by Mary Gentle
And Ilario is hardly welcome in Florence.’
Without ever having been there, I reflected.
Honorius gave the Egyptian a sceptical look. ‘You won’t be riding or
walking to Florence until that knee’s healed up. But in any case, when I
leave for Taraco, I desire some man to look out for my son-daughter’s
interests—’
I pounced on my father’s admission. ‘You’ll go back, now? Persuade
Rodrigo to take his troops off your estate? Convince him you’re loyal?’
Licinus Honorius gave me somewhat of an old-fashioned look. He
sighed, shoulders appearing to relax their stiffness. ‘Say I agree with you.
That returning Aldra Videric to the position of First Minister is the only
way to both end this and keep Taraconensis safe. Which of us, alone, is
in a position to begin this? Not the spy—’
Rekhmire’ snorted.
‘—since King Rodrigo doesn’t know the Alexandrine well enough to
trust him as I do.’
I caught a fleeting look of embarrassed pleasure on Rekhmire’’s face.
The trust of the Lion of Castile is not given lightly, or hurriedly.
Evidently he appreciated this.
‘And not you,’ Honorius snapped bluntly, glaring at me. ‘Videric
would show you your liver inside two days. That only leaves me.’
I could find no ready answer.
Turning aside, I directed Ramiro Carrasco to clear up the broken
glass, and stood tearing at my mind for ideas while he did so and
departed. Nothing came to me.
Honorius’s hand rested on my shoulder with a sudden pressure that
was startling.
‘I’ll go,’ he repeated. ‘As soon I have a safe refuge for you and
Onorata. I’ll go back to King Rodrigo – I knew that I would have to.’
I found myself torn between grief and joy. Joy that he could reconcile
himself with the King; that he will not lose everything he ever earned –
with his own blood – because of me. And grief, I reflected, because I will
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badly miss his presence, and because he may be going into more danger
than we know.
Honorius turned his face to the window for a moment, as if he could
pierce the buildings and the haze of aerial perspective, and see westwards
all the way over the Italies, and the Middle Sea, clear to Iberia. His eyes
slitted.
Turning back, my father shot me a look that, even in that dim panelled
room, I could not mistake for anything but wry humour.
‘To be fair . . . ’ Honorius sighed, and put his arm around my
shoulder. ‘You realise, I hope? That this is the only way I might go home
– and not kill Aldra Pirro Videric a quarter-hour after I set foot on
Taraco dock?’
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‘ Kill—’ Breath left me. I have not thought of this!
Under the smile of Honorius’s much-creased face, I saw frank
amorality, that if I had to guess, I would attribute to stratagems on the field of battle.
‘Ask yourself, Ilario. This man persecutes my son-daughter. Appar-
ently he won’t stop. What’s the best way to ensure he will? A foot of
steel through his ribs, and make mince-meat of his heart and lungs. The
dead have no friends or allies.’
Honorius had the flat of his hand resting against his thigh, where his
sword would hang were he not in the house.
A little weakly, I said, ‘You won’t kill him? Because – apart from
needing the whoreson bastard as First Minister – they’d hang you for
murdering a noble! Lion of Castile or not.’
‘“Lion of Castile” would get me hanged with a silken rope,’ Honorius
mused, somewhat over-gravely. ‘Or at least the charity of an efficient
headsman at the block. I once saw an execution take twenty blows of the
axe, and the man’s head was still on—’
‘ Father! ’
‘—just,’ he completed gruesomely, with an open, loving grin. ‘No: I
won’t kill Pirro Videric. Much as the little shite deserves it. No: I won’t
get myself executed. Or even arrested. Yes: I’ll talk as persuasively to His
Grace King Rodrigo as I can. Are you content with that?’
‘More or less,’ I grumbled, with the intention of seeing if I could
provoke a laugh out of him. It did.
‘Very well.’ He sobered, fixing me with a bright gaze. ‘And now we
must make plans for you and my granddaughter.’
I continued to pass nights broken by feeding Onorata. That would have
given me time to think deeply on my father’s proposed departure, and
how long I might be safe in Venice, if I had not ended all but delirious with sleeplessness, and unable to think at all.
Seeing this, Honorius took it on himself to take at least one of the night
feeds (‘What, you think me not capable of feeding my own grandchild?
How many brats do you think a mercenary baggage-train has?’),
although he drew the line at changing her soiled cloths.
Rekhmire’, while content to nurse a sleeping child as he wrote his
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correspondence ready for sending east, lost his fascination for her as
often as she puked or burped over him. Although I did find her in his
company surprisingly often for a man who claimed to have no idea of
what eunuchs and babies might have in common.
‘The ability to bawl their heads off when they don’t get their own
way?’ was not the politest remark I ever allowed to unwisely escape me.
Rekhmire’ merely sniffed.
‘ I am not as sentimental as those great oafs of soldiers,’ he observed, and then pinched at the bridge of his nose as if to ease a headache
brought on by writing. Eyes still closed, he added, ‘You have a dozen
“uncles” for the child, who would take more care of her than an egg
made of diamond – if only because they know Master Honorius would
unravel their guts if they damaged his precious grandchild.’
He opened his eyes and glared at me.
‘For the Eight’s sake, take advantage of that while you can!’
‘I will.’ I nodded at the portable writing-slope on his lap. ‘If you’ve
correspondence I can help write, I will. Meantime, since I’ve forgotten
the outside world exists, I’m going out to the Merceria.’
‘Only if you—’
‘—take half of Honorius’s company with me,’ I finished, ahead of the
Egyptian, and found myself with a grin. ‘I will. Can I run any errands for
you while I’m out?’
Rekhmire’ snorted, in a less than dignified manner, and rummaged
among the scrolls and documents on the table beside him. ‘“Run”? I
doubt you’ll run anywhere until those stitches heal! But if you care to
waddle about the city for a while, see if you can discover any more of
these put up on walls?’
I took the paper he handed me. It was instantly recognisable: one of
Leon’s seditious hand-bills.
‘You think Herr Mainz might be still here, and printing for someone
else?’
‘I hope so. I have no great desire to go to Florence . . . ’
Despite walking about considerable areas of Venezia, with various of
Honorius’s guard, I saw no similar hand-bills. The following day, I
conceived of a
sking among the scriptoria, on the pretence of looking
again for work, but found no one familiar with the overly-precise
lettering of the supposed printing- machina.
The following day brought sleet, slanting and chill, and took off every
appearance Venice might have had of being in early spring.
My healed stitches itched, and still pulled when I walked, I found.
Those of the soldiers I privately consulted assured me this was normal
for edged-weapon wounds – which I supposed Caesar’s cut at the base
of the womb might best resemble.
I refused to wear wooden pattens, and that at least made walking
easier, without trying to balance several inches above the mud.
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Ramiro Carrasco can clean my shoes for me, I reflected, as I plodded over a high hump-backed bridge, treading in Attila’s footsteps through the
mire. Ah, the evils of slavery . . .
The thought that it might be a true evil took the smile from my face.
True evil, if I only think that slavery’s bad when I am the one sold and enslaved.
Leon Battista’s hand-bill crumpled up in my hand as I clenched my
fist.
I tugged off my leather gloves to smooth out the thick paper.
‘Holy Eight!’ I stopped suddenly enough that Tottola walked into me
from behind, and I felt him grab my biceps with hands like iron, so as not
to send me flying.
‘What?’ He looked down at my belly, under the long cloak, as he
released me. ‘You took ill?’
‘No. But I realise I’ve been looking in the wrong places!’
I held up the printed paper illustratively as Attila strode back to us, his
hand on his sword.
‘Master Leon Battista had enough of these printed . . . It doesn’t
matter if no man recognises the print.’ I rubbed my thumb over the rag-
made surface. ‘What I should have been looking for is the man who sold
him this paper.’
‘This the last workshop?’ Tottola rumbled behind me.
‘For today.’ I pointed. A tabarra stood a few doors down the narrow
street, torchlight reflecting into the mucky grey daylight and the half-
frozen canal. ‘You can wait for me . . . ’
‘We’ll come with you.’ Tottola didn’t have the hint of a sigh in his
voice. ‘Both of us.’
I recalled Sergeant Orazi’s advice, passed on to me at one point: that
his troopers should be made far more scared of him than they were of
any conceivable enemy. Between that and loyalty to Honorius, there was
no chance the two Germanic mercenaries would leave me unguarded.
We entered the fifth warehouse that day; I took a half-hour choosing
three variant colours of green earth pigment, and discussing with the
workshop-master the advantages and disadvantages of various mixtures
of size for wood and canvas.
‘I need to buy more paper,’ I finally observed. Attila and Tottola had
become bored enough to amuse themselves by looming over the
shopkeeper’s apprentices and watching them pale – doubtless having
been raised on Tacitus’s History of the Huns.
‘What kind of paper?’ The workshop master stretched out his hand as
I put a torn-edged sample into it. ‘Ah.’
I fully expected to be told it wasn’t familiar, or wasn’t made by this
workshop, or sold here – or else that they had only small quantities
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available in stock. Two of the parcels Tottola carried contained
unavoidable purchases of paper.
The Venetian workmaster put the torn scrap of paper down by the
edge of the terre verte pigment tub. ‘Yes. Whoever recommended you
here was correct: this is our make – I’d know that drying-lattice pattern
anywhere.’
He straightened up, and spoke again before I managed to collect
myself:
‘I’d like to help, but we’re out of stock. A customer came in at the
beginning of Lent, bought up the whole stock; it’ll still be a week or two
before we have any more of that particular kind pressed. When do you
need it by? Or can I offer you this other—’
‘I need it now,’ I interrupted, mouth unaccountably dry. Whatever
Rekhmire’ can do as a book-buyer, I can do. It’s nothing but pretence and asking questions.
With what I hoped resembled genuine rich-man’s petulance, I whined,
‘Are you sure you don’t have any left? Just a small piece?’
The man shook his head, as one will do when wondering at the
vagaries of customers. ‘He bought up all the sheets. Don’t forget a sale
like that.’
I looked brightly at him, as if the thought had just struck me, instead of
being painstakingly constructed between Attila and myself in the gondola
that brought us here.
‘Where did you have the paper delivered to? If I could go and ask him
if he has any left . . . even a quarter sheet . . . ’
My heart thudded in my chest.
Here’s where he says the man had it collected, they didn’t deliver.
The works master reached down for a ledger, thumbed through it with
agonising slowness – and halted his finger halfway down a page. ‘You’d
tell him we sent you? Like his custom again, if I can get it.’
‘I’ll make certain he knows.’ I offered the carefully saved end-sheet of
paper, and watched him write down an address.
Once outside, I took a deep breath of wet, freezing air – and realised
Attila and Tottola were looking down at me with identical expressions.
‘Escort me there,’ I directed, with a look that plainly informed them I
did not expect to come to harm in their company. ‘But you’ll have to
wait outside. If this Herr Mainz knows Leon Battista got thrown into
prison, I imagine he’s somewhat nervous.’
‘So I am!’ Tottola muttered, as we set off towards the churches the
master had used as landmarks while telling me directions. ‘The General
will have my balls!’
‘And that Egyptian bastard will have my balls to go with yours – and
his!’ Attila muttered.
Tottola made no reply, but he looked worried. On a bearded Hun a
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head taller than any man in the streets of Venice, that is suitably
impressive.
‘Honorius expects you to guard me,’ I said, the cold air welcome in my
lungs after what seemed like weeks indoors. I stepped out more briskly.
‘And “that Egyptian bastard” will be too busy being pleased, if this
comes off, to even think about how we did this – or about your balls, Attila. Which, let’s be honest, no one wants to think about . . . ’
I said it much in the same manner as the young ensign Saverico might
have. The large German soldier snickered. I thought Attila was more
comfortable with the part of me that was young man than young woman.
Attila continued my arguing for me with Tottola as we trudged across
campo, bridge, canal-path, and more bridges.
The address turned out to be a small shed at the back of a closed-up
house. The house looked to have no occupants; the shed had two
shutters propped open to let in the light.
I left the two mercenaries at the head of the alley.
There being nothing to be lost by a direct approach, I knocked on the
shed door and opened it without waiting for an answer.
In the dim natural light that was all the illumination, a lean man with
rough-cropped black hair turned away from a bench and towards me,
both his hands laden down with long thin metal teeth that I thought Leon
Battista would have recognised as type.
I spoke in the clearest Frankish Latin I could manage.
‘You’ll be the German Guildsman, Herr Mainz.’
I added rapidly, as I saw consternation on his face:
‘The Alexandrine embassy would like to speak with you.’
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At Alexandrine, a flood of emotions passed over his face. He stepped forward, into the better light. The lines of his face spoke of hunger and
distrust, and of hope.
Irritably, he muttered, ‘You ignoramuses still have it wrong! “Master
of Mainz”, not “Herr Mainz”! “The Master of Mainz” is still my title,
even if expelled from the guild!’
‘Ilario Honorius,’ I introduced myself. Something in the shadows at
the back looked very like a wine-press, if a great carved wooden screw
might be combined with trays and racks, rather than a grape-tub. ‘If I
have your name wrong, how should I say it? It was Messer Leon Battista
who called you “Herr Mainz”.’
‘Chicken-hearted Florentine!’ The German came almost up to the
door. With the dying light from outside, I could see his robe and hose
were patched and worn. ‘My name is Johannes Gutenberg, of the city of
Mainz. Where is Herr Alberti? I have not seen him these many weeks.’
‘Prison. Florence. Exile.’ I gave the knowledge in chronological order,
and briskly – what a man who has been lied to needs is the truth, blunt as
it may be. ‘Why didn’t you come to the Alexandrine embassy?’
The German printer seized at his hair, knocking his black felt hat off
the back of his head, and yanking his short crop up into hedgehog-spikes.
‘ You ask me that! You, one of Alberti’s lackeys! I could be in
Constantinople!’ Gutenberg choked out. ‘With a patron! I could work
with the best materials – the finest resources – and you—’
He spat on the dirt floor at my feet.
‘Your petty little republic! Who is Duke? Who cares! Honest men
can’t work, or are killed, and then another nobleman, same as the last!’