Ilario, the Stone Golem (43 page)

Ramiro’s mouth curved a little, only at one side. I recall that ironic

smile from Venice, when this dishevelled man was Federico’s sleek

secretary.

I
do
not
expect
to
feel
empathy
for
the
man
who
would
have
killed
me—

‘Freedom after a fashion.’ Carrasco shrugged. ‘He’ll offer me a quick

death.’

I stared.

‘He’ll offer to keep my family safe,’ he said, ‘and he’ll offer to give me

what
I’d
promise, if I were him – a quick execution, to spare me the judicial torture of a slave, or being left to die after some ambush with my

guts hanging out.’

He bit at his lip, and rose awkwardly to his feet as if he could not bear

to be sitting while I stood. We were much of a height.

Slaves on their own – as, among foreigners like these Chin-men – have

no acquaintance to confide in. Only too much time to think.

This is what Ramiro Carrasco has been thinking, over the cradle of my

child.

‘You want
me
to order your death, instead?’

His face crumpled in a way an adult man’s should not.

‘I want you to save my family! If I’m dead, then there’s no reason for

him to harm them!’

I cut him short with a cruel truth. ‘Videric may make an example of

them. To convince the men he uses as spies
after
you.’

Ramiro Carrasco wiped a hand over his face. He sweated now, but not

from the humid heat. Bitterness and desperation sounded in his voice.

‘I’m already your slave. One day you’ll punish me for assaulting you in

Venice. Why not make it now? I’ll
beg
for punishment. But you have to

keep me away from Taraco—’

‘Christus! No. Stop embarrassing yourself!’

I wanted to shake him. I dared not touch him.

Because he is my slave, and no man can stop me if I whip the skin off

his back.

Or if I kill him.

Ramiro Carrasco looked at me with sheer desperation. ‘I
accept
I am your slave. In God’s name, do something, because I can’t!’

A man cannot be watched all day, every day.

If Ramiro Carrasco de Luis feels driven enough by this to kill himself,

213

what will drive him is the contrast between the free man of Venice and

the slave. There is no action he can take against the situation he is in. I

have cause to know how fear is strongest then.

Carrasco let out a sound that was both sigh and groan. With one

ragged swift movement, he drove his fist against the wooden wall: a loud

crack echoed around the cabin.

‘
No
—’ I waved Attila away as the blond man-at-arms swung the door

open again. ‘Leave us!’

The door clicked shut.

I held my hand out. ‘Let me see that.’

Carrasco’s fingers felt cold in mine. Blood welled out of the scrapes on

his knuckles.

Manipulating the joints with my thumbs got a suppressed grunt out of

him, but I felt no unusual movement of bone under my pressure.

I wish I might get the flayed image of the Royal Mathematicians’

autopsy from my mind to paper. I do not desire to know what the living

flesh is like under the skin. Or how easily a man may be flayed alive,

rather than dead.

But the truth is, my charcoal drawings of hands have been better since

then.

Ramiro Carrasco muttered, ‘What can a slave say to a master that’s

honest? You’re right. Send me off to be beaten; have done with it!’

‘So you can jump over the ship’s rail?’

‘No!’

He trod on my words far too quickly.

I pushed his hand back towards him. He flexed it, looking down;

unkempt black hair falling into his eyes.

He did not look at me. ‘Perhaps I
wish
you to believe I would do that.’

Men take their most stupid actions in such undecided passionate

states.

‘Sit.’ I pointed at the low stool.

Returning to my sack for paper and a stub of charcoal, I saw in

peripheral vision how he sank slowly down onto the stool again, never

taking his eyes off me.

Long experience as a slave has me used to judging men, sometimes

even accurately. But I read neither souls nor minds; I doubted I could

read in him whether he was honest or not, with me or with himself.

I
may
know
better
after
this.

I pulled up a second stool, sat down, and began sketching, with paper

and board across my knee.

Sitting for me was calming him, I realised.

It’s a familiar routine.

‘Videric can threaten you again.’

‘Yes.’ The light didn’t alter on his luminous brown eyes.

‘He may have imprisoned your family as hostages by now.’

214

Eyes moving from his face to the paper, I knew him aware of that. I

need not say Videric may also have sent in his soldiers to fire and burn

the villages. A man can drive his serfs off his own estates, if he wishes. Or

kill them. No one speaks for them; in law they’re property.

‘I know so little.’ Ramiro shifted, meeting my eyes. ‘And I was of the

same kind as your Alexandrine – in possession of every fact and rumour.’

My chalk discovered the lines of frustration, anger, passion.

‘I could have
killed
you in Venice! If.’ He stopped dead.

I finished. ‘If you could have brought yourself to do it.’

He glared as if I had deeply insulted him. ‘You think I couldn’t kill

you?’

‘I think you’re the first man in your family to have a choice at anything

except digging dirt – and you chose the university of Barcelona and

training as a lawyer, not going for a soldier, like most farmer’s sons.’

I watched the pupils of his eyes widen.

‘I think Videric saw a man who could be blackmailed, and made a bad

error of judgement about what he could be blackmailed into. A man who

studies the law isn’t necessarily the best choice for a casual murderer.’ I

sketched the slackened flesh around his jaw. ‘Which leaves you caught

with nowhere to go. Not the best situation.’

He visibly struggled, and at last managed, ‘You’re not as rash as you

seem, are you?’

‘Possibly you mean “not as stupid as I look”? I don’t have to tell you –

a slave studies people. When anyone can do anything to you, you learn

to look.’

Ramiro Carrasco shot
me
a look, that I thought for the first time was not solely directed at ‘Madonna Ilaria’.

I remarked, ‘Only you would blush because I
don’t
think you’re a

murderer.’

Having reduced him to silenced confusion, I used the charcoal to

darken in the masses of his hair.

‘You will have heard—’ Because it could not be otherwise, travelling

with us. ‘—that we intend Videric to return to court, in his old rank and

position. If we succeed, that makes us safe.’ I caught his eye. ‘All of us.’

Abruptly his face creased. He gave me a look of sardonic scorn.

‘You think if Lord Videric’s back in power, he won’t make damn sure

to clear up every loose end? That he’ll let you run around loose, knowing

what you know?’

Ramiro Carrasco did not need to add,
And I, with what I know?

This dread slicing coldly through me is not new. This wakes me at

nights – suppose what we plan is not enough?

As calmly as I might, I said, ‘You truly don’t believe this will succeed.’

Carrasco snorted as if he were a freeman. ‘I will not be responsible for

the deaths of my family!’

215

The war-junk slowly tacking, the shift of sunlight altered all the tone

and values of his face.

He will have thought what Rekhmire’ and I have thought, because

Ramiro Carrasco is not stupid. Only at the frayed end of his rope.

‘Suppose I strike the rivets out, and take your collar off, and let you

run?’

His eyes widened. My fingers rummaged in the sack for a white chalk

to make highlights. Only a fool doesn’t use what tool there is to hand.

‘No!’ He got the word out with difficulty. ‘The sole reason he hasn’t

had me killed yet is that it’s more difficult to kill both you and I at once!’

‘Then we’ll continue to make it difficult for him . . . ’

Carrasco sat as if stunned.

To have refused your own freedom commits you – as I once

discovered – to much.

‘Two things,’ I said.

I put in the curls of his hair, tumbling over his forehead, and found my

skill not great enough to reproduce the confusion in his expression.

‘First, Ramiro Carrasco, if I come out of this conversation even

thinking
you might kill yourself, you’ll leave this cabin in chains, and you’ll stay that way.’

Carrasco sat perfectly still, moving only with the minor movements of

the ship. I smudged in the values of his stubble in the sunlight, botched

it, and set the board and paper down at my feet.

‘Secondly, Onorata will need feeding soon. You do it.’

His face turned so rawly open that it was painful to watch.

He spoke barely above a whisper. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘I made use of you before,’ I said, ‘on the
Sekhmet
. I trust you, now, not to hurt a child.’

Ramiro Carrasco stared.

I said, ‘Yes, there’s no honesty between master and slave – but I can’t

free you yet; as you say, I need to have that threat over Videric. So if you

have to trust me, then I have to trust you.’

He sat motionless – and all in a rush put his elbows on his knees and

his hands over his face.

I
would
let
you
have
that
privacy.
But
I
need
to
see.

I reached forward and took his wrists, pulling his hands down.

Ramiro Carrasco stared away, sounding stifled. ‘You can’t do this! If

he demands of me—’

‘If I choose to have trust in you—’

Water shone in the creases of skin about his eyes. He wrenched it out

word by word: ‘If it was a choice – my father – my brothers – I would choose them over your child. You must know that!’

‘Then I’ll see you won’t be put where you have that choice to make.’

He made as if he would say something, struggled, and no word came

out.

216

Rekhmire’’s tenor voice abruptly cracked through the silence in the

cabin. ‘Are you completely mad?’

The Egyptian stood in the cabin doorway.

Ramiro Carrasco sprang to his feet with the quickness of a man who

has been whipped for not doing so. His hands tore out of my grip.

I stood, slowly, heart hammering in my chest. ‘You were listening?’

The Egyptian snorted. ‘And Attila, too!’

Rekhmire’’s expression was one I did not recognise. Scorn, I realised

finally.

I
have
never
seen
him
without
his
self-control—

Rekhmire’ limped into the cabin, to the window-port, gazing out as if

he did not see the masts and sails. Before I could speak, he swung

clumsily around on his heel.

‘What is it with you and your waifs and strays, Ilario? First Sulva.

Then this . . . spy.’

It would have hurt less, been less surprising, had he walked up and

slapped me in the face.

I raised my voice. ‘Attila!’

The German put his head around the door.

‘Take Ramiro down to the animal pens. He’ll milk the goat for the

baby.’

I stayed aware of them out of peripheral vision, my gaze locked with

Rekhmire’’s.

Some of Honorius’s authority evidently belonged to me by proxy;

Attila did not hesitate, but stepped in, jerking his thumb expressively at

Ramiro Carrasco. The slave-secretary moved as if his legs were made of

wet paper, stumbling out of the cabin in front of the soldier.

I kicked the door closed behind them. ‘Rekhmire’—’

‘I apologise.’ Rekhmire’ wiped his hand over his shaven scalp. ‘I know

Sulva – is not mine to discuss.’

Sitting abruptly down on the low chair behind me, I caught a brush

under my sandal and heard it crack.

I no longer look at the badly executed paintings I made of Sulva

Paziathe. The shape of her face is marked out by my guilt.

Rekhmire’ slid off his reed and linen headband, running the woven

length of it through his fingers. He snorted. ‘
Carrasco
, on the other hand—’