Jon Grimwood - The fallen blade

"My curse is forever," he said, lowering the blade.

"Forever?"

"Anyway, you must live."

"Why?"

"So you can take news of this defeat to the sultan. So I can discover why your sister was on that ship. Because enough brave men have died…"

Tycho felt so tired his bones ached at the thought of it. Atilo had once spoken of sadness after battle being like the sadness that comes after sex, only bleaker. Tycho had not dared say he had no knowledge of either. This was worse than he feared. A desolation that carried the taste of carrion.

In disgust, he rolled a dead archer into the well with the scimitar's tip. The following thud made him feel sadder still. Where was the elation? Atilo said some men felt that.

"I am Sir Tycho. Once an apprentice blade."

The Mamluk bowed slightly. "I am Osman. My father is the sultan. My sister, nicknamed Jasmine, was his favourite. But I am his heir."

Tycho bowed in return.

"You can kill me," said Prince Osman. "Keep me for ransom or free me. Even, it seems, send me as a messenger to announce my own defeat to my father if that is the load you put on me. Although he will not believe my tale."

"Why not…?"

"A storm-summoning witch? A ravening, shape-shifting demon? My fleet destroyed by waves, wind and lightning? My archers' arrows swatted aside? The Venetians do not have that kind of power. My father would believe I made excuses."

"So what will you say?"

"My slaves refused to row. That I commanded poorly. The bowstrings of my archers were wet. That I surrender my command and accept my fate."

Prince Osman's eyes were bleak. His father had a reputation for cruelty. He also had enough sons, by both wives and favoured concubines, to sacrifice one if an example need be made.

"Stay here," Tycho ordered.

As if the Mamluk prince had anywhere else to go. Atilo crossed himself when Tycho appeared from the door behind him. He opened his mouth to say something and left his mouth open as Tycho stalked past, only stopping when he reached A'rial. "I need something."

"Favours cost." Her green eyes were sharp. "You know that."

"Name your price."

"One kill. At my choosing."

"Your mistress's choosing?"

"Mine," the little stregoi said, her voice hard. "One time, when the hunger is on you I will ask for a kill. You will grant it without question."

"Not Giulietta, not Desdaio, not Pietro."

A'rial's smile was sour. "You're not in a position to bargain. But all the same, I agree. None of those three."

Tycho told her what he required.

A few dozen people were to forget what they'd seen and remember what they believed they saw. As Tycho stepped back, A'rial drew herself upright and a shimmering wrapped itself around her. Once the space between her hands shone bright enough she began to chant the true history of the battle. The one the Mamluk slaves would remember.

"Tycho…"

"We'll talk later," Tycho said.

Atilo il Mauros opened his mouth and closed it once again. He was a man fond of saying the world held more than one could know. He just hadn't expected to come face to face with its strangeness that night.

"The duchess knows?" he managed finally.

Knows what? Tycho wondered. About my hunger? About the changes that come with it?

"Yes," he said. "Undoubtedly." Tycho took the smoky brand from Prince Osman's hand and thrust it close to the face of a red-bearded slave, who recoiled from its flame. "No one's going to hurt you," the prince promised. Although the whip scars on the man's shoulders said he'd been hurt already, many times and brutally.

"What did you see?" Tycho asked.

The slave looked at him.

"During the battle. What did you see?"

A nod from Osman told the man he could answer.

"The Venetian fleet. It was vast. Masts like a forest circling us. So many ships, my lord, I've never seen so many. I thought we'd never escape."

Tycho could see bodies and broken spars, upturned ships and bobbing flotsam, the spreading aftermath of a naval battle. The slave could not. But when the man shivered Tycho knew he realised what was out there.

"What happened?"

For all the man had been Western once, a northerner to judge from his hair and the red in his beard, he answered as if the Mamluk fleet's fate and his were inextricably entwined.

As they were, of course.

"We were encircled. Their archers slaughtered our sailors. They had mage fire. It spread across our decks, burning everything it touched." The man's eyes were bleak as he remembered what never happened. "It was only his highness's skill that saved us. In the middle of a terrible storm he fought the Venetians to a standstill. Their entire fleet destroyed at a terrible cost."

Prince Osman's eyes were saucers. His glaze flicked between Tycho and the slave, unable to believe what he was hearing.

"Ask any of them," Tycho said.

"What will he say?" asked Prince Osman, jerking his head towards Atilo's flagship.

"That you lie. What do you expect him to say?"

"And I say he lies?" Prince Osman nodded. He was beginning to understand how this worked.

Tycho smiled.

"Your price is I tell you how I know you?"

"And a favour given without hesitation. Not involving a death in your family," said Tycho, remembering the price A'rial had extracted in her turn. "Beyond that I can't say, because I don't know."

The prince looked up sharply.

"Start with how you know me…"

In the far shallows of the night, with the darkest hours long behind him and the moon a low ghost on the horizon awaiting the sun's exorcism, Tycho crawled from his pallet to wash himself in buckets of water Giulietta had earlier ordered drawn for him. He carried the weight of Osman's answer in his heart.

Although his skin was now clean, he washed himself one final time, rinsing his mouth and spitting salty water back into a bucket, before tipping the lot over the deck. His torn doublet was over a rope in the hot pre-dawn breeze. It was now almost dry enough to wear.

Atilo slept in the captain's cabin.

Ladies Giulietta and Desdaio had the other. Denied his own bed, the San Marco's original captain was at the rudder. He refused to meet Tycho's gaze. There was nothing strange about that. Everyone refused to meet Tycho's gaze, finding reasons to be somewhere else.

A'rial was gone. Already forgotten.

A storm had come from nowhere. A miracle from God, heavenly proof that San Marco, Venice's patron saint, had the ear of the divine. The only strangeness was Tycho's single-handed battle against Osman's ship.

A mighty leap, the sailors were saying. Heroic bravery, a madman's luck, sheer stupidity. Few admitted seeing anything. And those who had kept their thoughts to themselves. The newly made knight had leapt a near-impossible distance and been lucky. Everyone knew why Prince Osman had been allowed to leave. Atilo had told them it was to take news of his defeat to his father.

"Are you all right?"

Turning, Tycho found Giulietta behind him. She was dressed as no widowed woman should be, in a thin undersmock, which clung damply to her body. The garment was laced at her neck with a ribbon; loosely closed and loosely tied. "I could hear you prowling the decks."

"How did you know it was me?"

Lady Giulietta flushed.

The absolute clarity of his night vision was a secret from her, Tycho realised. A secret from everyone except Dr. Crow, and perhaps Prior Ignacio of the White Crucifers. Although Atilo must be close to guessing by now.

"Just guessed," she said brightly.

"Right."

"It's hot down there."

"And up here," Tycho said.

"At least there's breeze here," said Giulietta, facing the night wind. All it did was paste her undergown more tightly to her body. She must have known, because she turned to tug discreetly at the neck.