The Stone Golem

by Mary Gentle

  ‘Your Majesty, I’m sorry. I apologise, but I’ve just thought–“a show of pardon”, you said? Would you formally forgive Aldra Videric? How can you, if it’s Carthage that’s supposed to have made the error? What would you be forgiving him for—’

  I broke off. King Rodrigo’s stolid dark gaze transfixed me.

  The shaking of my hand sent reflections of light across the inlaid geometric wood patterns.

  Further down the table, Rekhmire’ spoke in a smooth apologetic tenor. ‘Ilario, you haven’t thought through the implications.’

  It was difficult to get words out. ‘I haven’t?’

  ‘His Majesty is suggesting a family reconciliation, to lead to a political reconciliation. But, yes, you’re right: Lord Videric can’t be pardoned if he’s not the one at fault.’

  The glass was hard as stone under my fingertips.

  Rekhmire’’s voice came again. ‘Ilario, it won’t be Lord Videric who must publicly apologise.’

  Bright concentric circles rippled on the surface of my wine. ‘Apologise?’

  Rodrigo Sanguerra waved a hand at Rekhmire’, his velvet sleeve pulling back to show white linen, and curling black hairs at his wrist. ‘Listen to the Alexandrine envoy, Ilario.’

  You freed me!

  Both of you.

  I shifted my gaze from the King to Rekhmire’.

  The Egyptian interlaced his fingers, where his hands rested on the table. ‘His Majesty needs to make the reputation of Lord Videric spotless. Lord Videric can’t appear to have anything to do with a murder. Not if he’s to return as First Minister.’

  Rodrigo’s gaze weighed me. ‘Therefore, Ilario, it was not an attempted murder.’

  I remember, less than a year ago, taking my first manumission papers from that creased hand. He unlocked the collar from my neck with his own fingers.

  And this is the man who has worked twenty-five years in harness, if not in collar, with Videric. And whose own reputation, at the moment, is therefore suspect.

  Rekhmire’ spoke again. ‘Ilario, it would be you. If the attempted murder is redefined as a mistake, then you would have to speak publicly. You would need to apologise to Lord Videric, because you allowed the Lord-Amir in Carthage to reach a wrong conclusion. And it won’t be difficult to have it credited–men are usefully prone to believing slaves are foolish.’

  I will not disgrace myself by throwing this wine in the Egyptian’s face.

  Rekhmire’’s wide shoulders lifted in a minute shrug. ‘You might say, for example, that you were attacked by criminals in Carthage. You were rescued by the Lady Rosamunda. Judge Hanno Agastes wrongly mistook her rescue for an attack. And you…were too afraid of punishment, when Carthage mistook her actions, to speak up and tell the truth. But now—’

  Sharp pain shot through my hand.

  Fine curved splinters of glass stood out of my skin.

  I opened my palm, not yet wincing at the hot fire of the cuts. Only the stem of the glass was whole. Wine puddled on the table, spattered surprisingly far.

  The King silently signalled for his servants to clear the mess.

  I felt as if my neck creaked stiffly as I looked up at Rekhmire’. ‘You’ve thought this through.’

  And said no word to me.

  Rekhmire’’s fingers slid apart from each other: his large hands made fists. He met my gaze fearlessly. ‘Yes, I’ve thought! You need to apologise, Ilario—’

  ‘I did nothing wrong!’

  ‘Apologise for not speaking up when Carthage drew an erroneous conclusion, thus causing the downfall of your father Lord Videric.’

  The Egyptian’s gaze was implacable, and Rodrigo Sanguerra sat back, letting him speak.

  ‘You would beg Lord Videric’s pardon for being coward enough not to speak at the time. And for being timid enough to run from Carthage afterwards, and not come back to Taraco to set matters right until now.’

  Rekhmire’’s round chin came up: he stared at me challengingly.

  I picked the larger of the glass splinters from my palm. None had gone deep enough to scar, but there was a surprising quantity of blood.

  If Honorius hears of this, no possible concern about politics will stop him from protesting!

  ‘Apologise.’ I could barely get the word out without stuttering. ‘Lie and beg pardon. From Videric.’

  King Rodrigo Sanguerra nodded, speaking for the first time in long minutes. ‘Yes.’

  In the city’s cathedral, in front of four, five, perhaps six thousand people.

  People that I know.

  I desired more than anything to walk out. One shake of my hand, to scatter loose and bloody fragments across the delicate wood patterns; then I might push my way past Safrac de Aguilar and out—

  But if I run through the passages of this castle, I will only meet more people that I know.

  ‘You want me to claim that I lied. That I ran away. That I was too afraid to come back and tell the truth. You want me to say this in front of every prominent citizen and nobleman of Taraconensis.’

  I found a kerchief in my leather purse. When I wrapped it about my hand, it turned scarlet through the bleached cloth.

  ‘You know that if I say this in public, it doesn’t matter what the truth is–I can’t rewrite it, after. That’s the story that will spread out and be believed.’

  ‘Yes,’ King Rodrigo Sanguerra said.

  I did not look at Rekhmire’. I looked at the king who had owned me.

  ‘No.’

  7

  Since too many eyes were watching every boat on the way out and back to Zheng He’s great floating wooden island, His Majesty Rodrigo Sanguerra Coverrubias changed his decree, and said that his guests should live ashore for the time being, quietly out of the way, in an obscure part of the palace’s south wing.

  Rekhmire’’s hand clamped on my elbow the moment we passed through the doors and were alone.

  ‘Ilario, listen to me!’

  ‘Now you talk to me? You should have done that before!’

  I threw him off with a vicious movement, caught from the corner of my eye how he stumbled, and swung around fast enough to catch hold of him, preventing him falling.

  Not strong enough to hold up his weight, I found the two of us taking staggering round steps as if we danced; until the room’s wall caught me squarely between the shoulder-blades, and both of us leaned up against the other, gasping and panting.

  I felt the taut expansion of his shoulder and arm muscles; had a moment to think, Walking with crutches has begun to alter the shape of his body, and then his other hand got a grip on his staff, and he pushed himself back from me and the wall.

  He swayed but stayed on his feet. ‘What should I have spoken to you about?’

  These chambers were higher up than Honorius’s prison, I registered, and less well-appointed. But airy and light: Onorata would be content here.

  I ignored his question. ‘I’m risking this disguise once more. Tottola and I will bring Onorata and Carrasco ashore this evening at dusk. Is this my chamber, or yours?’

  ‘They have given me the choice of rooms opposite,’ Rekhmire’ got out, sounding as if he choked. ‘What have I not told you?’

  The exertion had not sapped my explosive temper: I had all I could do to rein it in. I desired to throw anything that would break. Instead, I faced the Egyptian, stabbing a finger towards the open windows, where Taraco drowned in the afternoon’s white heat.

  ‘This is not Carthage!’ I yanked at the leather laces tying closed the neck of Attila’s mail-shirt, but it made me no less heated. ‘This isn’t Rome! Or Venice! Or Alexandria! What happens to me here happens in front of people I know!’

  There are few ways to be got out of a mail-shirt with dignity. A thousand riveted metal rings form a net that cling to the body. Pulling one’s shirt off upwards only results in yanking at chin, ears, and capturing hanks of hair to pull out.

  The Egyptian was tall enough that he might have held the mail-shirt’s should
ers still while I eased myself down out of it, but I felt absolutely no inclination to ask his help.

  I copied remembered instructions from my master-at-arms, bending over and putting my hands flat on the floor. I shook myself until the armour’s own weight inverted it, and brought it sliding smoothly down over my torso, shoulders, arms and head.

  The mail-shirt thudded to the floorboards at my wrists as a small bundle of metal.

  I straightened up, gasping with relief, kicked at it, and all but fell over with dizziness.

  In the voice of a man who has lost his breath again, Rekhmire’ observed, ‘A sight I wouldn’t have missed for the world…’

  ‘I will not look like a liar and a coward in front of the court I grew up in!’

  The Egyptian’s amusement vanished. ‘I would not laugh at you—’

  There was a joint-stool by the couch: I kicked it the length of the panelled chamber.

  ‘I will not look like a liar and a coward in front of Videric!’

  Tottola was engaged at the outer door in conversation; I thought it might be with members of the royal guard. I had no hope of understanding a word with rage deafening me.

  ‘Ilario.’ Rekhmire’ put out his hand: I stepped back.

  ‘Videric made my mother try to kill me. I’ll stand in the same room with him, but–claim this never happened? That I’ve lied?’

  Rekhmire’ grabbed my upper arms, staring down the inch or two difference in our heights.

  ‘And you didn’t plan your story well enough,’ I said bitterly. ‘Videric allowed his child to be abandoned and sold! To live here at court as Rodrigo’s tame freak. How will that reform him in men’s eyes?’

  Rekhmire’’s intent gaze made my heart hammer; I felt a pulse beating in my throat. His mouth quirked, in something like amazement.

  ‘Oh…I can devise an answer for that, too. Say that Videric, as your father, wanted you to have a good life at court–but he knew you would 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 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.

  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 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 her 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 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.