Ilario, the Stone Golem

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by Mary Gentle


  in its wooden box, and slipping that into my bag. ‘Aldro Ty-amenhotep,

  I’ve been used to being next to a King, most of my adult life. Not that I

  had any power in Taraco. But even a Fool who has the King’s ear gets

  courted.’

  ‘Perhaps even more so.’ Ty-ameny grinned, and tilted her head up,

  watching me. As if it were a familiar story, she murmured, ‘Pay attention

  to any one man, and before you know it, you’re on one side, and there

  are other sides, all of whom have reason to hate you. And whoever you

  listened to first, they don’t trust you. I wondered,’ she added, ‘why

  you’ve stood so much in my cousin’s shadow while you were here.’

  I couldn’t help a smile in response to hers. Rekhmire’ wasn’t liable to

  give his loyalty to a stupid ruler.

  ‘I’m too used to being a King’s—’ pet. I chose a better word. ‘—associate. Kings don’t awe me. That’s sometimes unfortunate. Other lords have found me disrespectful in the past, because of what I’m used

  to. And any court faction you like to mention thinks I can be bribed or

  threatened. I find it better to stay in the background, where I can’t give

  offence.’

  The buzz of flies diminished, most of them giving up now and circling

  to find the open stone windows. Two slaves remained, waving fans made

  out of huge white feathers, and concealing the kind of relieved boredom

  that comes with not being ordered to any dirty or difficult task.

  Ty-ameny walked over to the window, her thin arms folded across her

  chest. Gold bracelets flashed back points of light that left dots across my

  vision. She gazed out at the blue sky – at the sun she gravitated towards, I

  suddenly realised, at any moment she might.

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  ‘Divine Father Ra!’ she muttered, either in prayer or exasperation.

  ‘Ilario . . . You’ve done good work for me with Zheng He. As one of my

  court painters, here, you could afford to keep your daughter.’

  Having occasionally had an oak door slammed in my face, I recognise

  that feeling of shock. Even if this is from a door opening.

  ‘But . . . Master Rekhmire’ will have told you my business in Iberia.’

  ‘In broad detail.’ The Pharaoh-Queen Ty-ameny rested her elbows on

  the stone sill.

  The spreading gardens below had the air of something Roman. A

  stone maze beyond a hedge looked darker, a mass of obelisks and

  pyramids that I thought must be monuments or graves. Momentarily I

  pictured the ancient junipers growing in the dark, in Carthage’s tophet.

  If I painted Baal’s face now, could I get it right? Now there’s Onorata?

  Ty-ameny shifted herself around, looking a considerable way up to see

  my face. Under that study, I reached out to the silver basin on the sill, water warmed by the sun, and began to wash blood and paint from my

  hands.

  The Pharaoh-Queen said, ‘And what are your intentions towards

  Rekhmire’?’

  A slave thrust a towel into my hands and I dropped it.

  What?

  The slave passed me another cloth. Mute through bewilderment, I

  dried my hands and returned it. Not that the droplets wouldn’t have

  been sucked up by the sun in a few minutes.

  ‘Intentions?’ I forced myself to calmness. ‘To help him wherever I can,

  Highness.’

  She put her hand up on my forearm. Her fingers were as small as a

  twelve-year-old girl’s, and her palm sandy and hot.

  ‘It would displease me personally if Rekhmire’ were deliberately hurt.’

  Bakennefi had also examined me, at Ahhotep’s request; both of them

  had found something to criticise and cluck over in the stitches removed

  from my lower belly. I will always bear the marks. Now I thought I heard

  Honorius and Rekhmire’’s voices spontaneously chiming together: Save

  the mother.

  Ty-ameny’s clear small voice said, ‘Suppose his duties take him to a

  different land, now? Suppose he were to leave Alexandria tomorrow?

  With the foreign ship?’

  There was a sharp pain in the pit of my stomach, keen enough to make

  me wonder if Alexandrine food might not be suited to it.

  Mouth dry, I thought, Interesting – I would sooner he didn’t leave.

  Rekhmire’ no longer owns me as a slave. He brought me to Alexandria

  because he needed to come here himself. Yes, he will help solve the

  problem of Aldra Videric, but – not, perhaps, personally.

  I must look bewildered and stupid, I realised, but I could find no

  words for this realisation I would have preferred to avoid.

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  The Pharaoh-Queen studied me with a sparrow-like tilt to her head. I

  thought it an even throw of the dice whether she would accept my

  silence, or have one of the sandal-hurling outbursts of temper that Egypt

  seems to permit its female rulers.

  ‘Great Queen.’ I wiped my hand over my face. Spots of colour told me

  I had missed spatters; I doused my fingers in the bowl and wiped water

  over my skin again. ‘I . . . would still wish to help him.’

  She gave a decided nod.

  ‘We should talk of the future.’ Her features a mask of distaste, she

  raised her free hand a fraction. ‘Elsewhere.’

  The nearest slave crossed the room instantly and bowed, giving her a

  scented cloth. I avoided the slave’s eye. Even with the stone surface

  sluiced down, the stink of the dead slave still hung in this room. If this slave dies of age or sickness here, will he end up opened on a stone table?

  ‘Bakennefi Aa wouldn’t mind a look under my skin,’ I said before I knew I was to be quite so honest.

  Queen Ty-ameny frowned at me over her silk kerchief.

  ‘I do hope you’re careful about taking food and drink around him . . . ’

  Rekhmire’ entered the chamber just as Queen Ty-ameny of the Five

  Great Names doubled up, giggling like a schoolgirl.

  I folded my arms.

  At Rekhmire’’s raised brow, Ty-ameny pointed at me, waved a hand

  weakly in dismissal of the matter, and shot me a glance with more

  genuine apology than I have ever had from King Rodrigo.

  ‘It’s hardly fair,’ she murmured. ‘I’m Alexandria’s queen; how much

  free interchange can there be between a queen and any other man or

  woman?’

  Before I thought, I said, ‘That’s what I tell my slave.’

  Rekhmire’’s rumbled louder comment drowned me out. ‘That’s why I

  freed Ilario, cousin.’

  The tiny woman smiled wryly. ‘Well, no man is going to free me from

  the throne. And I don’t think I would let them. Very well: we need to

  talk. The matter of Zheng He must be settled soon – before there is more

  trouble from Carthage.’

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  16

  Pharaoh-Queen Ty-ameny of the Five Great Names sat small and erect,

  among cushions embroidered in blue and gold with her lineal ancestor

  Ra the Sun-God of Old Egypt.

  The Admiral of the Ocean Sea, at last on shore, sat on her right-hand

  side, on the ochre marble ledge of the sunken area of her Council

  chamber, Jian beside him. Rekhmire’ was next to Ty-ameny, then I on

  Rekhmire’’s left hand, with half the eunuch bureaucracy beyond me.

  Zheng He’s other off
icers and Alexandria’s sea-captains and army-

  generals, at the end of the great chamber, shared space with Ty-ameny’s

  natural philosophers and Royal Mathematicians, who kept papers and

  instruments and charts beside them on the low seat.

  The Alexandrines might be old, young, fat, thin, eunuch, or –

  occasionally – intact male. What they all had in common was an intensity

  of gaze when it came to Zheng He.

  Absently, I began to sketch Ty-ameny on the virgin wax surface of my

  tablet. She wore a gold mask that included the shape of a beard; less hot,

  I thought, to tie over her face than the hair-replica. I put the lines of Zheng He in beside her to give scale. She barely came up to his shoulder.

  She is the only woman in the room. If you do not count the half of me.

  I pushed other concerns out of my mind.

  Because if Videric can reach out to harm me in the middle of Ty-

  ameny’s court in Alexandria, I may as well give up now.

  In fact, there was little enough said over the next hour that had not

  been said between Rekhmire’ and Admiral Zheng He on the great war-

  junk. I came to the conclusion that the Admiral wanted to hear it from

  the mouth of – as he called her – ‘the Great Foreign Empress’.

  Rekhmire’ himself finally caught Ty-ameny’s eye, and hauled forward

  one of the sea-charts.

  ‘In fact, noble Admiral, it is as the Great Queen of the Five Name’s

  captains inform you. That enticing eastward-leading sea there, vast as it

  appears, will not take you further than Turkish ports close to Aleppo.

  And if you have maps of the land routes between your home and those

  cities, you will know that they are still hundreds of leagues distant from

  it; perhaps thousands.’

  And full of Turks and Persians, though Rekhmire’ said nothing of

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  that. Ty-ameny might suppose this foreigner ultimately an ally of those

  more eastern powers.

  Zheng He grunted, leaned forward to study the map, and waved Jian’s

  formal polite thanks aside, interrupting his subordinate. ‘Yes, I see, but

  why would I believe?’

  Ty-ameny’s face behind the mask would be fascinating to draw, I

  thought regretfully.

  Rekhmire’ smiled, inclining his head. ‘Because if the Black Sea were

  the way to your home, New Alexandria would be asking you to pay the

  fee to pass the Bosphorus, great Admiral. As we do with all vessels

  passing to trade in the Black Sea.’

  ‘And you don’t charge us a fee in any case? And send us through and

  keep silent about—’ Zheng He waved a huge hand at the charts. ‘—this

  bounded Black Sea of yours?’

  Ty-ameny’s voice issued from behind the full curved mouth of the

  golden mask of Ra. ‘There is a reasonable chance that you and your ship

  would afterwards return here.’

  Her rich tone showed her definitely amused, to anyone who knew her.

  Rekhmire’ smoothly added, ‘This is the only route into, and out of, the

  closed sea. Forgive the Great Queen of the Five Names if she doesn’t

  desire to have you and your great ship back here angry at perceived

  treachery. That would hardly be worth anything we could extort from

  you now.’

  Zheng He slapped his thigh. His officers obediently laughed. I saw a

  certain relaxation go through Ty-ameny’s commanders. Having used up

  almost all the wax surface of my tablets, I set myself to detailing the

  embroidery on Zheng He’s high collar, and the lines around his eyes and

  mouth that signified amused satisfaction.

  ‘If closed sea.’ He traced the lines of the Black Sea on the Egyptian

  chart before him – it was meagre with detail, I noted – before moving

  west to Alexandria and the straits, and the beginning of the Greek

  islands. ‘Is this, you call it “Middle Sea”, also closed? But no. Because we

  came in. And where there is a way in, there is also a way out.’

  None of the Pharaoh-Queen’s charts showed any of the sea or land

  west of Crete. That was in no way an accident. Zheng He’s ship might

  navigate back from Alexandria, through the long straits after Marmara,

  to the Aegean. But after that . . . the natural direction for him would be

  south and east, but that would only bring him, eventually, to Sidon and

  Tyre.

  ‘We have not yet,’ Zheng He said equably to Ty-ameny’s implacable

  mask, ‘begun to discuss the advantages of trade between my land and

  yours, great Empress.’

  Plain as the daylight outside the linen-shaded windows: Now we merely argue about the price!

  177

  I shifted where I sat, not able to talk to Rekhmire’ now he was the main

  conduit of translation between Zheng He and the Pharaoh-Queen.

  It should be possible to find the Straits to the western ocean simply by

  following along the coast of North Africa, I thought, but not if no man

  was willing to tell him how it might be done.

  I saw instantly what Ty-ameny had to bargain with. Charts, yes, but

  charts are often inaccurate. What Zheng He will need to get back to the

  Straits between Iberia and North Africa is a pilot.

  Something nagged at the back of my brain. I prodded and scraped my

  tablets clean, and fell to doodling Horus-eyes while the council

  continued with every man desiring his say.

  Two hours later, there was a pause for wine and light food.

  I took Rekhmire’’s elbow on pretence of assisting him, and steered him

  into one of the alcoves, out of earshot of Ty-ameny and her generals

  socially chatting with Zheng He and Jian and the other foreigners.

  Rekhmire’ raised a familiar brow at me.

  ‘Would you call this a crisis?’ I demanded.

  His brows came down, frowning. ‘Potential. I think it defused by what

  we’ve done—’

  ‘The arrival of his ship.’ I clamped down on my impatience. ‘No

  kingdom in the Middle Sea has anything to match it. Whatever port sees

  Zheng He, there’ll be panic and crisis. Am I right?’

  Rekhmire’’s lips parted, very slightly; in any other man it would have

  been an ah of realisation.

  I spoke before he could.

  ‘Perhaps, cause enough panic that a King – no matter what difficulties

  he might seem to be having with his most trusted adviser – would find

  himself forced to call that man back to court?’

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  17

  I held Rekhmire’’s gaze.

  ‘I comprehend,’ he murmured. ‘If it could be negotiated for Zheng He

  to sail to Taraco . . . ’

  My mind raced. I glanced back into the chamber, ensuring no eunuch

  or man of Chin was within hearing distance. ‘King Rodrigo could take

  that as the excuse to bring Videric back from his estate.’

  Rekhmire’ stood very still, his face intent.

  I urged, ‘He would. If a messenger was sent ahead to explain to him

  . . . Look at that ship! Do you think any man in Taraco would be

  surprised if Rodrigo wanted his best adviser back to help him deal with

  it? Even Carthage wouldn’t blink at that.’

  Rekhmire’ clasped his hands over the top of his stick. His intense

  gazed focused onto me. ‘That – would be a begi
nning.’

  My hands sweated. I rubbed them on my linen tunic. ‘You think—’

  ‘It would soon become apparent that the Admiral is no threat. The

  scandal around Videric’s name might not be entirely gone. But, yes, as a

  beginning—’ He interrupted himself. ‘Carthage! If Carthage was to take

  the war-junk as an ally of Taraconensis . . . ’

  ‘Would that be good or bad?’ I asked anxiously.

  ‘Good, if it makes the Lords-Amir cautious about sending legions into

  Iberia. Bad, if it provokes them into doing that very thing out of panic.’

  I found my hand clenching around the wood frame of the wax tablets,

  cutting into my skin. ‘I didn’t think of that.’

  Rekhmire’ stroked his hand down his hairless chin, his eyes narrowing.

  ‘This is worth considering. Many ramifications – many . . . ’

  His monumental face momentarily split in a warm smile that was all

  Rekhmire’. And a nod that was pure professional cousin of Ty-ameny.

  ‘I’ll speak with the Pharaoh-Queen. It must be discussed through and

  through. Ty-ameny has no greater wish than you to see war start in

  Taraconensis, and bring every other kingdom in with it.’

  He blinked eyes that caught the linen-sifted light, and shone the colour

  of brandy.

  ‘It won’t be a quick answer, I fear. Between Ty-ameny’s councillors

  and the Admiral’s advisers . . . But I’ll have an answer. I will. Well done,

  Ilario.’

  179

  I watched him as he limped away towards the Pharaoh-Queen, my

  stomach fairly tying itself into knots.

  True to his word, time passed.

  In those occasional hours when I saw him out of council, he desired

  only to rest his mind, and this seemed to take the form of escorting

  Onorata and myself (with the German brothers) about Constantinople –

  ‘A city,’ as he said, ‘where you can walk from Europe to Asia in the space

  of a mile.’

  I did just that, dragging Tottola and Attila along with me in the

  evening’s warmth, taking Onorata under a great paper sunshade from

  the Chin war-junk. So that I would be able to tell her, when she was old

  enough, that she had stood in Asian lands.

  Which assumes she does not stay here, grow up in Alexandria-in-exile . . .

  Both Rekhmire’ and the Pharaoh-Queen Ty-ameny showed an

 

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