Ilario, the Stone Golem

by Mary Gentle

  My fingers fumbled the latch; I swore and finally got the shutter

  fastened.

  ‘Bear this in mind,’ I warned. ‘It’s as likely to be an assassin looking for

  Carrasco, as one looking for me. We need Carrasco alive.’

  In the shadows, I could not see if Attila disapproved, but he nodded

  obedience.

  ‘Let’s not forget the most important weapon in any soldier’s arsenal,

  sir – ma’am.’

  It seemed unfair to deprive him of something he’d evidently practised

  with company after company of armed men. ‘And what would that be?’

  ‘Dumb luck!’

  I snorted. Even Rekhmire’ smiled.

  ‘So. The first move.’ I sent a prompting look at the Egyptian.

  ‘Our first move,’ Rekhmire’ said ponderously, ‘is that you do not go

  ashore.’

  I opened my mouth and Rekhmire’ snatched two porcelain bowls and

  a cup off the low table close to me.

  I stared at him.

  Wine and pickle splashed his fingers.

  ‘Just making sure.’ There wasn’t a smile on his face, but his eyes were

  bright.

  I glared at the Egyptian – and nearly cracked when Attila, large and

  impressive as he was, looked frankly bewildered.

  ‘Let’s discuss this—’ I reached over and recovered my cup from

  Rekhmire’’s hand. ‘—like sensible and responsible adults.’

  He lifted his own bowl, looking at me over the rim.

  Catching a deep warmth in his gaze, I could not do otherwise than

  smile back at him.

  ‘You can distract me as much as you like.’ I leaned back on cushions

  embroidered with Sekhmet’s sigils. ‘But you need me ashore. King

  Rodrigo must speak to me. With all possible respect—’

  ‘With complete dis respect,’ Rekhmire’ echoed in a muttered aside that

  made Attila’s grin flash out of the shadows.

  ‘—the King won’t trust an Alexandrine spy as far as he could throw

  you. I don’t think you can play the humble book-buyer this time.’

  Rekhmire’ reached into his robes and pulled out a leather scroll-case.

  He held it out. I put my bowl down, uncapped the case, unrolled the

  scroll, and found myself looking at the seal of the Pharaoh-Queen.

  ‘I can play the diplomatic envoy of Ty-ameny of the Five Great

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  Names.’ Rekhmire’’s brows lifted towards his shaved scalp. ‘I thought

  you’d assume something of the sort.’

  The ancient pictorial script of Alexandria might have declared him

  envoy from the Moon, but there was a Latin copy also in the scroll case.

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said. ‘I may have been gone from Taraco some time. But

  I know how much the east isn’t trusted. Unless you outright plan to tell

  King Rodrigo that your Queen is using Admiral Zheng He to scare the

  shite out of Carthage—’

  ‘That would be one option.’ Rekhmire’ took the scroll-case back. ‘I do

  admit, the first approach might be better made by one of King Rodrigo’s

  own subjects. But, Ilario, you’re in too much danger. What use is all of

  this if a hired gang of thugs kills you at Taraco docks?’

  ‘Unless you plan on locking me up with Ramiro, I’m going ashore. I

  want to see Honorius!’

  The Egyptian slowly nodded. ‘I understand. Again, it would be safer if

  the Admiral made an exception, and permitted the Captain-General to

  come here.’

  I wavered. Onorata is in the next cabin. And I cannot take her ashore with me. ‘Would Zheng He allow that?’

  We talked, after one of Jian’s officers took a message. I stood at the

  port for a time, and then paced. Ramiro Carrasco answered Onorata’s

  sleepy cries, and I let him feed her again. I watched candle-light shift and

  change on men’s faces; stretched my spine, and caught a glimmer of grey

  out in the open air.

  ‘Attila, if I can borrow one of your mail-shirts,’ I suggested – Attila

  being slightly less large around his chest than his brother. ‘And wear a

  helmet. If I carry a sword as the Alexandrine’s escort, no one will look at

  me; you know that. No man looks in obvious places.’

  Rekhmire’ opened his mouth to protest.

  And clearly thought better of it.

  ‘Then we must hope there’s a way to get a message to Lord Honorius,

  once we’re ashore.’

  The cabin door opened. Commander Jian himself came in, meeting

  my gaze and nodding his head sharply.

  ‘No man to come here,’ he managed, in Mediterranean Latin. ‘You go

  ashore now?’

  A glimmer of white showed at the oared boat’s prow.

  Sebekhotep’s robes.

  The Egyptian pilot must be there for reassurance or curiosity’s sake.

  From what I recall, a six-year-old child could steer a boat to the quay at

  Taraco.

  We docked, and the ground was painfully hard beneath my boots.

  How could I have forgotten the air and the light!

  Even before dawn, with the east bright but unscarred by the sun, every

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  dew-wet breeze brings the scent and reality of home to me. No brush will

  capture this.

  I raised my head and looked around the quay as Rekhmire’

  disembarked with appropriate dignity. I might wish to be a guard in

  more than my clothing, but I was overwhelmed, as if I had not seen the

  city since childhood. And, at the same time, the ghost-white buildings,

  and the feather-silhouettes of the fronds of the trees, were as familiar to

  me as my own skin.

  Dawn turned the sea-spray yellow, peach, scarlet; the Alexandrine

  banner unrolled in yards of blue silk down the offshore wind. I smelled

  salt, the old Roman drains of Taraco, and the scent of outdoor food-

  booths already beginning to cook for early workers. Fruit-sellers’ cries

  echoed down the dusty streets.

  I turned my head, looking thirty yards in the other direction.

  There, where a coastal ship is tied up to the bollard, first catch of fish

  already unloaded – that’s where I walked up the gang-plank of a galley

  sailing south down the coast to Carthage. Two hours beforehand, my

  mother attempted to stick a dagger into my stomach.

  I thought of the blade, black with poison.

  Most poisons that you can daub on metal do less harm than rust.

  There’s always talk in court of such weapons; of poisoned cups, of scent

  that can poison a pair of gloves . . . In all honesty, more men die of the

  fever turning their guts out. And more women in childbed.

  Tottola’s elbow caught me ungently in the kidney.

  I shouldered the pennant of Alexandria, becoming an anonymous

  soldier and banner-bearer. Tottola and Attila were in blue doublets of

  one shade or another, and scarlet hose. They had not yet replaced their

  household badges.

  If we meet Aldra Videric at the top of this hill with a gang of hired

  criminals, I thought – or Rodrigo and the royal guard out to arrest us –

  these men could die around me now.

  In which case, I’ll step out in front of them, because in either case it’s

  me they want. And wasting a life because of that would be stupid.

  I resolved not to mention it to Rekhmire’. The Egyptian will expect somet
hing more sensible from me.

  The same feeling of familiarity and strangeness suffused me on the

  winding road to the palace. Mountains shone on the horizon, blue glass;

  but would be yellow rough scrub under the noon sun. Every peak and

  trough, I remember. Plodding under the shade of palm-feathered

  branches, bare-footed children shinning up the trunks out of our way; a

  pavement shoe-maker looking up from his last as we passed him. And

  the dark eyes of men stopping their work at tavern or shop or household,

  momentarily and silently taking in the sight of soldiers as we trudged up

  the steep slope.

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  The intricacies of the Sanguerra fortress-palace begin with a crenel-

  lated gate-house at the bend of the road.

  It had been dark when we left the ship. By the time we passed men at

  guard-house, courtyards, outer and inner baileys, and were allowed into

  the palace proper, the sun had risen over the sea high enough to make

  me sweat.

  ‘How much more of this!’ Tottola fingered under the unfamiliar

  woollen collar of his winter doublet. (Neither man-at-arms had summer

  gear with them.) Attila echoed his muttering.

  ‘It’s an old palace—’

  ‘Rabbit warren!’ Tottola interrupted me, under his breath.

  ‘—and you wouldn’t begrudge the King a chance to impress us, would

  you?’

  The tall armoured brothers grinned, instantly, and as instantly looked

  as unimpressed as it is possible for a man to be.

  The King’s guards were leading us towards one of the eastern

  courtyards, I realised. This older part of the palace has Carthaginian

  influence, from ancient days before they were driven out to Africa. Two

  altars burned at the foot of a wide flight of steps, servants keeping the flames high, although invisible as the sun reached down to them. Above

  the steps, a wall of niches and crumbling urns enclosed an open square.

  Beyond the wall, poplar trees screened masonry pyramids. My hand

  recalled painting the desert beyond Carthage. I shivered.

  That chill, and the dusty green feathers of the poplars, took me

  suddenly to Venice’s lazaretto islands; I turned my head to look at the

  walls as we were marched past them – Before this was a courtyard . . . it was a necropolis.

  I have not ever noticed this before.

  Would I notice, if I had not travelled?

  Around the crumbled end of the wall, the character changed. We

  walked over cracked sandstone slabs, with ahead of us the walls of the

  castle’s east wing – a million featureless pale bricks running up to

  corbels, and battlements, and the terracotta tiles roofing the machicola-

  tions. Guards’ heads showed as small as grape-pips. The walls towered

  high enough to block out most of the sky: certainly enough to humble

  petitioners to a king.

  King Rodrigo Sanguerra had his chair of state outdoors, under a

  striped awning, beside a flight of palace steps with stylised faces carved

  on their balustrades.

  I could not see the King himself over the heads of the surrounding

  crowd. Most were guards or servants – only a few courtiers would attend

  an audience beginning this early; Rodrigo held it for common tradesmen

  and workers, so they might not lose too much of the working day. The

  guards shepherded us under the far end of the awning. Somewhat

  shaded by the sun, I lowered the Alexandrine banner so it would not

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  catch on the billows of cloth, and shifted up on my toes, to see if I might

  see King Rodrigo.

  Rekhmire’ caught my eye. ‘We shall doubtless wait the usual long

  time; no need to waste it . . . ’

  I nodded, and set myself to watching inferior courtiers as they came

  and went, and men and women from the kitchens, in case there might be

  a face I knew.

  Heat bounced back off the stone, and the balustrade’s ancient faces

  changelessly stared.

  There!

  ‘Hold this!’ I hissed, and shoved my banner into Attila’s hand. He

  caught it, much startled.

  I stepped to intercept the path of a man whose broad face had often

  sat across from me in the royal scriptorium, on those occasions when

  Rodrigo Sanguerra had employed me for my actual talents.

  ‘Galindus!’ Seizing his upper arm, I shifted us into the partial

  concealment of the flight of steps, where the wall cast a shadow.

  I smiled. He frowned, briefly. I saw him abruptly recognise me – more

  by voice than clothes, as many do.

  ‘Ilario! You’re back!’

  ‘Yes and no.’ I kept the smile with an effort, threw everything of our

  acquaintance into my expression, and got my demand out. ‘You still hear

  all the gossip, don’t you? Listen, Galindus, tell me this. Lord Licinus

  Honorius – is he here?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Licinus Honorius. Il leone di Castiglia. Is he at court!’

  Seconds dripped past like cold honey. Galindus shot an unmistakably

  prurient look at the crowd around Rodrigo’s chair of state.

  ‘Well . . . ’ His voice held the avidity of a man with a piece of choice

  gossip. My heart thudded until I thought it would tear.

  Galindus spoke.

  ‘Well, yes. He’s here. Licinus Honorius.’

  Honorius is alive.

  I had not known how much I feared otherwise, until warmth entered

  into every frozen blood-vessel in my body.

  ‘Honorius is at court? In the palace?’

  Galindus looked left and right, his long dark hair whipping with the

  jerky movement. He glanced above us, at the steps, for secrecy’s sake.

  ‘He’s here,’ Galindus whispered. ‘He’s in prison.’

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  4

  Attila gripped me about the elbow, hauled me two steps back without so

  much as an acknowledgement to Galindus, and shoved the pennant’s

  pole into my hands.

  ‘What—’

  ‘ Quiet! ’

  One of the court officers, whose face I didn’t know, scowled at the

  both of us, regarding us as men-at-arms who do not know a courtly

  discipline.

  The officer rapped his ivory staff on the stone of the courtyard.

  I stepped briskly in beside Rekhmire’ as he moved forward, just

  catching the end of the herald’s full-voiced cry:

  ‘—of the city of New Alexandria, known commonly as Constan-

  tinople!’

  A flutter of women-in-waiting and courtiers stepped back as we

  approached. Lesser men, according to some: mayors of distant hill-

  towns, and the captains of Rodrigo Sanguerra’s frontier towers.

  Certainly leaner men. I could see none of the kingdom’s more influential

  and powerful lords.

  Is the King hiding us by making us seem unimportant?

  A flare of hope seemed almost distant. Numb, I could only think, But

  – Honorius!

  Rekhmire’ paused before the rank of guards to either side, and for all

  the chair of state was on a stone dais, he looked down at my King.

  With immense dignity, Rekhmire’ began to kneel.

  I saw the spasm of pain he suppressed.

  Immediately I knelt, still clasping the banner pole. That put my

  shoulder where he could
reach it. Large fingers bit deep into my muscles,

  hard enough that I thought he would still lose balance and sprawl.

  The Egyptian thumped down on one knee beside me.

  ‘ Rekhmire’! ’ I bowed my head low enough that no man would see my

  mouth. ‘My father! He’s alive!’

  Rekhmire’ shot me a startled look – at why I sounded angry, I realised

  – and had time to do no more than raise his head as King Rodrigo, fifth

  of that name, looked up from his gilded chair, and leaned forward to

  speak graciously.

  Blood thundering in my ears cut off the formalities.

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  Have you put my father in prison? Who else could be responsible!

  The linen of the awning softened the sun’s light. More white than dark

  showed now in Rodrigo’s wiry short-cut beard. His eyes, under thick

  brows, might be bloodshot in the corners, but I could still feel the force

  of his personality, blazing from them.

  It occurred to me, belatedly. The King will be frighteningly angry that

  no man apparently trusts him to hold his kingdom without Aldra Videric

  at his side.

  But even King Rodrigo Sanguerra knows there’s no fighting men’s

  opinions. Whether they’re right or wrong.

  Rekhmire’ rose, with equal effort, his weight almost pushing me down

  onto the sandstone paving.

  King Rodrigo signalled his guards to step back, and his servants to

  pour wine; let his gaze imperceptibly stray while he continued to speak

  with the representative of New Alexandria, and stopped midway through

  a sentence.

  ‘Master Envoy . . . ’

  Rekhmire’ bowed his head. ‘Ah. We thought this safer, Exalted One.’

  Rodrigo Sanguerra Coverrubias stared at me.

  A year ago, I thought, I could not have held your gaze so long.

  ‘I freed you, hermaphrodite.’

  I passed Rekhmire’’s banner to Tottola and knelt down as one does

  before kings. ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

  ‘And then you repay me as you did. Not well.’

  Biting down on rage allowed me to control my voice. ‘Is it well,

  Majesty, to have put the Lion of Castile into your prison?’

  At my elbow, Rekhmire’ twitched.

  He would have advised me against that, I thought, and momentarily regretted my anger.

  No more than a moment. The world is still carmine about me.

  Rodrigo Sanguerra leaned back in his gilt chair, steepling his fingers.