Ilario, the Stone Golem (28 page)

Because of Rodrigo’s purchase, I am both used to courts and great

nobles, and used to being present at the discussion of policy. If Ty-

ameny was treating me in the same way, it might be because she knew

how long I had been a slave. Or else Menmet-Ra’s report had been

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specific about my silence as regards what happened in the Roman

embassy.

‘I’ll tell you everything I know.’ I shrugged. ‘It won’t help you.’

‘I shall still be grateful.’ She inclined her head with a movement so

suddenly graceful that I had no doubt that this woman had been on the

throne of Alexandria since the age of four.

She shot a glance across to Rekhmire’. ‘But you will have seen our

problem? In the harbour? I thank the Gods you’re home today! Now I

have a man I can trust to deal with this. No—’

As he rose, she gestured to him to sit. Rekhmire’ only steadied his

balance on his crutch, shot her a silent intense look, and made an

apologetic indication of both the crutch and – now he was in the formal

Egyptian linen kilt – his visibly scarred knee.

‘Oh, pah!’ Ty-ameny said lightly.

I did not desire to be jealous of how bright his face grew at her words.

Or resent that he never reacted so to any encouragement of mine.

But
then,
I
am
neither
his
employer
nor
his
sovereign
.

Ty-ameny bent almost double with her hands on her own knees for

support. The scars were still inflamed, I saw; ridges of pink and purple

flesh that stood up twistedly about the cap and side of his knee. Some

patches of flesh seemed to have healed white and hairless.

‘I’ll have my physicians look at it.’ She straightened, seeming almost

apologetic. ‘May I send you on work, first? You can see it’s urgent.’

My stomach turned suddenly unaccountably cold.

Of
course,
he
is
her
agent,
she
can
send
him
where
she
pleases—

Suppose she sends him away, out of Alexandria?

For some reason I had not envisaged being on my own here, in charge

of a baby and Aldra Videric’s return to power.

My court manners abruptly returning to me, I stood up and bowed,

preparing to leave.

Ty-ameny held out an arresting hand. ‘No, this concerns you – you

particularly, Messer Ilario, if you would consent.’

On my feet, it was just possible, from the window of this great fortress

tower, to see down to the harbour. And to see the top masts of one ship.

One ship only. No other is tall enough to be visible. I sat down again.

‘Cousin.’ Ty-ameny faced Rekhmire’. ‘You will go aboard and talk to

these foreigners. No delegation has been successful so far, but I have

every confidence in you.’

It was not what she said, I realised, but the casual competency with

which she said it. She really does trust ‘cousin’ Rekhmire’ the humble

book-buyer . . .

‘I take it your injury will not prevent this?’

He shook his head.

‘And if you would agree.’ She turned towards me, speaking with the

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utmost directness. ‘I would like you to go aboard as one of the

delegation. Posing as Cousin Rekhmire’’s scribe, perhaps.’

Rekhmire’ snorted. ‘Ilario will go! Especially if it involves getting closer

to some new painting or fresco or inlay!’

He has just informed the Pharaoh-Queen that she may offer me

whatever terms she likes and still see me fight tooth-and-nail to get near

the foreign ship.

I caught Rekhmire’’s eye, and found the amusement I expected.

Ty-ameny leaned forward, addressing me. ‘But you have a child, with

you?’

Between Menmet-Ra and Rekhmire’, no matter how discreet the latter

might have been, I doubted there would be anything the Pharaoh-Queen

didn’t know about my private life. Privacy had not been possible for a

slave in Taraco either.

That doesn’t mean I have to like it.

I went on the attack. ‘My daughter Onorata will be safe and guarded,

Great Queen. But I have to admit, I don’t understand – I was

Rekhmire’’s scribe in Carthage, and I did reasonable work. Good work,

even.’

I avoided Rekhmire’’s eye, suspecting I might find even more

amusement there now.

‘But I don’t see why you want me to be his scribe aboard this ship.

Rather than one of your own people.’

Almost absently, Ty-ameny stood and padded over to the window.

She had to come much closer to the sill, short as she was, to glimpse the

high masts down in the harbour. The sunlight glimmered on the straight

black hair that fell in a cape over her shoulders and back. Her small

hands clenched into fists at her sides.

‘They’ve been here three days now . . . My diplomats and philoso-

phers have discovered nothing of these foreigners – not their name, not

what weapons that vessel carries, nor the intention of its captain. I have

every confidence that Rekhmire’ will open negotiations in a manner that

I can trust.’

She turned around, silhouetted against the bright light outside. I

couldn’t see her expression when she spoke:

‘They will allow very few men aboard. I am told I could not risk myself

in any case. But I desire to see what that ship is like – and have my Royal

Mathematicians see it, also. Ilario, I understand from Menmet-Ra and

from Rekhmire’ here that you follow what the Franks call the “New Art”.

If you’ll agree, I wish you to go aboard the ship with Rekhmire’’s servants

– and draw for me exactly what it is that you see there.’

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10

Attila nodded a greeting, standing guard at the door of our assigned

palace rooms.

Inside the chambers, I found his brother. Tottola might not wear his

breastplate in this climate, but even in the palace he wore mail. He

carried his gauntlets hooked by their buckled straps over the hilt of his bastard sword, banging at his hip. His polished steel helm – very like

Honorius’s sallet – sat upturned in his lap, with Onorata laying propped

up in it as if it were a very odd cradle.

She followed his moving finger with her dark blue eyes, and cooed in a

serious and attentive way.

Tottola had her naked, in the heat, and Ramiro Carrasco scurried out

of our vast quarters with the jug and bowl he had evidently used to bathe

her. She had been fed again, I realised, and felt a twinge at having missed

it.

Onorata kicked her bare feet. Tottola sang under his breath, and

continued with verses that she was thankfully too young to understand.

Half her lullabies were marching songs. Lengths of linen padded the

metal of his sallet, and protected Tottola’s helmet-lining against anything

unfortunate.

It was a habit he had picked up from my father, who delighted to find

his grandchild small enough to cradle in his sallet. Every man, from

Sergeant Orazi down to Ensign Saverico, seemed to think it was

permissible to joke with their lord about the likelihood of baby-shit next

time he put the visored helmet on . . . And soon, now, she’ll be too big.

I took the opportunity to unstopper my ink bottle and quickly sketch

tones on the rough paper to show her with Tottola’s curving protective

arm. ‘I’ll never understand soldiers . . . ’

Rekhmire’ offered Onorata his finger, which she batted away. He

turned back to me. ‘The child will be safe enough with them while we go

aboard.’

It was not until I started drawing her that Onorata looked to me like an

individual child. I had worried, in Venice and on the voyage: if you put

her down among a dozen other babies, would I know mine? A mother is

supposed to know her child. There is instinct – which I clearly did not

have.

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But I know the slope of her upper lip, and her grave, extraordinary

stare.

There were sufficient drawings of Onorata in my sketchbooks that

Queen Ty-ameny was convinced using me as her eye was sound. One

could see how Onorata had grown since we left the Most Serene city of

Venice.

‘She’d be safer with Honorius,’ I grumbled. ‘Back home.’

Hot countries, plagues, the bowel-flux, flies, itches, irritations, rashes –

if I sat down, I dare say I could come up with a list of similar discomforts

in cold countries, too. Nowhere is as safe for her as I could wish. But here . . .

‘Ty-ameny hasn’t let any of them come ashore.’ I nodded towards the

window, nominally in the direction of the harbour.

‘Her advisers were very keen on quarantine.’

‘So no man’s seen these strangers.’

‘Except to say they’re not Franks, or North Africans; they perhaps

look like Turks or Persians, but then again,
not
like them . . . ’ Rekhmire’

repeated rumours frustratedly. ‘They arrived three days ago: if it was a

plague ship, the doctors who went aboard the first day would probably

have sickened by now.’

The way I heard the rumour from Attila, who had been gossiping in

the palace kitchen and barracks, Queen Ty-ameny had only got doctors

aboard the foreign ship by threatening to raise the vast iron chain and

keep the monstrous vessel out of the shelter of Alexandria’s harbour.

If
that
ship
had
to
arrive
here,
it
might
have
waited
until
we’d
come
and
gone!

I put a finishing smudge of shadow onto the drawing of Onorata,

abandoned it, and walked out onto the balcony beside Rekhmire’.

He leaned heavily on the yellow stone balustrade, gazing down – very

far down – at the glimmering blue of the harbour.

‘Even if it weren’t so large,’ I said, ‘that’s a style of ship I’ve never seen.’

The Egyptian inclined his head.

‘And she just . . . expects you to go and talk to these people?’

‘It would be some other man, if I hadn’t returned at the right moment.’

Rekhmire’’s eyes might have been narrowed against the sunlight. ‘Ty-

ameny feels she can trust me. If I fail, I shall only fail. I won’t be a part of

one or other of the court conspiracies, with my own ideas of who should

be sitting on the Lion-throne.’

‘And there was me thinking all this monumental grandeur meant a

different kind of court to Taraco . . . ’ Sometimes directness is the only

way to knowledge. ‘Why does she trust you? Because you’re her cousin?

Which, by the way, you never told me!’

‘A fourth cousin is one of the very many.’ Rekhmire’ blinked mild

eyes, apparently amused to be withholding information. He sharpened

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his gaze, and smiled outright. ‘No, you have it right; she feels she has good reason. I had a hand in preventing one of the early assassination

attempts, back when she was coming of age and taking power from the

Regency Council. She knows I won’t lie to her.’

‘Given most courts I’ve visited, that would be invaluable.’ I suspected

there was more to it, that he’d done more than ‘had a hand in preventing’

whatever had happened – probably discovered the whole thing, I

reflected. But if the Queen had so much confidence in her wandering

book-buyer . . .

I was still holding a half-inch stub of red chalk. I held it up

demonstrably. ‘Will she regard this as constituting a debt?’

‘For you to ask for help with the situation in Taraconensis?’

Frustrated, I shrugged. ‘I’m thinking of asking somebody – anybody! –

just how I get Videric accepted as the King Rodrigo’s chief counsellor

again. Because, worry at it as I may, I have no idea!’

The hour passed noon; the hot sun was too much for me. I turned and

walked back inside, taking refuge in the stone room’s coolness and shade.

Rekhmire’ followed me in, sandals soundless on the floor.

A fan made of fine woven fibres, and hanging from a frame, moved

two and fro in a leisurely stirring of the air. I opened my mouth to

castigate the German men-at-arms for letting in a palace slave – and saw,

in time, that Ramiro Carrasco sat bemusedly pulling on the fan’s cord.

Rekhmire’ went to the door, exchanging words with a servant there,

and came back after a short time with a clear drink made of herbs, and