Jon Grimwood - The fallen blade

Venice, Tuesday 4 January 1407

The boy hung naked from wooden walls, shackles circling one wrist and both ankles. He'd fought for days to release his left hand, burning his skin on red-hot fetters as he worked to drag his fingers free. The struggle had left him exhausted and-if he was honest-no better off than before.

"Help me," he begged, "I will do whatever you ask."

His gods stayed silent.

"I swear it. My life is yours."

But his life was theirs anyway; even here in an enclosed space where his lungs ached at every breath and the air was sour and becoming sourer. The gods had abandoned him to his death.

It would have helped if he could remember their names.

Some days he doubted they existed. If they did, he doubted they cared. The boy's fury at his fate had become bitterness and despair, and then turned to false hope and fresh fury. Maybe he'd missed an emotion, but he'd worked his way through those he knew.

Yanking at his wrist made flesh sear.

Whatever magic his captors used was stronger than his will to be free. The chains with which they bound him were new, bolted firmly to the wall. Every time he grabbed a chain to yank at it, his fingers sizzled as if a torturer pressed white-hot irons into his skin.

"Sweet gods," he whispered.

As if flattering the immortals could undo his earlier insults.

He'd shrieked at his gods, cursed them, called for the aid of demons. Begged for help from any human within earshot of his despair. A part of him wanted to return to shrieking. Simply for the release it would bring. Only he'd screamed his throat raw days ago. Besides, who would come to his grotesque little cell with no doors? And if they did, how would they enter?

Murder. Rape. Treason…

What else merited being walled up alive?

His crime was a mystery. What was the point of punishment if the prisoner couldn't remember what he'd done? The boy had no memory of his name. No memory of why he was locked in a space little bigger than a coffin. Not even a memory of who put him here.

Earth strewed the floor, splattered with his own soiling.

It was days since he'd needed to piss, and his lips were cracked like dry mud and raw from where he tried to lick them. He needed sleep almost as desperately as he wanted to be free, but every time he slumped his shackles burnt and the pain snapped him awake again. He'd done something wrong. Something very wrong. So wrong that even death wouldn't embrace him.

If only he could remember what.

You have a name. What is it? Like hope and freedom, this too remained out of reach. In the hours that followed, the boy hovered on the edges of a fever. Sometimes his wits were sharp, but mostly he inhabited a blasted wasteland inside his own skull where his memories should be.

All he saw in there were shadows that turned away from him; and voices he was unable to hear clearly.

Pay attention, he told himself. Listen.

So he did. What he heard were voices beyond the wooden walls. A crowd from the sound of it, arguing. And though what he heard was little louder than a whisper it told him they spoke a language he didn't recognise. One voice snapped out an order, another protested. Then something slammed into the wall directly in front of him.

It sounded like an axe or a hammer.

The second blow was even harder. Then came a third, his wooden world splintering as sweet air rushed in and fetid air blew out. The light through the narrow gap was blinding. As if the gods had come for him after all.

Late Summer 1406 Almost four months before the boy woke to find himself trapped in an airless wooden prison, a young Venetian girl hurried along a ramshackle fondamenta on her city's northern edge. In some places in that strange city the waterside walkways were built from brick or even stone. The one here was earth, above sharpened logs driven into the silt of the lagoon.

After sunset everywhere in Venice was unsafe, particularly if you were fifteen years old, unmarried and out of your area. But the red-haired girl on the fondamenta hoped to reach the brine pans before then. She planned to beg passage on a barge carrying salt to the mainland.

Her burgundy gown was already dusty and sweat stained.

Despite having walked for only an hour, she'd reached another world entirely. One where silk dresses attracted envious glances. Her oldest gown was still richer than the campo gheto's best. Her hopes of passing freely ended when a small group of children stepped out of the shadows.

Opening her cloak, Lady Giulietta yanked free a gold locket from around her neck. "Take this," she said. "Sell it. You can buy food."

The boy with the knife sneered at her. "We steal food," he said. "We don't need your locket for that. Not from round here, are you?

Giulietta shook her head.

"You Jewish?"

"No," she said. "I'm-"

She was about to say… something stupid, knowing her. It was a stupid kind of day. Being here was stupid. Stopping was stupid. Even treating his question seriously was stupid. "I'm like you," she finished lamely.

"Course you are," he said. On either side, others laughed. "Where did you get this anyway?"

"My m…" She hesitated. "Mistress."

"You stole it," a smaller boy said. "That's why you're running. Nasty lot, the Watch. You'd be better coming with us."

"No," Giulietta said, "I'd better keep going."

"You know what happens if the Watch take you?" a girl asked. She stepped forward to whisper in Giulietta's ear. If even half were true, someone of Giulietta's age would be better killing herself than being captured. But self-murder was a sin.

"And if the Watch don't get you, then…"

The youngest shut his mouth at a glare from their leader. "Look around," he snapped. "It's getting dark. What have I said?"

"Sorry, Josh."

The older boy slapped him. "We don't use names with strangers. We don't talk about… Not when it's almost nightfall." He switched his glare to the girl who stood beside him. "I'm going to cut him loose. I swear it. Don't care if he is your brother."

"I'll go with him."

"You'll go nowhere," Josh said. "Your place is with me. You too," he told Giulietta. "There's a ruined campo south of here. We'll make it in time."

"If we're lucky," the girl said.

"We've been lucky so far, haven't we?"

"So far, and no further," said a shadow behind them.

Old and weary, the voice sounded like dry wind through a dusty attic.

Unwrapping itself, the shadow became a Moor, dressed in a dozen shades of grey. A neatly barbered beard emphasised the thinness of his face and his gaze was that of a soldier grown tired of life. Across his shoulders hung a sword. Stilettos jutted at both hips. Lady Giulietta noticed his crossbow last. Tiny, almost a toy, with barbed arrows the size of her finger.

With a sour smile, the Moor pointed his crossbow at Josh's throat, before turning his attention to the young woman he'd been following.

"My lady, this is not kind…"

"Not kind?"

Bunching her fists, Lady Giulietta fought her anger.

She'd become used to holding it in in public, screaming about her forthcoming marriage behind closed doors. She was two years older than her mother was when she wed. Noble girls married at twelve, went to their husband's beds at thirteen, sometimes a little later. At least two of Giulietta's friends had children already.

She'd been whipped for her refusal to wed willingly.

Starved, locked in her chambers. Until she announced she'd kill herself. On being told that was a sin, she'd sworn to murder her husband instead.