Ilario, the Stone Golem (37 page)

her face. She moved her hand to her chin, as if she would stroke the

Pharaoh’s false beard that she was not wearing today. ‘It was a

reasonable question!’

‘Yes, Great Queen,’ Rekhmire’ said mildly.

The queen looked at him through narrowed eyes.

Without turning, she said, ‘Ilario, I apologise for not asking that in a

more tactful manner.’

I bowed, catching how Rekhmire’’s face warmed as she spoke.

‘Too many people have thought it a reasonable question for me to like

it, Great Queen,’ I said.

‘I believe that was the reason I was just slapped down.’ She spoke

darkly, looking up at Rekhmire’. ‘Isn’t that right, cousin?’

‘The wisdom of the everlasting Gods is spoken through the mouth of

the Pharaoh-Queen.’ Rekhmire’’s monumental face broke into a smile

that made him look twenty. ‘Most of the time . . . ’

‘Stop towering over me, book-buyer. I can still shorten you by a head,

any day of the week!’

‘Of course, cousin.’ Rekhmire’’s bow was so elegantly proper that, had

I been Ty-ameny, I would have thrown something at him. I saw her

small fingers tighten around one of the cushions as she grinned. The

large Egyptian moved, seating himself on the bench beside her, and

under cover of smoothing out the folds of his linen kilt, shot me a

reassuring look.

I envied them their closeness.

‘In fact,’ Ty-ameny added, with more gravitas than one might expect

181

from a woman with the stature of a twelve-year-old, ‘if it would set your

mind at ease to have her examined, the best of my Royal Mathematicians

and physicians will do so.’

I could manage only ‘Thank you’, but it must have been clear what I

meant.

The next several days had all my attention on my child, who bawled

dispiritingly whenever an Alexandrine picked her up, and looked at me

as if I were the Frankish version of Judas.

All of them pronounced her normal, but let me know that the extent of

their knowledge – ‘Without dissection!’, Bakennefi Aa cheerily remarked

– must be limited.

Slaves continued to bring food to our quarters at regular intervals. I

sunk myself into the enjoyment of palace living – since I did not know if I

would ever live in a palace again – and on two days when it was too hot

to go outside, or do more than lay down on the great bed on the dais in

my chamber, I dozed beside Onorata’s cradle.

I woke on the third day, bored.

Zheng He, on land, would not have barbarians on his ship while he

was not there.

I had itchy fingers, and established myself under a striped awning on

another of the palace balconies, with Onorata asleep in a hooded cradle,

and a stack of old parchments and a stoppered flask of oak-gall ink.

The striped awning reminded me of Taraco. I began a letter to

Honorius, got as far as
Honoured
Father
, and the ink dried on my quill while I tried to think of what I could say that would do no harm if

someone opened the letter.

‘
Father
’ is not harmless.

Nor was anything else I could come up with.

I turned the parchment over, shaping the quill with an evilly sharp pen

knife that I hadn’t been able to resist in Alexandria’s main market square,

both for its Damascus steel and its beautiful walnut haft, and set about

sketching the lines of the aqueduct that came into the palace here. Arches

of yellow brick cast shadows across a square. People came and went

around the statue of a griffin-like creature on a plinth. A white mongrel

dog paused long enough to cock its leg.

The sun arriving overhead, I took Onorata back to our chambers and

our own balcony, and set about drawing the great harbour, and the mass

of streets going down from here to the massive walls.

It turned into a study of Zheng He’s distant warship, but the size of it

made the perspective look wrong.

I checked it as mathematically as Masaccio and Leon Battista had ever

instructed me, found it correct, and wondered,
What
do
I
do
when
reality
itself
seems
incredible,
even
by
an
accurate
description?

Chin on fist, I stared down absently into the harbour, looking for

another subject. I might draw Onorata, if Rekhmire’ wasn’t already

182

making smart remarks about how many drawings of the child he’s

expected to make comment on . . .

I began a listless study of another ship moored between Europa and

Asia. Dwarfed by comparison with Zheng He’s it might be, but the lines

interested me – not a war-ship, or a fat-bellied cargo-ship, or a dhow, but

a fast light galley with canvas-shrouded arbalests on prow and stern for

defence.

My quill-point scritched at the treated surface of the parchment; I

made a reasonable attempt at the sterncastle and rudder before I startled,

and the pen blotted a great spurt of ink over all.

I
have
drawn
a
ship
like
this
before,
and
when
I
did
–
it
was
a
Carthaginian
bireme!

‘Agatha and Jude!’ It was safer to swear by Christian saints in this city,

if you were a foreigner. I mopped at the ink with my sleeve, but the thin

cotton only absorbed most of the liquid, leaving enough to shroud the

carefully-drawn lines.

‘That will be the envoy,’ Rekhmire’ said, an arm’s length behind me.

I started again, jerked my wrist, and sent a hooked line of ink through

the harbour wall. ‘Caius Gaius
Judas
! Stop creeping up on me!’

The tall Egyptian grinned, entirely unrepentant, and bent to stroke a

fingertip over Onorata’s brow. She wriggled a little, and settled deeper

into sleep. Rekhmire’ looked up and to the side.

‘Shadow will be off this balcony soon. You’ll need to take her in.’

‘
You
take her in,’ I muttered. ‘This is the Carthaginian envoy? The one you expected? Why’s he here?’

‘As far as I know, nothing but a previously-arranged diplomatic visit.

Ty-ameny’s ministers are running around like drunken piglets,’

Rekhmire’ observed, in response to my querying look. ‘Now the jaws

truly bite – Carthage’s envoy will expect to see their latest gift on display

in the Pharaoh-Queen’s throne room. None of the Royal Mathemat-

icians can yet promise it won’t do to her as it did to Masaccio. She has a

choice of offending Carthage – which we can’t afford –
or
afford to have

them find
that
out! – or else put herself in danger of murder by the golem.’

The ink had dried on my nib. I scratched it against my thumb, wishing

for treated wooden boards on which I could use encaustic wax, or

Masaccio’s expensive pigments, and try out designs for Honorius’s altar-

panels.

‘No.’ I looked up, blinking. ‘She doesn’t.’

Rekhmire’’s brows, stark under his shaved head, dipped down, casting

all his face into severe lines.

‘If we smash the golem’s limbs, or chain it, or immobilise it safely in

some way, that would be no less offensive to Carthage—’

I interrupted him before his rising tone could wake Onorata. It was

difficult to keep my own voice sufficiently quiet.

183

‘
No
. They don’t have to break the damned thing to stop it hurting the

Pharaoh-Queen. I know how we can do it. I
know
.’

Rekhmire’’s sceptical look had hope badly suppressed under the

surface. ‘You know?’

I ignored his stress on the initial word.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘Cheese glue.’

184

18

‘Cheese glue?’ the Pharaoh-Queen of Alexandria said.

‘Cheese glue.’

‘
Cheese
glue?’

One of the Royal Mathematicians muttered, ‘Cheese
glue
?’, in an

equally bemused tone.

Rekhmire’ smoothly intervened. ‘Hear Ilario out, Great Name of

Sekhmet; I think you should.’

Ty-ameny’s sloe-black eyes darted to his face. Whatever she found

there was sufficient to have her not throw me straight out of the Royal

apartments.

‘Explain,’ she demanded grimly.

‘Cheese glue’s made with limestone and . . . cheese.’

I shuffled a little where I sat, hearing the words as they must sound to

her.

‘Yes, it
sounds
foolish, but I know this part of my trade! The best kind

is cheese that’s gone bad. Great Queen, when I was in Rome, Mastro

Masaccio had me crumbling cheese and limestone and mixing the glue.

You use it to size boards for painting, especially if your board has to be

made up of several smaller pieces. When it sets . . . ’

In memory I still hear Masaccio’s hammer.

‘I saw examples twice, in his workshop,’ I said, seeing the Alexandrines

perk up at the sound of empirical evidence. ‘Once of a six-part panel put

together before the plague came to Europa, that a man couldn’t break

with all his strength. The other was more subtle, I think – an older board,

that had a funeral portrait on it from Hannibal Barca’s time. The wax

was gone, and the pigments too, and the wood broken in many places.’

I held finger and thumb a half-inch apart.

‘But the glue that had held the wood together,
that
was still intact!

Where the worms had eaten the wood all away, the cheese and lime glue

stood up alone, rigid, like a framework.’

I took a breath, realising the frown on the Royal Mathematician

Bakennefi Aa’s face was calculation rather than scorn.

‘When it ages, it yellows, but initially it sets clear. Like glass. You

would not ever know it was there.’ My mouth felt dry. I swallowed.

Rekhmire’ remained silent where he sat beside me.

Either he desires me to have all the credit for this – or all the blame!

185

Ty-ameny’s frown was now of a different kind, I saw. She asked, ‘How

would this help us?’

She’s
willing
to
consider
it!

‘The golem’s limbs are articulated.’ The memory of stone fingers was

one I pushed aside almost by habit now. ‘Each of the arms, knees,

fingers, feet – they’re all jointed, by metal gears. If you were to pour prepared glue into the joint mechanisms and let it set . . . ’

Ty-ameny blinked as if dazed.

‘And no one could see this?’ Her black gaze snapped into focus. ‘At a

distance, say, of – Ahhotep, over there, beside the window. If I am here,

and he is there, will he see this has been done?’

I considered it, heart racing, not wanting to seem too sure of myself.

‘No,’ I said at last. ‘Not even if he knew what he was looking for. The

joints are brass, they shine. The extra coating will shine the same way.’

The room of advisers was silent for the space of ten heartbeats;

Tyameny put her chin in her hand. She gazed unseeing at Rekhmire’,

silhouetted against the white afternoon heat.

My voice creaked and dropped down into the lower male registers. ‘At

the very worst, it would give you warning, when the joints move and the

glue shatters. There would be time enough to move away. If the cheese

glue’s allowed time to cure and set – the golem will pull itself to pieces before those joints will move.’

‘Bakennefi Aa.’ Ty-ameny gave the Royal Mathematician and his

cohorts a look that indicated they should – as rapidly as possible – search

out sources in the Library. As the three Bakennefi brothers bowed and

left, she turned back to me.

‘You know how to mix this? The proportions of each; all the

ingredients?’

That amount of implied responsibility cut off my breath. My heart

pounded in palpable thuds. I swallowed, I hoped imperceptibly, and

nodded.

‘You mix a batch,’ the Pharaoh-Queen said. ‘My mathematicians will

run tests. But, at the same time – the golem will be treated with your

substance, too. Where it stands, beside the royal throne; undertake the

treatment there.’

She shot a glance at Rekhmire’.

‘Plausible ways can be found to delay the Carthaginian envoy’s formal

audience for a few more days?’

‘He’s a diplomat, Great Queen, he’ll expect it.’

The corner of her mouth tweaked up, although she nodded solemnly