Jon Grimwood - The fallen blade

The bribes must have been huge and the promised rewards enormous. Prince Osman's sister had held words of power. Words designed to bind Tycho to carry out her order. He was to kill Duchess Alexa. And the man who asked for this death, offering to deliver gold and territories to the Mamluks when he finally became duke, was Alexa's brother-in-law, Lady Giulietta's uncle, Prince Alonzo.

The Regent hadn't know when it would be done. Simply that it would be. When Alonzo discovered the plan had failed, his revenge on the Mamluk fontego had been terrible. Had he succeeded in killing Alexa, Duke Marco IV would have been next. Prince Osman had little doubt about that. Quite possibly Lady Giulietta after that. Unless the Regent had other plans for her.

Kneeling up, Tycho stroked the sleeping girl's face until she woke, looking puzzled and still sleepy. "You should return to your cabin," he said. "But first there's something I need to tell you…" Acknowledgments You know where you are with a publisher who drags you off to the Porterhouse pub in London's Maiden Lane for a six hour editorial meeting-and waits with good grace while you go though the script page by page. So heads up to Darren Nash, lapsed Australian, Orbit UK editorial director and good friend…

And a big tip of the hat to Orbit supremo Tim Holman, who filled me with food and alcohol when I flew out to New York-running a temperature and fever-to pitch him The Fallen Blade. Having asked me to pass the one page synopsis to Devi Pillai, senior editor and Orbit US's self-styled Eye of Sauron, he waited while she read it. Devi nodded significantly and that was it. We were in business on both sides of the Atlantic.

To my agent Mic Cheetham for doing the real work that made this happen. Joanna Kramer for keeping me sane during the copyedit process. Darren Nash and Devi Pillai again for thoughtful and occasionally stern editorial notes (that's you, Devi).

As always the ex-lunchtime collective of, variously, Paul McAuley, Kim Newman, China Mieville, Chris Fowler, Barry Forshaw, Nick Harkaway, Pat Cadigan, for drinks, food, bitching sessions, general chat and sanity. If there was any justice, Rob Holdstock would still be on that list (and he is in spirit).

My son Jamie, who might have buggered off half way round the world but still calls regularly for all that he's rubbish at answering emails. Hearing from you always makes my day.

And finally, Sam Baker. Seventeen years married. More than twenty years together. Pretty good for what was meant to be a quick drink. Thank you. Look out for Act Two of the Assassini:

by Jon Courtenay Grimwood extras

Charlie Hopkinson JON COURTENAY GRIMWOOD was born in Malta and christened in the upturned bell of a ship. He grew up in the Far East, Britain and Scandinavia. Apart from novels, he writes for magazines and newspapers. He travels extensively and undertakes a certain amount of consulting. Until recently he wrote a monthly review column for The Guardian.

Felaheen, the third of his novels featuring Asraf Bey, a half-Berber detective, won the BSFA Award for Best Novel. So did his book End of the World Blues, about a British sniper on the run from Iraq and running an Irish bar in Tokyo. He has just published The Fallen Blade, the first of three novels set in an alternate fifteenth-century Venice.

His work is published in French, German, Spanish, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Russian, Turkish, Japanese, Finnish and American, among others.

He is married to the journalist and novelist Sam Baker, currently editor in chief of Red magazine. They divide their time between London and Winchester.

Find out more about the author at www.j-cg.co.uk. interview Vampire novels are all the rage now. Did this help to inspire you, or did you imagine a different kind of vampire from the beginning?

I've been reading fantasy my entire life. I've always had a thing for historical fiction, particularly the kind where the heroine or hero is running round with a couple of daggers and something very nasty is going on in the background. And I terrified myself for weeks as a small child with an adult vampire novel, so I'm surprised I didn't write this sooner. But it took a while to nail the plot down.

Also, I wasn't even sure Tycho was a vampire when he swirled his way into my head, dressed entirely in black leather and velvet and carrying his daggers. All I knew was he lived for the dark, feared the moon and had lost his memories. And to be honest I'm still not sure he is a vampire. At least not in the Twilight sense.

What I wanted to do was a vampire ur-myth.

A story that explained how what we call vampires reached Europe, where they came from and what they really are. That's the backstory to Tycho's personal history. He's the first vampire in Europe. (The term wasn't in use in English before the 1700s.)

The Fallen Blade takes place around 1407, twenty-five years before Dracula is born and fifty years before he ruled as prince of Walachia.

Obviously Tycho doesn't know what he is; just as he doesn't know yet what his powers are, or that he can transfer them to other people. He's simply him and not at all happy about that. What he really is becomes clear later. Although there are clues in the first book. What would you do if you were invisible for a day?

One of those great barroom what ifs. Most people say they'd rob a bank or empty the nearest jewelers, or hang out unseen in the dressing room of some incredibly hot Hollywood star, or go see what their friends and family really say about them when they're not around…

But realistically, they'd probably panic.

I'd spend the entire day worried I'd turned into a ghost, or was locked in some weird limbo where no one could see me or hear me and I would never escape. By the time I suddenly became visible again I'd either be totally insane or getting used to it and getting ready to have some fun. At least that was my reasoning when making Tycho come to terms with his new powers.

If weird powers came with an instruction manual, that would be different. Then, I'd probably rob the bank, and become an unseen assassin. Actually, I'd probably do all of the above. I guess most people would. You grew up in the Far East, Britain and Scandinavia. Where did the idea to set a vampire novel in Italy come from? Did you travel there a lot before you came up with the idea or afterward to do research?

As a child I went to Venice a few times on holiday. (It was about three days' drive from where we lived in England, and my mother was born restless and liked museums.)

In my memory it's always hot, the sun blinding as it reflects on the wide expanse of the Grand Canal, the water in the little canals behind the big buildings is stinking and often green. There's also something creepy about the city. A really disconcerting feeling that I'm in one of the scariest places in the world…

And on a practical level I was certainly in one of the strangest.

Canals instead of streets. No cars; an entire city where everyone walks or takes boats. So layered with history that something has happened on every slab of every square. But it's more than that. When the winter fog fills saltwater lagoon around Venice, you can believe it's the only island in the world. The only city. That it is the world.

As a child-a strange one, admittedly-I decided that the water of the lagoon stopped the ghosts in Venice from escaping. That was why it felt so odd. In Venice ghosts had to outnumber the living by hundreds to one. When I walked through the city I was walking not just through history but ghosts everywhere.

I went back to Venice in my teens, and was shocked by how dark and tortured Venetian art was. At least the pictures in churches and the ducal palace. For every beautiful, redheaded Titian nude there were three paintings of saints being tortured, murdered, exiled… I began to see where the ghosts came from.