The Outcast Blade Read Online Free PDF Page B

bowed again, while behind him the rest of the pack underwent the same transformation.
    “It hurts?” Sigismund asked.
    “Not as much as becoming
krieghund
.”
    The pack could inhabit one of three states: human, wolf or a human/wolf hybrid. The last of those required a truly brutal transformation. But then
krieghund
bore no resemblance to anything natural.
    “Majesty…” A huge bearded man came to stand beside Prince Frederick. He too was as naked as the day he was born, with a gut proud as a jutting chin and sword scars on his chest. The wolf master and the emperor were old friends for all Sigismund was human and unable to run with the pack.
    “My son’s training is finished?”
    The wolf master stared at the young man beside him. He seemed to be considering. “If needs be, majesty. Of course, there is always something else to learn.”
    “Even at our age,” Sigismund agreed. He lowered his voice. “And what I’m learning is that I should have made my move on Venice earlier.”
    “The Basilius?”
    “Andronikos is pushing him into making a move.”
    “How, majesty?”
    “By saying I’m making one.” The emperor shrugged. “Which means I have no choice but prove him right.” The men around Sigismund took the emperor sliding from his horse as permissionto dismount. Although they stayed back when he put his arm around his son’s shoulders, steering him away from the rest.
    “They say next winter will be hard.”
    When Sigismund said nothing else, Frederick looked at his father, wondering. The emperor sometimes spoke in riddles or expected his silences to be read for words. This time it seemed he simply meant it. Next winter would be hard.
    “I’m sorry,” he added.
    “For the winter?”
    The emperor chuckled. “So like your mother.” It was rare for him to mention the mistress he’d loved but not married; being already married to Queen Mary of Hungary. Frederick’s mother had brought her looks and her laughter. Queen Mary had brought him a kingdom to add to his others.
    Frederick understood.
    “I have a task for you. Not one you will enjoy.”
    “I am yours to command.”
    Sigismund nodded. “It’s been three years…”
    The emperor halted for Frederick to compose his expression.
    It was three years since Frederick’s own wife and child died of plague. Three years in which he’d fought his way out of sadness and found peace and even happiness in his hunts with the wolf pack. He knew he was not Leopold, who had been the elder and their father’s favourite. And, at seventeen, Frederick understood he still looked like a boy while his elder brother had been a man.
    But he had married at thirteen, which was more than Leopold had done, and he had sired a child. His body might have been even slighter back then, hair more faded blond, his moustache vestigial, where now it was simply token. But he had loved and bedded his wife, who’d been older, stronger willed and cleverer, and who loved him back for reasons he still didn’t understand. For a year they had been blissfully happy.
    “As I said. I’m yours to command.”
    Sigismund sighed. “You are to marry Lady Giulietta di Millioni and bring Venice into the empire.”
    “Leopold’s widow?”
    “I’m sorry. But if you don’t marry her a Byzantine prince will. The Basilius will acquire a base in Italy. We can’t risk that.”

5
    When Lady Desdaio had taught Tycho his letters the previous year she had done so because she had been impressed by his keenness to learn and the effort he put into his studies. That was what she told him anyway. How was she to know that he’d learnt to read for one reason only?
    He’d learnt to read so he could study a manuscript stolen from a book maker in the days immediately after his arrival in Venice. A manuscript he’d now read so many times he could recite the words by heart; although reciting them brought him no closer to understanding how what the words said was true could be.
    Tycho had kept the