Tallow by Karen Brooks Read Free Book Online Page A

troops; hundreds had been dispatched from both the palazzo and the garrisons of the Arsenale.
    The Doge's grandson was missing – snatched, it was believed, from the nursery that morning. These men were all who remained of the officers sent to our island to search for clues. They were going over what they had achieved so far. Their men, it seemed, were busy combing the local campi, canals and piazzettas for information. They'd tried not to arouse the suspicions of locals, which explained why I'd neither seen a sign of their presence nor heard talk of what had happened before arriving. They did not want to alert the kidnappers that they were nearby.
    I couldn't believe it. It was like something out of the stories I sometimes heard Pillar exchanging with the other candlemakers and the soap chandlers; or Quinn's gossip in the shop. It didn't seem real to me, these big men with their plush uniforms and refined manners. Their dark eyes missed nothing, not even me slouching in the corner.
    And that was how Vincenzo di Torello, the proprietor of the taverna, found me – perched on a stool gawping at the officers from under my hat. I placed my order for Quinn's vino and turned my back on the room, sipping an ombretta from the small mug the Signor always put in front of me. I hoped he would be quick.
    I listened to the conversation of the nearest officers.
    'It couldn't be the Jinoans,' said a tall officer immediately to my right. I could just glimpse his long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and his thick eyebrows. 'They wouldn't have the balls, not after the defeat Doge Manin inflicted upon them.'
    'Of course not. That was over forty years ago. We've been at peace since then,' exclaimed another officer.
    'If you can call it that. All right, if not them, then who? The cowardly Kyprians?' asked a man sitting near the door. He had a deep drawling voice. I turned my head slightly and noticed that he had a thin moustache and even thinner hair. There was almost none left on top of his head.
    'Did you hear what Nobile Abbazzio claimed?' chimed in another.
    'Yes,' drawled the balding officer. 'That the kidnappers were not of this world.' There was laughter. 'And everyone knows Abbazzio's predilection for the bottle. I'd sooner believe a soothsayer.' More laughter.
    'What about the rumour that the child has been taken into the Limen?' added a voice from across the room. It was Padre Foscari, the local priest. The laughter stopped.
    'If that's the case, Padre,' said the officer with the thick eyebrows, 'then I doubt we'll see him again in this lifetime.'
    'Not unless a Bond Rider comes to our aid,' said the balding officer.
    'Unless it was a Bond Rider that took him?'
    'For what purpose?' asked another officer. I couldn't help but notice him as he had rust-gold hair and blue eyes, unusual in Serenissima.
    'Maybe not for his own,' said the first officer grimly.
    'Then whose?'
    'Maybe he's working for someone else?'
    'Who?'
    'An Estrattore, maybe?'
    Hearing the word so casually deployed, my blood turned to ice before a rush of heat sped through my body, filling my cheeks with colour.
    There were murmurs and some uneasy laughter. 'They're all gone,' said the balding officer. 'No-one's seen or heard of an Estrattore for over thirty years, not since the last one was unearthed and hung in the public piazza on Nobiles' Rise.'
    'That's true. There's none left here in Serenissima any more,' said the first officer, taking a sip from his drink. 'But what about in the Limen?'
    My heart was thudding painfully. I'd never heard anyone mention Bond Riders – let alone Estrattore – so openly. I longed to hear more. But the conversation shifted.
    I did hear the word 'war' being bandied about. That was no surprise. Living in Serenissima, war was never far from anyone's mind. In my lifetime alone we'd clashed with the Kypians and Phalagonians. While our sestiere wasn't as affected as those closer to the seas beyond the lagoon, we still felt its impact. If