Carla Venasque
She noticed the heights of buildings, and the views that might be gained from their upper floors. She noticed alleys into which one might disappear. She noticed a shop selling knives, and another selling jewels, and the look on her face as she examined the two was the same.
She reached the house – a palazzo with a fountain in the courtyard and a sweeping tower, high even within a city of spires – in good time.
Carla did not smile. She did not choose, these days, to show her emotion on her face. Why give the world more information than it needed? It only gave them ammunition to use against you.
‘Come in, lady, come in,’ said the caretaker. ‘I’ve got the keys here for you.’ He looked behind her, as if expecting someone else.
‘It’s just me,’ said Carla. ‘Show me the house. Has my telescope been delivered?’
‘It’s been set up as you asked.’ The caretaker led her to a room at the top of the palazzo, where vaulted windows looked out over the city to the sea. A telescope – long as a shotgun and made of shining brass – dominated the room.
The caretaker hovered behind her. ‘Watch out on the steps when you go down again, lady – you should take a light. Better safe than sorry, I always say.’
‘Do you? I don’t.’
The man moistened his old lips. ‘Unusual, a beautiful woman like you, all alone?’
‘Is it?’
‘You not married? You’ll excuse my saying it, but you’ve a face to stir the appetites of men. What are you wanting this big place for? The lads at the bar’ll be keen to know.’
She turned on him, and he stuttered to a halt.
‘Not that I …’ he said. ‘I’m not the sort to gossip.’ He seemed to register, too slowly, that there was danger in the room with him. ‘I won’t breathe a word.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘That’s true. You won’t.’
She moved so swiftly and so gracefully that he did not notice the dagger in her hand until it met his flesh. Slowly, sweetly, she drew an X on the side of his neck.
‘You don’t know I’m here,’ she said. ‘If you speak of me – if you even think my name in the quiet of your own bedroom – I’ll kill you and throw your body into the canal. Now go.’
There was a look of hatred in her eyes as she watched him flee, though whether it was for the stumbling little man or for herself it would be impossible to say.
She crossed to the telescope at the window. It took some time to angle and adjust. She worked deftly until it pointed across the water at the Palace of Glimt. For a long period she stood, watching.
Then for the first time in a long while Carla Venasque smiled, and the smile was like knives.