Ilario, the Stone Golem (17 page)

other man. Videric’s informers will tell him what ship you’re on, and

some thug will hit you behind the ear with a cudgel and tip you over the

quay-side before you get a foot off the gang-plank!’

I swung around. ‘Then tell me some other way to do this!’

The shout bounced back flatly off the plaster and beams, silencing

Honorius.

I leaned on the other side of the table, both fists against the wood,

staring down at the retired soldier, my father. ‘Videric must listen when I

speak to him. How can I know, here, what it will take to get him back in

favour? I don’t know how King Rodrigo will ever be able to say,
Here’s

Videric,
he’s
my
First
Minister
again. And if I don’t go and ask Videric, face to face, I never
will
know!’

Rekhmire’ raised his clear low tenor voice. ‘If you will stop charging

full-tilt into things—!’

Honorius interrupted, a burning look in his eye. ‘I forbid this.’

Rekhmire’ smacked one large palm against the side of his forehead.

‘Amun and Amunet! The donkey can be led but not driven!’

Honorius snorted down his nose and glared at me. ‘In my experience,

the donkey can’t be led
or
driven!’

My fingernails drove painfully into my palms.

83

A faint sound of Onorata’s crying reached through the ill-shut door

and clawed down the tendons and muscles of my neck, stiffening them.

With an effort, I pushed away my urge to rush to her.

‘You,’ I said quietly, ‘need not look after the child: I will. I may be no

mother at all to her—’

And
that’s
as
well,
when
you
think
of
Rosamunda!

‘—But at least I know now how to be a father.’

I inclined my head in thanks to Honorius. He looked taken aback in

the extreme.

To Rekhmire’, I added, ‘I know you have business for Constantinople;

I can’t ask you to go out of your way. I do thank you for what you’ve done for me. If you’re going to Constantinople – to Alexandria – it would

help me if you’d take Ramiro Carrasco with you as your slave. Probably

Videric will have a harder time getting him murdered if he’s there.’

Rekhmire’’s mouth looked as if he’d eaten fresh lemon.

He turned his head, not to look at Carrasco, as I expected, but to

exchange glances with Honorius.

‘Fucking idiot!’ The retired Captain-General of Leon and Castile

waved an expressive hand. ‘My son-daughter; not you.’

‘Ah.’ Rekhmire’’s smile was that familiar all-but-imperceptible one

that meant he was truly amused. ‘Well, it is more generally applicable,

after all.’

‘Oh, ay.’ Honorius nodded, hit himself on the chest with his fist, and

then pointed a sword-callused hand at Ramiro Carrasco. ‘Ilario’s father,

slave, and . . . ’

‘“Book-buyer”?’ Rekhmire’ suggested.

You could have scraped paint off acacia wood with Honorius’s look of

scepticism.

‘Book. Buyer.’ The soldier paced down the room and planted himself

in front of me, with the light of the window in his face. His eyes

narrowed, either against the brightness or his thoughts. He glared down

the few inches difference between our heights.

‘If you go marching back into Taraconensis, Videric will kill you! Yes,

I’ll agree: you’re right that Videric needs to be put back at Rodrigo’s side

– with a collar on him, so he can’t do too much damage! But this is not

the way to go about it!’

The Egyptian snorted. ‘You’ll never tell him – her – Ilario! – that.’

Rekhmire’ was being chronological, I thought, rather than mistaken in

his gender.

I could see in his expression that same emotion I’d seen when he asked

me how long it was after Rosamunda attempted to stab me that I fled

Taraco.

How long was it after I met Sulva that I asked her to wed me?

Anger set me to pacing the room again. ‘No, Taraconensis isn’t safe.

Nowhere else is more safe! Father, you said it yourself – Videric’s had

84

Federico looking for me in Rome, and Florence, and Venice. If I looked

for a local mastro in Bologna or Ravenna or Milan, now, Videric would

find me. And none of that—’ I glanced aside, taking in Rekhmire’’s glare.

‘None of it, no matter where I hide, will get me closer to putting Videric

back into power!’

The silence after my words rang in the low-ceilinged room.

Honorius folded his arms. In the same moment, Rekhmire’ also folded

his. In another mood it would have made me burst out laughing – both of

them scowling like pediment sculptures in Green cathedrals. As it was, it

snapped what little temper remained to me.

‘I bought that man!’ I flung out one arm to point at Carrasco. He

visibly startled. ‘Because he is protection. Because all I want to do is be

left alone to paint.’

The floorboards creaked under me as I restlessly shifted, gripping my

hands together to deny that urge to frantic pacing.

‘Because I have a child that, if it doesn’t die of some childhood disease,

or merely
die
, I need to protect. And now the sole and only way I can see

to achieve that – is to go back and sort things out with my stepfather—’

Rekhmire’ interrupted. ‘Say if you leave Venice, take sanctuary in

Alexandria—’

‘There is no sanctuary!’ I found myself making fists again, nails leaving

white crescents against my skin. ‘None that’s more than temporary.

Videric’s been the King’s councillor for more than twenty years. I know

how courts work. Videric knows men in every major city in the

Mediterranean and Frankish lands, and if he’s out of favour now, he can

still find some men who think that won’t last. So they’ll do him favours.

Look out for travellers. Pass word back to him. He found me here; he’ll

find me again. If he can’t kill me because of Ramiro here, then he’ll kill

both of us, and the only way I can see to stop this is to go back to Taraco!’

‘But,’ Rekhmire’ protested.

The reasonable tone of his voice triggered my vision to a blur of rage.

‘No, I won’t hear more!’

Honorius drew himself up a little, at the table’s end, inclining his head.

He rested his hands flat on the wood.

If I painted him, I thought, it would be just so, with campaign maps

under his fingers, and lanterns behind, illuminating the dark interior of a

military commander’s tent.

‘Yes, this has to be done.’ He fixed me with a direct look. ‘But there is

least of all any sanctuary for you in
Taraco
! I at least have an excuse, a need, to go home to my King. And I’ll use that chance to talk to him;

convince Rodrigo Coverrubias that I’d far rather see First Minister

Videric than First Minister Honorius. But you – you have no reason to

go home except to be murdered, and I won’t allow it.’

There was no blustering father in his voice now. It was all confident

85

Captain-General; the commander who knows he will be obeyed because

there is no other reasonable option.

More quietly, he added, ‘Constantinople is still the safest destination –

for you
and
that rat’s testicle Carrasco.’

Honorius continued over Rekhmire’’s splutter of amusement, and

Ramiro Carrasco’s glare.

‘Let the spy take you to his city, until we can begin to solve this.’

Rekhmire’, having looked sour as an early plum at
spy
, broke his

silence with a sigh. ‘Regrettably, I might need to send, rather than take.’

He glanced up at Honorius. ‘If I don’t find Herr Mainz by the time ships

can sail for Alexandria, then I suspect my orders will send me to

Florence, to shake the information of his whereabouts out of Neferet.

And Ilario is hardly welcome in Florence.’

Without
ever
having
been
there
, I reflected.

Honorius gave the Egyptian a sceptical look. ‘You won’t be riding or

walking to Florence until that knee’s healed up. But in any case, when I

leave for Taraco, I desire some man to look out for my son-daughter’s

interests—’

I pounced on my father’s admission. ‘You’ll go back, now? Persuade

Rodrigo to take his troops off your estate? Convince him you’re loyal?’

Licinus Honorius gave me somewhat of an old-fashioned look. He

sighed, shoulders appearing to relax their stiffness. ‘Say I agree with you.

That returning Aldra Videric to the position of First Minister is the only

way to both end this and keep Taraconensis safe. Which of us, alone, is

in a position to begin this? Not the spy—’

Rekhmire’ snorted.

‘—since King Rodrigo doesn’t know the Alexandrine well enough to

trust him as I do.’

I caught a fleeting look of embarrassed pleasure on Rekhmire’’s face.

The trust of the Lion of Castile is not given lightly, or hurriedly.

Evidently he appreciated this.

‘And not
you
,’ Honorius snapped bluntly, glaring at me. ‘Videric

would show you your liver inside two days. That only leaves me.’

I could find no ready answer.

Turning aside, I directed Ramiro Carrasco to clear up the broken

glass, and stood tearing at my mind for ideas while he did so and

departed. Nothing came to me.

Honorius’s hand rested on my shoulder with a sudden pressure that

was startling.

‘I’ll go,’ he repeated. ‘As soon I have a safe refuge for you and

Onorata. I’ll go back to King Rodrigo – I knew that I would have to.’

I found myself torn between grief and joy. Joy that he could reconcile

himself with the King; that he will not lose everything he ever earned –

with his own blood – because of me. And grief, I reflected, because I will

86

badly miss his presence, and because he may be going into more danger

than we know.

Honorius turned his face to the window for a moment, as if he could

pierce the buildings and the haze of aerial perspective, and see westwards

all the way over the Italies, and the Middle Sea, clear to Iberia. His eyes

slitted.

Turning back, my father shot me a look that, even in that dim panelled

room, I could not mistake for anything but wry humour.

‘To be fair . . . ’ Honorius sighed, and put his arm around my

shoulder. ‘You realise, I hope? That this is the only way I might go home

– and not kill Aldra Pirro Videric a quarter-hour after I set foot on

Taraco dock?’

87

2

‘
Kill
—’ Breath left me.
I
have
not
thought
of
this!

Under the smile of Honorius’s much-creased face, I saw frank

amorality, that if I had to guess, I would attribute to stratagems on the field of battle.

‘Ask yourself, Ilario. This man persecutes my son-daughter. Appar-

ently he won’t stop. What’s the best way to ensure he will? A foot of

steel through his ribs, and make mince-meat of his heart and lungs. The

dead have no friends or allies.’

Honorius had the flat of his hand resting against his thigh, where his

sword would hang were he not in the house.

A little weakly, I said, ‘You won’t kill him? Because – apart from

needing the whoreson bastard as First Minister – they’d hang you for

murdering a noble! Lion of Castile or not.’

‘“Lion of Castile” would get me hanged with a silken rope,’ Honorius

mused, somewhat over-gravely. ‘Or at least the charity of an efficient

headsman at the block. I once saw an execution take twenty blows of the

axe, and the man’s head was still on—’

‘
Father!
’

‘—just,’ he completed gruesomely, with an open, loving grin. ‘No: I

won’t kill Pirro Videric. Much as the little shite deserves it. No: I won’t

get myself executed. Or even arrested. Yes: I’ll talk as persuasively to His

Grace King Rodrigo as I can. Are you content with that?’

‘More or less,’ I grumbled, with the intention of seeing if I could

provoke a laugh out of him. It did.

‘Very well.’ He sobered, fixing me with a bright gaze. ‘And now we

must make plans for you and my granddaughter.’

I continued to pass nights broken by feeding Onorata. That would have

given me time to think deeply on my father’s proposed departure, and

how long I might be safe in Venice, if I had not ended all but delirious with sleeplessness, and unable to think at all.