The Stone Golem

by Mary Gentle

  ‘And, and.’ I found my place in the words again. ‘To correct my soul by harsh treatment of myself. And by prayer, and fasting. And whole days and nights together to weep and seek your forgiveness. I cast myself at your feet, who I have wronged.’

  I couldn’t look up at Rosamunda, close as she was. I stared at Videric’s face as if he were a rope thrown to a drowning man.

  ‘I swear to atone, I for this reason fall on my knees before you.’ I licked at dry lips, conscious that the words were absorbed by the air. They should echo back, and it was fear that softened what I spoke. ‘And I beg you to lead me to absolution if you see fit.’

  He smiled.

  Confident, all his weight back on his heels, not even glancing behind at the archbishop and the king. They will have discussed this beforehand.

  He held out his right hand.

  ‘I acknowledge you,’ he said. ‘Child of my wife’s body—’

  The intake of breath was audible through the cathedral.

  They hear it as formal poetics, I realised, staring up at him. Not as the literal truth.

  Another hand extended itself into my vision. Pale, smooth, clothed in transparent linen.

  Rosamunda’s voice rang like a soprano bell. ‘I acknowledge you and pardon you, Ilario. Rise now and come with me.’

  Videric’s hand was hot and dry; he gripped my wrist as if I had been a young man in the knights’ training halls, and his effort would have brought me to my feet even without my own.

  My mother’s hand lay bonelessly in mine and I couldn’t look at her.

  They led me forward, one on either side, to the archbishop at the main altar.

  Cunigast lit a candle, and at last my hands were free.

  I reached out and took hold of the cool wax. Rather that than Rosamunda’s waxen skin. The yellow flame danced, all but invisible in sunlight.

  The archbishop raised his voice. ‘The penitent will join us in the celebration of Mass, and then the public absolution will be given.’

  Videric put his hands on my shoulders and kissed me on either cheek with the brusque efficiency of a courtier.

  Rosamunda lifted her veil with both hands, looking at me with those green eyes that I see in the mirror.

  She stood on her toes to press her lips softly against mine.

  As Archbishop Cunigast proclaimed the kiss of peace I fell down on my knees in front of the altar and didn’t move.

  Celebration of Mass went on around me–Rosamunda being hustled off back up to the women’s area of the cathedral–and I didn’t stand up; could not stand up. The back of my throat filled with bile. It took every ounce of concentration not to spit it across the ancient mosaics.

  King Rodrigo Sanguerra moved to stand at my right hand side when the Mass ended. Videric stayed on my left. I caught Rodrigo’s eye, and he nodded, briefly.

  I turned about, facing the congregation between the two men.

  I knelt again and begged pardon of both, and both men helped me rise. The kiss of absolution from Pirro Videric burned my forehead as if it had been painted there with alchemists’ acid.

  Every yard of the walk around the nave of the cathedral sank into my memory: every curious or avid or disgusted face that I passed. The candle shook, and hot wax spilled over my fingers, the momentary pains anchoring me in myself.

  If I’m pale, they’ll take it for humiliation and grief and gladness.

  It was four hours before it was over.

  Rodrigo Sanguerra held a banquet in the castle, with Aldra Videric and I at the high table.

  I slid away before the sun touched the horizon, on the excuse of changing into the clean shirt and hose and doublet that Father Felix brought for me–and slipped out of the palace with a nod to the guards.

  I sprinted through Taraco’s streets, boots thumping up squirts of dry dust. Assuming that Honorius my father does not lie; assuming that Rekhmire’ is here—

  A silk dragon-banner unrolled on the wind at the quay. I saw Commander Jian sitting in the stern of one of the Chin boats, among his oarsmen. He lifted his hand in a Frankish gesture of greeting he must have learned since their ship entered the Middle Sea.

  A cloaked figure stood on the quay beside them.

  Behind that cloaked man, another man; standing with bare chest and head, the reddening sun shining on his shaven scalp and white linen kilt.

  I staggered up to them and caught Honorius’s hand; he pulled me into a hard embrace, and released me, staring into my face, and pushing me at the Egyptian.

  As if I had done it a hundred times before, I put my arms tightly around Rekhmire’, felt him grip me and run his fingers over my cropped scalp, and fell down on my knees in the dust.

  My father held my shoulders, and Rekhmire’ leaned over and steadied my head, and I vomited up bitter bile, time after time, into the harbour, until I was shaking, sore-throated, and empty.

  It took me a time to be willing to let go of either man. The quick setting of the sun had given way to blue dusk, I found; blackening into night.

  Honorius wore his brigandine, I noted as I lifted my head from his shoulder; an anonymous armour that any guard might wear, or a poor knight.

  ‘All’s well,’ my father reassured, as if he might read my thoughts. ‘His Majesty told me to come down here and meet the book-buyer. I won’t be arrested again if I keep to my curfew.’

  Rodrigo asked him for his parole, I realised.

  Little enough chance Honorius will ever break it.

  I caught sight of Orazi and Tottola in the shadows of the nearer warehouses; the German lifted his hand in acknowledgement.

  ‘Master Rekhmire’…’ I strove for formality, and finally persuaded myself to look up at the Egyptian. His arm still lay heavily about my shoulder.

  Rekhmire’ signalled with his other hand. One of Jian’s men handed up a snapsack.

  ‘Zheng He sailed south at the King’s request, and picked me up further down the Via Augusta,’ Rekhmire’ observed, dark eyes hidden by shadow. Even so, I could see the corners crease. ‘For some odd reason I didn’t desire to ride to Taraco in the company of Aldro Rosamunda…’

  Dryly, I said, ‘I wonder why.’

  My supposition was exactly right!

  ‘Were you in the cathedral?’ I added.

  I felt the Egyptian shrug, rather than saw it.

  ‘Forgive me: I didn’t desire to see it. I would have throttled the insolent barbarian.’

  It was unclear whether he meant Videric, King Rodrigo, or any other man; the true accent of Alexandria reminded me that we are all barbarians in that city’s eyes.

  A scent of pitch and a flare of light let me know that Orazi had fired a torch. Honorius glanced at the stars on the horizon.

  ‘We should get back.’ He glanced at me, and at the book-buyer, and I thought I saw him smile.

  Rekhmire’ kept his arm over my shoulder, using me as well as his stick to propel himself along at a reasonable rate. The torchlight showed irregularities in the ground; his concentration was on those.

  ‘No hunting accidents?’ I observed.

  He smiled without looking at me, giving him a profile that might well have appeared in one of Ty-ameny’s bas-reliefs.

  ‘That depends on your definition of “accident”.’ He scowled, mood changing. ‘And hunting. The wild boar on Aldra Videric’s estate are tame enough that they come to a whistle. It’s not sport.’

  The rising white light brought Sulva clearly into my mind’s eye, the massive wild boar attentive to her aulos flute. I thought suddenly, I should have confessed to Father Felix that I regret how badly I treated Sulva Paziathe.

  ‘I had crossbow bolts sent too close to me for my liking,’ Rekhmire’ observed, shooting a glance up at the Sanguerra castle’s black bulk. ‘If I had thought of myself as a hunter rather than prey, I might have come back more battered even than I went.’

  He means his knee, I realised.

  Before I could say anything rational or comforting,
I saw other torches approaching us down the dock steps.

  Honorius and Orazi exchanged a wordless look.

  Only two torches, and–I squinted, now the night had fully fallen; the moon was not yet bright–only three men visible. Two guards, and one man who dressed like a knight.

  ‘I have a message for you!’ the leading figure called.

  Under the flickering yellow light, I recognised his lugubrious features.

  ‘That’s Safrac de Aguilar–King Rodrigo trusts him,’ I muttered briskly to Honorius.

  We were four or five men to three, in any case–and I wondered when it had become natural for me to think that way in my home city.

  Aldra de Aguilar evidently recognised Honorius in the torchlight. His voice became much less loud. ‘Greetings, my lord. The King desires to see you, urgently.’

  Honorius nodded and fell in beside the Iberian knight. I registered Tottola bringing up the rear, eyes scanning the darkness of the town as we made our way through black streets.

  There should be words to say to Rekhmire’, but for the moment, I could find none of them; I merely enjoyed his presence, and the assistance I could lend him.

  King Rodrigo Sanguerra sat in his private chambers, the night wind blowing the scent of the city through the rooms, along with a firefly or two. He sat with his head down over a clutch of maps, not lifting it when his page announced us, but only waving a hand to gesture that we should be allowed in.

  Not having been given permission to sit, I spent my energies in being a prop to the book-buyer, whose injury clearly–to my eyes, at least–pained him.

  The King pushed a map aside and leaned back. Hooded black eyes surveyed us all, settling at last on Licinus Honorius.

  Rodrigo Sanguerra beamed.

  ‘Aldra Honorius,’ he said. ‘I’m pleased to have released you from confinement. If you will, I have a task that you may do for your King.’

  My father’s expression said You do?, but his voice smoothly managed, ‘Yes, Your Majesty?’

  ‘Yes.’ King Rodrigo looked at Rekhmire’, and at me, and back at Honorius. ‘You’re going to Carthage.’

  11

  ‘I’m doing what?’ Honorius didn’t give his King the chance to do so much as draw breath. ‘Carthage! Sire! You suspected me of conspiring with Carthage! Wanting to take your place as Carthage’s governor! And now you want me to go there?’

  His incredulity could have burst eardrums. I opened my mouth, a suggestion forming in my mind. King Rodrigo signalled forcefully for us to sit down at the table.

  I loaned Rekhmire’ my arm. ‘But you’re going to Carthage, in any case? For Ty-ameny?’

  Rodrigo Sanguerra caught my low-voiced comment.

  ‘If I understand it correctly…’ He pushed maps back as his page brought wine, and took a glass of Falernian. ‘The Pharaoh-Queen desires you to go to Carthage, Master Rekhmire’, to instruct the King-Caliph that the devil-ship is now your ally, and they should be duly alarmed?’

  Rekhmire’ inclined his head in agreement.

  The King sipped at his wine. ‘I had occasion to speak with the foreign Admiral, over the rendezvous to bring you back to Taraco. A very amiable man in many ways.’

  I bit my tongue, managing not to tactlessly ask what my King and Zheng He might have in common–or what they might have discussed.

  ‘In any case,’ Rodrigo Sanguerra turned to Honorius, ‘I desire you to travel to Carthage on the devil-ship, and do precisely the same thing.’

  Honorius’s eyebrows went up.

  ‘Claim to be the Chin’s allies, as well?’

  ‘Claim them to be our allies,’ Rodrigo corrected.

  His hooded eyes watched my father, with a combination of amusement and judgement.

  ‘I desire you to travel as my kingdom’s Captain-General,’ he added.

  Honorius pushed his hand across his face, wiping sweat out of his eyes, and downed his wine in one swallow. ‘If I wanted to stay a captain, I’d have stayed in Castile!’

  ‘If I wanted a war, I’d appoint a Captain-General who wanted to fight!’

  Rekhmire’ broke out in a light tenor laugh. My father and the King stared at him. He shook his head apologetically.

  ‘Pardon me, Your Majesty. What else would you wish Aldra Honorius to convey, officially, to the King-Caliph? Perhaps the news that First Minister Videric has recovered from his illness and resumed his position at court?’

  Rodrigo watched the book-buyer for a moment.

  He smiled.

  ‘An excellent idea.’

  ‘Oh, I see where this is going…’ Honorius’s moroseness was not particularly convincing.

  I nodded agreement. ‘So do I!’

  King Rodrigo Sanguerra linked his fingers on the maps of the Hesperides, and showed me his teeth. ‘You tell us then, Ilario.’

  Rekhmire’’s look informed me I might have kept my big mouth shut with more advantage; Honorius merely beamed proudly. The King may as well know his Freak has a mind, I thought.

  ‘You want Lord Honorius as Captain-General because every Frankish kingdom will be afraid to fight him,’ I said. ‘Even if all he ever does is stay on his estate and breed war-horses! You want him to go to Carthage as your Captain-General because that would make it very difficult for him to ally himself with Carthage. Especially if he’s the one who tells King-Caliph Ammianus that Aldra Videric is back–the King-Caliph won’t be pleased with whoever brings him that message!’

  I did not add, It nails Licinus Honorius’s colours to your mast, because no man at the table appeared to need that confirmation.

  Rodrigo grinned like a boy.

  ‘I should have sent you away before, Ilario. You’ve learned much.’

  I’ve learned to be wary of compliments from powerful rulers…

  ‘You understand, Ilario,’ King Rodrigo added, ‘that I need to send you away again. For a year or two, until there’s no scandal attached to the resemblance between you and Licinus Honorius.’

  That might mean anything from two years to ‘don’t come back until Pirro Videric is dead’, but I saw I had no current choice, and nodded.

  ‘I have business in Carthage, too,’ I added, ‘if you won’t think it suspicious, sire. It’s personal and to do with being a painter.’

  King Rodrigo nodded absently. Most of his attention was on Honorius, which I had counted on. At least I have my place on Zheng He’s ship.

  Rekhmire’ gave me a sideways look, but had to abandon the query when Rodrigo Sanguerra beckoned the page to fill his wine glass and addressed the Egyptian again.

  ‘As I understand it, your Queen desires you and Pilot Sebekhotep to return at some time to Constantinople?’

  ‘The Admiral will put into Gades,’ Rekhmire’ volunteered. ‘That would be the nearest friendly port from which we could return to Alexandria.’

  Rodrigo thoughtfully nodded. I wondered if he perceived that Admiral Zheng He would leave the Middle Sea.

  I know the man: certainly he’s thinking of something!

  ‘Captain-General Honorius, you may return via Gades, or otherwise, depending on how long your business takes in Carthage.’ King Rodrigo saluted him lightly with the wine glass. ‘But I’m ahead of myself. Licinus Honorius. Will you accept this position at my court?’

  My father caught my eye, and I glimpsed a grin. Almost demurely, for such a battle-hardened man, he murmured, ‘Yes, sire. Of course.’

  ‘Very well.’ Rodrigo thrust a map across the table at him. ‘When the celebrations attendant on Ilario’s penitence and Videric’s return are over, you may leave.’

  Admiral Zheng He appeared to have no objection to my presence continuing on board his ship.

  ‘We leave here in a…week?’ He glanced at Sebekhotep, who nodded. ‘A week. You may come.’

  The Admiral cut off my thanks with a sharp gesture. A glance passed between him and Commander Jian.

  ‘The sailors say you’re good luck,’ Jian ventured. With another look at Zhe
ng He, he added, ‘They find a eunuch clerk comforting, and familiar. It’s what they take you to be. But that is not quite correct, is it?’

  The Admiral signalled for wine. At Zheng He’s gesture, I sat down again. One of the Admiral’s clerks dodged in, with paper, brush, and ink-block on his wooden case. Commander Jian looked at me questioningly.

  I suppose an explanation is a reasonable price for a voyage.

  I regarded the Chin Admiral, and managed not to smile. ‘Not a eunuch, my lord, no…’

  Silverpoint is delicate, but I needed to give what I drew more body. If I had little enough left in the way of pigments now, I could still use tinted paper as a mid tone, and the earths for dark values, and white lead for highlights.

  I ground burnt sienna as fine as Masaccio had ever taught me, and prepared with charcoal studies done by observation at Rodrigo’s court. Although the majority of my images came from that hour in the cathedral, when I would have sworn I noticed nothing around me.

  I used egg tempera, on a lime board to which I had applied gesso, and painted more quickly and with more skill than I had since Rome.

  No, I thought, looking at the monochrome shapes taking on mass and depth. Better than I ever have before.

  Father Felix came to my quarters, far too casually and often, until he was happy that I had no inclination to throw myself in the harbour, or off the castle’s highest tower.

  ‘Lies are poison,’ he remarked at one point. And followed that up, later the same day, with, ‘You’re not welcome at the King’s court.’

  I had taken a walk along the battlements with him, the air being cooler on the castle walls. I took my gaze from the mountains of the north, just visible in this morning’s impossibly clear aerial perspective.

  There was no spite in Father Felix’s tone.

  ‘No,’ I agreed. ‘Not welcome.’

  ‘A year or two, perhaps. But not yet.’

  ‘I’ll miss you, Father.’

  His smile was white in his dark face, and startlingly beautiful. ‘And I you. Where are you going?’

  ‘Firstly,’ I said, ‘if I can, to the King’s banquet at the week’s end. And after that, on board a ship.’