by Mary Gentle
Honorius appeared at the rail again, beside me. ‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know. There are no reefs—’
I saw Carrasco come up from below, talking quite companionably with
Berenguer and Tottola. The German man-at-arms suddenly seized
Ramiro Carrasco’s shoulder and pointed forward.
I turned and leaned forward over the rail, as if straining those few
inches further forward would let me see what Tottola saw. Honorius’s
fingers clenched over the back of my belt.
The dark protuberances resolved a very little more out of the haze.
‘Not islands . . . ’ I whispered.
Rekhmire’ choked out an obscene oath.
Honorius said, ‘Ships.’
My father’s eyes narrowed as he stared into the bright south. I felt the
harsh luminosity bring tears running out of my own eyes.
But I see masts, stacked masts, narrow and impossibly high . . .
Zheng He’s war-junk actually leaned. Every sail set, I saw, craning back to look overhead.
Feet thundered; I heard orders screamed at high pitch; the bows slowly
tacked across.
‘Two. Five. Eight. Ten.’ Rekhmire’ clasped my daughter against him
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with one hand and shaded his eyes with the other. ‘Captain-General.
How is my count?’
Honorius gazed south with eyes that have been too long used to
looking into hostile distance. He mouthed numbers. I blinked, and
looked back.
I will never paint that fire and light! I thought. The delicacy of water-drops with light shattered through them into colour, white foam at the
foot of the prows—They swelled into existence on the morning sea,
appearing out of the haze, unmistakable in their silhouette.
More than ten. More than twenty. More than fifty.
A signal rocket soared up and broke apart with a piercing shriek.
‘What,’ Honorius said carefully, his gaze on the southern waters, ‘are
those?’
My neck felt cramped and cold in the stiff wind. I couldn’t stop
staring. ‘I think – that’s the Admiral’s lost fleet.’
The nearest one was close enough that I could see a green dragon-face
painted on the flat prow.
Raising his voice over the shouting, and banging of signal rockets,
Honorius protested, ‘There can’t be two hundred of them!’
I reached out my arms as Rekhmire’ slid the sling’s straps around me,
and I cuddled my screaming child into my shoulder, putting hands over
her ears against the noise.
‘Of course there can’t be two hundred! Who has two hundred ships
like this? Half of them must be a mirage!’
Two Chin crewmen all but knocked me flying; I let Rekhmire’ use his
solid large body, and his stick, to shelter me across to the companionway.
Ramiro Carrasco climbed down in front of me, sheltering me all the
way to the cabins.
A quarter of an hour later, when the noise was very nearly as loud in
the cabin as it was outside, Rekhmire’ limped in through the door.
‘Not two hundred.’
‘I knew it!’ I made the final fold of cloth and picked Onorata up, her
clouts changed for fresh cloth. ‘I knew there couldn’t be two hundred.
How many are there?’
Rekhmire’ sat down hard on a carved chair.
‘One hundred and eighty-three.’
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13
An uncomfortable four hours passed.
From the main deck, I witnessed men, obviously the captains of their
war-junks, rowed to Zheng He’s flagship. The sound of celebratory
drums and conches made my ears numb.
The Armenian sergeant, Orazi, gave voice to every man’s fear.
Shooting a suspicious glance at the Admiral’s cabin, he demanded,
‘Where’s the bastard going to take this fleet now?’
At the end of several hours the captains were rowed back; the towering
ships set their sails, and began the long process of tacking for a wind.
Rekhmire’ yanked with fingers and teeth at a strip of leather, which I
saw he had tied round and over the ferrule of one of his crutches, for a
better grip on the deck. He moved his mouth, as if at the taste.
‘I dare not calculate the number of men Zheng He has here,’ he
observed. ‘I will, however, see what course we’re on . . . ’
He stayed absent long enough for Honorius to entertain himself in
speculating which kingdoms of the Middle Sea the Chin Admiral might
now invade and conquer, if he so desired.
When Rekhmire’ returned, he merely shrugged at us.
‘By the compass, our course is set sirocco levante.’
Even recalling Onorata’s lullaby, I looked momentarily blank.
‘East south-east,’ Rekhmire’ said. ‘And since compasses don’t lie, I
judge us to be on the course that will take us past the Balearic Islands and
Sardinia, to Carthage. It appears the Admiral is a man of his word.’
The Chin rockets appeared much brighter under the Penitence, in
Carthage’s harbour. Soaring up in arcs, bursting in showers and
fountains, they dimmed the aurora’s curtains of light.
Down in the lower stern cabins, with only the small window-ports
unshuttered for air, I found the drums and gongs and cymbals muted.
But not by much. Even small round drums, wider than they are tall,
shake the air when thousands of men sling them at their waists and beat
them with hands and sticks.
Onorata lay on her back asleep, but only because she had screamed
herself into exhaustion.
Somewhat sourly, Rekhmire’ muttered, ‘Zheng He won’t be talking to
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King-Caliph Ammianus for some time yet – since the man’s likely stone-
deaf!’
Honorius stuck his head out of the small port, gazing down the hull –
so much larger than any other vessel in Carthage’s port. His voice came
back muffled. ‘If Zheng He was a normal man, he’d be dead drunk!’
I took my father’s point. More of the Admiral’s junior captains had
flocked aboard the war-junk. Two in particular appeared his friends:
they called him ‘Ma’ instead of ‘Zheng He’, and I saw much male back-
thumping and extremely rapid speech going on, before the general noise
forced me to retire below.
Rekhmire’ rubbed at his knee-joint. ‘Apparently their religion doesn’t
allow drunkenness.’
He glanced away as I caught his eye.
The Egyptian is nervous.
Perhaps Ty-ameny’s briefing for what he must say to the King-Caliph
Ammianus?
Honorius, pulling on his furred demi-gown, spoke a little apologet-
ically. ‘I’d take you with me to the King-Caliph’s audience if I could,
Ilario.’
Does he read my mind?
I couldn’t help but smile.
‘As far as I can tell,’ I said, stroking at the soft curls sweat-stuck to Onorata’s ear, ‘there’s you, Admiral Black-Eyes, and the book-buyer
here, all going up the Bursa-hill to tell the King-Caliph the same thing.
“Look at those ships down in the harbour – now keep your nose clean!”’
Honorius chuckled.
‘I’d like to see your performance,’ I said. ‘But King Rodrigo would
skin me if I don’t keep my face away fro
m your company in public.’
My father held his arms out while Saverico buttoned the pleated demi-
gown and arranged his flower-and-serpent-stamped leather belt. Chin
awkwardly up as his collar was straightened, Honorius spoke loud
enough to be heard over the drums.
‘If you go into Carthage, take my men. If you don’t need to go, stay on
board.’
The din of drums and conches did not die down. I thought it would
not until Zheng He and his officers and captains had made their way up
to the King-Caliph’s palace. And perhaps not even then.
I caught Rekhmire’ watching me.
I said, ‘I intend to send Ramiro Carrasco out, to find a rooming-
house.’
I saw illumination dawn on Honorius’s face that was not from the
Chin fireworks.
‘Even if it’s only the once,’ I finished, ‘I want Onorata to meet her
father.’
*
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Honorius and Rekhmire’ accompanied the Admiral up to the Bursa-hill
numerous times over the next few days.
I claimed I would wait until they had space in their political business to
accompany me to Marcomir’s house.
Truthfully, my guts crawled with chills.
Honorius spent thirty years wanting a child he couldn’t have. He
would have loved anything, I sometimes think. And if he had been
shocked by the idea of having an hermaphrodite offspring, he did all his
thinking about that between Taraco and Carthage, before he ever met
me.
Marcomir, though . . .
Marcomir never struck me as wanting children.
Brief as our acquaintance was.
‘Ready?’ Rekhmire’ questioned.
He wore a simple white tunic, for much the same reason that Honorius
– with sighs of relief – was allowing Saverico to buckle him into a blue velvet-fronted brigandine. A book-buyer and a soldier would pass
unnoticed in Carthage’s streets.
Especially with the city full of Chin strangers, to be studied, and stolen
from, and seduced.
I checked, for the fourth or fifth time, that nothing essential was being
left in the ship’s cabin. That Onorata’s clothing was clean, and her sling
buckled firmly over my shoulders.
To Honorius, but with an eye on Rekhmire’, I said, ‘We should bring
Ramiro Carrasco.’
Carrasco’s expression was unexpectedly optimistic. Before either man
could rebuke him, he said, ‘Because I’m a lawyer?’
It had not occurred to me.
But he’s right: a man trained in the university might serve us well.
‘Yes. But also,’ I added, ‘you’re a slave.’
Ramiro Carrasco rubbed his hand through his hair, dishevelling it
thoroughly. ‘Why do you need a slave, madonna? Master?’
I surveyed Onorata’s belongings again by eye. Honorius’s experiences
with a mercenary baggage train are nothing once one needs to take a
young baby out.
‘Apart from general baggage-carrying? I don’t want Marcomir to think
I’m asking for money. If I own a slave, I’m not poor.’ I shot a wry look at
Honorius. ‘Even if the money’s yours.’
‘We’re family, brat!’
It cheered me.
‘And,’ I said, ‘Marcomir might also think this is for revenge. Ramiro,
you need not tell him what you did. But if necessary, you can tell him I
forgave you a crime.’
And Marcomir did nothing to me that I didn’t desire.
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Ramiro Carrasco stared at the cabin floor. ‘Madonna, if you wish, I’ll
tell him I tried to kill you.’
Any man who didn’t know him would not have seen what the honesty
cost.
‘You can be the judge of whether he needs to hear that.’
Carrasco looked down at his hands. The cabin was dimly lit by oil-
lamps, but I thought his skin showed a flush. He stuttered, seeming
acutely conscious of the presence of Rekhmire’ and Honorius. ‘I don’t
know why you would forgive me!’
‘Because since we left Venice, you’ve been completely trustworthy.’
He looked startled. ‘I—That could be a ruse!’
‘There are a hundred ways a slave can get back at a master. I know.
Believe me. You didn’t try any of them.’
Carrasco ducked his head, almost flinching.
If a man ever did good by stealth, or tried to atone without any other
man actually noticing . . . that would be Ramiro Carrasco de Luis.
Atonement brought the cathedral and Father Felix to mind. I thought
suddenly, I wish I had confessed myself sorry over Sulva Paziathe!
I did worse to Sulva, and I will never find her to atone for it – when people like the Paziathe disappear, they do it effectively, because lives
depend on it.
If I can’t pay a debt where it belongs, I must pay it where I may.
Carrasco picked up the sack with Onorata’s clothes, toys, and food. As
the Alexandrine and my father put on their cloaks, he ventured,
‘Onorata’s going to be hungry when she wakes up. She wouldn’t eat,
with all the noise.’
I rested my fingers briefly against her brow, not merely to see if she
was feverish, but because her warm skin is a touch like no other. ‘I’ll feed
her when we get there; I doubt they’ll mind.’
The baby opened pale blue eyes, coughed, cooed, and loudly choked
out, ‘ Mee-roh! ’
Honorius stared at my baby.
Rekhmire’ opened his mouth, as if he would say something, and firmly
shut it again.
Carrasco and I stared at each other.
‘Did she say something? No,’ I corrected myself, ‘it’s too early, surely.
Surely? What did she say?’
Carrasco brushed the back of his fingers against her cheek.
If she was cool, I saw, he was hot as fire, his skin flushed now from
neck to hairline.
He muttered, ‘She’s said that once or twice before. I . . . think it’s what
she calls me.’
‘Calls . . . ’
Ramiro. ’Miro.
‘The first word my baby says is your name?’
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He flinched.
In an unexpectedly peace-making tone, my father observed, ‘It might
equally have been my name. Or the sergeant’s. Or the book-buyer’s. Or
yours, Ilario.’
‘This child has too damn many fathers!’
And not a mother among them.
I sighed, shook my head, and hefted my child in her sling.
‘Let’s go and find another of them . . . ’
A hollow moan shuddered through the air.
Outside the immediate area of the port, Carthage’s windowless houses
and steep, narrow streets resounded to it as if they were the body of a drum.
Impossibly, the sound came from a shell – although larger than any
shell should be. Earlier, Jian had given me the spiral conch to hold in my
hands and draw.
He all but laughed himself into an apoplexy when I attempted to blow
it. All I did was go red-faced and watery-eyed, failing to get the merest
squeak or fart out of the thing.
The alien sound echoed out again under the black midday sky.
The street stood deserted.
Because every man and woman in Carthage who could r
each the
docks crowded down there, I admitted. The novelty has not yet worn off.
I could see dark lines of heads silhouetted against the naphtha
illuminations of the quayside. And crowds of the King-Caliph’s subjects
stood up on their flat roofs, and tried to count the number of huge sailed
war-junks cruising in the vicinity of the city.
Zheng He quartered a number of ships further down the gulf, I
learned from Rekhmire’ and Jian. Partly for logistical reasons, and partly
because Zheng He had smiled, in a very civil manner, and set about
demonstrating Alexandria’s apparent new allies to every North African
city for fifty miles around.
Almost inaudibly under the conch’s racket, a brass horn blared to
mark the first hour of the afternoon.
That used to mark my break for a meal, here.
I shot a look at Honorius, his face made sombre in the naphtha street-
lights’ glare. Light glinted off Orazi and Berenguer’s steel sallets where
they flanked him.
The narrow streets, cut into steps more often than not, gave
Rekhmire’ the most trouble. He drove himself forward, cursing under his
breath, and I guessed his knee-joint would be inflamed tomorrow.
‘Here.’ Ramiro Carrasco pointed.
He stopped by a heavy iron door, set deep into the granite wall of a
four-storey house. The iron surface showed featureless except for one
keyhole.
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No way to knock. No windows opening onto the street. They would
be on the inside walls, opening into a central courtyard.
‘All looks the same to me!’ Honorius grunted, squinting up at the
brown and gold aurora as if the midday Penitence sky could give him
directions.
No point in asking any Carthaginian, I reflected. In the current
excitement, Carthaginian Visigoths weren’t interested in talking to any
stranger who wasn’t a man of Chin.
Surveying the iron door, I remarked, ‘I don’t recognise it.’ I added a
swift gloss: ‘Carthage was new to me!’
I have no desire to tell my father how I stumbled up these stepped
narrow streets in Marcomir’s company, in a blind haze of arousal.
Since I had stout leather sandals on, I fetched the door a hefty kick.
It juddered in the frame.
I raised my voice in case we were overheard. ‘We can come back if