Jon Grimwood - The fallen blade

"And the name is from viper?"

"Because they strike fast."

"Smugglers who strike fast. Or maybe such boats have other uses?"

Roderigo smiled at the dryness in Sir Richard's voice. Venice was known as the city of gilt, glass and assassinations. The whole of Italy knew why the boats racing towards the finish were black.

Eleven years earlier, in the year of Our Lord 1396, a gondola had drawn alongside the ornately painted craft carrying Giulietta's mother, Zoe dei San Felice. The crossbow bolt that killed her passed through her oarsman first. When the oarsman crawled to her side, the late duke's only sister was dead.

A sumptuary law passed that evening instructed that all gondolini be painted black. This was not death's colour in Venice, that was red. But in honour of Zoe's elegance, all vessels would be her favourite colour. The truth was that Marco III had wanted the safety gondolini looking alike would bring his family. The boys in the vipera were extending their lead when the boat closest behind rocked suddenly and tipped, losing its crew with a splash. Glancing back, the curly-haired boy shouted something and his Nubian companion started to laugh.

"That was Dolphino taking a ducking," Roderigo said, as if this explained everything. "He can't bear losing."

"You mean…?"

Lady Giulietta curled her lip. "That was no accident."

"By tonight," added Roderigo, "Dolphino will have been closing the gap and about to win. And the boys who just stopped will have sacrificed their second place to help a friend."

"Let's get this over with," Giulietta said.

Gathering her gown, she stepped from a wooden walkway on to slippery brick and headed for the finish line. Sir Richard followed, wondering how King Janus would deal with his strong-willed bride.

"Your names?" Roderigo asked.

"Iacopo, my lord." Cheaply dressed but freshly razored, the curly-haired boy bowed with lazy grace, as if born to court rather than the poverty his jacket suggested. "And this is… a slave." The slave bowed low in the Eastern style, silver thimbles dancing at the ends of a dozen tight braids.

"Well done," Sir Richard said.

The curly-haired boy smiled.

A wide face and brown eyes. Strong arms and… His virility made obvious by the tightness of his hose and the salt spray that soaked them.

"Eleanor," Lady Giulietta said. "You're staring."

The girl flushed with embarrassment.

"The distance?" Sir Richard asked quickly.

"Nine mille passum, my lord. Seven thousand paces around the edge, and two thousand back through the canal. The waves were tough to the north, but she's good…" He nodded to the vipera in pride.

"Yours?"

"My master's."

Realising the silence following was a question in itself, the boy added. "Lord Atilo il Mauros. He's…"

Sir Richard knew. "Your winnings," he said, offering a purse.

The young man bowed again, and couldn't resist weighing the purse in his hand. His grin showed white, and crinkled the edges of his eyes.

"Eleanor…"

"I'm not the one gawping."

Giulietta glanced sharply at her lady-in-waiting.

"And have this," Roderigo added hastily, shucking himself out of his brocade doublet. It was outdated and darned, but the victor's eyes widened and then he scowled.

"Silver thread, my lord."

Tattered brocade he might get away with. However, silver thread, like gold thread, fur, enamel, silk and embroidery, was denied to servants by law.

"I doubt the Watch will arrest this afternoon's winner before nightfall and you can have your woman pick it clean by tomorrow."

"I don't have one, my lord."

"You will tonight," Sir Richard promised.

Grateful to be free of the wind in their faces, Lady Giulietta's party were walking away from the salt spray and the bobbing boat of the victors when Roderigo became aware of footsteps behind him.

"My lord…"

Turning, he found the curly-haired boy. "Iacopo, isn't it?"

The young man was pleased the captain remembered his name. "Yes, my lord. Forgive me. You know Lady Desdaio, I believe?"

Roderigo nodded.

"Intimately, my lord?"

The captain's scowl was so fierce Iacopo stepped back.

"I have no doubt of Lady Desdaio's honour," Roderigo said fiercely. "No one has any doubt about her honour. Understand me?"

Nodding, Iacopo bowed low for causing offence. After which, he chewed his lip and shuffled his feet like the street urchin he'd probably been. His was a face found everywhere in Venice. A curving mouth and knowing eyes framed by curls. His straight, unbroken nose was less usual. It said that either he disliked fights or fought well.

"What about her?"

"She is betrothed to my master."

Roderigo was not a man of tempers.

He did his job well and both the Regent and duchess used him when they needed a good officer. He'd reached his post as head of the Venetian customs by hard work, having entered as a junior lieutenant. All the same, there was a blackness to his gaze as it swept the herringbone brick of the piazzetta that made people look away.

"When did this happen?"

"Yesterday, my lord… I learnt this morning when preparing for the race. Lord Atilo came to wish me luck."

"I see," Roderigo said tightly.

Full-breasted, plump and buxom, Desdaio Bribanzo was his ideal of beauty. Hell, she was the city's ideal. Only her hair let her down. This was chestnut rather than the reddish blonde Venice favoured.

Unlike other girls, she refused to dye it.

At twenty-three, Desdaio combined huge eyes, a sweet face and sweeter smile with being heiress to a vast fortune. Her father imported more pepper, cinnamon and ginger than any other noble in the city. Obviously enough, she had more suitors than any of her rivals. One of whom was Roderigo. They'd known each other since childhood. He'd thought they liked each other well enough.

"Why tell me this?"

"I'd heard… Your kindness. The coat…" Iacopo stuttered to a halt and went back to shuffling his feet.

"Lord Bribanzo approves?"

"He's still in Rome, my lord."

"In which case we'll see what he says. She wouldn't be the first to give her heart to one man while her father gives her body to another."

"This case is complicated." Iacopo chose his words carefully, keeping his face neutral as he waited for the captain to ask why.

"So tell me," Roderigo growled.

"She has moved herself into Ca' il Mauros."

"My God. Her father will…"

"Be furious, my lord. None the less, if she stays even a single night there unchaperoned. No parental fury can undo the damage that does her."

"She has gold." Roderigo said flatly. "It will be enough."

Iacopo sucked his teeth, as if to say the ways of women, particularly noble and rich ones, were beyond him. And if the brave captain said this was the case, who was he to disagree? The Ca' Ducale was built using pillars, window frames and door arches looted from other cities. Its style, however, was unique. Round arches from the Orthodox East combined with mauresque fretwork and pointed windows from Western Gothic; mixed in a fashion only found in one city in the world: this one.

This theft of materials was not the insult.

Nor was the fact that the palace and its basilica both used materials stolen from mosques, synagogues and even churches. How could one expect better of a place where Venetian first, Christian second was said daily?

The insult was more subtle.

The palace said to foreign princes, You hide behind fortified walls in ugly castles. I live on islands in the sea. My power is so great I can afford to live behind walls so thin they could be made from glass. That fact had not occurred to Captain Roderigo until Sir Richard pointed it out to him.

"Sir Richard, perhaps you could…"