The Exiled Blade: Act Three of the Assassini Read Free Page B

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.

4
    “
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