Ilario, the Stone Golem

by Mary Gentle

  beg you to do this thing.’

  Ilario, close your mouth, I thought.

  And did.

  ‘I beg you, on my knees. If you desire an apology for anything that

  occurred while I owned you, you have only to speak. I kiss your hands

  and feet and I beg you to go before the people and lie.’

  Blood rose up in my face, I could feel it. When Ramiro Carrasco had

  knelt, the embarrassment was painful enough. This – Oh, this is only

  impossible!

  ‘You can’t do this, Majesty!’

  ‘I came here to you to do this.’ Rodrigo’s dark eyes unwaveringly held

  my gaze. ‘My life’s work is tottering. The peace will fail. Carthage will send in legions. If fighting won’t serve me, I’ll grovel at any man’s feet if

  it stops that.’

  ‘Why don’t you put me in prison? There are still torturers here, aren’t

  there? Why don’t you force me?’

  ‘Will you make it necessary?’

  In another man it would have been an implied threat. With Rodrigo

  (as I have long had cause to know), it is merely honesty.

  He shook his head, as if at an afterthought, red lips quirking in his dark

  beard. ‘And besides, penitence is rarely convincing and true, brought

  about by those means!’

  I stared down at him, starkly disbelieving. Amazed.

  There is nothing you will not do to save your home, I thought.

  Or to set me an example.

  The room, heating in the early sun, held a mere breath of air passing

  through from the south windows. I stood in hose and shirt and unlaced

  doublet; I must be stinking of sweat and my child, in no condition to see

  polite company.

  The older man, much my senior, knelt on the hard boards in front of

  me and waited.

  I thought of the long-ago morning when Father Felix had brought me

  into King Rodrigo’s breakfast chamber, to listen to courtiers discussing

  the hermaphrodite’s wedding night with a woman.

  Now the King’s shoulders were tense under the mole-black velvet of

  his doublet, sewn everywhere with the flower and serpent of Taraconen-

  sis. If I sketched him, I realised, I would have to dig deep to uncover those emotions behind the forced calm.

  But they are there.

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  Bitterly, I said, ‘I couldn’t teach you what humiliation is, Majesty.’

  Looking into those darkest of brown eyes, I thought of Ramiro

  Carrasco – and realised, in that moment, that Rodrigo Sanguerra of

  Taraconensis has no more idea of what to expect as a slave than Ramiro

  Carrasco had. And that, as with Ramiro, this is not the key of the matter.

  ‘You’re on your knees to me, Majesty.’

  ‘Yes.’ He didn’t flush, but the lines in his face altered.

  ‘Begging me.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because . . . ’ I took a deep breath. ‘Because you want me to see what

  you’ll do for Taraco. And then – you want me to do the same thing.’

  His shoulders went back as if he were one of Honorius’s soldiers on

  parade. It was only in the rigidity of his spine that I could see how much

  fury, how much outrage, he suppressed in himself.

  ‘What you have to do will be humiliating, yes.’ He lifted his gaze, for

  the first time coming within a hair’s breadth of true appeal. ‘And I beg,

  the King begs you: humiliate yourself, in front of your enemy, because I

  need you to. We need you to.’

  I went to speak and he interrupted.

  ‘This is the country in which you were born a bastard, raised and sold

  and treated as a slave: I understand this—’

  ‘You don’t, Majesty.’

  He hesitated for the first time. ‘No. But there are people here, all the

  same. Some you know. Most you never will. And I ask you: do it for

  them. I don’t ask you to do it for me. I may be many things, but I am not

  quite such a fool as that.’

  He permitted me to stand in silence, then, watching him. Looking at

  the King of Taraco, down on his knees to a slave, a freed slave.

  It moves me that he’ll do this for the people here.

  It moved me still more that I could read, in the lines of his body and

  face, quite how much he feared being made to grovel by someone too

  young, too spiteful, too unwise not to break another human being.

  ‘Majesty, do you think I’m risking making you into an enemy because

  I want some petty apology?’

  The fear left him.

  I read in his face that he knew that, whether I agreed or not, I would

  not make a king perform the same tricks as a King’s Freak.

  I fell on my knees in front of him, as I have so often in my life, but never when he himself was kneeling before me. He reached out to take

  my hands. His grip was strong, but I felt him shaking. Kings are not

  treated so; undefeated kings, off the field of battle, do not expect to find

  themselves on their knees.

  ‘Forgive me, Majesty!’

  ‘You ask me? When a slave must have so many justified grudges

  against his master?’

  258

  ‘You never did anything any other man wouldn’t have done, sire.’

  Rodrigo winced. ‘That is the worst condemnation I have ever had, I

  think.’

  ‘Sire—’

  ‘Help me up, Ilario. My knees aren’t what they were as a young man.’

  By the amount of weight he rested on my arm and shoulder when he

  had to rely on his right knee, he was correct in that.

  ‘I’m sorry I did not treat you better.’ His expression was still a touch

  that of a man speaking to a child or a hound, but less so than I had ever

  known him. ‘Ilario, if you wish, I will implore you every day now. Do

  this. Please.’

  ‘Stop.’ I was still holding his arm, I found. Bewildered, I didn’t release

  it. There were still the muscles of a knight and warrior under the velvet.

  ‘Majesty, please. Do you think I can’t see what’s at stake?’

  ‘Well then—’

  ‘I’m not only afraid for myself.’

  Finally I brought myself to let go of his arm, and look at the face I

  knew so well.

  ‘I have a child. I have a father. There are others . . . And I know this

  won’t be enough. Not for Videric. Majesty, he sent men to Italy to kill

  me – I don’t know any fewer of his secrets now than I did then! If I go through some ceremony of reconciliation, then in a few months, or a few

  years, Lord Videric will come after me, and kill me. And he’ll kill or

  disgrace or otherwise destroy all of us who know what did happen at

  Carthage. He’ll kill Onorata. He’ll kill Captain-General Honorius.’

  I did not mention to my King that Rekhmire’ and Ramiro Carrasco,

  Attila and Tottola, and all of Honorius’s household guard, would be

  Videric’s targets too. I don’t deceive myself that they’re of high enough

  rank for him to care as more than a point of principle.

  I held Rodrigo’s gaze. ‘Taking up his place as your First Minister

  won’t make Lord Videric safe again, Majesty. Not in his eyes—’

  ‘Wait.’ Rodrigo held up his scarred hand.

  The bushy dark brows came down in a frown.

  ‘While I grant that panic might, in the past, have forced Videric into

  errors – I know the man! He�
�s worked beside me for twenty-five years. If

  his King commands him to treat you with all respect and civility, then he

  will do it. There can be no doubt of that.’

  I looked at Rodrigo’s expression of certainty.

  And one day, one day there’ll be bandits, or thieves, or robbers on the

  road, or pirates who swoop down on a ship, and leave no one they find

  alive or recognisable.

  But this man is Videric’s friend. And quite naturally, he won’t believe

  that.

  Rodrigo Sanguerra gave me a curt nod.

  ‘Ilario. I’ll call on you again tomorrow.’

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  8

  Honorius and Sergeant Orazi were deep in discussion when I arrived at

  their chambers, debating how the Chin ship’s rocket-arbalests and

  pottery grenadoes might be used in an Iberian army, should Zheng He

  ever be persuaded to part with any, or part with the plans for them.

  ‘Which I doubt,’ Honorius concluded rapidly, a broad grin spreading

  over his face. He reached out for Onorata with prison-pale hands.

  Orazi and Saverico and even Berenguer allowed themselves to be

  brought to admit the child had grown bigger, and more active; and

  Honorius’s men-at-arms exchanged grins over his head as he put her on

  a wolf-skin rug at his feet.

  My child cooed and laughed, and thwacked her grandfather’s toes

  with her fists.

  ‘She’ll be a quick one when she’s grown,’ Honorius observed. He gave

  Ramiro Carrasco a thoughtful stare, and directed Berenguer to take the

  man into the kitchens and feed him.

  ‘Then,’ the Lion of Castile added, ‘you might feel inclined to tell me

  what has you worse concerned than yesterday?’

  ‘God preserve me from mercenary commanders with a keen nose!’ I

  could make little amusement sound in my voice.

  Orazi took himself to the door, to engage the King’s guards in

  conversation; Saverico appeared no older than fourteen as he sat down

  on the wolf-skin to prevent a wide-eyed Onorata eating two bone dice

  and a chess-man; and I detailed the actions of King Rodrigo to my

  father.

  It took me while the sun rose a finger’s width up the morning sky. I

  turned my head fifty times in the hour expecting Rekhmire’ to walk in

  through the door.

  ‘ . . . And the King says he will come to me again. Until I agree,

  evidently.’

  Expectant, I tensed for Honorius’s bellowing rage.

  Honorius presented me with his lean profile as he gazed towards the

  window. He rubbed a hand through cropped hair in which the sun

  showed more grey than when we had stood in Venice.

  In a level tone, he said, ‘I see why King Rodrigo suggests this.’

  I sat perfectly still.

  I wish I might ask Rekhmire’ his opinion of this.

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  I wish Rekhmire’ were not absent from Taraco now with the last

  word between us an angry one.

  ‘If you were Videric,’ I demanded. ‘If you went through with this farce

  for public consumption, would you leave Ilario, and Honorius, and

  Rekhmire’, and Onorata, alive afterwards?’

  ‘I’d think it would look suspicious for those people to die, son-

  daughter.’

  ‘So perhaps he’d wait a while—’

  Honorius bent over and picked Onorata up from the wolf-skin. She

  bubbled happily, and pulled at the laces on Honorius’s doublet with all

  ten fingers splayed. He hoisted her, with a grin, as if he tested her weight.

  ‘She’s thriving.’ The grin became a beam. Honorius stood and tucked

  her into the crook of his arm, tickled with a forefinger, and was rewarded

  with a gurgle.

  ‘There might not be war here yet,’ he added quietly, continuing to

  smile down at her. ‘But Carthage will most certainly send in legions and

  a governor this year, if nothing happens to prevent it. The fourteenth

  Utica and the sixth Leptis Parva, with Hanno Anagastes or the current

  head of House Barbas, would be my guess.’

  That he could put names and legionary insignia to these fears didn’t

  surprise me, but added to the knot in my stomach.

  ‘Under guise of protecting us against the Franks, you understand.’

  Honorius looked quickly away from Onorata, as if some other memory

  had filled his mind. He walked to the window. ‘You don’t want to see

  what happens in Aragon and Leon and Castile happening here.’

  The window-ledge might be several feet wide, but I was relieved he

  did not sit Onorata down on it, there being no bars. I leaned my elbows

  on cool stone and stared down.

  ‘You think I ought to do this.’

  ‘Because I can think of nothing else!’

  The diminishing perspective looking directly down the castle’s wall

  made me dizzy. I resolved to draw it some day, and lifted my head. Just

  visible over the castle’s outer walls, grassy slopes lay speckled yellow like

  lizards under the heat. All Taraco’s white houses and colonnades were

  busy with men and traffic, before they would become deserted under the

  noon sun. Ochre earth and lapis-blue haze in the distance . . .

  ‘You think I should lie and beg Videric’s pardon in public!’

  ‘If you or the Egyptian have a better idea, I’ll hear it!’

  Onorata began to grizzle.

  I shushed her, gently, and Honorius jiggled her a very little, giving her

  one of the gloves from his belt to chew on. She gummed enthusiastically

  and wetly at the fingers of it.

  ‘Revolting child,’ my father observed besottedly.

  I caught Carrasco’s voice in the kitchens, evidently in conversation

  with Berenguer.

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  ‘Ask Videric’s assassin,’ I said. ‘He’s under threat, and his family too.

  He’d drown men like kittens in a bucket if it kept his mother and father

  and brothers safe and I know how he feels! ’

  With considerable asperity, Honorius snapped, ‘I am fifty years old: I

  have fought in all the major fields of the last thirty years of the Crusades;

  I can take care of myself!’

  ‘And Onorata? Can she?’

  I let Onorata grip my thumb. She smiled at me, or I thought she did.

  Honorius made a sound I couldn’t identify, and when I looked at him,

  he merely hitched her in his arms again, and carried her back to the rug,

  and set her down on it.

  He sounded exasperated, even in a whisper.

  ‘We need Videric back as the King’s minister! This is what we came

  here for! We came here to have that bastard Videric owe us his job.’

  He didn’t take his eyes from the baby, even as he growled at me.

  ‘I won’t tell you to risk Onorata, you know that! But this is a dangerous

  world, there are thieves and pirates out there who aren’t Videric’s hired killers. We need to be prepared to protect her in any case. As for me . . .

  Ilario, I won’t allow you to make an excuse out of me.’

  The prison appartments rang with the sudden silence.

  I felt heat rising in my face.

  Because my father, it seems, is undergoing a formal imprisonment by

  King Rodrigo Sanguerra that – despite its purely political nature – is at

  some level a profound humiliation for Licinu
s Honorius. And Honorius

  suffers it because he wants the country secure.

  ‘Perhaps I need no excuse,’ I said. ‘You’ll be able to live in Taraco. If

  I do this, I doubt Onorata and I will – because Videric will insist that I

  leave.’

  ‘Would you not seek an apprenticeship with a master painter

  somewhere, in any case?’ Honorius shrugged, with every appearance of

  being casual. ‘A lot may change in seven years.’

  Yes, and my father is a fifty-year-old man: at the end of seven years, he may not be alive.

  The day passed: twenty-four hours going by in not much more than a

  century or two. True to his word, Rodrigo Sanguerra came to my rooms

  privately, hooded in a linen cloak against discovery; and true to his word,

  he got down on his knees on the floor.

  If anything it was the more excruciatingly embarrassing this second

  time, when we both knew what would happen.

  When I failed to persuade him to stand up – and only just managed to

  reject the idea of hauling him up bodily – I sat down on my arse beside

  my King, on the bare floorboards, and put my head in my hands.

  ‘I’ve been round this trail over and over, sire. Yes: I’ll look a fool. I’ll be

  branded a coward and a weakling. And . . . I’ll be putting my family at

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  the mercy of a man who wants me dead. I no longer know which is the

  most essential matter; which might be an excuse for any other. I can’t

  think it through! I just know there are too many reasons why I shouldn’t

  do this.’

  King Rodrigo rested his hands on his thighs, sitting back on his heels,

  and then reached out to take hold of my jaw and turn me to face him.

  ‘King’s Freak,’ he said softly, and then: ‘The King begs you. I beg

  you.’

  ‘Don’t!’

  ‘Don’t make me, then.’ His crooked smile was the same one that had

  always signalled a paternal warmth between us, in those rare moments

  that we had left position and power out of the equation.

  I said, ‘You’ve seen my baby.’

  His smile flashed in his beard. ‘The miraculous child! Yes. Although I

  suppose they all are. Any miracle that common will tend to be

  discounted.’

  If I gave him a jaundiced look, he took it well.

  I said, ‘You want me to think about the children in Taraconensis if war

  comes.’