietta’s lover.”
The emperor saw his son’s unease and waited, listening to Frederick’s faltering attempt to describe how the battle on Giudecca ended.
“Tell me exactly what you saw.”
“Flames,” Frederick said. “Wings of fire.”
“My Moorish astrologer says she beds a djinn, my bishop that he’s a devil, my cabalist says a golem of china clay. The Englishman Maître Dee says an elemental fire spirit. What did he look like to you?”
“Competition,” Frederick said after a moment’s pause.
The emperor laughed. “How long since you’ve run?”
“Weeks,” his son admitted.
“Since you ran as a pack? For the joy of it,” Sigismund said firmly. “I mean, how long since you ran as a pack for the joy of it?”
“That day in Wolf Valley when you came to find me.”
Sigismund said, “Then run now. Run here where no one can see you. Catch up with your carts when the hunt is finished and take new clothes. But enjoy yourself for today and worry about duty tomorrow.”
A run…?
The boy stripped quickly, his enthusiasm overwhelming shyness. The others, his friends, realising what was happening, grinned and stripped in their turn. Frederick was the youngest, his body slight, the hair at his groin pale as gold, the hair on his chest so fine as to be near invisible. And then he began to change, and his father, despite having seen what happened half a dozen times before, looked away as his son’s flesh rippled and his bones twisted and fur rolled up his body in a wave, closing over the wolf’s head. Only his eyes remained the same.
Frederick was not the largest animal in the pack. But he was the only one with silver fur and he was the one who opened his mouth and howled loud enough to echo off the valleys around them. And then, without even glancing at his father, he turned and headed for distant rocks and the pack followed without question, a streaming V of smoke behind their leader as they raced forward, and a stag that had been hiding among the rocks lost its nerve, rose to its feet and ran.
Sigismund sighed. He was emperor of half the Western world and, God-given duty or not, he’d give it all to run with his son.
“So I withdraw from city life for a life better suited to an old solider. I will tend my vines and plough my fields. Repair the walls on my estate in Corfu and have wells dug to water the olives…”
Of course you will, Tycho thought.
The Regent’s honeyed words had to be borrowed from someone else. An old Roman statesman maybe. They certainly didn’t sound like anything Prince Alonzo would have thought up for himself. “I will be taking my wife with me.”
Even the sleepiest member of Venice’s Council of Ten looked up at that. They all knew the Regent was unmarried and had no children, legitimate or bastard. His sister-in-law’s threats to poison any brats at birth saw to that.
“Your wife?” his sister-in-law asked.
“Lady Maria Dolphini…” Prince Alonzo smiled at Duchess Alexa, nodded politely to the councillors on their gilded chairs, let his gaze slide over Duke Marco, otherwise known as the Simple, and ignored Tycho entirely. He was only there because Marco insisted on bringing his bodyguard.
“I marry Maria tonight,” the Regent said. “With your permission, that is. The archbishop has already given his agreement. I know that I need the Council’s seal on this but I imagine no one would deny an old soldier company in his remaining years?”
Alexa snorted but her heart wasn’t in it. Tycho could see she was as shocked by this news as the rest of them. And worried, if she had any sense. Alexa liked to keep her enemies close. In banishing her brother-in-law she had, like it or not, given him freedom to move.
“No one objects…?”
The Regent was a barrel-chested, broad-shouldered bear of a man, as fond of wine, women and warfare as he was publicly contemptuous of politics. In private, of course, he was as political as the next Venetian and that was very political indeed. Smiling deprecatingly, he took a sip of red wine and pushed his glass firmly away. Look, the gesture said. I’m barely drinking these days.
Around the small room on the first floor used for meetings of the Ten, old men were shaking their heads. A single chair stood empty, the one used until recently by Lord Atilo, now dead and buried. The Regent was careful not to glance at it just as he was careful not to glance at the boy sprawled on the throne, or the boy’s mother beside him. Duke Marco was watching a wasp repeatedly take off and crash-land, its flights short, abrupt and increasingly desperate. “It’s d-d-dying…”
Alonzo’s scowl said he wished Marco would join it.
“Everyone’s d-dying these days.”
When the duchess looked at her son strangely, he simply nodded to a soft-jowled courtier in a purple doublet twenty years out of date. “I think Lord B-Bribanzo wants to s-speak.” The two things, Bribanzo’s opening and shutting mouth and Marco’s morbid comments, were probably not linked. With Marco it was hard to know. “You w-wish to o-object?”
Lord Bribanzo shook his head fiercely.
“W-what then?”
Bribanzo looked to Alonzo for guidance, caught himself and pretended he’d been looking at a tapestry of a unicorn on the wall beyond. Marco’s brief moments of clarity always caused problems for those used to taking their cues from Alexa or Alonzo; depending which faction they favoured. There was more to Lord Bribanzo’s nervousness than this, though. Something in his manner said the hesitation was staged. Alonzo had just accepted defeat. He was withdrawing from public life to his estates in Corfu, one of Venice’s many island colonies. This was close to open surrender.
Of course, Alexa had left him little choice. Exile or death had been her offer. Since Tycho had provided the proof that Alonzo was behind a plot to have Alexa murdered, along with Marco and Marco’s cousin Lady Giulietta, he was on the list of people Alonzo would like dead. “Get on it it,” Alexa said.
“I disapprove of the Regent’s decision.”
Everyone looked up, openly shocked. Bribanzo was Alonzo’s man, his banker. The idea that Lord Bribanzo would publicly disapprove of anything Alonzo wanted was absurd. Lapdogs had more will.
“Y-you d-do?”
“Yes,” Bribanzo said fiercely. “It’s a waste. Our greatest general retiring to dig his own fields.” He sounded as if he really thought Alonzo would dig ditches, tend vines and build drystone walls. He must know Alonzo’s bucolic vision was for public consumption – like most of the things Alonzo said.
“Politics bores me, Bribanzo.” The Regent’s voice was warm and convincingly honest. The qualities that made him loved by his troops and so dangerous to Alexa. Drunk, Alonzo was dangerous. Sober, he was more dangerous still. It had always been thus – to use one of his own expressions.
“My lord, reconsider. For Venice’s sake.”
“My mind is made up.”
“If you’re bored with the city…”
“Bribanzo. I was born here, the canals are my home. I spoke Venetian before I could speak Latin or mainland Italian. Listen to the crowd…” The Regent paused, a little too theatrically, to let the Council hear the rumble of carts, the singing of gondoliers and the shouts of stallholders on the Riva degli Schiavoni. “That is the sound of my heart beating. This city is my heart. The canals my blood. How could I ever be bored of Venice? The thought is absurd.”
Staged, Tycho thought. Both men had rehearsed their lines before the meeting began. If not, then they’d certainly discussed how this should be played.
“Then why…?” Bribanzo began.
Alonzo risked a glance at Alexa. A quick, slight glance that suggested complications and things he couldn’t say. Questions that only she could answer, not that he expected she ever would.
“I-is this g-going anywhere?” Marco demanded.
“Highness. We have Barbary pirates in the Adriatic. The governor of Paxos has declared himself king. Then there are the Red Crucifers…”
Marco looked at his mother, who bent to whisper. “Ahh,” he said. “The renegades. I thought I’d lost t-track of a c-colour…” He smiled as the Council laughed dutifully. The recognised Priories were the White, who protected pilgrims, and the Black, who extracted sin with torture and oversaw executions. When the local Prior of the White in Montenegro proclaimed himself High Prior of the Red, and announced he and his followers would drive heretics from Montenegro, most regarded that as heresy itself. The man might be dead but his knights remained, holding to their new name, their supposed religious mission and the land they should be protecting from Serbian bandits. The Duchy of Montenegro was one of Venice’s newer colonies. Not large, but its position across the Adriatic from Sicily made it key to protecting Venetian trade.
“My friend… What are you suggesting?” Alonzo asked. Bribanzo glanced at the other councillors. One of them nodded slightly, and from the sudden stiffening of Alexa’s shoulders Tycho knew she’d caught the glance. Alonzo’s plot spread wider than both of them thought. She’s worried. Alexa worried is me worried. Tycho loosened his dagger and Alexa shook her head.
“If you won’t stay here, my lord, serve Venice in another capacity. Don’t simply retire to your estates. The city can’t afford to lose its greatest general.”
The Regent shrugged.
“I mean it, my lord.” Bribanzo’s voice was stronger.
Here it comes.
“So,” said Alonzo. “Sail against the Barbary pirates… Retake Paxos… Defeat the Red Crucifers… Which do you want from me?”
“Any of them, my lord.” Bribanzo looked to the Council for agreement and received half a dozen nods. Alexa would note who agreed and who kept their counsel. She glanced at her son but Marco seemed too lost in his thoughts to notice a split was appearing.
“Alonzo,” she said.
“Yes, my lady?” The Regent sounded innocent.
“I thought you were determined to retire to your estates?”
“That is my dearest wish. But if the Council of Ten still want me to serve my city…” There was enough ambiguity in his tone to leave it unclear whether he meant he served the city, or he regarded the city as his. He’d made it clear to everyone over the years that he didn’t consider it hers. “If the Council want me to serve, how can I refuse? No matter what my enemies say about me…” He looked at Tycho this time. “My devotion to Venice is unchanging. My friends already know my friendship is for life. My enemies would be fools to underestimate me…”
“Alonzo.”
“A 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?
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 uncle had discarded his breastplate. His bride huddled inside a huge fur coat against the cold. The coat was made from the pelt of a brown bear, and legend had it that Alonzo stabbed the bear himself. Legend also said he gutted the animal, ate its heart and skinned its carcase, washing its bloody pelt in a stream as clear and cold as ice.
The problem with Uncle Alonzo was that it could be true.
His bravery in battle was renowned and his skills as a general had brought him fame before she was born. Had Uncle Marco not died and his idiot son become duke, Uncle Alonzo would be happily besieging a castle somewhere. It was Aunt Alexa who said Alonzo fought the bear hand to hard. That he hadn’t claimed it himself only made Giulietta believe it more. Still, the bearskin made a weird wedding dress. So large and bulky, almost as if Maria was trying to hide something.
Lady Giulietta nudged Tycho. “Don’t you think Maria looks…”
“Like a girl who needs to get married in a hurry?”
She shushed him. Maria was a few years older than them, so somewhere in her early twenties; the ideal of beauty, heavy breasted and full-hipped, with long hair dyed Venetian-red as tradition demanded. Giulietta’s own hair was naturally red, her body slighter and her figure much less arresting. Her aunt always said Giulietta would grow into her looks and she had; although she’d never believed Aunt Alexa back then. For the first time Giulietta could remember she felt like her skin fitted as it was meant to fit. Maria, however, looked bulkier than Giulietta recalled.
If she was pregnant then Alonzo leaving for his estates on Corfu made perfect sense. Taking her on campaign less so, but even that was safer than leaving her in Venice for Aunt Alexa to poison.
The rumour of a Grand Canal full of dead fish came from her aunt’s earliest years in the city. Whispers said she dropped a single glass vial of poison, barely larger than a child’s finger, and every fish in the Canalasso died. Like the story of Alonzo and the bear, Alexa and her vial had gone beyond rumour into legend.
“But what does Uncle Alonzo get out of this?” When Tycho looked round, Giulietta realised she’d said the words aloud. It was obvious what Maria got. She got to be a princess of Serenissima and live in the ducal palace. Well, she would have done if Alonzo weren’t being quietly banished. But Maria…?
“He gets that,” Tycho whispered.
Maria’s father dripped gold. As rich as a Dolphini, the cittadini said. And as vulgar, the nobles added under their breath. He was dressed in the gaudy grandeur Giulietta expected. A doublet of scarlet velvet glistened wine-dark in the shadows. His matching cloak was yellow-lined. The gold chain around his neck was thick enough to moor a barge. He stood next to Lord Bribanzo, equally rich if less gaudily dressed. Between them they were richer than the Millioni, and Giulietta’s family was the richest in Europe. If Maria produced a son there would be no stopping Lord Dolphini’s ambitions. The old man would lavish gold on his princely grandchild and Dolphini money would strengthen Alonzo’s position.
“I bet Aunt Alexa asks you to kill her.”
“She can’t,” Tycho said. “It’s not allowed.” The rules governing his position as Duke’s Blade, head of Venice’s cadre of assassins, prevented the duchess using the Assassini against any member of the Millioni family, just as they prevented the Regent from doing the same. Once married, Maria was untouchable.
“Really?” Giulietta asked. She sighed.
It was not that she wanted Maria dead… But she’d always hoped her aunt would one day kill her uncle. Had Venice always been this dark and twisted, this complicated and divided? Was it like this in Milan, Paris and Vienna? Lady Giulietta sucked her teeth, running through the dark reputations of those cities, and decided it probably was. The whole world was like this and Giulietta wished it was better. If she was ruler of Venice it would be different. She’d insist on it.
Up ahead, the patriarch was asking Maria if she married freely. Having been assured she did, he asked Alonzo if he would be faithful to death. His booming boast that he would be faithful to death and beyond was not in the order of service but heads nodded approvingly in the small party around him. Rings were exchanged, the blessing was given and the marriage was done.
This was the shorter service. Without a Mass, without a choir, and without much by way of guests or congregation; but it was done and it was legal. Alonzo il Millioni was married and the young woman beside him was now a Millioni princess and looking slightly stunned by the turn of events.
“No, I don’t want Alonzo killed.” Duchess Alexa, Mongol wife of the late duke and mother to Marco the Simpleton, who seemed daily less simple, looked at the restless young man in front of her desk and smiled sympathetically. She’d known his suggestion before he suggested it. This was not magic. She’d want the same if she was Tycho; young, full of life and in love with her niece.
“My lady. Let me do this.”
Alexa shook her head.
“Please…”
“Tycho!” Now her hated brother-in-law was headed for exile she was sole Regent and intended to use the power. Mostly she liked her life; albeit in someone else’s city, ruling someone else’s people, and having taken a name not her own. But she was dying of old age and a disease ate her insides. She had no time for new complexities. “You will not mention this again.”
The boy smouldered like phosphorus dropped into water, his anger so palpable that she sighed. It wasn’t that Alexa even objected to him killing her brother-in-law, she simply knew it to be unwise. Pulling a stiletto from his belt, the boy absent-mindedly reached for a sharpening stone.
“Put those away…”
He looked up in surprise. “It relaxes me.”
The boy’s hair was . . .
The Millioni
Marco IV, known as Marco the Simpleton, duke of Venice and Prince of Serenissima
Lady Giulietta di Millioni, his young cousin, widow of Prince Leopold, mother of Leo and lover of Tycho
Duchess Alexa, the late duke’s widow, mother to Marco IV. A Mongol princess in her own right. She hates…
Prince Alonzo, Regent of Venice, who wants the throne
Marco III, known as Marco the Just. The late lamented duke of Venice, elder brother of Alonzo, godfather of Lady Giulietta and the ghost at every feast
Members of the Venetian court
Lord Bribanzo, member of the Council of Ten, the inner council that rules Venice. One of the richest men in the city. Sides with Alonzo
Lord Roderigo, Captain of the Dogana, Alonzo’s ally
Lady Maria Dolphini, heiress
Captain Weimer, new head of the palace guard
Amelia, a Nubian slave and member of the Assassini
Pietro, an ex-street child, now a royal page
Prince Frederick zum Bas Friedland, bastard son of Sigismund, ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, one-time suitor for Lady Giulietta and a guest at the court
Late members of the Venetian court
Atilo il Mauros, once adviser to the late Marco III, and head of Venice’s secret assassins. Alexa’s lover and long-term supporter. Was engaged to the late Lady Desdaio, daughter of Lord Bribanzo
Prince Leopold zum Bas Friedland. Also dead. Until lately leader of the krieghund, Emperor Sigismund’s werewolf shock troops. (Brother of Prince Frederick)
Dr Hightown Crow, alchemist, astrologer and anatomist to the duke. Using a goose quill he inseminated Giulietta with Alonzo’s seed, leaving her with child
Iacopo, once Atilo’s servant and member of the Assassini
Captain Towler, mercenary leader in Montenegro
The Three Emperors
Sigismund, Holy Roman emperor, King of Germany, Hungary and Croatia. Wants to add Lombardy and Venice to that list
John V Palaiologos, the Basilius, ruler of the Byzantine Empire (known as the Eastern Roman Empire), also wants Venice. He barely admits Sigismund is an emperor at all
Tamburlaine, Khan of Khans, ruler of the Mongols and newly created emperor of China. The most powerful man in the world and a distant cousin to Duchess Alexa. He regards Europe as a minor irritation
The emperor rode ahead on a high-stepping stallion draped with a cloth of gold, and behind him came his flag bearer, the doubleheaded eagle of the Holy Roman Empire snapping in the winter wind. A small group of carefully selected courtiers followed wrapped tightly in furs against the early snow. Old men riding down a valley towards a troop of younger men who were the future if they lived long enough.
Sigismund of Germany had come to meet his son.
The emperor was in his fifties, long-faced and tired eyed, exhausted by the effort of controlling an empire for which he hadn’t provided a proper heir. The boy he approached was a youthful indiscretion. Well, as Frederick was seventeen, perhaps not that youthful on Sigismund’s part, but still an indiscretion.
Since he was a bastard, had lost his battle against Venice and was returning with a dispirited army, having gained little glory from his siege of the island city, Frederick wondered why his father bothered to greet him.
At a word from the emperor the courtiers halted, and though they stayed in their saddles they relaxed enough to let their tired mounts feed on the thin Alpine grass of the high meadow. The emperor rode on alone.
Sliding from his horse, Prince Frederick knelt on the damp grass, bowed his head and waited. Only for his father to vault from his saddle with the enthusiasm of a man half his age. “Stand,” Sigismund insisted, dragging his son to his feet.
Frederick said, “I apologise. The fault is all mine.”
Clapping him on the shoulder, the emperor grinned. “Nicely said. Always take the blame and share the glory. It costs nothing but words, and makes your followers love you.” He glanced beyond Frederick at the returning troops. “Sieges are always hard – especially when they fail. You could have done with a proper battle and a few more deaths.”
“Your majesty…?”
“What did you lose? A half-dozen of your friends, no real soldiers at all. Your troops need comrades to mourn and enemy outrages to make them angry. I’m riding for Bohemia to put down a Waldensian heresy, your army can join mine. There’ll be killing, mourning and drinking enough to make any soldier happy.”
“I would be honoured to ride with you.”
“And use that sword?”
How did he…? Frederick shifted uncomfortably and his father smiled.
Sigismund said, “It was well done, a fair exchange. We get the WolfeSelle.” He nodded at the anonymous-looking blade slung across his son’s shoulders. “And we gain proof that her brat is…”
“One of us?”
“One of you, certainly.” There was slight jealousy in the emperor’s voice. One Frederick had noticed before. “So, as I say, a fair exchange. I’ll be honest, I never expected you to win.”
“Father…”
“You stand here before me. The emperor in Constantinople waits to get his son back in a barrel pickled in brandy. You lost well. The Byzantines badly. Venice remains Venice and ready for the taking.” Wrapping his arm round his son’s shoulders, Sigismund hugged him. A gesture undoubtedly noticed by both the courtiers and Frederick’s friends. “Why should I not be happy?”
“I lost.”
“Who said you were meant to win?”
“You did.” Frederick’s voice cracked and he blushed, hoping no courtiers had heard. “You said…”
“Whatever I said it’s enough Byzantium is damaged. Now, I have another task. You are to return to Venice and woo Lady Giulietta. What you could not make Venice give you through force – and I’ve been unable to gain through fear – we will make them give us from love. Take your friends and go humbly. In battle, timing is all. So wait for the right moment.”
“You want me to win Giulietta’s heart?”
“And her other parts,” Sigismund said. “Make her like you. Make her love you. Hell.” He smiled. “Make her smile. That usually gets them into bed.”
Cheers greeted the news of a fresh campaign, rising loud enough to echo from the mountains when Frederick’s troops discovered the emperor himself would be leading them. Having appointed a replacement for Frederick, Sigismund ordered them to head up the valley, through the pass and keep moving until they reached the first town on the other side, where they were to billet. He would join them there that evening. His courtiers were to remain with him but keep their distance. He wished for time to say goodbye to his son.
Frederick watched and he listened and he wondered as all this went on around him. Mostly, he wondered why his father thought winning Lady Giulietta di Millioni’s heart would be any easier than conquering her city. She was notoriously as stubborn as the city was strange. He watched his own armour and baggage be sent back the way he’d come to wait for him at an inn below. His friends were gathered in a group, talking quietly. They’d asked as many questions as they dared.
“Now,” Sigismund said. “Tell me about the man who gave you the WolfeSelle.”
“Tycho,” Frederick said. “Lady Giulietta’s lover.”
The emperor saw his son’s unease and waited, listening to Frederick’s faltering attempt to describe how the battle on Giudecca ended.
“Tell me exactly what you saw.”
“Flames,” Frederick said. “Wings of fire.”
“My Moorish astrologer says she beds a djinn, my bishop that he’s a devil, my cabalist says a golem of china clay. The Englishman Maître Dee says an elemental fire spirit. What did he look like to you?”
“Competition,” Frederick said after a moment’s pause.
The emperor laughed. “How long since you’ve run?”
“Weeks,” his son admitted.
“Since you ran as a pack? For the joy of it,” Sigismund said firmly. “I mean, how long since you ran as a pack for the joy of it?”
“That day in Wolf Valley when you came to find me.”
Sigismund said, “Then run now. Run here where no one can see you. Catch up with your carts when the hunt is finished and take new clothes. But enjoy yourself for today and worry about duty tomorrow.”
A run…?
The boy stripped quickly, his enthusiasm overwhelming shyness. The others, his friends, realising what was happening, grinned and stripped in their turn. Frederick was the youngest, his body slight, the hair at his groin pale as gold, the hair on his chest so fine as to be near invisible. And then he began to change, and his father, despite having seen what happened half a dozen times before, looked away as his son’s flesh rippled and his bones twisted and fur rolled up his body in a wave, closing over the wolf’s head. Only his eyes remained the same.
Frederick was not the largest animal in the pack. But he was the only one with silver fur and he was the one who opened his mouth and howled loud enough to echo off the valleys around them. And then, without even glancing at his father, he turned and headed for distant rocks and the pack followed without question, a streaming V of smoke behind their leader as they raced forward, and a stag that had been hiding among the rocks lost its nerve, rose to its feet and ran.
Sigismund sighed. He was emperor of half the Western world and, God-given duty or not, he’d give it all to run with his son.
“So I withdraw from city life for a life better suited to an old solider. I will tend my vines and plough my fields. Repair the walls on my estate in Corfu and have wells dug to water the olives…”
Of course you will, Tycho thought.
The Regent’s honeyed words had to be borrowed from someone else. An old Roman statesman maybe. They certainly didn’t sound like anything Prince Alonzo would have thought up for himself. “I will be taking my wife with me.”
Even the sleepiest member of Venice’s Council of Ten looked up at that. They all knew the Regent was unmarried and had no children, legitimate or bastard. His sister-in-law’s threats to poison any brats at birth saw to that.
“Your wife?” his sister-in-law asked.
“Lady Maria Dolphini…” Prince Alonzo smiled at Duchess Alexa, nodded politely to the councillors on their gilded chairs, let his gaze slide over Duke Marco, otherwise known as the Simple, and ignored Tycho entirely. He was only there because Marco insisted on bringing his bodyguard.
“I marry Maria tonight,” the Regent said. “With your permission, that is. The archbishop has already given his agreement. I know that I need the Council’s seal on this but I imagine no one would deny an old soldier company in his remaining years?”
Alexa snorted but her heart wasn’t in it. Tycho could see she was as shocked by this news as the rest of them. And worried, if she had any sense. Alexa liked to keep her enemies close. In banishing her brother-in-law she had, like it or not, given him freedom to move.
“No one objects…?”
The Regent was a barrel-chested, broad-shouldered bear of a man, as fond of wine, women and warfare as he was publicly contemptuous of politics. In private, of course, he was as political as the next Venetian and that was very political indeed. Smiling deprecatingly, he took a sip of red wine and pushed his glass firmly away. Look, the gesture said. I’m barely drinking these days.
Around the small room on the first floor used for meetings of the Ten, old men were shaking their heads. A single chair stood empty, the one used until recently by Lord Atilo, now dead and buried. The Regent was careful not to glance at it just as he was careful not to glance at the boy sprawled on the throne, or the boy’s mother beside him. Duke Marco was watching a wasp repeatedly take off and crash-land, its flights short, abrupt and increasingly desperate. “It’s d-d-dying…”
Alonzo’s scowl said he wished Marco would join it.
“Everyone’s d-dying these days.”
When the duchess looked at her son strangely, he simply nodded to a soft-jowled courtier in a purple doublet twenty years out of date. “I think Lord B-Bribanzo wants to s-speak.” The two things, Bribanzo’s opening and shutting mouth and Marco’s morbid comments, were probably not linked. With Marco it was hard to know. “You w-wish to o-object?”
Lord Bribanzo shook his head fiercely.
“W-what then?”
Bribanzo looked to Alonzo for guidance, caught himself and pretended he’d been looking at a tapestry of a unicorn on the wall beyond. Marco’s brief moments of clarity always caused problems for those used to taking their cues from Alexa or Alonzo; depending which faction they favoured. There was more to Lord Bribanzo’s nervousness than this, though. Something in his manner said the hesitation was staged. Alonzo had just accepted defeat. He was withdrawing from public life to his estates in Corfu, one of Venice’s many island colonies. This was close to open surrender.
Of course, Alexa had left him little choice. Exile or death had been her offer. Since Tycho had provided the proof that Alonzo was behind a plot to have Alexa murdered, along with Marco and Marco’s cousin Lady Giulietta, he was on the list of people Alonzo would like dead. “Get on it it,” Alexa said.
“I disapprove of the Regent’s decision.”
Everyone looked up, openly shocked. Bribanzo was Alonzo’s man, his banker. The idea that Lord Bribanzo would publicly disapprove of anything Alonzo wanted was absurd. Lapdogs had more will.
“Y-you d-do?”
“Yes,” Bribanzo said fiercely. “It’s a waste. Our greatest general retiring to dig his own fields.” He sounded as if he really thought Alonzo would dig ditches, tend vines and build drystone walls. He must know Alonzo’s bucolic vision was for public consumption – like most of the things Alonzo said.
“Politics bores me, Bribanzo.” The Regent’s voice was warm and convincingly honest. The qualities that made him loved by his troops and so dangerous to Alexa. Drunk, Alonzo was dangerous. Sober, he was more dangerous still. It had always been thus – to use one of his own expressions.
“My lord, reconsider. For Venice’s sake.”
“My mind is made up.”
“If you’re bored with the city…”
“Bribanzo. I was born here, the canals are my home. I spoke Venetian before I could speak Latin or mainland Italian. Listen to the crowd…” The Regent paused, a little too theatrically, to let the Council hear the rumble of carts, the singing of gondoliers and the shouts of stallholders on the Riva degli Schiavoni. “That is the sound of my heart beating. This city is my heart. The canals my blood. How could I ever be bored of Venice? The thought is absurd.”
Staged, Tycho thought. Both men had rehearsed their lines before the meeting began. If not, then they’d certainly discussed how this should be played.
“Then why…?” Bribanzo began.
Alonzo risked a glance at Alexa. A quick, slight glance that suggested complications and things he couldn’t say. Questions that only she could answer, not that he expected she ever would.
“I-is this g-going anywhere?” Marco demanded.
“Highness. We have Barbary pirates in the Adriatic. The governor of Paxos has declared himself king. Then there are the Red Crucifers…”
Marco looked at his mother, who bent to whisper. “Ahh,” he said. “The renegades. I thought I’d lost t-track of a c-colour…” He smiled as the Council laughed dutifully. The recognised Priories were the White, who protected pilgrims, and the Black, who extracted sin with torture and oversaw executions. When the local Prior of the White in Montenegro proclaimed himself High Prior of the Red, and announced he and his followers would drive heretics from Montenegro, most regarded that as heresy itself. The man might be dead but his knights remained, holding to their new name, their supposed religious mission and the land they should be protecting from Serbian bandits. The Duchy of Montenegro was one of Venice’s newer colonies. Not large, but its position across the Adriatic from Sicily made it key to protecting Venetian trade.
“My friend… What are you suggesting?” Alonzo asked. Bribanzo glanced at the other councillors. One of them nodded slightly, and from the sudden stiffening of Alexa’s shoulders Tycho knew she’d caught the glance. Alonzo’s plot spread wider than both of them thought. She’s worried. Alexa worried is me worried. Tycho loosened his dagger and Alexa shook her head.
“If you won’t stay here, my lord, serve Venice in another capacity. Don’t simply retire to your estates. The city can’t afford to lose its greatest general.”
The Regent shrugged.
“I mean it, my lord.” Bribanzo’s voice was stronger.
Here it comes.
“So,” said Alonzo. “Sail against the Barbary pirates… Retake Paxos… Defeat the Red Crucifers… Which do you want from me?”
“Any of them, my lord.” Bribanzo looked to the Council for agreement and received half a dozen nods. Alexa would note who agreed and who kept their counsel. She glanced at her son but Marco seemed too lost in his thoughts to notice a split was appearing.
“Alonzo,” she said.
“Yes, my lady?” The Regent sounded innocent.
“I thought you were determined to retire to your estates?”
“That is my dearest wish. But if the Council of Ten still want me to serve my city…” There was enough ambiguity in his tone to leave it unclear whether he meant he served the city, or he regarded the city as his. He’d made it clear to everyone over the years that he didn’t consider it hers. “If the Council want me to serve, how can I refuse? No matter what my enemies say about me…” He looked at Tycho this time. “My devotion to Venice is unchanging. My friends already know my friendship is for life. My enemies would be fools to underestimate me…”
“Alonzo.”
“A 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?
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 uncle had discarded his breastplate. His bride huddled inside a huge fur coat against the cold. The coat was made from the pelt of a brown bear, and legend had it that Alonzo stabbed the bear himself. Legend also said he gutted the animal, ate its heart and skinned its carcase, washing its bloody pelt in a stream as clear and cold as ice.
The problem with Uncle Alonzo was that it could be true.
His bravery in battle was renowned and his skills as a general had brought him fame before she was born. Had Uncle Marco not died and his idiot son become duke, Uncle Alonzo would be happily besieging a castle somewhere. It was Aunt Alexa who said Alonzo fought the bear hand to hard. That he hadn’t claimed it himself only made Giulietta believe it more. Still, the bearskin made a weird wedding dress. So large and bulky, almost as if Maria was trying to hide something.
Lady Giulietta nudged Tycho. “Don’t you think Maria looks…”
“Like a girl who needs to get married in a hurry?”
She shushed him. Maria was a few years older than them, so somewhere in her early twenties; the ideal of beauty, heavy breasted and full-hipped, with long hair dyed Venetian-red as tradition demanded. Giulietta’s own hair was naturally red, her body slighter and her figure much less arresting. Her aunt always said Giulietta would grow into her looks and she had; although she’d never believed Aunt Alexa back then. For the first time Giulietta could remember she felt like her skin fitted as it was meant to fit. Maria, however, looked bulkier than Giulietta recalled.
If she was pregnant then Alonzo leaving for his estates on Corfu made perfect sense. Taking her on campaign less so, but even that was safer than leaving her in Venice for Aunt Alexa to poison.
The rumour of a Grand Canal full of dead fish came from her aunt’s earliest years in the city. Whispers said she dropped a single glass vial of poison, barely larger than a child’s finger, and every fish in the Canalasso died. Like the story of Alonzo and the bear, Alexa and her vial had gone beyond rumour into legend.
“But what does Uncle Alonzo get out of this?” When Tycho looked round, Giulietta realised she’d said the words aloud. It was obvious what Maria got. She got to be a princess of Serenissima and live in the ducal palace. Well, she would have done if Alonzo weren’t being quietly banished. But Maria…?
“He gets that,” Tycho whispered.
Maria’s father dripped gold. As rich as a Dolphini, the cittadini said. And as vulgar, the nobles added under their breath. He was dressed in the gaudy grandeur Giulietta expected. A doublet of scarlet velvet glistened wine-dark in the shadows. His matching cloak was yellow-lined. The gold chain around his neck was thick enough to moor a barge. He stood next to Lord Bribanzo, equally rich if less gaudily dressed. Between them they were richer than the Millioni, and Giulietta’s family was the richest in Europe. If Maria produced a son there would be no stopping Lord Dolphini’s ambitions. The old man would lavish gold on his princely grandchild and Dolphini money would strengthen Alonzo’s position.
“I bet Aunt Alexa asks you to kill her.”
“She can’t,” Tycho said. “It’s not allowed.” The rules governing his position as Duke’s Blade, head of Venice’s cadre of assassins, prevented the duchess using the Assassini against any member of the Millioni family, just as they prevented the Regent from doing the same. Once married, Maria was untouchable.
“Really?” Giulietta asked. She sighed.
It was not that she wanted Maria dead… But she’d always hoped her aunt would one day kill her uncle. Had Venice always been this dark and twisted, this complicated and divided? Was it like this in Milan, Paris and Vienna? Lady Giulietta sucked her teeth, running through the dark reputations of those cities, and decided it probably was. The whole world was like this and Giulietta wished it was better. If she was ruler of Venice it would be different. She’d insist on it.
Up ahead, the patriarch was asking Maria if she married freely. Having been assured she did, he asked Alonzo if he would be faithful to death. His booming boast that he would be faithful to death and beyond was not in the order of service but heads nodded approvingly in the small party around him. Rings were exchanged, the blessing was given and the marriage was done.
This was the shorter service. Without a Mass, without a choir, and without much by way of guests or congregation; but it was done and it was legal. Alonzo il Millioni was married and the young woman beside him was now a Millioni princess and looking slightly stunned by the turn of events.
“No, I don’t want Alonzo killed.” Duchess Alexa, Mongol wife of the late duke and mother to Marco the Simpleton, who seemed daily less simple, looked at the restless young man in front of her desk and smiled sympathetically. She’d known his suggestion before he suggested it. This was not magic. She’d want the same if she was Tycho; young, full of life and in love with her niece.
“My lady. Let me do this.”
Alexa shook her head.
“Please…”
“Tycho!” Now her hated brother-in-law was headed for exile she was sole Regent and intended to use the power. Mostly she liked her life; albeit in someone else’s city, ruling someone else’s people, and having taken a name not her own. But she was dying of old age and a disease ate her insides. She had no time for new complexities. “You will not mention this again.”
The boy smouldered like phosphorus dropped into water, his anger so palpable that she sighed. It wasn’t that Alexa even objected to him killing her brother-in-law, she simply knew it to be unwise. Pulling a stiletto from his belt, the boy absent-mindedly reached for a sharpening stone.
“Put those away…”
He looked up in surprise. “It relaxes me.”
The boy’s hair was . . .
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The Exiled Blade
Jon Courtenay Grimwood
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