The Shadow Master by Craig Cormick - sample chapters

one of the Medici brothers lay dead and one of the assassins had been captured. And the city’s bells rang out to let all citizens know to that chaos had descended upon them all.

Cosimo and Giuliano had been near the front of the crowd in the Great Cathedral during the service, as was their habit.

Unlike many of those around them they had shown neither signs of fervour nor boredom during the long and nearhysterical tirade of the High Priest, as was also their habit.

They’d appeared to be listening patiently to his rantings, but if they had actually been pondering the supply of spice, or the improbable attack of the whales upon their ship and what it might really have been, they had shown no sign of what they thought of the High Priest. Every now and then one of the brothers had turned his eyes to the heavens, but it might have been that he was studying the beautiful and ornate frescos high up on the huge domed ceiling of the cathedral, or counting the penises on the many cherubs, as most bored children did. The frescos showed layered scenes of how the world was viewed by the ancients, with the angels and saints sitting in heaven at the top of the huge domed arch above them, and the lower levels representing the lower celestial realms, with the Earthly realms at the edge of the dome, and finally the underworld of demons and punishment creeping down the pillars and walls closest to the congregation. Perhaps the Medici brothers pondered that they belonged to the higher orders on the dome. Not, perhaps, with the gods, but certainly above the common human masses.

They were starkly different for brothers. Giuliano was tall and thin, with a face dominated by his chin and nose, while Cosimo was shorter and more solidly built, with a flat and brutish face. Their nicknames amongst the populace were