The Stone Golem

by Mary Gentle

  ‘And Federico agreed?’

  If that’s the case, Honorius will not be so far from the mark if he describes my foster father as desperate.

  ‘Yeah. Next time, sure enough, there’s Lord Weasel–beg pardon, Lord Federico–muffled up to the eyes, and telling me that he knows we’re mercenaries, we’re for hire, and he can offer us a better contract than Captain-General Honorius—’ Berenguer put up his hand, as if to say you’ve heard nothing!, and added, ‘His first offer is, every man who comes in on this can get a place in Lord Carmagnola’s Venetian army, and have a share of the plunder of Milan, along with Lord Weasel’s hefty bribe—’

  Attila stepped up on Berenguer’s other side, towering a full head above us. He had braided his beard, but left his mane of hair loose; any man could believe him an eater of babies and easily hired murderer. He snorted. ‘The General and Lord Carmagnola fought together, up north, so he’d have our arses skinned if we even thought about this!’

  Berenguer grinned. ‘Lord Weasel thinks we’re too dumb to know that. So I ask: what will Lord Federico pay in cold cash? And he says: every man can have a safeguarded voyage to the mainland, a saddlebag of gold, and a horse to ride away on. All we have to do is bring him the General’s son-daughter, so she can be put away in a convent, safe and sound!’

  Ahead, at the top of the steps, I could see light. The open drawbridge section of the Rialto, that is winched up to let tall-masted boats through on their way up the Canal Grande.

  ‘Kidnapped and put in a convent.’ I glanced at Honorius, but he had already fallen back into the crowd of armed men, indistinguishable as their captain. Tottola moved in on my flank, a mirror-image of Attila’s Germanic wildness.

  Berenguer gave me an apologetic glance and took hold of my elbow. ‘Lord Weasel, he sounded like he believed it. But if he’s your foster dad, he’d want to, wouldn’t he? This Lord back in Taraco, this Aldra Videric, he didn’t mind sending men to kill us. I don’t reckon you’d ever see the inside of any convent.’

  ‘No.’ My pulse jolted, chest feeling hollow. The muscles and tendons at the back of my knees pulled, walking up the steps, after so long recovering from Physician Bariş’s surgery.

  Berenguer scanned the crowds blocking the steps. ‘Anyhow, I told Lord Weasel as how he’d have to give us gold. And a ship to get off this island. He bargained a bit, but he agreed. Normally, I’d reckon he’d tell the Doge we stole his money and have us taken up and hanged for theft, but he can’t risk us talking. Not that it matters…’

  The crowds became no thinner at the high arch of the Rialto Bridge. I found myself in the midst of cloaked men who might be conspicuous in their number. But then, Federico will have brought household men-at-arms, too…

  Looking above the heads of the Venetians, I saw a mast and sails gliding past.

  The creak of the winch and clatter of chains indicated the drawbridge was being wound down into place again.

  ‘Deal is, half the gold when we hand you over; half when we reach the mainland.’ Berenguer surveyed me, head to foot. ‘Could you maybe look frightened now?’

  I have over a dozen armed soldiers around me, and my father.

  ‘No.’ I shrugged. ‘It would look unconvincing. He’d see that. I can manage “sullen”.’

  Berenguer’s hand went up, tilting his sallet’s visor to shield his eyes against the spring sun. ‘We don’t want him to run before we get the money…He’s here!’

  Gathered in the small open space between the sheltered Rialto and the drawbridge itself, we were not quite enough to block the general way. I saw Federico instantly, his white face visible under a brown felt hat as he approached from the Rialto’s other side.

  One man in his livery colours walked behind him, a middling-sized iron-bound chest clasped in both arms.

  I bit my lip, preventing myself with difficulty from pointing this out to Berenguer or Tottola. They see it too–and they are besides supposed to have betrayed you!

  Berenguer pulled at my elbow, striding forward onto the drawbridge itself. ‘Come on, you!’

  The planks did not shift underfoot, but I could see the green waters of the Grand Canal between them.

  Only Berenguer and Tottola came forward. The dozen others remained on that side of the Rialto Bridge; I supposed by prior agreement. The urge to break out laughing almost overwhelmed me. If I could not manage fear or recalcitrance, I contrived to look exasperated–by way of thinking of my silverpoint drawing of Onorata back at the embassy, which I had spent three days on, and ruined with four unwise strokes just before the midday meal.

  I looked across the short distance at Federico, and greeted him with a glare of hate. He will expect me to have deduced himself behind this: who else is there in Venice now who can act on Videric’s behalf?

  It may not be true in a week or two’s time–but for now, there is only my foster father.

  ‘Lord Federico.’ I spoke before either he or Berenguer could, and heard my voice shake. With excitement, but I hoped he did not recognise that. ‘You were never a father to me. But I didn’t think even you could hand me over to be butchered like a hog!’

  Tottola’s immense arm wrapped around my upper chest, squeezing my tender breasts painfully if (I thought) accidentally. His other hand clapped over my mouth.

  It was less violent than it looked, by far, but the sensation that he need only move the upper edge of his hand to stifle me made it easy to struggle. The German soldier’s grip locked solidly around me.

  Federico pulled off his brimless hat, ran his hands through disordered wispy hair, and pulled the hat on again. His skin was pale, dotted with sweat across his wide brow. He hissed, ‘You will not be butchered! I have a promise of that! It is no more than giving you up to the life of a devout religious!’

  Imprisoned in some cold stone nunnery or monastery, woken every three hours through the night to pray, and fed only on what we might grow–nothing of this appeals to me, whether in God’s name or man’s. But no need to argue the matter.

  I took a long look at Federico, wondering if it could be marked on his face: this man that raised me, sold me, benefited by me–is he also willing to help murder me? Or does he genuinely force himself into a belief that this is no more than kidnapping?

  In the dialect of Taraconensis–which I thought he might suppose these mercenaries not to speak–I asked, ‘What hold is it that Videric has over you?’

  Federico laughed.

  He spoke in the same local variant of Iberian Latin, while he fondly shook his head. ‘He has no hold over me! On the contrary, he values me. He has for many years taken my advice on investing his gold–I have a nose for where the trade will go, and what items are best bought and sold, and when. The Aldra Videric would hardly be half so wealthy if not for my aid—’

  ‘Why not make yourself rich?’ I cut in, holding his gaze. ‘Foster father, you forget. I know what the estate is really like. I know that Valdamerca keeps hens and sells the eggs for pennies when she’s at home. I know how long it took you to save up Matasuntha’s dowry.’

  Federico waved an impatient hand. ‘It will come–gold clings to gold! Do you think me rich enough to invest on my own? At least at first? Ridiculous! But Aldra Videric has the funds to invest, and I benefit, also.’

  I wondered what tiny percentage Videric doled out to him–remembered I must seem to be scared of abduction–and decided I could risk no more questions.

  He and Berenguer spoke rapidly in one of the Frankish tongues. I turned my head so that my hood drooped concealingly over my face.

  More quietly than I had ever heard him speak, Tottola murmured, ‘Not long now…’

  Federico snapped his fingers briskly, and folded his arms where he stood. The serving man staggered out onto the Rialto drawbridge, iron-bound chest clasped in both arms. Berenguer stepped forward, taking a key from Federico’s hand, and thrust it in the lock and twisted.

  I caught the merest glimmer.

  The reflection of ligh
t from true gold is unmistakable.

  ‘Looks about right.’ Berenguer slammed the lid down and turned the key again, and hitched the chest over onto his hip as if it weighed no more than Onorata.

  Federico, turning away, reached out and grasped my arm just below the shoulder. ‘Ilario, come with me.’

  ‘’Fraid not.’ Berenguer pulled sword and scabbard together out of the straps of his belt, and lay the still-undrawn weapon flat across Federico’s chest.

  With one hand to the sword-hilt and the other gripping the mouth of the scabbard, he could have edged steel free in a moment. But because he did not, because no sword was actually drawn, no man looked at us or interfered.

  Federico stared down at the red leather of the scabbard in pure astonishment. ‘You have your first half of the gold! Three thousand ducats! You get no more until you set foot on the Veneto!’

  ‘She’s–he’s—’ Berenguer stumbled. ‘Ilario’s not going anywhere with you.’

  ‘We have a contract!’

  Berenguer showed his teeth. ‘Yeah. We did. Sorry about that–we changed our minds.’

  It will not be so easy, I thought. And caught the moment that the skin folded and creased at the corners of Federico’s eyes. In his narrowed gaze I saw anger and fear. The latter is far more dangerous!

  Berenguer jerked his head, the polished finished of his helmet blazing back the sun. The dozen and more cloaked men strode forward onto the bridge itself, surrounding us.

  Something nudged my shoulder.

  I glanced back–just sufficiently less tall that I could glimpse Honorius’s features, under the drooping edge of his hood.

  ‘Contemptible!’ Federico’s jaw came up: he glared at Berenguer. ‘You may attempt to cheat me. But what of when I go to your master Licinus Honorius, and say how you were willing to betray him for money?’

  A cloaked figure brushed past my shoulder. Lifting his hands, putting his hood back, my father remarked cheerfully, ‘Licinus Honorius already knows.’

  With another company, it might have been possible to deceive Federico into thinking that the Captain-General had merely discovered the betrayal, and averted it.

  These men have fought too long together: there’s no mistaking their comradeship.

  Which means my foster father is aware he has been taken, lock, stock, and arquebus-barrel.

  Federico drew himself up, remarkably unafraid for a man with one servant at his back.

  ‘How unfortunate to find you engaged in something so dishonest, Captain Honorius. But all the same, I believe you won’t stop me taking my foster child away from here.’

  ‘You think?’ Honorius cocked a brow, and nodded towards the railing of the drawbridge. ‘Think again.’

  Honorius had clearly not left all twenty of his remaining men at the Alexandrine embassy. Ten of them, I saw, occupied two boats moored to slanting posts just at the side of the Rialto Bridge.

  Seated in the bottom of the wide-bottomed boats, hands manacled behind them, were twice their number of men–a mixture of household servants without their livery badges, hired bravos, and that kind of man who is a petty criminal or a mercenary soldier according to the season of the year. More than half had ears cropped, or ‘T’ for ‘thief’ branded on their foreheads.

  Honorius called an order. The men-at-arms rowed back into the side canal from which I deduced they must have come.

  I turned to Federico. He seemed self-possessed–except for the colour of his complexion. A man might have blown plaster-dust across his skin and got that same aghast white.

  All the rage is gone out of him.

  He might have been furious at the trick, as well as a raid of consequences–Honorius’s men-at-arms being unnerving en masse–but there was no anger to be drawn from his expression.

  Federico looked about–for his servant, I realised. When I too looked, I couldn’t see the man. Honorius’s soldiers must have permitted him to run. He could go nowhere that would harm us.

  ‘Keep the money.’ Federico spoke abruptly. ‘I’m done.’

  There was more than satisfaction in Honorius’s smile.

  Of course, I thought. Now Honorius has three thousand ducats: he need not betray his location by going to any banker in any city.

  Except that he must go back to Taraco! I made a grim note to bring this to my father’s attention, yet again. Before Videric robs him of all he has!

  Federico moved almost unconsciously back, feet shifting on the heavy planks.

  I stepped forward and caught the velvet of his doublet sleeve. ‘You may give Videric a message from me—’

  ‘Videric? No!’ Federico laughed harshly. He looked down at my hand, not pulling out of my grip, and then back at me. A scarlet flush covered the pallor of his cheeks: he looked unhealthy, and feverish. ‘That’s it: I’m done. I have Valdamerca and my girls with me–Matasuntha’s husband will have to take care of her. Let the King confiscate that pitiable shack of an estate! I’m not returning to Taraconensis now.’

  I found my hand holding the fabric tighter, as if I could keep him from escape. ‘What do you mean, not going back to Taraco now? When will you go back?’

  Federico laughed.

  I heard bitterness in it, but a surprising amount of relief, too.

  ‘Not ever.’ He spoke almost gently, and stiffened his shoulders as he looked around at our mercenary soldiers. ‘Never. This is what comes of trying to improve on my orders. Aldra Videric suggested I bribe your soldiers merely to desert, and then permit the men he will send to deal with you. I thought, if I had you in my hands to bring to him…’

  His gaze was directed at the green water below, stippled and crisscrossed with gold light where wavelets caught the sun. I thought he saw none of that.

  His tight, controlled voice quivered. ‘And he will expect me to pay it back out of my own pocket! He will call me a fool for failing, and ask me for three thousand ducats. Dear Lord!’

  Federico shook his head, and took a kerchief from his doublet sleeve to wipe across his forehead.

  Things will not have changed so much in the eight months I have been gone, I thought, and said, ‘You don’t have three thousand ducats in gold.’

  ‘Nor if I sold the estate!’ Federico wiped his forehead again, and opened his hand. The white cloth spiralled down, spreading on the canal water below as it landed, and gradually sinking. He stared until the whiteness entirely vanished.

  ‘I’m done!’ he repeated. Straightening up off the drawbridge’s railing, he snorted–a sardonic sound, that might have been a laugh–and looked at me. ‘No need for concern. I have a nose for business, and I’ve made enough business contacts while making my lord Videric rich. I won’t starve. The Alpine passes in northern Italy will be open by the time I reach the mainland. I think that Flanders and all of north Burgundy have it in them to be even richer than they are now…And I’m done with playing lapdog for my Lord Pirro Videric Galindo!’

  Federico rolled out Videric’s given name and matronymic with relish.

  More than taken aback, I could only say, ‘I thought you were his man.’

  ‘And what is the use of supporting a man permanently out of power? Yes, he has wealth; he can buy men to do his bidding. But he’s not a power in the land now, and he never will be–Videric becoming King Rodrigo’s First Minister again: what are the chances of that?’

  The scorn in his voice was hard, dry, and, I judged, perfectly genuine. It left me blinking at him in shock.

  Federico patted my hand, where my fingers were still clenched in his sleeve. ‘You may give Aldra Videric a message from me, Ilario, since I hope devoutly never to see the man again.’

  ‘I’m hardly so keen myself!’

  Federico surprised me by laughing out loud.

  ‘Nevertheless, if you do, convey him my regards. Tell him, I hope his miserly testicles wither and drop off. That, when he dies, I shall dance on his grave. And that, if I had known a quarter–an eighth part!–of the trouble waiting for me
when he sent me after you, I would have thrown myself down on the Via Augusta and let the mule-train trample me to death!’

  The soldiers chuckled, behind me. I heard Berenguer choke back an outright guffaw.

  Federico clasped my hand in his and turned it over. I did not resist him. His thumb brushed the scribe’s calluses, and those left by sword-use, still not gone after months without training. He regarded the smear of black charcoal that came off on his skin with seeming amusement.

  ‘Aldra Videric knows you well enough to know you won’t abandon the New Art. Just a word of warning.’

  He patted my fingers with his other hand, and released me.

  Looking up at the hooded figure of Honorius at my side, he said, ‘Satisfy my curiosity, Aldra. Is she your son-and-daughter? Or did some son of yours father him? Or is it coincidence?’

  Honorius took the iron-bound chest as Berenguer passed it to him and patted the lid. ‘It would take more than three thousand ducats to buy those answers.’

  ‘Indeed–I suspect them not for sale.’ My foster father regarded my father for a long moment, looking almost jaunty. ‘I also suspect you aren’t a man to shoot someone in the back. Do let me know if I’m incorrect.’

  Federico nodded politely, caught my eye as he turned away, and shot me a look so complex I could not unravel in it all the old loyalty, old grudges, despair, joy, and risk. His boots rang on the planks of the drawbridge, and then were muffled on the stone of the Rialto steps.

  His back would not stop prickling until he reached his own palazzo, I guessed.

  Perhaps not until he’s out of Venice and across the Alps.

  And it is not we who he fears.

  The men he will send to deal with you. I heard Federico’s voice in memory as he shoved his way into the Rialto crowds.

  ‘He won’t be the only man watching his back, now,’ I said.

  And it is not only here we face danger.

  I looked at Honorius as we turned to retreat under the covered steps of the Rialto. It is weeks, if not more than a month, since my father received his letter from King Rodrigo. And, apart from the likelihood that Rodrigo’s men have eaten Honorius’s estate bare, now, and raided the others nearest to it…it is never wise to have a ruling king as an enemy.