The Shadow Master by Craig Cormick - sample chapters

They saw Cosimo face his attacker head on, his only defence a fearless glare. Then he stepped into the man’s thrust. While the dagger struck him again in the neck, it did less damage than the first blow. Cosimo was a thick-set strong man who had killed many enemies on the battlefields and when the assassin raised his arm for a third blow, he found the strong fingers of the leader of the Medici family suddenly around his throat, the thumbs digging at his windpipe. He changed the direction of his blow and stabbed down at Cosimo’s arms, hoping to dislodge them. But although the blade again struck home the grip on his throat did not lessen. He looked into the dark eyes boring into his own, as if they too had the strength to strangle him and he dropped the dagger as he realised that the death he had been preparing for all through the service was going to be his own.

He tried to mumble something. Perhaps a call for help or a curse upon Cosimo Medici, but his tongue would not obey him and lolled out his mouth insensible. The assassin’s knees then began to bend, but Cosimo did not let him fall. He held him up, and shook him like one might shake a mangy dog one wanted to be rid of, and the man gurgled just before his windpipe collapsed. Just before his eyes rolled back in his head.

Cosimo was still holding him when his bodyguards reached him, to protect him, and he cast the corpse into their arms. By then the crowd were joining in the echoing call of murder and pushing even harder to get out of the cathedral doors. One of the two men who had assailed his brother had succeeded in throwing off his robes and joining in with the panicked crowd, but the other had been bludgeoned to the floor by the bodyguards while still trying to extract his dagger