Ilario, the Stone Golem

by Mary Gentle

  suffer prejudice as a hermaphrodite. As the King’s possession, no man

  could ever harm you.’

  Rekhmire’’s expression was sardonic.

  ‘And if you lived anonymously, court factions could never use you to

  discredit the King or your father . . . Suppose we say, on Videric’s

  behalf, that coming to court as the King’s Freak is the only way you

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  could have lived here as yourself? Not having to pretend to be either

  wholly a man or wholly a woman.’

  Rekhmire’’s fingers gradually loosened their grip.

  I would have bruises, I realised absently. ‘And why was I a slave?’

  ‘Oh, that was your idea.’

  I blinked.

  ‘When you thought of coming to court, you were afraid you’d hear too

  much in royal company. You wanted to keep it confidential. If you were

  King Rodrigo’s property, no man could ever ask you to bear witness

  against the King or your father.’

  The surface of my eyes felt dry: now I found I couldn’t blink. ‘Is there

  more?’

  Rekhmire’ snorted. ‘What could be more clear? Lord Videric has

  always had Ilario’s best interests at heart. He wanted you safe from

  gossip and conspiracy and harm – and to be able to live openly as the

  hermaphrodite you are. Which you did. Until you were foolish enough to

  run away from some quarrel in Carthage . . . ’

  Tearing my gaze from his caused me to shake. To have such an

  interpretation of the facts, and to have it be so far from the truth – and so

  plausible.

  I walked numbly to the window, not seeing the brightness beyond the

  rippling folds of draped linen, or smelling the sea. ‘How long did it take

  you to cook this up?’

  There was an audible sigh behind me.

  ‘Ilario . . . I considered all aspects of the matter, from when it was

  raised at home in the city, all through our journey. Men here are ripe for

  belief. Don’t assume only soldiers and courtiers can see that Carthage

  wants to send the legions in.’

  Rekhmire’’s voice came closer.

  ‘This is an excuse and a pretext. In other words, it’s what we wanted,

  to allow Aldra Videric back. Ilario’s falsely-accused and dutiful father

  comes back to Taraco as First Minister. What does it matter what you

  have to say?’

  My breath came short. ‘It matters because he tried to kill me.’

  ‘This is just pride!’

  I spun about, and nearly collided with Rekhmire’ directly behind me.

  I glared up at him. ‘It is not pride. I was all but killed in childbed because of Videric. Onorata would have died. Videric is the man who sent my mother to kill me in Carthage, and because of him, she was

  willing to do it!’

  Anger’s heat stifled me more than wearing the mail-shirt. I wrenched

  the laces of my doublet undone, pulled at the neck of my shirt, and sank

  down on the room’s bed. My scant baggage was there: I dug in it so that

  I might go barefoot and in my Alexandrine tunic again. At least until I

  must return to the ship for Onorata.

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  I stopped with the linen tunic in my hands. It still smelled of Zheng

  He’s ship.

  ‘Don’t ask me to do this. Would you let them brand you a liar? This would become the truth, for the rest of my life. And Honorius’s. And

  Onorata’s.’ I winced. ‘ They’ll say Videric is her grandfather.’

  The Egyptian frowned, seeming to turn inward to where that clever

  mind devised infinite complicated stratagems.

  ‘If Onorata stays in these chambers, there’s little enough to connect

  her with Videric. You’ll dress as a man, I assume? Who would think you

  connected with a baby?’

  That obvious, and it never occurred to me. And Honorius’s soldiers

  would act as our servants, so less gossip will spread.

  Rekhmire’ observed, ‘That answers the problem in the short term.’

  ‘You haven’t some long-term plan involving her, too? You surprise

  me!’

  Rekhmire’ supported himself on his stick, and lowered himself to sit

  on the edge of the bed. ‘What would you have had me do?’

  ‘ Tell me! ’

  ‘If I have considered this before . . . ’ He pulled off his headband and

  rubbed at his temples. The long curve of his broad back formed a slump.

  ‘It was never certain this would happen. Not certain your King would

  agree to it, if I suggested it. I said nothing because I would not worry you

  with the matter, in case it never arose.’

  Sheer disgust silenced me.

  I leaped up, went to the door, spoke to Attila, and asked him to wake

  me at dusk. And with that done, I cast myself down fully clothed on the

  bed as if Rekhmire’ were not present, and fell unexpectedly hard into

  sleep.

  He did not wake me before he left for his own rooms.

  Ramiro Carrasco and I endured the crossing back from ship to shore,

  Onorata screaming her displeasure at the boat, the sea-spray, and the

  palace apartments.

  ‘You owe me a debt of some sort,’ I remarked as we entered our

  chambers. ‘As recompense for trying to kill me. What about an honest

  answer to a question? Forget you’re my property. Tell me what you

  think.’

  The secretary-spy hesitated, seeming bewildered. His hand soothed

  Onorata’s back. She made a little fist and rubbed it up and down the arm

  of his tunic, screaming fit fading down to gulping sobs and then silence.

  He made as if to offer her to me and I shook my head. ‘The way I feel

  now . . . ’

  She’ll scream all night if I take her.

  Ramiro Carrasco smoothed Onorata’s hair back from her pink

  forehead, as if it helped him to think. There were milk-stains on the

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  shoulder of his tunic. Low and even, he murmured, ‘Would this get what

  you want? Aldra Videric back in the King’s service? All of us safe?’

  I had debated not telling Carrasco what Rekhmire’ had planned. Until

  I thought, firstly, that he knew so much of my business, a little more

  would make no difference – and, secondly, that it affects him almost as

  much as it does me.

  I said truthfully, ‘I don’t know. Suppose it was asked of you? Would

  you do it? If it meant you were disgraced, here, at home. And there was

  no changing it, after?’

  The secretary-spy gave me as ironic a look as I have ever had from any

  man.

  ‘Ilaria, mistress, I’m dirt now. You bought me because a court in

  Venice convicted me of attempted murder. I am disgraced.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘If it saved my family?’ He looked straight into my face. ‘If it even

  helped save my family, I’d crawl over broken glass. Lie. In public; I wouldn’t care. I would do anything. You know that: that’s why you’re a

  fool to trust me!’

  Oddly, that made me smile. ‘But I’m the nearest thing to an ally you

  and your family have, so I may not be as stupid as you think.’

  He chuckled, the first unmediated mirth I had heard from him since

  the Doge’s prisons. Unexpectedly, his voice softened.

  ‘I understand that this child will have to live with whatever people

  think of h
er mother. Father. Parent. I understand that.’

  He tucked in one edge of Onorata’s linen wrap, his finger still showing

  the remnants of the callus that comes with holding a pen. Over that, it

  was scarred with the casual brutality that living as a slave entails.

  ‘ I would do anything. ’

  Perhaps because I had slept so deeply that afternoon, I could not sleep

  in the night.

  The door of the apartments abruptly opened.

  Since I was cleaning the child after her breakfast, and dirty myself

  because of it, I looked up with a curse, and found myself staring at

  Rekhmire’.

  Not looking at me, I found.

  He stared at Ramiro Carrasco de Luis, where the man had just

  returned from disposing of soiled shit-rags and emptying chamber-pots.

  Rekhmire’ pointed to the door he had entered by. ‘You. Out.’

  ‘Rekhmire’—’ I set the wriggling baby on my lap and wiped at its

  hands.

  ‘You have a visitor, Ilario. One who requires privacy.’ The Egyptian

  looked pointedly at Carrasco.

  I indicated the inner door and spoke as evenly to the assassin-nurse as

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  I could manage. ‘Take Onorata through and dress her. Not too warmly.

  We’re taking her up to see Honorius after this.’

  ‘Yes, madonna.’

  The Iberian didn’t look at Rekhmire’ as he walked past within a foot of

  the larger man.

  ‘And keep your ear away from the door!’ Rekhmire’ grunted.

  I stood up from the bed. ‘What in your eight hells do you think

  you’re—’

  ‘I’m leaving the city.’ Rekhmire’ crossed to a chest I hadn’t noticed,

  and began to recover small items of his own, which he threw into a bag.

  ‘I have an escort from the King. I’m travelling to Lord Videric’s estate, to

  speak with him.’

  The book-buyer had his belongings together by the time a man could

  count a hundred. Half-sentences came into my mind: I couldn’t get any

  of them out.

  Going to Videric.

  ‘Are you going to . . . put this suggestion to him?’

  The Egyptian only glanced at me.

  I wondered how Videric would be now. And Rosamunda. After six or

  eight months stewing in the provinces, in the winter cold and spring

  mud and summer heat. Among peasants and serfs, and whatever minor

  nobility were their neighbours. If their neighbours haven’t snubbed them.

  Rosamunda will have hated being away from foreign merchants, and

  Rodrigo’s court entertainments. Who’s the leader of the Court of Ladies

  now?

  ‘Rekhmire’.’

  He slammed a tiny chest shut with great vehemence. ‘No matter your

  decision – I must talk to the man.’

  He turned around, pushed himself on his stick towards the oak inner

  doors and turned the key in its lock, locking Carrasco and Onorata in.

  He limped towards the outer door again.

  ‘I will send in your visitor.’

  The door closed behind him before I could get a word out.

  The room was frighteningly silent without Onorata’s noises, without

  Honorius’s voice, or his soldiers’, or the Egyptian’s. Only Attila and

  Tottola’s tribal dialect in the antechamber made this sound like a human

  habitation.

  Out of nowhere, I thought, This is the first time in eight months or more that I won’t be in Rekhmire’’s company.

  The door creaked. I realised I was studying the pattern of grain in the

  floorboards, and lifted my head.

  King Rodrigo Sanguerra stood just inside the closed door.

  I sprang to my feet as rapidly as long-inculcated instinct could move

  me, and dropped down on one knee.

  The King smiled crookedly, gesturing for me to rise.

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  He crossed past me to stare out of the south-facing windows; ran a

  finger across the sculpted frame’s vine leaves, and picked up one of the

  translucent porcelain dishes that I had brought back from Zheng He’s

  ship.

  There was no noise except the singing of laundry women, hundreds of

  feet below, beating sheets in tubs in a courtyard exposed to the sun. My

  chest hurt. I realised I was holding my breath.

  ‘Majesty.’ I let the breath out with a little gasp. ‘Is it safe for you to visit

  us here?’

  His hooded eyelids dropped down over his large eyes; I knew it for

  amusement. It faded. ‘King Rodrigo Sanguerra isn’t here. But the slave

  Ilario’s old owner is.’

  ‘I was freed again. In Rome.’ My mouth was dry. ‘I won’t do what you

  ask.’

  Rodrigo didn’t sit down. His habitual slow pace carried him from the

  windows to the shuttered cupboards that lined the walls, and to the dais

  on which the bed stood with its hangings closed, and the middle of the

  bare floor.

  Rodrigo Sanguerra said, ‘I owe you an apology.’

  I could not have imagined this as something he would ever say.

  I bit back suspicion. ‘Majesty?’

  ‘I won’t lie.’

  He turned on his heel, looking at me with a glint in his dark eyes.

  Rodrigo’s strong features took the window’s light, and I ached to draw

  him.

  He added, ‘I owe you an apology for owning you – or, for not freeing

  you before I did. But I won’t lie: I’m more sorry that my ownership of

  you has come back to bite me . . . ’

  He walked to stand in front of me. You did not commonly notice, until

  he was in the (admittedly rich) doublet and hose and cap of any courtier,

  rather than cloak and crown of the King, that he was not a particularly

  tall man. I doubted him a hand taller than I. But whatever his stature, he

  contrived to give the impression of looking down at a man.

  ‘Ilario . . . I know an apology doesn’t matter to you—’

  ‘It does!’

  The reply startled out of me.

  I blushed.

  I shook my head, as if I could clear from it the shock of seeing Rodrigo

  Sanguerra here in these shabby rooms. And the wrench of all the old

  affection between us. Because affection is possible between master and

  slave, no matter how distorted.

  I stared at Rodrigo. ‘But I still won’t do what you’re— what’s being

  asked of me. I can’t. I shouldn’t. Not for my sake. Not for my daughter’s

  sake.’

  And not for my father’s, though I have not yet spoken to Honorius.

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  Rodrigo Sanguerra slowly shook his head. His presence seemed to fill

  the room. He came to the throne before I was born; there was white in

  his beard now. I wondered if he had summoned the Crown Prince back,

  some time between last year and now, or whether Prince Thorismund

  was still in the north fighting against Franks.

  ‘You have recognised old friends here,’ King Rodrigo said mildly.

  Familiar faces among the men on the quayside at the chandlers’ shops,

  and in the long market between the docks and the palace, and in the

  livery of King Rodrigo at the palace gates . . .

  ‘Yes, Majesty.’

  He lifted a blunt-fingered hand, pointing at the window. ‘And you

  know, because you must in the past have ridden over, every mile

  be
tween here and the mountains.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve loved this place,’ I gritted. ‘You want me to make it so that I

  and Onorata can’t come back here without disgrace.’

  There would be layer upon layer of thoughts beneath what he actually

  said; I knew him of old. When he first bought me as a cocky fifteen-year-

  old, I thought a king would have too many affairs of state to be

  concerned with what his slave got up to. He sent me to the cane often

  enough to disabuse me of that very quickly. A king must at least try to think of everything.

  Rodrigo looked directly at me. ‘Ilario. Will you go through with

  making a public apology, if Aldra Videric will consent to it?’

  Consent!

  I stared at Rodrigo Sanguerra. If he asks ‘will you do this for me?’, I’ll

  spit in his face.

  ‘No. I won’t do it. And if you order me, because you’re my King – I

  still won’t do it.’ I held his gaze. ‘I’m not looking for an excuse to give consent.’

  ‘No, I see that.’

  Rodrigo Sanguerra moved restlessly, walking to the window again, and

  turning on his heel and walking back.

  ‘A king is a steward of his country.’

  I shrugged. ‘Slaves don’t have a country.’

  Rodrigo gazed down at me without acknowledging that. ‘Steward. Not

  a Dictator or Tyrant, as the ancient Greeks had it, to hold everything his

  private property. Do you understand, a steward? To keep the peace?

  And to leave that peace to the next generation?’

  I thought of Onorata, behind the door with Ramiro Carrasco.

  ‘I understand.’ I bit my lip. ‘No. The answer is no. I won’t have her

  grow up regarded as dirt because of what I’m supposed to have done. I

  won’t lie!’

  The King of Taraconensis knelt down on the bare dusty floor.

  I gaped; I must have looked like a gaffed fish.

  Rodrigo Sanguerra had moved stiffly getting down on his knees, and

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  he knelt as if the bare boards hurt his bones. His spine was ramrod-stiff;

  his chin jutted up. I could only stare.

  ‘I can’t give you this in public.’ His voice sounded low but not

  particularly quiet. ‘Not the way you would wish it. I’m a king: I can’t

  shake my people’s confidence in me that way. But I will give you all the

  humiliation you wish of me, here in private. I once owned you. Ilario, I