Ilario, the Stone Golem (39 page)

I was on tiptoe, I found, and straining my eyes to stare at the golem.

Not a quiver of movement.

The joints glistened in reflected light from the piazza outside, but that

could be the polished brass and bronze gears. The finished glue had

poured like liquid glass in Milano’s factories; poured in and settled

around every cog, every spring, every wheel, every plate, every part of

the statue that moved.

And that it did move had been confirmed by Ty-amenhotep’s orders

to it, shouted from thirty yards off, so that it exposed all its limbs and joints to us to anoint.

Alexandrine Constantinople – or the life of Ty-ameny, at least –

depends on the tensile strength of glue, once set.

I bit my lip until the sharp pain of bursting skin gave me the taste of

blood.

‘—consorting against even the tenets of the heretic Frankish church—’

Rekhmire’ turned his head as the page tugged on his sleeve. I saw him

read the note; his lips moved, saying something to the boy. He returned

his gaze to the ambassador, not looking over towards me.

Too professional to seek me out. Too concerned that I may be a

target. But I realised I would find it infinitely reassuring to meet his gaze.

191

‘—and it is treachery! Conspiring with slant-eyed demons against the

civilised world! Treachery in the highest degree, without even the excuse

of necessity of – Saint – Gaius – Judas!’

He hit the saint’s Carthaginian and Frankish names heavily, with a

hammer’s rhythm.

That’s
it
! That’s the trigger for the golem’s orders—

The son of the House of Hanno stared, white showing all around his

eyes.

A faint click sounded, below the discreet mutterings of the courtiers

about the discourtesy of this diplomat, and speculations as to what Ty-

ameny would do about him. The faintest possible abrasion of metal

against metal.

The surface of the stone quivered. Once, twice. And—

Nothing.

Nothing more.

192

20

The Carthaginian envoy stared at the stone golem.

The stone golem stared sightlessly into the distance, as if the palace

walls were transparent to it, and it could see all of the city, the sea, and

the walls of Carthage that lay so many weeks of travel to the west.

It still did not move.

I frowned, squinting. Most of the crowd were looking at the

ambassador or their Queen; I doubted more than half a dozen of us were

looking at the golem.

Nothing.

Holding my breath made my mouth arid as the desert around

Carthage, and dread made me feel as cold. Stare as I might, I could see

no more vibration in the stone limbs and body.

They
meant
it to kill her!

Rage soared through me, bringing welcome heat. The golem’s

response, minimal as it was, spoke of all the danger that Carthage’s gift

would have brought here – a poisoned chalice that the Pharaoh-Queen

could not diplomatically set aside; a trap that would have stood statue-

like at her side, until the right words from an agent of Carthage sent it into convulsions of violence.

For a moment I could smell an illusion of the carnage that this hall

would have suffered; see the pale bodies marked with blood, and Ty-

ameny’s limbs and head pulled from her body in grotesque parody of a

child pulling apart an insect.

‘We are pleased to accept the new envoy of Carthage, Hanno

Gaiseric.’ Ty-ameny spoke up, her tone with something savagely

restrained under it. ‘And if the King-Caliph will accept a poor gift in

recompense for this gift of his—’

Here she gestured at the motionless stone golem.

‘—then I have drawings, documents, and divers other things concern-

ing the foreign demons of Chin, which the King-Caliph’s scientist-magi

may find of interest.’

Hanno Gaiseric tore his gaze away from the golem with evident

difficulty.

‘The King-Caliph accepts with—’ The word seemed to choke him:

‘—gratitude.’

Forty-eight hours later, Hanno Gaiseric went aboard the bireme and

193

unexpectedly left the grand harbour; Ty-ameny’s spies reported the ship

heading unerringly and unstoppably back towards Carthage.

An hour after
that
, the Pharaoh-Queen announced Carthage’s gift so

valuable that it must be installed in the Royal Library. And Rekhmire’

came back up to our quarters dusting his hands together, having lent a

hand at mortaring the stone blocks and iron bars that irrevocably closed

up one of the Library’s lowest storage chambers, now buried well below

ground-level.

‘“Safe”.’ Ty-ameny shook her head, her unbound hair rippling over her

bare shoulders. ‘Yes. Yes, but – Carthage desired us to know we cannot

engineer what they can. Very well, we have been lessoned . . . ’

Even in her private chambers, wearing only a linen wrap in the

afternoon heat, she kept the presence of the Pharaoh-Queen. Hanno

Gaiseric’s attempt at murder seemed only to have energised her. She

smiled ferociously at Rekhmire’.

‘I think, therefore, it’s time to issue a lesson of our own.’

As ever in a court, it may have seemed that we were alone, but as soon

as Ty-ameny lifted her hand, slaves and servants came with wine, ivory

cups, small crisp biscuits, and a number of leather map-cases. A shaven-

headed slave ordered the placing of a low table in the room’s sunken-

floor area, spread the maps with his own hands, and bowed to his queen

as he left.

Each chart was bordered at top and bottom with brass, to keep them

from rolling back up; I found myself wondering if there was a use for

that in drawing.

Had I been able to pick them up to investigate, I would; in fact, my

hands were occupied in sliding under Onorata to check she was still dry.

The palace’s smallest tyrant having decided she would spend any part of

the day out of my company in screaming, I had no option but to bring

her with me, and sit as much out of the way as possible.

‘Here.’ Ty-ameny put her finger on a point on the larger map,

glancing at Rekhmire’, and then to me.

She beckoned me forward. ‘Let me hold the child.’

Reluctantly I got up and moved forward. ‘If she wakes, she’ll scream,

Great Name . . . ’

‘She won’t.’

The Pharaoh-Queen held out her hands, confident enough, I thought.

Of
course,
I
am
a
fool:
she
has
had
three
daughters
.

I passed Onorata into the wiry, muscular arms, and watched Ty-

ameny smile down at her. The venal thought of a monarch as god-parent

to my child came into my mind. But courts are cut-throat: Onorata will

be better out of them . . .

‘There.’ Ty-ameny pointed with her chin. Rekhmire’ spread out the

largest map.

194

The Middle Sea, I saw. Or a version of it. The headland on the

African coast could only be Carthage, given how close it was to Malta –

the furthest edge of the Penitence – and Sardinia and the Italies.

Rekhmire’ lifted his head where he sat. After a moment, I realised I

was hearing, with him, the creak of slave-wielded fans, loud in the

silence. He looked questioningly at the Pharaoh-Queen. Ty-ameny

gestured them away.

There have been kings who would merely kill their slaves after, in case

they had overheard what they should not.

The last slave left. Heat grew in the palace room, despite the open

windows. I could still taste, in the back of my throat, the smell of dead meat. Ty-ameny clucked at my child, and I seated myself beside

Rekhmire’.

I thought, not for the first time,
If
I
had
been
bought
by
any
other
man . . .

As King Rodrigo’s Freak, I was always spared the worst excesses of

being owned. My time as Rekhmire’’s slave has been far more like

Constantinople’s bureaucratic model than how life is outside of the

courts of power. Compared to Ty-ameny’s palace slaves, I have barely

been in slavery; compared to the world outside Alexandria – labour,

prostitution, either way worked to death – I have been closest to free. I

watched the Queen stroke Onorata’s bare ankle.

My daughter will never be a slave, no matter what.

‘There,’ Ty-ameny said, her voice low and even.

Rekhmire’, as if his hands were hers, indicated cities on the North

African coast, and ports at Sicily, Crete, and Rhodes.

‘We’ll issue a warning,’ she said. ‘The golem-
machina
is their opening

shot. House Barbas has put this weapon into the King-Caliph’s hand . . .

I am told.’

She gave a sudden smile, looking from under her kohl-blackened

lashes at Rekhmire’. He returned his ‘only a book-buyer’ expression of

innocence. I bit the inside of my lip so as not to laugh aloud. With an inexplicable lift of the heart, I thought,
They
are
closer
to
brother
and
sister
than
cousins
.

‘That being so,’ she continued, rocking Onorata gently, ‘King-Caliph

Ammianus will continue to test us. Rekhmire’, how many golem have

they?’

‘As much as I can now tell, no more than a dozen, we think.

Ammianus keeps most, but his chief allies among the Lords-Amir have

been given them as gifts.’

Hanno
Anagastes
, I thought.

I saw tears in his eyes when I gave him the funeral portrait of Hanno

Tesha, although I’d had to put the lustrous brown eyes and sleek dark

hair of cliche´, since that was the only description of the child he could 195

give me. Would he be capable of ordering a golem like the one in his

house to kill men as Masaccio was killed?

Given what men do in war, yes. No question.

Rekhmire’ leaned back, his fingers absently kneading at the muscles

above his knee though the linen kilt. ‘It’s possible the King-Caliph will

gift one to the Turkish Sultan. And to at least one of the Frankish Kings.

As far as we know, we’re first outside the Bursa-hill itself.’

‘A warning.’ The Pharaoh-Queen repeated it stubbornly. She darted a

glance at me, keen and black, jolting me with the intensity of her

attention. ‘And here, I think, is where our business intersects.’

‘Aldro.’ I waited as respectfully as I might, for impatience.

Ty-ameny spoke while she watched my sleeping child. ‘Rekhmire’ has

brought me knowledge of how Taraconensis appears to be unstable, and

how your stepfather may be a solution to that.’

There is nothing she has not been told.

But I expected that.

‘You have your own reasons for wishing to see Lord Videric in his

place at court again.’ The gleam in Ty-ameny’s black eyes was in part

serious, in part amused, and wholly elated. ‘Chief among which, I

imagine, is not continually anticipating murder.’

I answered the question she had carefully not asked.

‘When I trusted Aldro Videric – when I thought he was my father, and

a good man – I also thought he was King Rodrigo Sanguerra’s necessary

right hand. He’s still that. Without being a good man.’

I caught a scowl on Rekhmire’’s face, briefly wondered if I had spoken

amiss, and found the Pharaoh-Queen nodding with approval.

‘I had counted on forty years,’ she observed, ‘and, if I must, will settle

for twenty.’

Before
Alexandrine
Constantinople
falls.

It hit me like a falling boulder: in twenty years, my daughter could be

twenty. A woman. Those identical baby-features, that have only a

suggestion of her grandfather and I in the bones behind the skin, and the

colour of her hair, will give way to a face uniquely hers, a mind uniquely

hers.

Cold down my spine under the linen tunic, despite the heat of the

room, I said, ‘I grew up during peace – it guarantees nothing. But I know

what war guarantees.’

Ty-ameny pressed her lips together, nodding. She looked like a girl

cuddling a small sister.

She sat up, both her arms cradling Onorata, and the change was as

sudden and different as the crack of lightning falling from heaven to