The Stone Golem

by Mary Gentle

  A tall and unusually thin eunuch mathematician by the name of Ahhotep joined Ty-ameny at her signal, walking the palace’s corridors quickly enough beside me that his linen robe flicked against my bare ankles. Two slaves took lamps ahead, light shading from terracotta to burnt-earth colours up the carved walls.

  If I had been paying closer attention, I could have overheard what Ty-ameny and her black-haired adviser spoke of. Weariness and fear kept me concentrating on putting one foot before the other and falling over neither.

  I wondered if Tottola had needed to call Ramiro Carrasco to feed Onorata, and whether she was asleep or screaming.

  Cool air touched my forehead. It was not until I saw sky above a wide courtyard that I realised we had left the main palace. Obelisks blotted out stars and moon.

  Ahhotep glanced back at me with a friendly smile. The moonlight caught the fine silver chain about his neck, that all the bureaucrats wore symbolic of their slavery. He pointed to one side and a dimly-seen frontage. ‘The Royal Library.’

  It might have been part of the palace or separate; I would not be able to see unless by daylight.

  The pressure of air at my right hand was suddenly less; I guessed at an empty outdoor area, perhaps a larger public square. Our footsteps came clicking back from a nearer wall–except for Ty-ameny, barefoot and noiseless.

  What caught my interest, through the ache in my muscles, was that Ty-ameny stopped by the vast doors of a final building, and dismissed her slaves, taking one of the lamps into her own hands.

  The Pharaoh-Queen of the Lion-Throne can walk around at night without guards…

  Either that argues a devout respect for the Queen, unlike that in other kingdoms, or–it belatedly occurred–her guards might merely be very good at keeping themselves out of sight.

  Ahhotep opened a postern gate, bowing Ty-ameny and myself through. Inside, the lamp’s inadequate light showed the curves of vast pillars, set close together. I could not see their tops. The eunuch mathematician took the lamp from the Queen and led the way forward, out a cross an open space tiled in red and blue and gold.

  ‘Throne room,’ Ty-ameny murmured, as if she too were reluctant to disturb the silence.

  Ahhotep suddenly held up the oil-lamp.

  I found myself facing the Carthaginian golem.

  ‘Ilario!’

  The female voice sounded sharp, but with concern. I fought to throw dizziness off and move in response.

  Mosaic tiles were hard under my hands and knees.

  I sat back, falling heavily to one side. Ty-ameny thrust a cloth at me. The eunuch Ahhotep returned out of the darkness with a bucket, and began spilling sand over something on the floor that the lamplight did not clearly show.

  My throat felt raw. The taste of vomit was disgusting in my mouth.

  ‘I ought to have realised!’ Ahhotep sounded as if he were repeating himself. ‘Great Queen, I’m so sorry! Master Ilario, how can I apologise!’

  I dimly remember Rekhmire’ once mentioning that the Royal Library kept fire-buckets of sand in every room. Evidently it was a practice throughout the palace complex.

  I doubt he ever imagined them being used to cover up sick.

  I pushed my heels against the tiny ridges of the mosaic, edging back. Wiping the cloth over my mouth took away some of the taste.

  Only yards away from me, at the edge of the lamplight, stood feet too large for life-size–but skilfully painted in the colours of flesh.

  The stone feet of the Carthaginian golem rested immovably against the floor. The shadows hid its height, but I glimpsed a curve of reflected light on its fingers, where its hands hung by its sides.

  ‘I should have realised!’ Ahhotep moaned again.

  My own realisation was closer to I wish to hit Ahhotep.

  The golem stood, half-painted, beside the Queen’s ancient stone throne. Under other circumstances, the carved porphyry block would have been impressive in itself: a dark purple stone, the seat worn down into a deep dip by dynasty upon dynasty of Pharaohs. But the crystalline glitter in the rock could not take my eye from the painted golem.

  Like a Venetian harlequin.

  I’d forgotten we hadn’t finished the face.

  In the gold lamp-light, one blind stone eye looked at me. The other was painted to have the brilliance of life. Lustrous and brown and my stomach rose again, threateningly, as I recognised it–the evident model for the painted stonework was Masaccio’s eyes, where he had begun to give its face some touches of a self-portrait.

  I wiped the cloth hard across my lips.

  If I’d thought anything, after Menmet-Ra’s arrival at the Alexandrine house, it was that Ty-ameny must have had one of her craftsmen finish off the painting here. I’d even imagined asking, with insouciant gallows humour, ‘What butcher did you get to finish this paint job?’

  Instead I throw up, like a child.

  ‘You know that it killed the master I was apprenticed to?’

  Ty-ameny moved her bird-boned shoulders in a shrug. ‘Yes. I regret that. You know, that if I had a choice, I’d wrap in anchor-chain and dump it in the Bosphorus!’

  Ahhotep fumbled in the sleeves of his robes, bringing out a stylus and wax tablets. ‘The diplomatic representatives of Carthage would notice, Great Queen, and we dare not seem afraid of anything they offer us. Master Ilario, anything you can tell us will be helpful. Don’t worry what Lord Menmet-Ra may have reported before. Just begin at the start, in your own words.’

  Climbing to my feet, I realised I recognised the gleam in the skinny eunuch’s eye. It is Masaccio’s.

  I thought of Rome; the chill of early autumn. If Tommaso Cassai had had the chance to hear about this golem, would he have cared if it had killed a man before?

  In all truth–no, he would not.

  And this Ahhotep, black hair cut at jaw-level and wearing formal Alexandrine robes, might have been the Florentine painter’s blood brother in that respect.

  All my muscles tensed, every tendon; every nerve on edge.

  If that thing moves, I will be out of this throne room so fast—

  I thought it not impossible it might have connected itself to me, somehow, in the embassy at Rome; that my presence might move it to act.

  Fear moved me to recklessness. I picked the lamp up from where Ahhotep had stood it on the dais of the throne, and held it close to the golem. This close, the light showed me every scratch on the bronze and brass metalwork of the joints.

  The nobles of Carthage being what they are, Ty-ameny will have been put in possession of the words to make it move.

  Even if she will not use them.

  ‘The paint looks absurd.’ Mimic skin and veins and hair as it might, you may as well put a ribbon on a boulder. ‘This is nothing more nor less than a weapon, no matter what shape it is.’

  Ty-ameny stepped lightly up the carved porphyry steps and sat on the throne, a yard from the golem. The lamp cast shadows in the sockets of her eyes.

  ‘If we’re very lucky,’ she observed flatly, ‘whatever madman wrought this in Carthage can only make a few of them. A handful. Not dozens. Because if you see these on the field of battle, in numbers…If I see them outside this city’s walls…’

  Honorius had seen my one partial rendering of the stone golem (done out of memory), and instantly remarked, A man armoured invulnerably at every point! And after a pause, had added, Who can’t be stopped by wounds. Only hacked to pieces.

  I repeated this aloud.

  Ahhotep looked as if he had suffered six weeks with a fever. Stress drew dark lines down from his nose to the corners of his mouth.

  ‘I fear it badly enough, Master Ilario.’ He put his hand on the edge of the purple throne, glancing at Ty-ameny. ‘As her Great Name knows, I fear seeing this thing come to life and kill the Queen. Tell us what you know.’

  I told him everything.

  What I thought I could not remember, his questions prodded out of me. The night turned on, oil in the lamp guttering, until at
last I was telling my story in the dark. I couldn’t shut my eyes hard enough to prevent hot tears leaking out from under the lids. Masaccio. Sulva. And where is her bride-piece statue, now?

  Ty-ameny became gradually silent.

  I fretted. I am telling her nothing she does not already know.

  An urgent need for sleep weighed me down, but I felt an unexpected sympathy for the Pharaoh-Queen–I, at least, need not ever see the monstrous thing again; she must have the golem beside her throne whenever she gives audience.

  ‘Could it not have sunk on the ship coming from Rome?’ I finally blurted out.

  A new oil-lamp flared to light under Ahhotep’s hands. By it, I saw that Ty-ameny smiled. She shook her head. ‘Too many spies and gossips have seen it here.’

  The gleam of light on stone disturbed me.

  ‘It needs painting, Great Queen. Could it not be in a workshop, instead of standing beside the throne?’

  Ahhotep came forward, one hand fiddling with his neck-chain. ‘The Carthaginian envoy is expected. He will expect to see the gift where protocol demands it should be.’

  ‘For the same reason,’ Ty-ameny put it, with a gloomy cheerfulness that reminded me much of Rekhmire’, ‘we can neither set it in Roman concrete nor forge chains around it.’

  ‘Can’t you—’ I waved a hand, frustrated. ‘Restrain it secretly, in some way?’

  ‘If there is such a way, none of my Royal Mathematicians have advised me of it.’

  Silence fell. It had been quiet some time when I heard Ahhotep’s sandals on the mosaic, diminishing away from us. Before I could formulate a question, I heard the creak of a door opening. A larger postern door, by the faint light that streamed in from it, wet and chill with dew. The sun has risen.

  ‘From what you tell me,’ Ty-ameny observed quietly, ‘any man may have the word that orders the stone man to act. I need not go to the trouble of banning all Carthaginians from the court, because they might send anyone. One of their own, or not.’

  Raw-throated from speech, now, I nodded my agreement.

  ‘I need to stay alive.’ The woman pushed herself up, weight on her wrists, and stepped stiffly down from the throne. Unselfconsciously, she reached up to link her arm in mine, walking us both towards the door.

  The flagstones outside were dry of dew already. The sky was a perfect infinite blue, and the sun not yet risen.

  ‘I don’t mean that I don’t want to die.’ She made a small smile, evidently a strain. ‘Although I don’t. But I need to live out this generation, and I need my daughter to rule the next one. And not just for Alexandria’s sake.’

  She looked at me with some concern.

  ‘You need to sleep. But we’ll go back by way of the Library–Ahhotep, go tell them we’re coming–because there are things I need to discuss with you.’

  Passing the building last night had given me no idea of its size. The lemon-coloured light of the dawn illuminated roof on roof, storey on storey, of the Royal Library; and I suspected that the obelisk-fronted door we entered by was only one of many opening into a library complex.

  Inside, the stone of walls and floor shone pale, echoing daylight through the corridors and halls. Stepping over the threshold, I was hit by the scent of parchment, papyrus, scrolls…Plunged into memory of the scriptorium in Rodrigo Sanguerra’s castle.

  Our steps echoed. I followed Ty-ameny’s small figure through gallery after gallery of leather scroll-cases, lost among squat pillars and vast square-lintelled archways. The rooms grew smaller and scruffier after a while, and the Queen called greetings to eunuch clerks already at their desks, doing reconstruction work on old papyruses. Cheerful voices called out from one chamber to the next.

  About the time I thought we’d run out of building–and owned myself completely lost–Ty-ameny turned sharply right and loped up a flight of sandstone steps, that were less surprisingly worn away into a dip in the middle.

  The arch at the top opened into a bright gallery. Carved windows opened into a piazza below us.

  No books. No scrolls. Because the light would fade them. They want good light for…

  ‘The printing-machina.’

  The Pharaoh-Queen’s subjects must have been working through the night. Herr Mainz–Herr Gutenberg–stood beside a wooden frame, gesturing expansively, and broke off to grin like a badger at Ty-ameny.

  ‘Great Queen! We should have it finished before the end of today. Or at least the prototype.’

  Ty-ameny strode up to stand beside him, not even as high as his shoulder. Her eyes glittered as she appeared to follow his report of his progress.

  ‘You also know how this works?’ she demanded of me.

  Gutenberg stroked blunted fingers over a tray of metal type. ‘Messer Ilario does not. No man but I, not even in my Guild.’

  Storms on the voyage through the Aegean might have robbed Ty-ameny of her printing-machina; likewise the cholera and plague endemic to large cities. I thought perhaps Ty-ameny might persuade him to write his plans down, where I had failed.

  Ty-ameny smiled at him. Her tiny ruddy-skinned hand stroked the printing-machina’s frame as if it were a blood-horse.

  ‘Not the details. The meaning. That in the time the scriptorium takes to copy a scroll once, I can have you set the type to print the same words. And in the time it takes to copy a scroll twice–I can have five hundred copies, printed and ready!’

  She wiped her fingers down her plain linen robes, seemingly unaware of the black grease.

  Gutenberg very precisely explained, in a mixture of German and bad Carthaginian Latin, how it would take longer to set up his lead letters the first time than to copy them on paper, but after that…Ty-ameny clearly wasn’t listening. As Gutenberg went back to his machine, she took my arm, gazing up into my face, and pointed.

  ‘You see that?’

  I stared into an empty corner of the gallery.

  ‘A bucket.’ Embarrassed by memory of what happened in the throne room, I added, ‘Master Rekhmire’ told me–you have them in every room here, because of the fear of fire.’

  I thought of Masaccio’s cluttered workshop, full of wooden frames, canvas, pigments, oils, buckets of sand and water. The same principle, even if he had appeared to work in chaos.

  Ty-ameny released my arm.

  ‘Yes. We have buckets. Water and sand. And all the walls are masonry. And there are courtyards between various buildings in the complex, to act as firebreaks, and cellars below, insulated from one another by the living rock. Because these walls are piled high and stuffed full with papyrus, vellum, paper…Everything flammable. Even our shelves are carved out of stone.’

  Her gaze searched out Gutenberg’s tray of lead letters.

  ‘There have been minor fires before. We’ve lost scrolls. Scrolls that were the last copies of their work. And it doesn’t matter how many clerks I put into the scriptorium, they won’t catch up the copying of four thousand years of collecting. And one day, one day…One day everything we have will burn.’

  Finding myself close enough to the wall to touch it, I ran a finger down a seamless masonry join. ‘You can’t know that—’

  Ty-ameny’s head jerked up, as if she woke from a deep sleep or vision.

  ‘I can!’

  Ahhotep muttered something; she chopped her tiny hand down in a surprisingly fierce gesture. She turned sloe-dark eyes on me, and I was not conscious of her small stature.

  ‘If there’s no great fire, still, we’re not as great a power as we once were. Conquerors will pass through with fire and sword. It will be Carthage or the Turks,’ she added, with a flat pragmatic certainty.

  I was unsure that Gutenberg understood her Alexandrine Latin; he straightened and frowned at her.

  Ty-ameny paced to the window, and it did not change her dignity in the least that she must stand up on her toes to stare out at the city below.

  ‘Cousin Rekhmire’ could have told you this, but I see he has been circumspect. Still, it’s not a secret among my
advisers. We were a great empire–once. Now we have only one city, with no hinterland. The Turks have taken our old lands, and nibble away at our borders here. And Carthage is jealous of any sea-power not hers.’

  Her hand gripped the sculpted frame possessively.

  ‘I’d counted on having my reign and my daughter’s before someone takes this city and burns it. Time enough to copy the most valuable volumes here–or at least some of them. I no longer believe we have two generations. I may be the last of the line of Pharaohs. But now I have this—’

  She turned about, her gaze hungry on Gutenberg and the machina.

  ‘Now–we can turn out a flood of knowledge! Copies of every scroll and book and document in the Royal Library–many copies. I’ll send them as royal gifts to the kings of Francia and Persia and Carthage if I have to. I’ll sell them cheap through Venice. This city will send out so many copies that no fire or war or shipwreck or disaster can ever destroy every copy of a work. This knowledge will not be lost.’

  Between the Egyptian Ahhotep and Gutenberg, Ty-ameny appeared the size of a child. Speaking, there was enough desperate energy in her to make someone three times her size.

  I should ask if I can paint her!

  Hard on the heels of that came another realisation.

  ‘You don’t mean that Alexandria will fall some day in the far-off future, do you, Great Queen? You expect it in our lifetime.’

  In her lifetime.

  In mine.

  In Onorata’s…

  ‘Soon,’ Ty-amenhotep said. ‘But I’ll sell printed scrolls to the Franks, to North Africa, to Persia and the Silk Road. Pages for pennies. If not for the fact that men don’t value what they don’t pay for, I’d give them away! But every ducat that they earn, I swear I’ll turn to hiring more scribes, and building more of Herr Mainz’s machines!’

  I grew up hearing stories of Constantinople as a city great beyond all cities of the earth, last home of Pharaonic Egypt, repository of occult knowledge, free market of traders from every country in Europe and Africa, and from impossibly distant Turkey and Hind…