by Mary Gentle
Alexandria. It’s clear to them that there’s more sea beyond here.’
Rekhmire’’s nod indicated the vast window, and the eastern horizon
beyond the Golden Horn. ‘They think they can sail to Chin on the Black
Sea waters. They have no idea that it’s a closed sea. And that there’s
nothing but land beyond the easternmost Turkish ports.’
‘And you . . . ’
‘I have said nothing of that, as yet.’
It would be strange, I thought, to have no idea of what the Middle Sea
looks like.
True, no two charts I’d ever seen in a shop had ever got the shape of
the lands the same – or put them in quite the same place, come to that –
but the names of ports, the number of leagues and days’ sailing between
them, the knowledge of rocks and reefs and pirates . . . All these were, if
not precisely known, still capable of making a shape in my mind’s eye.
I imagined Zheng He and his great ship creeping along from headland
to headland, as the trireme had, but with no pilot. Sometimes lost out of
sight of land . . . losing his course if a storm made his lodestone
useless . . .
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As to where they might have sailed before they got here, what seas
there may be between the Middle Sea and the place where the Silk Road
ends – for that, I have no shape in my mind at all.
I thought of the Admiral’s horse. Four or five curves and strokes of a
brush. Like nothing I have ever seen.
Aloud, I stated, ‘They’re not lying if they say they come from very far
away.’
The small Egyptian woman pulled her feet up onto the cushions on
the marble ledge, tucking her legs under her. She leaned her chin on her
hand. Ty-ameny of the Five Great Names might have been a robin’s egg,
with her freckles spattered across her nose. Certainly her eyes had the
same lively bird-like look to them.
‘They’re lost.’ She made the admission with clear reluctance.
Rekhmire’ shrugged, in a way that made it clear that the magnitude of
it didn’t escape him. ‘He and the interpreters and I aren’t always in
accord, but if I’m understanding Admiral Zheng He, his ship was driven
through what I would guess are the Gates of the Hesperides, past Gades,
some time last winter. Since then, he’s been sailing about the Middle
Sea.’
Including the Adriatic. The memory of what I had thought an optical
illusion was strong. I wondered if Leon would add more in De Pictura on how you can have something directly under your eye and still be unable
to see what it truly is.
‘Looking for a way out.’ Ty-ameny corrected herself. ‘A way east.’
She frowned up at Rekhmire’, who prodded with the ferrule of his
crutch among the spread-out papers.
‘Is it as simple as that?’
‘Possibly.’ The book-buyer glanced at the Pharaoh-Queen, a frown
indenting his brows. ‘Look at what Ilario’s drawn. It’s more than possible
this Zheng He’s been at sea as long as he says he has, given the clear evidence of wear on the ship. He has trade goods from Africa in his hold.
And goods from the far southern coasts of the Persians. It would take a
strong sea to sink that ship. He naturally wouldn’t show me his charts,
but it’s possible he’s come by sea from the land where the Silk Road
ends.’
Since there was an obvious one unspoken, I appended, ‘But?’
‘But . . . He may be lying. Or exaggerating for threat’s sake. Or – well.’
Without asking permission, the tall Egyptian shuffled himself along the
bench, settling ultimately on the cushions within an arm’s reach of the
Pharaoh-Queen.
She put her tiny hand on his arm. ‘Well?’
Rekhmire’ looked down at my spread-out papers, his brow creased
with more than worry. ‘Well, there is nothing here to confirm or deny it
. . . but what the Admiral Zheng He claims is that when he was driven
before the great storm, he was separated from the rest of his fleet.’
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Ty-ameny did precisely what I did, I noticed a moment later: stared at
the palace window overlooking the harbour, as if she could see through
the city’s massive walls, and the darkening evening, into the heart and
mind of the foreign man aboard the foreign ship.
‘“Fleet”,’ she echoed, a little derisively.
Rekhmire’ linked his broad, large fingers, and looked down at his
hands. ‘Which he claims is made up of ships the same or similar tonnage
to this one we have out there. He exaggerates, of course, because that is
what a man will do. But—’
Ty-ameny slapped his shoulder, as if she were no more than a younger
sister to him.
‘How many?’
‘His lost fleet,’ Rekhmire’ said, ‘he claims to consist of two hundred
ships.’
A silence filled the royal chambers.
Ty-amenhotep of the Five Great Names snorted, the sound remark-
ably like any camel’s bad temper down in Constantinople’s market-
places.
‘Two hundred? Oh, he might at least tell a convincing lie!’
She sprang up, absently turned on her heel, and paced with that
control of the space about her that I have grown used to seeing among
powerful men. Seeing the same gestures in a woman—
As I also rose to my feet out of respect, I realised, Now I know how disconcerted men and women feel, when they lay eyes on me.
‘Two dozen would be bad enough!’ she grumbled. ‘And even two
would pose a danger. Is it significant that this foreign admiral feels he must boast?’
One wall of this particular room was carved with bas-reliefs and
cartouches in red and blue. At least some of the sculptors, I saw, had
chosen to depict Old Alexandria falling to that Turk who had kept his
defeated enemies in iron cages. Constantinople would never need,
behind its vast walls, to be concerned with similar enemies. But more
than one ship like Zheng He’s . . .
Rekhmire’ reached for his crutch, but sank back at her gesture. He
confirmed my thoughts. ‘Not only is Zheng He lost, but lost among men
not at all like him. I think he lies and exaggerates no more than any other
commander.’ The book-buyer shrugged. ‘But then, we have hardly been
allowed to see everything on the ship.’
I had been permitted to bring only one thing away, apart from my
drawings for Ty-ameny – a tiny cup, no larger than a child’s hand, in
which Jian had served me a colourless and fairly insipid wine. Showing it
to the Pharaoh-Queen had gathered some admiration. The ceramic was
light and translucent enough that when, as now, I put my finger inside
the empty cup, I could see its shadow through the side.
Ty-amenhotep raised her voice to call for more servants to light sweet-
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smelling oil lamps; she and Rekhmire’ spoke of court politics; and I sat
regretting the terre verte pigment lost in Venice – using egg tempera on a
gesso ground, I might have begun to make an attempt at capturing the
glaze’s pearlescent shine, along with its transparency. Although that is a
task for a master, which as yet I am not.
Masaccio, making colour value into mass and form . . .
The master that should see this is dead.
I wondered, then, the word in my mind, whether the Master of Mainz
would also be housed with us. Or whether the Pharaoh-Queen’s ‘Royal
Mathematicians’ – as she named her natural philosophers – would have
him all night explaining his printing- machina.
Standing wearied me, but Ty-ameny continued her pacing. I
rubbed my hand across my eyes, the darkness behind my eyelids
welcome.
The familiar drag and click of Rekhmire’’s crutches let me know he
had risen.
I opened my eyes to see him join Ty-ameny at her window,
overlooking the vast city.
‘Sidon?’ he suggested, naming a port that I thought somewhere west
and south of us. ‘They might leave their ship and march home along the
Silk Road.’
‘I wish they might leave their ship here!’ Ty-ameny gave her cousin
her gamin grin. ‘But if I were the captain, I wouldn’t be parted from it.
Besides, can you imagine sailors asked to turn soldier and march all those
thousands of leagues? Never mind what they carry as cargo.’
The lamp-lit chamber was comfortable, even if it dwarfed the book-
buyer and the Pharaoh-Queen with its high ceiling and vast blocks of
masonry that made up the walls. I felt not only at ease, I realised, but as if
it were familiar.
Because neither Ty-amenhotep nor Rekhmire’ take exception to my
presence?
As Rodrigo’s King’s Freak, it never surprised me to be involved in
court business in Taraco, although I steered clear of factions. That I
could fall into the same pattern here, as Rekhmire’’s scribe and Queen
Ty-ameny’s artist, felt similarly comfortable.
‘Great Queen,’ I suggested, into the perfumed silence, that was broken
only by the noise of voices and vehicles in the city below. ‘I think the Admiral desires charts. His officer Jian was speaking of them.’
She nodded, receiving the suggestion equably. ‘Not to give too much
aid at first – Rekhmire’, if I send you with maps of the coast here, and the
waters to the east; let him see land-maps that show the road to Aleppo
and other Turkish cities. I think it’s well this Zheng He begins to believe
they’re at the other end of their trade route with us.’
‘Us barbarians.’ Rekhmire’ made the addendum gravely.
The Pharaoh-Queen gave him a look.
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‘That’s what he calls us.’ Rekhmire’ smiled down at Ty-ameny. ‘The
Admiral Zheng He says their empire has lasted five thousand years.
Older than Carthage.’
‘Five thousand years of emperors? And two hundred giant ships?’ The
Pharaoh-Queen craned to look around the carved stone frame of the
window, at pale light behind the gathering clouds. ‘I suppose they have a
trading colony on the moon, too!’
I risked mimicking Rekhmire’’s equable look. ‘That would explain why
they don’t look like anyone else, Great Queen. Or draw or paint like
anyone else.’
Ty-amenhotep of the Five Great Names glanced from me to
Rekhmire’, and stalked past us, back into the room to flop down on the
nearest seat. ‘Cousin, either you’ve been too much in Ilario’s company,
or Ilario has been too much in yours!’
The book-buyer gave me a more relaxed smile than I had seen since
we boarded the trireme in Venice.
He seated himself again on the marble bench, collecting silk pillows
with his free hand and stuffing them behind his back. I joined him. He
beckoned for my drawings, and ink and chalk-work, and the two of them
bent over my efforts again.
Jian had taken some of the Admiral’s scrolls out for me to look at.
Delicate, as if the colour had been put on with spring water, or spring
light. Language didn’t allow him to explain how.
As well as sketching all aspects that I could see of their great cistern-
shaped hull, I’d paced out the distances across the deck and made a quiet
note of the measurements. Looking at the Pharaoh-Queen Ty-ameny as
she scribbled furiously on a wax tablet, I thought her as capable as her Alexandrine ‘philosopher-scientists’ of working out the exact tonnage of
Zheng He’s ship. And the offensive power of the ship’s cannon (cast out
of recognisable bronze), and their engines that shot great long iron bolts
(if I could judge by the ammunition stores).
Among the scattered papers I saw my drawings of two-handed
ceramic containers, that might have been pots for oil or wine, but – from
Jian’s ardent keenness to remove me from their vicinity – I knew must be
weapons as well. They looked as if they could be fused. Some parts of
the hull stores had the distinctive scent of gunpowder.
Still, I thought, hauling my ankles up to sit cross-legged among the
cushions beside Rekhmire’. Magnificent as it is, it’s only one ship. It
can’t threaten to take on the navy here and bombard Constantinople’s
walls down . . .
Unless the rest of the hypothetical fleet turn up.
And then even Carthage and Venice will be pushed to hold on to sea-
power in the Middle Sea.
By the window, a patch of moonlight progressed across the shining
stone floor.
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I watched it, in silence unbroken except by the rustling of paper. My
hands felt oddly empty, since they held neither a stylus nor Onorata.
There has been little enough time, I thought, rubbing at the gravel that
seemed to be collecting in my eyes. Little enough time since we landed,
and all of it taken up by the Admiral of the Ocean Seas, but—
Sooner or later I must ask her.
Must ask the Pharaoh-Queen of New Alexandria, How do I make the Aldra Pirro Videric into the First Minister of Taraconensis again?
‘—Ilario?’
The Pharaoh-Queen was turning back from dismissing a beardless fat
man who I took to be a eunuch servant. By the sound of her voice, it was
not the first time she had asked.
I straightened myself up beside Rekhmire’, piqued that he had not
used the elbow I was leaning against to nudge me into greater attention.
‘Yes, Great Queen?’
‘The hour’s late.’ Her eyes shone darkly in the many lamps’ light. ‘And
it’s a poor reward for you helping me with the foreigners’ ship. But I
need, urgently, to speak to you. Will you tell me everything that you
experienced with Carthage’s stone golem?’
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13
We left Rekhmire’ with a dozen of the Queen’s Royal Mathematicians,
checking calculations and speculations regarding the ghost ship.
A tall and unusually thin eunuch mathematician by the name of
Ahhotep joined Ty-ameny at her signal, walking the palace’s corridors
quickly enough beside me that his linen robe flicked against my bare
ankles. Two slaves took lamps ahead, light shading from terracotta to
burnt-earth colours up the carved walls.
If I had been paying closer attention, I could have overheard what Ty-
ameny and her black-haired adviser spoke of. Weariness and fear kept
me concentrating on putt
ing one foot before the other and falling over
neither.
I wondered if Tottola had needed to call Ramiro Carrasco to feed
Onorata, and whether she was asleep or screaming.
Cool air touched my forehead. It was not until I saw sky above a wide
courtyard that I realised we had left the main palace. Obelisks blotted out
stars and moon.
Ahhotep glanced back at me with a friendly smile. The moonlight
caught the fine silver chain about his neck, that all the bureaucrats wore
symbolic of their slavery. He pointed to one side and a dimly-seen
frontage. ‘The Royal Library.’
It might have been part of the palace or separate; I would not be able
to see unless by daylight.
The pressure of air at my right hand was suddenly less; I guessed at an
empty outdoor area, perhaps a larger public square. Our footsteps came
clicking back from a nearer wall – except for Ty-ameny, barefoot and
noiseless.
What caught my interest, through the ache in my muscles, was that
Ty-ameny stopped by the vast doors of a final building, and dismissed
her slaves, taking one of the lamps into her own hands.
The Pharaoh-Queen of the Lion-Throne can walk around at night without guards . . .
Either that argues a devout respect for the Queen, unlike that in other
kingdoms, or – it belatedly occurred – her guards might merely be very
good at keeping themselves out of sight.
Ahhotep opened a postern gate, bowing Ty-ameny and myself
through. Inside, the lamp’s inadequate light showed the curves of vast
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pillars, set close together. I could not see their tops. The eunuch
mathematician took the lamp from the Queen and led the way forward,
out across an open space tiled in red and blue and gold.
‘Throne room,’ Ty-ameny murmured, as if she too were reluctant to
disturb the silence.
Ahhotep suddenly held up the oil-lamp.
I found myself facing the Carthaginian golem.
‘ Ilario! ’
The female voice sounded sharp, but with concern. I fought to throw
dizziness off and move in response.
Mosaic tiles were hard under my hands and knees.
I sat back, falling heavily to one side. Ty-ameny thrust a cloth at me.
The eunuch Ahhotep returned out of the darkness with a bucket, and