Ilario, the Stone Golem (15 page)

‘I’ll take it back.’ Carrasco’s resigned voice broke the silence. ‘I’ll get someone else to bring you a meal.’

Poisoning me will keep his family alive, at least, provided Videric

keeps his word – even if it’ll get Carrasco handed over for a judicial

burning as a poisoner.

Unless they flay him, as a slave who has killed his master.

Ramiro Carrasco’s face showed a faint pink colour that was not

reflected warmth from the hearth fire. ‘You ought to eat.’

He abruptly reached down to pick up the wooden plate. It had dark

bread and pale cheese on it, and I could smell that what was in the jug was honey ale. All of which can be sabotaged, I suppose, if a man sets his

mind and ingenuity to it. But then, what can’t be?

Crossing the room, I caught hold of Ramiro Carrasco’s wrist, took the

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plate out of his hand, and set it back on the table. He appeared surprised

that I would be strong enough to arrest his movement.

‘I’ll eat,’ I said. His skin felt cool in my grip. I released him. ‘Who sent

you? My father? The Egyptian?’

Ramiro Carrasco de Luis looked down at the floorboards.

There was enough light from the window and the hearth-fire to let me

see he ferociously blushed.

I could scent him sweating, too, but there wasn’t the cold sweat of fear.

‘You got this for me.’ I couldn’t help smiling at his evident

embarrassment.

‘It’s not – tampered with!’

‘You got this for me. Because . . . ’

He was not in the dark Italian doublet and hose that he had worn as

Sunilda’s secretary, and naturally enough he had no stiletto at his belt.

I’d bought him, but who clothed him?

Honorius, probably, from the household guards’ baggage. The

rumpled woollen hose, and doublet with darned point-holes, both looked

as if they might have been discarded by some soldier after long service.

Carrasco had enough of the freeman still in him that he stood as if the

scruffy clothes were a humiliation rather than a fortunate gift.

‘Because?’ I prompted.

Some man in the house had cut his hair back to the scalp, presumably

to rid it of prison mites. Under his leather coif, he was quite bald. The same long-lashed black eyes looked back at me that I had spent weeks

drawing.

I doubt he really needed to have his head shaved rather than washed –

but someone will have found it amusing.

Ramiro Carrasco looked down at the table top, and blushed painfully

red over his neck and ears, that I could see where the coif was cut high.

He muttered, ‘You’re right, you can’t say anything honest between

master and slave. I just wanted . . . You . . . I do
know
I’d be dead of sickness by now!’

I picked up the crust of dark bread and bit a corner off. It was

yesterday’s. Dry enough that anything would soak into it.

What?
some part of my mind scoffed. You think he has a chest full of

poisons in his bedroll, all ready to play the assassin again?

Although he only has to have had access to my painting gear. The

poisonous paints will kill any artist, if a painter is foolish enough to lick

their brush.

‘If I were in your position,’ I said, ‘I wouldn’t poison the first plate of

food.
Or
the second. I’d wait until I was trusted, until people were used

to me, until I wasn’t noticed. Then I could be certain the food would be

consumed . . . What? You think I was never sold to any man I didn’t

dream of killing?’

Carrasco flushed. ‘I forgot you’ve been a slave.’

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It would have taken counting on my fingers to get the right of it. ‘I

think I’ve spent more of my life formally as a slave than formally free. I

know all the tricks. And it’s not like I’ve forgotten how many times you

tried to have me killed. Even if I do understand why.’

The look Ramiro Carrasco de Luis gave me was something to

treasure, if one is not immune to normal human vindictiveness.

He stood with his balance on the balls of his feet, shoulders hunched a

little. I thought he would have liked to brawl with me. He glanced at my

hand, where I bit at the dark bread again, and looked remarkably

uncomfortable.

‘You will not allow me even to thank you, for keeping me alive—’

‘You don’t want to thank me. You just feel you ought to. I
have
saved

your life.’ I couldn’t help grinning, momentarily.

‘Ilaria—’

‘You’re another one who’s going to have to be beaten into remember-

ing “master”.’ I put the bread down, drank from the jug – watching him

and seeing no reaction other than a flushed anger. ‘Listen. You call

everybody
master or mistress. They call you . . . whatever they like. It’s like a dog or a horse. If I don’t like the name “Ramiro” I can change it.’

That brought his head up. His dark eyes glared at me. Names are

important.

‘As for thanking me,’ I said. ‘You’re glad to be alive, but you don’t

desire to thank me for keeping you that way. You hate the fact that I

rescued you. I’d guess you spend half your time wishing I was dead, and

half the time wishing
you
were. And you don’t wish to thank me for making you a slave – you find it humiliating, because you have more

pride than any man
ought
to have. Certainly more than you have sense.

Travelling with Federico and his wife and daughters, being Videric’s

man covertly, knowing what was really going on . . . that suited you.

Being property, being a shield between Videric and the man-woman . . .

No, that sticks in your throat.’

I watched Carrasco go as white as he had been red.

‘She-male!’ he spat out finally, intending it for insult, not description.

‘Ramiro, I spent enough time drawing you to know you.’

He knocked the wooden plate off the table, stalked out of the room,

and his footsteps died away while the plate still spun and clattered on the

floorboards.

How many times is he going to be whipped or starved before he

realises what he is, now?

One word could have started that process. I felt more sympathy than I

wanted to admit with his position. Am I to be the first to cause weals on

his back?

A shield.

Yes, I thought. And I must finally admit it: Rekhmire’ and my father

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are right. It merely puts Ramiro Carrasco where
he
has to be killed before

I can be.

There must be a solution.

I
can’t
see
it!

The night came; I slept deeply, aware of no dreams; and opened my

eyes with a snap in the morning, mind suddenly awake and aware,

everything instantaneously laid out before me as the light and shadow of

a drawing sometimes is.

I hauled a man’s doublet on over my night-gown and clattered down the

stairs.

The smell of cooking permeated the house from the kitchens to the

main room downstairs, overlooking the still-bald garden of the embassy.

Evidently I had slept through men breaking their fast. Walking in, I

found that the long oak table was cleared – of knives and plates, at least.

My father and Rekhmire’ sat with opened boxes and crates about their

feet. Some of the smaller crates occupied the table top, surrounded by

heaps of straw. The window’s light caught shining curves.

I recognised glass goblets, lantern-shields, beads, jugs; all such as I had

seen on the lagoon-islands of Murano and Burano.

‘Old mercenary habit,’ Honorius murmured, as he had in Rome;

studying the pattern of a blue glass goblet he held up. ‘Venetian glass will

make excellent export goods . . . ’

The room’s far door closed behind Ramiro Carrasco.

Rekhmire’ and my father, at the bench at the long table, smiled their

individual smiles.

‘I know another slave who was impossible to train,’ the Egyptian

remarked, blithely provoking.

I met his gaze.

Rekhmire’ stopped and looked closely up at me. ‘What is it?’

Honorius hooked a joint-stool up to the table, in invitation to sit, his

gaze narrowed expectantly.

‘I have the answer.’ I slide a crate towards me, picking one of the glass

goblets out of the straw. ‘I doubt you’ll like or approve of it.’

Rekhmire’’s dark eyes fixed on me, intent and intense. Characteristic-

ally, he said nothing, only waiting for me to speak.

I tilted the goblet, watching the spiral of coloured glass in the stem

catch the light. ‘I don’t like it either . . . But I can see no other way.’

Honorius reached and took the glass out of my hand, and set it firmly

on the table. ‘
Well?
’

‘Videric isn’t going to stop—’

Old habits coming back to me, I sprang up, striding to open the

room’s far door. No man was listening. I checked the door I had come in

by, and left both open – since it’s harder to eavesdrop at an open door.

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‘Bear with me, and listen.’ I paced back, resting my palms on the table

as I leaned and looked at them, across the crates and packing.

Honorius nodded. Rekhmire’ remained motionless.

‘And tell me where I may be wrong,’ I added. ‘Ramiro Carrasco is

some protection to us, because he will implicate Videric thoroughly,

should he come to be tortured. And I suspect, if Videric harms his family

out of pique, Carrasco would turn into a willing witness for us. But – if

Videric can send a man who kills Ramiro Carrasco before he kills me,

that doesn’t matter.’

‘Masterly,’ Rekhmire’ murmured under his breath, and held his large

hands up defensively as I glared at him. ‘No, Ilario, please. Continue. I’m

sure this has a point . . . ’

The waspishness reassured me. Rekhmire’’s temper only verges on

inadvertent rudeness when he is under great stress.

And that means the situation is as dangerous as I say it is.

Leaning with my hip against the edge of the table, I picked fragments

of the straw packing out of one of the boxes, and looked across at

Honorius.

‘Tell me why you first went to Castile and Leon.’

Honorius looked as if he flushed, under the sun-browned skin. ‘Your

mother—’

‘No.’ I stood up straight. ‘No, I understand
that
. Rosamunda didn’t want to leave a rich man for a poor man.’

The bluntness must have hurt him, but he only nodded.

‘You were a soldier. Why did you go
north
?’

Honorius’s brows came down. ‘Because that’s where the war was! Still

is, for that matter.’

I reprised the history of it, even though I could see a light of knowledge

come into his eye. ‘You couldn’t have succeeded as well as you have in

Taraco?’

Honorius shrugged. ‘There wasn’t going to be war in Taraconensis, I

thought. I was right: there hasn’t been a war on the Frankish border with

Taraconensis for twenty-five years, to my certain knowledge. I knew if I

went north to the crusades—’

I nodded, interrupting him, and set off pacing around the long table

again, too restless to stay still. Rekhmire’ leaned his head back as I passed

him, intent dark gaze on me.

I said, ‘We’ve both listened to the gossip in the salons. Every man

seems to think Taraconensis so weak now, that Carthage might send

legions in. So that the Franks can’t press down from the north, take

Taraco, and threaten North Africa.’

Honorius merely nodded. His frown was thoughtful. He had spent

more than a little time talking over this with Carmagnola, I knew from

my own observation.

‘Ask yourself: what changed?’ I held up my hand, stopping him

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speaking. ‘And we know, of course. It started half a year ago, when

Carthage sent their ambassador over and caused a scandal—’

Honorius scowled. ‘You’re saying
Videric
is the reason why—’

‘Rodrigo had Videric as his adviser, his First Minister, all the time I

was growing up at the court.’ I ended at the head of the dark oak table,

resting my weight on my hands. ‘I
know
Rodrigo Sanguerra. Yes, he’s a

good king. But if you force me to admit it, I have to say – he would have

been less good without Videric.’

I went on swiftly, before either staring man could interrupt me:

‘Others think the same thing. How
true
it is – hardly matters. Politics is

a matter of belief. And men believe that Taraconensis is weak because