Ilario, the Stone Golem (9 page)

I will be assumed as a matter of course to be Leon’s whore.’

Her head turned: she fixed Leon with a desolate stare.

‘And I am
your
wife
.’

Leon Battista sprang up, went to the window, and knelt down beside

her. I thought it tactful to turn away and converse with Rekhmire’ while

Leon comforted her.

I drained my wine glass. ‘No one would care in Alexandria, would

they?’

‘That they are man and man, not man and wife? Likely not; why

should they? If they want to live as man and woman, and are discreet,

Ty-ameny would permit it. Given Master Leon’s interest in the arts and

architecture, and the Classical writings, I think she would even forgive

him being a Frank.’

There was a very faint teasing air about that last. I smiled briefly at

him.

‘But still,’ Rekhmire’ murmured, the amusement leaving his expres-

sion, ‘Neferet didn’t expect to return to Alexandria without him. That

will hurt her.’

39

‘
I
would
take
you
with
me!
’ Leon’s voice rose. ‘I swear by Christ on the Tree! If there was any way it could be managed—’

Perhaps the matter had been enough on my mind recently that I saw

through it, in that instant, to an answer. As if I reached up and caught the tail of the lightning-bolt, and was instantly gifted with illumination.

Yes:
this
will
work!

But she will not like it, I realised. It may work, but she will hate it and

me . . .

I stood up, finding by that I drew Rekhmire’’s and Leon’s attention.

Leon had one arm about Neferet’s waist, where he knelt at her side.

Neferet’s large fingers were interlocked with his.

‘You said it yourself,’ I remarked, meeting Neferet’s gaze. ‘There’s no

role for an unmarried woman in a house in Florence. Or for one married

to a
different
man, or to a widow, unless you could produce visible evidence of a husband. You wouldn’t be trusted because you’re a

foreigner.’

Leon scowled, looking as if he would interrupt.

‘
I
found Venice far more confining than Rome or Carthage,’ I said,

‘and in Carthage I was a slave! But leaving that aside: in Venice, I’ve

been a woman. In Rome, I was,’ remembering Leon’s presence, I

stumbled over, ‘dressed as – a man.’

Rekhmire’ gestured with an open demanding palm. ‘And?’

I turned to the other Alexandrine. ‘Neferet, couldn’t you go to

Florence—’

Some friendly deity moved me to add a phrase:

‘—disguised as a man?’

She stared.

I added hastily, ‘Nobody would think anything of Leon taking on an

Alexandrine scribe as a secretary—’

‘
Disguised
as
a
man?
’

Neferet shrieked loudly enough that I had time to think I would, if I

had simply said
go
to
Florence
as
a
man
, either now be deaf, or have had something injurious thrown at me. And likely deserve it.

I snapped out, ‘If I can disguise myself as a man, you can!’

I saw her turn the matter over in her mind. She knows, from gossip

with Honorius’s men-at-arms, that I was a thoroughly convincing young

man in Rome. She has been telling me, all the while I’ve been here, that

truly I am a woman. If I can pass as a man, therefore – why not she?

‘I won’t do it!’ She stood up, trembling. ‘It’s undignified! And you—’

She swung around, pointing a finger at Rekhmire’. ‘You’ve never

believed me anything but Jahar pa-sheri! You see me as a monster, don’t

you?’

Rekhmire’, pale under his reddish skin, sat bolt upright. ‘No more than

I do Ilario!’

40

Frustration sealed her lips: she glared at Rekhmire’, and at me, and

turned on her heel to shout at Leon Battista.

The Florentine was still kneeling on the floor beside the window-seat.

He looked up, without rising.

‘Neferet – I really don’t mind.’

Her hand made a fist, in the folds of her dress. She stared so intensely

at him, her glance would have made glass catch fire and burn.

‘What do you mean?’

He put a hand on the window embrasure and pushed himself up,

making a face as his knees evidently pained him. The wet cold in the

Doge’s prison takes a long time to leave a man’s bones.

‘I don’t care.’ He walked over and took each of Neferet’s hands in his

own. ‘Whether you’re a man or a woman, whether you
dress
as a man or

a woman – none of that has any importance. It’s you I love.’

Neferet began to cry.

I had my arm under Rekhmire’’s other armpit, acting as an additional

crutch, and tactfully removed us from the room. I signalled as I left for

one of the men-at-arms to guard the door – since there is an obvious

method by which Leon could convince Neferet of his love, and if I were

Leon, I wouldn’t even waste so much time as it would take to reach the

bedrooms.

Heading by common consent for the kitchen, where it would be warm,

Rekhmire’ shook his head as he walked, still gripping lightly at my arm.

‘I haven’t seen Neferet in a scribe’s kilt in fifteen years. And then only

when court formalities wouldn’t let her get away with anything else.’ He

steered us towards the kitchen inglenook, with a wave to the cooks.

‘Better send up the wine in wooden bowls – it’s not like the house has

much Venetian glass left!’

‘You’re glad for her.’

‘Am I?’ He busied himself with being seated, tucking his crutch beside

him, and easing that leg into a stretch towards the fire. The heat of the

fire, perhaps, cast a flush onto his cheek.

‘She’s your friend. You’re happy that she’s happy.’ I winced at a

dimly heard crash from the depths of the house. ‘Or at least, if not

happy, that she can be with Leon.’

‘The Florentines will find her a trifle feminine, I think.’ He gave me a

sudden grin. ‘But then, all we Alexandrine eunuchs are feminine males,

according to common talk!’

I grinned back. ‘I don’t think you’d suit a Frankish skirt and

bodice . . . ’

In the hours following, Neferet’s quarrel broke out from time to time,

like an unquenched brush-fire – but it had little enough true heat, given

that she would break off from her ranting to look in wonder at Leon, and

her demeanour invariably softened after that. Since the Alberti were due

to depart in two days, she had perforce to make a decision and pack.

41

I woke early on that morning, to feed Onorata, and to bid Neferet

farewell. I found her in the atrium of the house – and for a moment truly

did not recognise Neferet in this slim and straight-shouldered man,

dressed in the short linen jacket and white kilt of an Alexandrine scribe.

‘Ilaria.’ She spoke with the pitch of her voice lower, a little husky.

Her skin showed smooth, under the linen. Her face looked curiously

bare with only a line of kohl above each row of eyelashes. She had her

hair cut short, falling to touch her shoulders, as one of the Alexandrine

customs is, and a narrow braided reed-band holding it back from her

eyes.

Honorius’s men-at-arms, at the house door, could be heard greeting

Leon Battista.

‘Good fortune,’ I said, a little hurriedly, not able to put all I thought into words.

‘You too.’ She – he – smiled.

It was a morning cool and damp enough for fog, rolling in with the

smell of the sea about it, clinging to Venice’s brick walls and Roman-tiles

roofs, and filtering the sunlight to diffuse glory. At the gate of the

Alexandrine house, Leon Battista awaited us. He greeted Neferet with no

more than a companionable nod – something neither his servants nor the

oarsmen of his boat would be surprised to see, in a man collecting a new

officer for his household.

Their eyes linked. It was a different enough story that I thought
I hope

they
can
be
discreet
.

‘This is a custom among my people.’ Neferet opened a small folded

cloth that she carried. I saw a glint of reddish black. She held up a

braided loop, handing one to Leon Battista, and one to Rekhmire’, and –

after a fractional hesitation – one to me.

A bracelet, I found, clasped with gold, and made with braided shining

hair. Neferet’s hair, now that she had dropped her hair to man’s length.

‘Thank you.’ Bereft of words, I could say nothing else.

Neferet, or Jahar, gave me a look with humour in the depths of it, and

murmured, ‘Think of it as a wedding gift . . . ’

I stumbled though Leon’s formal farewells, and watched as Rekhmire’

limped forward on his crutch to give last departing words to both

apparent men, all the while my thumb caressing the braided bracelet,

and the damp fog pearling on my velvet over-gown.

I turned and went back into the embassy.

A few moments later, Rekhmire’ stamped back inside – as well as a

man walking with a crutch may stamp – blowing on his fingers against

the damp cold, and swearing.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘—Holy dung that hatched the cosmos-egg!’ he concluded. ‘Damn

that woman!’

42

Having seen the boat depart, and Rekhmire’’s salute to it, I’d thought

all well.

‘She still won’t tell me where Herr Mainz is!’ He made a fist, his face

scarlet. ‘Nor will Master Alberti. And they wait until
now
to tell me this!’

‘Why won’t they?’

‘Some nonsense that the Florentine Duke will demand Herr Mainz, if

he appears openly in Venice, and that at the moment, La Serenissima

would probably keep Florence quiet by handing the man over. If they

don’t imprison him on their own behalf, and try to beat the secret of this

printing-
machina
out of him!’

I shrugged, following the Egyptian towards the kitchens. ‘If I were

Herr Mainz,
I’d
certainly want to stay out of sight.’

‘Sacred Eight, I want to
help
the man!’ The padded end of the crutch

thwacked the short, wide floorboards. ‘Ty-ameny needs him; I want to

invite him to Alexandria—’

‘—Which, until the weather’s better, is inaccessible by road, and no

ship will risk these seas. So he can’t leave Venice.’

‘Sun god’s
egg
!’

‘You would have said precisely the same thing, if you were in Neferet’s

place.’

While true, it was not tactful; I was not in the least surprised when he

stomped away towards the stairs, muttering under his breath. ‘I could

have hidden him
here
! Sent him to Edirne with the Turk!
Something!
’

I heard him calling for fresh ink as he vanished into his room, and

guessed he intended a ciphered message to follow Neferet, and say this

and more.

I reflected: If I were her, I’d make sure to drop the paper in a canal –

or in the Arno, if it reaches her in Florence.

Florence
, I belated realised.

My wife and my husband will end up living within the walls of the

same city.

The man-at-arms Berenguer grinned at me, the following morning.

‘Get your cloak, Mistress Ilario. You’re being abducted.’

43

7

It said something for the state of mind to which constant threat had

reduced me that I wore a dagger on my belt about the house – though the

dress’s hanging sleeves might have made drawing it quickly impractical.

One look at Berenguer convinced me I had no need.

‘Abducted?’

‘Sold,’ he corrected himself, picking my winter cloak up from where it

lay across the back of the wooden settle. He held it up, as a gentleman does for a lady. ‘Betrayed by the faithless mercenaries employed by the

foreign captain Lord Honorius . . . ’

Berenguer might not have liked a hermaphrodite when he met me in

Rome. He might from time to time still give me wary looks when the two

of us chanced to be in a room alone together, as if I might leap on him,

and seduce and rape him simultaneously.
But as
for
not trusting
him
to
be
faithful
to
my
father
. . .

I walked across the room to stand with my back to the black-haired

man-at-arms, letting him settle the woollen cloak around my shoulders.