Ilario, the Stone Golem (11 page)

But no need to argue the matter.

I took a long look at Federico, wondering if it could be marked on his

face: this man that raised me, sold me, benefited by me – is he also

willing to help murder me? Or does he genuinely force himself into a

belief that this is no more than kidnapping?

In the dialect of Taraconensis – which I thought he might suppose

these mercenaries not to speak – I asked, ‘What hold
is
it that Videric has

over you?’

Federico laughed.

He spoke in the same local variant of Iberian Latin, while he fondly

shook his head. ‘He has no hold over me! On the contrary, he values me.

48

He has for many years taken my advice on investing his gold – I have a

nose for where the trade will go, and what items are best bought and

sold, and when. The Aldra Videric would hardly be half so wealthy if not

for my aid—’

‘Why not make
yourself
rich?’ I cut in, holding his gaze. ‘Foster father,

you forget. I know what the estate is really like. I know that Valdamerca

keeps hens and sells the eggs for pennies when she’s at home. I know

how long it took you to save up Matasuntha’s dowry.’

Federico waved an impatient hand. ‘It will come – gold clings to gold!

Do you think me rich enough to invest on my own? At least at first?

Ridiculous! But Aldra Videric has the funds to invest, and I benefit, also.’

I wondered what tiny percentage Videric doled out to him –

remembered I must seem to be scared of abduction – and decided I

could risk no more questions.

He and Berenguer spoke rapidly in one of the Frankish tongues. I

turned my head so that my hood drooped concealingly over my face.

More quietly than I had ever heard him speak, Tottola murmured,

‘Not long now . . . ’

Federico snapped his fingers briskly, and folded his arms where he

stood. The serving man staggered out onto the Rialto drawbridge, iron-

bound chest clasped in both arms. Berenguer stepped forward, taking a

key from Federico’s hand, and thrust it in the lock and twisted.

I caught the merest glimmer.

The reflection of light from true gold is unmistakable.

‘Looks about right.’ Berenguer slammed the lid down and turned the

key again, and hitched the chest over onto his hip as if it weighed no

more than Onorata.

Federico, turning away, reached out and grasped my arm just below

the shoulder. ‘Ilario, come with me.’

‘’Fraid not.’ Berenguer pulled sword and scabbard together out of the

straps of his belt, and lay the still-undrawn weapon flat across Federico’s

chest.

With one hand to the sword-hilt and the other gripping the mouth of

the scabbard, he could have edged steel free in a moment. But because

he did not, because no sword was actually drawn, no man looked at us or

interfered.

Federico stared down at the red leather of the scabbard in pure

astonishment. ‘You have your first half of the gold! Three thousand

ducats! You get no more until you set foot on the Veneto!’

‘She’s – he’s—’ Berenguer stumbled. ‘Ilario’s not going anywhere with

you.’

‘We have a
contract
!’

Berenguer showed his teeth. ‘Yeah. We did. Sorry about that – we

changed our minds.’

It
will
not
be
so
easy
, I thought. And caught the moment that the skin 49

folded and creased at the corners of Federico’s eyes. In his narrowed

gaze I saw anger and fear.
The
latter
is
far
more
dangerous!

Berenguer jerked his head, the polished finished of his helmet blazing

back the sun. The dozen and more cloaked men strode forward onto the

bridge itself, surrounding us.

Something nudged my shoulder.

I glanced back – just sufficiently less tall that I could glimpse

Honorius’s features, under the drooping edge of his hood.

‘Contemptible!’ Federico’s jaw came up: he glared at Berenguer. ‘You

may attempt to cheat me. But what of when I go to your master Licinus

Honorius, and say how you were willing to betray him for money?’

A cloaked figure brushed past my shoulder. Lifting his hands, putting

his hood back, my father remarked cheerfully, ‘Licinus Honorius already

knows.’

With another company, it might have been possible to deceive

Federico into thinking that the Captain-General had merely discovered

the betrayal, and averted it.

These men have fought too long together: there’s no mistaking their

comradeship.

Which
means
my
foster
father
is
aware
he
has
been
taken,
lock,
stock,
and
arquebus-barrel.

Federico drew himself up, remarkably unafraid for a man with one

servant at his back.

‘How unfortunate to find you engaged in something so dishonest,

Captain Honorius. But all the same, I believe you won’t stop me taking

my foster child away from here.’

‘You think?’ Honorius cocked a brow, and nodded towards the railing

of the drawbridge. ‘Think again.’

Honorius had clearly not left all twenty of his remaining men at the

Alexandrine embassy. Ten of them, I saw, occupied two boats moored to

slanting posts just at the side of the Rialto Bridge.

Seated in the bottom of the wide-bottomed boats, hands manacled

behind them, were twice their number of men – a mixture of household

servants without their livery badges, hired bravos, and that kind of man

who is a petty criminal or a mercenary soldier according to the season of

the year. More than half had ears cropped, or ‘T’ for ‘thief’ branded on

their foreheads.

Honorius called an order. The men-at-arms rowed back into the side

canal from which I deduced they must have come.

I turned to Federico. He seemed self-possessed – except for the colour

of his complexion. A man might have blown plaster-dust across his skin

and got that same aghast white.

All
the
rage
is
gone
out
of
him
.

He might have been furious at the trick, as well as a raid of

50

consequences – Honorius’s men-at-arms being unnerving
en
masse
– but

there was no anger to be drawn from his expression.

Federico looked about – for his servant, I realised. When I too looked,

I couldn’t see the man. Honorius’s soldiers must have permitted him to

run. He could go nowhere that would harm us.

‘Keep the money.’ Federico spoke abruptly. ‘I’m done.’

There was more than satisfaction in Honorius’s smile.

Of course, I thought. Now Honorius has three thousand ducats: he

need not betray his location by going to any banker in any city.

Except that he
must
go back to Taraco! I made a grim note to bring this to my father’s attention, yet again.
Before
Videric
robs
him
of
all
he
has!

Federico moved almost unconsciously back, feet shifting on the heavy

planks.

I stepped forward and caught the velvet of his doublet sleeve. ‘You

may give Videric a message from me—’

‘Videric? No!’ Federico laughed harshly. He looked down at my hand,

not pulling out of my grip, and then back at me. A scarlet flush covered

the pallor of his cheeks: he looked unhealthy, and feverish. ‘That’s it: I’m

done
. I have Valdamerca and my girls with me – Matasuntha’s husband

will have to take care of her. Let the King confiscate that pitiable shack of

an estate! I’m not returning to Taraconensis now.’

I found my hand holding the fabric tighter, as if I could keep him from

escape. ‘What do you mean, not going back to Taraco now? When
will

you go back?’

Federico laughed.

I heard bitterness in it, but a surprising amount of relief, too.

‘Not ever.’ He spoke almost gently, and stiffened his shoulders as he

looked around at our mercenary soldiers. ‘Never. This is what comes of

trying to improve on my orders. Aldra Videric suggested I bribe your

soldiers merely to desert, and then permit the men he will send to deal

with you. I thought, if I had you in my hands to bring to him . . . ’

His gaze was directed at the green water below, stippled and criss-

crossed with gold light where wavelets caught the sun. I thought he saw

none of that.

His tight, controlled voice quivered. ‘And he will expect me to pay it

back out of my own pocket! He will call me a fool for failing, and ask me

for three thousand ducats. Dear Lord!’

Federico shook his head, and took a kerchief from his doublet sleeve to

wipe across his forehead.

Things will not have changed so much in the eight months I have been

gone, I thought, and said, ‘You don’t have three thousand ducats in

gold.’

‘Nor if I sold the estate!’ Federico wiped his forehead again, and

opened his hand. The white cloth spiralled down, spreading on the canal

51

water below as it landed, and gradually sinking. He stared until the

whiteness entirely vanished.

‘I’m done!’ he repeated. Straightening up off the drawbridge’s railing,

he snorted – a sardonic sound, that might have been a laugh – and looked

at me. ‘No need for concern. I have a nose for business, and I’ve made

enough business contacts while making my lord Videric rich. I won’t

starve. The Alpine passes in northern Italy will be open by the time I

reach the mainland. I think that Flanders and all of north Burgundy have

it in them to be even richer than they are now . . . And I’m done with playing lapdog for my Lord Pirro Videric Galindo!’

Federico rolled out Videric’s given name and matronymic with relish.

More than taken aback, I could only say, ‘I thought you were his man.’

‘And what is the use of supporting a man permanently out of power?

Yes, he has wealth; he can buy men to do his bidding. But he’s not a

power in the land now, and he never will be – Videric becoming King

Rodrigo’s First Minister again: what are the chances of that?’

The scorn in his voice was hard, dry, and, I judged, perfectly genuine.

It left me blinking at him in shock.

Federico patted my hand, where my fingers were still clenched in his

sleeve. ‘
You
may give Aldra Videric a message from me, Ilario, since I hope devoutly never to see the man again.’

‘I’m hardly so keen myself!’

Federico surprised me by laughing out loud.

‘Nevertheless, if you do, convey him my regards. Tell him, I hope his

miserly testicles wither and drop off. That, when he dies, I shall dance on

his grave. And that, if I had known a quarter – an eighth part! – of the trouble waiting for me when he sent me after
you
, I would have thrown

myself down on the Via Augusta and let the mule-train trample me to

death!’

The soldiers chuckled, behind me. I heard Berenguer choke back an

outright guffaw.

Federico clasped my hand in his and turned it over. I did not resist

him. His thumb brushed the scribe’s calluses, and those left by sword-

use, still not gone after months without training. He regarded the smear

of black charcoal that came off on his skin with seeming amusement.

‘Aldra Videric knows you well enough to know you won’t abandon the

New Art. Just a word of warning.’

He patted my fingers with his other hand, and released me.

Looking up at the hooded figure of Honorius at my side, he said,

‘Satisfy my curiosity, Aldra. Is she your son-and-daughter? Or did some

son of yours father him? Or is it coincidence?’

Honorius took the iron-bound chest as Berenguer passed it to him and

patted the lid. ‘It would take more than three thousand ducats to buy

those answers.’

‘Indeed – I suspect them not for sale.’ My foster father regarded my

52

father for a long moment, looking almost jaunty. ‘I also suspect you

aren’t a man to shoot someone in the back. Do let me know if I’m

incorrect.’

Federico nodded politely, caught my eye as he turned away, and shot

me a look so complex I could not unravel in it all the old loyalty, old grudges, despair, joy, and risk. His boots rang on the planks of the

drawbridge, and then were muffled on the stone of the Rialto steps.