The Stone Golem

by Mary Gentle

  ‘The second is wise. The first…’ Father Felix shook his head.

  ‘I’ve been absolved,’ I said. ‘I can go anywhere I please.’

  It took a week longer than Zheng He’s estimate for the war-junk to be fully provisioned and the holds loaded up. That didn’t displease me. It took that long for the paint to properly dry

  The last of the celebratory banquets was lit by pages in Classical costumes holding torches, in the great gardens of the Sanguerra palace.

  The last of the sun’s red faded swiftly over the western mountains. I walked down between the fountains and into the garden, a painted board wrapped in a cloth and carried under my arm.

  Rekhmire’ drifted out of the crowd, Orazi and Saverico behind him. Honorius, stuck now on board Zheng He’s ship, appeared to have determined to send men who would pick up gossip.

  I looked up to meet the Egyptian’s black gaze. He turned to limp with me through the throng of courtiers. Someone played a mandolin, under the vines. With every man speaking, it was loud enough that we might have discussed any matter without danger of eavesdroppers.

  The book-buyer appeared to have nothing he wanted to say.

  Similarly at a loss, I asked, ‘How many days will it take us to Carthage?’ and cursed myself for trivial chatter.

  ‘A handful.’ Rekhmire’ narrowed his eyes at the Taracon courtiers. His expression suddenly turned sour. ‘Would your journey to Carthage have somewhat to do with needing to keep your “wet-nurse” out of Taraco at the moment?’

  I shook my head. ‘You really don’t like Ramiro, do you?’

  ‘I like your nursemaid well enough. I’d like him better if he were somewhere else.’

  ‘I won’t tempt Videric to tidy up what he might see as loose ends. So, yes, I’m taking the “nursemaid” with us. Honorius says Onorata would miss him.’

  ‘She’s not old enough to know faces!’

  ‘She grizzled enough when you were gone.’

  The shock on his face was enough to make me smile.

  ‘I didn’t think the Little Wise One liked me,’ he muttered.

  ‘She’s a sad judge of character.’ I grinned at him. ‘And now, I regret to say, I must go and be polite to the rest of my family…’

  Neither Pirro Videric nor Rosamunda appeared to be present.

  That, or I could not find them in the crowds.

  My place at the banqueting table was well below Rekhmire’’s, but above the court musicians, at least. There were enough men I knew casually at the table that I passed a reasonably entertaining evening, although the fireflies and other mites and pismires gave me no better an opinion than I have ever had of dining out of doors.

  The formal toasts finished. King Rodrigo Sanguerra caught my eye, and beckoned me. I left my seat and walked up to the high table.

  Since I was in male clothing, I bowed. ‘Sire. Lady Rosamunda. Aldra Videric.’

  The torchlight glinted on Videric’s fair hair, and on a face superficially friendly. He smiled up at me from where he sat at the King’s right hand.

  He will be good for Taraconensis.

  That doesn’t mean I have to like him.

  No man will ever bring him to judgement for sending Ramiro Carrasco de Luis to kill me. And there’ll never be justice for the Carrasco and de Luis families; for the threat that has hung over them all this time, and to some degree always will.

  More honestly–no man will ever hurt him for hurting me.

  ‘I have a gift, Aldra Videric,’ I said, bringing out the cloth-covered board. ‘It’s not valuable, and I have little enough talent, but I grew to know some of the New Art in the Italies, and I’ve made you this.’

  King Rodrigo Sanguerra watched me, eyes dark in the candle-light, sipping from his gold goblet. Not far down the high table, Rekhmire’ gazed at me with the imbecilic amiability that diplomatic envoys are supposed to assume at social events. Knowing both men as I did, I could feel how keenly I was watched.

  Rosamunda, on the King’s left, sipped from a silver goblet studded with sapphires, that she had evidently chosen to go with her white sarcenet and sapphire velvet gown. Her hair had no grey, her face no wrinkles; she had the kind of beauty that is unnatural because so perfect. I found myself rubbing one hand across my doublet over my belly, thinking, She must have the lines of childbirth there at least!

  But even so it will not be this disfiguring scar.

  Videric’s wide, capable-looking hands took the package from me and unwrapped the cloth with deft care.

  He stared.

  Rosamunda leaned a little back in her chair to see.

  She flashed a smile at me.

  ‘Why, that’s very well painted, Ilario! And thank you for the compliment.’

  I bowed as men do. ‘It was the least I could do, Aldro.’

  Videric gazed down at the board, tilting it to catch the light of the torches.

  I made drawings, the night after I paid for my absolution at the cathedral. Searched my memory, sketched studies, and then reached for pigments to put things down as accurately and as truthfully as I could.

  Looking now, I saw things I would change if I had it to do again. Technical imperfections abound.

  But I have managed to paint irrevocably one aspect of the truth.

  The monochrome images of Videric and Rosamunda, my once-father and my mother, gleamed in the soft torchlight. Painted as lord and lady, they were seated side by side in high-backed wooden chairs. Both wore the court clothing of this year of Our Lord 1429; and through the arched window behind them, the forts and rivers and mountains of Taraconensis shone in miniature.

  The image of Rosamunda gazed out at the world, every aspect of her beauty on show, her hands clasped modestly in her lap. Videric’s painted hands clasped the carved ends of the chair-arms. He looks, not at us, but at her. She, beauty; and he, power.

  ‘This is wonderful.’ Videric tilted the board further. ‘Sire, will you excuse me if I take it closer to the light? Ilario, will you explain your technique to me here?’

  It was done smoothly enough that Rosamunda noticed nothing.

  Rodrigo must know that Videric could simply summon a torch-bearer closer to us!

  The King waved dispassionate permission. He deliberately turned back to converse with Rekhmire’.

  The Egyptian’s gaze followed me as I walked over to Videric, where he held the portraits up to the torch’s gilding illumination.

  I stood beside Pirro Videric in silence.

  Videric’s tone was almost absent-minded. ‘I’ve studied the New Art. It’s an interesting concept: to draw what is. Heresy, perhaps. Only God can judge what truly is. But this is a…different kind of representation to those I’ve seen before.’

  I’d wondered what Videric found to keep him interested in his exile.

  Did you think you could find me by studying this art?

  In all likelihood, yes.

  His gaze was riveted on the images.

  I thought the distortions of perspective might confuse him. Or the individuality of the faces and lack of symbols remove all the meaning.

  Evidently not.

  Videric lifted his chin, looking me challengingly in the eye. ‘You know I will hang this privately? Where no other man can see it?’

  ‘Not all men will see the same thing in it, Aldra Videric.’

  ‘Oh, I think they will.’ He tilted the painted board the other way.

  It had already lasted longer than I thought; I had imagined he might throw it in one of the bonfires.

  He mused aloud. ‘There she is…Discovered. Disclosed, for any man to see. Who she is. What she is.’

  He looked up at me.

  ‘Shallow. Cruel. Greedy.’

  It felt sharp as a punch in the gut.

  I had no expectation of him being so honest!

  Pirro Videric reached a fingertip towards his own painted face, but did not touch the surface. ‘You’ve painted me as an unhappy man.’

  ‘You lo
ve her. Rosamunda. My mother.’

  He gave me a small smile. ‘Yes. I do.’

  If I could paint that smile to keep it with me always, I would count myself lucky and need no other revenge.

  Even the remants of the smile slipped from his face. ‘I will do anything to keep her. One day, perhaps, you will understand why. It’s curious–you spent five days with the Church lying yourself black in the face. But this painting is one of the most truthful things I’ve ever seen.’

  Videric’s hands gripped the wood tightly enough that I heard it creak.

  I watched him.

  He lowered his gaze to the limewood again. This surface where I have used gesso and pigment, wood and egg-yolk, to paint this man who–over the course of twenty-five years and against all odds–has fought to keep this woman with him.

  His figure faces her: you can see his passion for her.

  And you can see the woman who could abandon the lover who fathered her child. Abandon her baby in the snow. All to stay with the man who is rich and powerful–while he is rich and powerful. She looks out at the world, and does not see him there.

  I took up the cloth Videric had dropped, folded it, and handed it to him.

  And took up the remaining weapon left to me.

  I said, ‘You know she’ll never love you.’

  Videric looked at me. ‘I know.’

  12

  Dragon pennants rippled ahead of us, unrolling down the wind.

  I couldn’t count how many of them I saw on the seven masts–dozens, perhaps a hundred. Chin men scrambled up the yards to release the sails. Wind strengthening behind us bellied out the cloth.

  Zheng He’s massive ship tacked around in a final curve that let us see all the coast of Taraco submerged in morning mist. And all the distant mountain peaks, west and north.

  And the host of tiny cogs and galleys that, at King Rodrigo Sanguerra’s insistence, escorted the war-junk south down the coast, until the land borders of Taraconensis were left behind.

  Squinting at the land, I could make out dust on the Via Augusta, that ancient road that runs from the Frankish lands down to the straits that open the Atlantic. Clouds of dust.

  The King and his court riding out, as a compliment to such far-travelled men as Zheng He and his officers, to bid them farewell.

  The rail almost imperceptibly shivered under my hand. Deep waters darkened under our prow.

  Honorius stood beside me, his hands clasped behind his back. On my other side, Rekhmire’ wore Onorata’s sling, and held her cautiously, gazing with a puzzled look into her tiny and messy features–possibly trying to deduce if she indeed recognised him.

  I whipped out a kerchief to wipe her nose, and spent some time pointing out to my child the chief landmarks of Taraconensis as we left them behind, and naming the different parts of the war-junk in Chin.

  ‘Ilario…’ Rekhmire’ removed his hand from under the sling, examined it, and put it back. ‘She’s five months old!’

  ‘It’s never too early to start…’

  Honorius choked off a laugh, and stepped aside to confer with Orazi. I knew more than half of the men-at-arms he had chosen to accompany the Captain-General of Taraconensis to Carthage: acquainted with them from Venice and Rome. The others were veterans of having His Majesty’s royal guard garrisoned on Honorius’s estate; the evenings were rife with exaggerated tales, each trying to out-do the other.

  ‘Ilario.’ Rekhmire’’s eyes slitted against the brilliance. He stepped out of the way of two of Jian’s sailors sprinting past. ‘Do you see something? There, ahead?’

  I looked into the shining mist of the horizon, and rubbed my dazzled eyes. ‘Not a damn thing!’

  I had not yet got over the relief of seeing Rekhmire’ returned safe from Videric’s estates. I would have said this to him, if not for the fact that he hardly ever spoke to me now.

  He says more to Onorata…

  I checked the ties on her tiny hood, and she yawned in my face.

  ‘Charming child!’

  Rekhmire’ gave me a look of the greatest apparent innocence. ‘Should I risk saying I know how she feels?’

  ‘Not unless you want your shins kicked! Except that I suppose I can’t while you have her–is that why you volunteered to carry the baby sling?’

  The Egyptian made an unsuccessful attempt at appearing wounded.

  ‘I should be wary of complaining about boredom,’ he added, seeing me failing to be moved. ‘That usually serves to call up sea-serpents and comets and acts of the gods…’

  ‘I can do without any of those!’

  I found I must step back out of another running man’s way—

  Jian himself.

  ‘What…?’ Squinting after the Chin commander, I found myself looking south, into sun and brilliant mist–and dark protuberances that could not be the Balearic Islands. Not unless we’ve sailed infinitely faster than I thought we could!

  Rekhmire’ closed both his large hands protectively around Onorata.

  Honorius appeared at the rail again, beside me. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I don’t know. There are no reefs—’

  I saw Carrasco come up from below, talking quite companionably with Berenguer and Tottola. The German man-at-arms suddenly seized Ramiro Carrasco’s shoulder and pointed forward.

  I turned and leaned forward over the rail, as if straining those few inches further forward would let me see what Tottola saw. Honorius’s fingers clenched over the back of my belt.

  The dark protuberances resolved a very little more out of the haze.

  ‘Not islands…’ I whispered.

  Rekhmire’ choked out an obscene oath.

  Honorius said, ‘Ships.’

  My father’s eyes narrowed as he stared into the bright south. I felt the harsh luminosity bring tears running out of my own eyes.

  But I see masts, stacked masts, narrow and impossibly high…

  Zheng He’s war-junk actually leaned. Every sail set, I saw, craning back to look overhead.

  Feet thundered; I heard orders screamed at high pitch; the bows slowly tacked across.

  ‘Two. Five. Eight. Ten.’ Rekhmire’ clasped my daughter against him with one hand and shaded his eyes with the other. ‘Captain-General. How is my count?’

  Honorius gazed south with eyes that have been too long used to looking into hostile distance. He mouthed numbers. I blinked, and looked back.

  I will never paint that fire and light! I thought. The delicacy of water-drops with light shattered through them into colour, white foam at the foot of the prows—They swelled into existence on the morning sea, appearing out of the haze, unmistakable in their silhouette.

  More than ten. More than twenty. More than fifty.

  A signal rocket soared up and broke apart with a piercing shriek.

  ‘What,’ Honorius said carefully, his gaze on the southern waters, ‘are those?’

  My neck felt cramped and cold in the stiff wind. I couldn’t stop staring. ‘I think–that’s the Admiral’s lost fleet.’

  The nearest one was close enough that I could see a green dragon-face painted on the flat prow.

  Raising his voice over the shouting, and banging of signal rockets, Honorius protested, ‘There can’t be two hundred of them!’

  I reached out my arms as Rekhmire’ slid the sling’s straps around me, and I cuddled my screaming child into my shoulder, putting hands over her ears against the noise.

  ‘Of course there can’t be two hundred! Who has two hundred ships like this? Half of them must be a mirage!’

  Two Chin crewmen all but knocked me flying; I let Rekhmire’ use his solid large body, and his stick, to shelter me across to the companionway.

  Ramiro Carrasco climbed down in front of me, sheltering me all the way to the cabins.

  A quarter of an hour later, when the noise was very nearly as loud in the cabin as it was outside, Rekhmire’ limped in through the door.

  ‘Not two hundred.’

  ‘I
knew it!’ I made the final fold of cloth and picked Onorata up, her clouts changed for fresh cloth. ‘I knew there couldn’t be two hundred. How many are there?’

  Rekhmire’ sat down hard on a carved chair.

  ‘One hundred and eighty-three.’

  13

  An uncomfortable four hours passed.

  From the main deck, I witnessed men, obviously the captains of their war-junks, rowed to Zheng He’s flagship. The sound of celebratory drums and conches made my ears numb.

  The Armenian sergeant, Orazi, gave voice to every man’s fear. Shooting a suspicious glance at the Admiral’s cabin, he demanded, ‘Where’s the bastard going to take this fleet now?’

  At the end of several hours the captains were rowed back; the towering ships set their sails, and began the long process of tacking for a wind.

  Rekhmire’ yanked with fingers and teeth at a strip of leather, which I saw he had tied round and over the ferrule of one of his crutches, for a better grip on the deck. He moved his mouth, as if at the taste.

  ‘I dare not calculate the number of men Zheng He has here,’ he observed. ‘I will, however, see what course we’re on…’

  He stayed absent long enough for Honorius to entertain himself in speculating which kingdoms of the Middle Sea the Chin Admiral might now invade and conquer, if he so desired.

  When Rekhmire’ returned, he merely shrugged at us.

  ‘By the compass, our course is set sirocco levante.’

  Even recalling Onorata’s lullaby, I looked momentarily blank.

  ‘East south-east,’ Rekhmire’ said. ‘And since compasses don’t lie, I judge us to be on the course that will take us past the Balearic Islands and Sardinia, to Carthage. It appears the Admiral is a man of his word.’

  The Chin rockets appeared much brighter under the Penitence, in Carthage’s harbour. Soaring up in arcs, bursting in showers and fountains, they dimmed the aurora’s curtains of light.

  Down in the lower stern cabins, with only the small window-ports unshuttered for air, I found the drums and gongs and cymbals muted. But not by much. Even small round drums, wider than they are tall, shake the air when thousands of men sling them at their waists and beat them with hands and sticks.