Ilario, the Stone Golem (66 page)

The sound of a fountain reached me from an open hall ahead.

The
sound
of
a
slap,
and
the
flat
clatter
of
a
second-rate
dagger
skittering
across
the
marble
floor
—

What will he do? Sell her to Carthage’s highest bidder, because they

think they can make use of her? Then have one of Carrasco’s brothers

assassinate her on board the ship?

Ridiculous speculations made me feel as if my head would burst.

I could understand if he attacked me. What does he want with her?

And why is it
I
still think I should protect her?

Pain more agonising than the cramp in my ribs came from the

immediate realisation.

She
wants
me
to
forgive
her
.

But not for my sake. For hers.

Now that the cathedral penitence means no gossip will ever forget I

came out of her womb, she wants to appear magnanimously accepting of

her monstrous child.

But she would meet me secretly because, no matter what she pretends

in public, she is ashamed of me.

I slowed.

Heat bounced down the white walls from the clerestory windows, high

324

above; a breeze barely penetrated. That was not the only reason I was

sweating.

How rash will Rekhmire’ say I’m being?

I thought it so clever to show Videric in pigment: ‘You love her but she

never loved you; never will.’ So clever—!

A coldness went through my body and made my hands heavy. My

fingers prickled. I thought desperately: No, Videric isn’t a stupid man, he

will have realised the truth before now. Years ago!

And you were the one who thought it so clever to push his face into it.

What might
that
provoke a man to do?

Sound caught my attention.

Movement?

This doorway was a round Roman arch, the keystones white, outlined

with gold paint. A beaded curtain hung down across the opening.

Kicking off my scandals, I padded over the cool tiles, silencing my

breathing.

The beads made an impenetrable barrier until I stood with my nose all

but touching them. Vision altered: I saw clearly through their blur into

the hall.

The fountains arced silver into the afternoon light, water spilling out of

a jug held by a marble nude.

Terracotta pots held plants. The scent of the place was subtle: moist

soil, green leaves . . . choked pipes.

I could see the textures of leaves, the patterns of edges; all things for

which – before now – I would have reached for my drawing-book. ‘Learn

to see,’ Masaccio said to me, one night in the taverna, his hand sketching

flawlessly by candle-light. ‘You see too much detail, Ilario. You draw it

all. And you give it all the same importance. Look to see what parts of a

thing are necessary: show only that.’

Now all I could do was stare through the blurry green and shimmering

silver at Videric.

He knelt beside Rosamunda, where she lay supine on the floor.

His hands moved, busy at her mouth. Tying something.

A gag.

Light through the fretwork stone ceiling shone down on pillars and

fountain-basins. And glistened off her eyes as she blinked.

Christus
Imperator,
she’s
still
alive!

Three or four other men stood behind Videric where he knelt. They

wore the livery of guards. There were no household badges on arm or

cap. Evidently they waited for orders.

Rekhmire’
will
be
behind
me,
sooner
or
later.

I swept the bead curtain clattering aside, and strode into the hall.

325

16

There’s
no
blood
.

It was the first thing I noted. No blood; no broken bones protruding

through stretched-white skin. A slave learns how to see the crucial things

in the first instant.

An absent part of my mind wondered,
Is
that
what
Masaccio
meant
about
an
artist’s
vision?

Her wrists and ankles were already bound; she squirmed and

whimpered in an attempt to get free of Videric’s hands. Two red bruises

marked the sides of her jaw, where a thumb and forefinger might have

gripped her. Nothing more. Her silk robes were rucked up about her

knees, but clearly from struggling against being subdued, rather than

rape. Sweat beaded across her unlined forehead. She strained against her

arms, tied before her; Videric looked up from binding her kerchief into

her mouth with silk rope.

Looked directly at me.

One of the other men started forward.

‘Wait.’ Videric spoke with a quiet intensity that froze the man where

he stood.

I stared squarely down at Videric. ‘I didn’t know how vindictive you

could be. But you can let her go now, since you’ve got me here.’

His face altered. If his control had not been perfect, it would have been

a smile. He murmured, ‘Nor did
I
know that you thought the world

centred upon you.’

‘Don’t be naive.’ I thought it the surest way to shake him. ‘
Everybody

thinks that.’

Videric turned his head as if I didn’t exist. His attention focused on

Rosamunda, on the floor. The small choked sound he made would not

have carried as far as the guards wearing his livery.

The men were all much similar: Iberian, rather than Visigoth

Carthaginian; middle-aged soldiers in doublet and hose, with riding-

boots fastened up to their belts, and no surcoat over their mail hauberks.

No crest, no coat of arms, no insignia. Nothing to link them to Videric’s

estates.

The glances between them told me they were his. I have seen similar

looks between Honorius and Orazi.

326

‘What’s the matter? Do you need four men here to kill me? Can’t you

do your own murders?’

Videric’s expression didn’t change. I didn’t expect it; he’s too good a

politician to allow that. But I caught the glance one of the men-at-arms

shot at his captain. It wasn’t, ‘Damn, Ilario knows!’ It was, ‘You didn’t say you were asking
that
of us.’

If he really doesn’t want revenge on me, when it’s freely offered—

I must have made him desire
her
death.

If he’s off-balance, I may find out more. I nodded at the soldiers,

speaking with a hope of keeping Videric unsettled. ‘Men in a jealous rage

don’t usually bring four witnesses. If you’re not killing my mother, what

are you doing to her?’

The Aldra Videric smiled appreciatively. He glanced up and back, at

his captain. ‘A shame there’s not room for two . . . ’

The man-at-arms smiled as one does at a lord’s joke.

‘Whatever you’re doing to her—’ I kept moving, coming closer to him,

and Rosamunda, every moment. ‘—why
aren’t
you doing it to me? I

don’t believe the – the man who told me about this “meeting” I’m

supposedly having with my mother is one of your pawns. But since I’m

here . . . why not kill me instead?’

The sun falling through the lattice-patterned ceiling made Videric’s

fair hair and beard glint. He came lightly up onto his feet, as if he were

my age, and shrugged. ‘Why
not
you? Honorius. And Alexandria, to a degree. You have powerful friends that make killing you unwise. Even an

accident would be suspect.’

‘But not for her?’ I didn’t look down as I reached Rosamunda. The

toes of my studded sandals touched the shoulder of her robe. I looked at

him across my mother’s body. ‘She has no powerful friends herself that

aren’t also your friends. So there’s nothing to stop you.’

Videric laughed.

It caught halfway through, as if it snagged on something in his throat.

‘I’m not killing her.’ The Aldra Videric rubbed the cuff of his robe

across his red lips. For the first time in years, he seemed to see me – to

see Ilario, rather than the King’s slave, or his wife’s secret bastard. ‘And

now you’re here, I suppose not you either . . . Not everything is about

murder, Ilario.’

He looked at me with sardonic humour, as if he couldn’t understand

why I didn’t smile in return.

The time will come when I don’t hear the word ‘murder’ and see

Masaccio’s face in front of me, throat crushed in front of my eyes. But

not today.

‘Is it my fault? Did what I painted make you do this?’

The hall was silent except for the strained, muffled breathing of

Rosamunda. And the noises she made in her throat.

327

I did not need to hear words to know she intended ‘
Yes:
your
fault:
free
me!
’

Videric’s captain was a new face since I’d left Taraco; I didn’t

recognise him, but he had in-country features, and he was a little

younger than the other soldiers. Recently promoted, I guessed. He would

be a man loyal to Videric, who had been taught to blame me for his lord’s

initial forced resignation as First Minister.

The captain turned his head towards Aldra Videric, plainly requesting

orders.
Kill
the
intruder?
Subdue
it?

For three heartbeats, I was dizzy with the realisation that, had I been a

slave still, stepping into this room would have been immediate suicide.

I flinched, momentarily. Two of the men-at-arms exchanged glances,

cheered by that.
The
hermaphrodite
isn’t
the
knight
it
was
trained
to
be
was plain in their thoughts.

Videric made a gesture with his hand.

The clink and spatter of fountain-water did not drown out boots on

the tiles. The men-at-arms went to take up stations at the remaining

archways. I might escape if I spun around and dived back the way I

came. But I wouldn’t bet money.

And I’m not leaving.

Holding Videric’s gaze, I sank down on one knee by Rosamunda.

Peripheral vision gave me the ability to pull at the knots of her silk gag.

Videric quite deliberately made no move from where he stood. He

turned the palms of his hands to me, to emphasise that he held no

weapons. I wondered if he knew that it seemed to make him appear

defenceless in other ways.

‘I wouldn’t do that,’ he said, ‘Wait.’

‘“Wait.”’ I sounded like every speculative, unbelieving courtier I ever

met in Rodrigo’s court.

‘Hear me out, first. Then . . . ’ He sighed and shrugged. Not quite

‘your folly be on your own head’, but something with more sorrow and

resignation in than I was used to hearing from my
step
-father.

He’ll
tell
you
what
you
want
to
hear
.

This man who lied, a year ago, about Rosamunda desiring to see me.

When it was his own orders that she wait and kill me.

He looks different.

I’d paid attention to him physically, painting him in the new style.

Masaccio taught me ratios: the placing of the eye according to the

position of ears, jaw, nose. Given Masaccio’s emphasis that first a painter

needs to see – and wanting to understand him – I had studied my

stepfather as lines, planes, shades, edges . . .

As a man, Videric looks older than when I left Taraco, and tired

enough that he might not have slept for days.

I said abruptly, ‘You painted your face for the cathedral!’

Videric rubbed at his lower lip again. ‘It was necessary to look as a

328

man should. Women are not the only ones to mimic health with cosmetic

aid.’

I knelt down on the tiles, lifting Rosamunda’s head and resting it

against my thighs, so that I could support her shoulders with my knees.

She stirred, moaning; and looked frantically at me. It felt appalling,

unbearable, to see the silk biting into the corners of her lips.

I stroked her soft, braided black hair. The weight of her head was

heavy in my lap, and I wondered for a dazed moment if the embroidery

on my Alexandrine tunic would leave its pattern embossed in her fine

skin.