Ilario, the Stone Golem (45 page)

a cup off the low table close to me.

I stared at him.

Wine and pickle splashed his fingers.

‘Just making sure.’ There wasn’t a smile on his face, but his eyes were

bright.

I glared at the Egyptian – and nearly cracked when Attila, large and

impressive as he was, looked frankly bewildered.

‘Let’s discuss this—’ I reached over and recovered my cup from

Rekhmire’’s hand. ‘—like sensible and responsible adults.’

He lifted his own bowl, looking at me over the rim.

Catching a deep warmth in his gaze, I could not do otherwise than

smile back at him.

‘You can distract me as much as you like.’ I leaned back on cushions

embroidered with Sekhmet’s sigils. ‘But you need me ashore. King

Rodrigo must speak to me. With all possible respect—’

‘With complete
dis
respect,’ Rekhmire’ echoed in a muttered aside that

made Attila’s grin flash out of the shadows.

‘—the King won’t trust an Alexandrine spy as far as he could throw

you. I don’t think you can play the humble book-buyer this time.’

Rekhmire’ reached into his robes and pulled out a leather scroll-case.

He held it out. I put my bowl down, uncapped the case, unrolled the

scroll, and found myself looking at the seal of the Pharaoh-Queen.

‘I can play the diplomatic envoy of Ty-ameny of the Five Great

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Names.’ Rekhmire’’s brows lifted towards his shaved scalp. ‘I thought

you’d assume something of the sort.’

The ancient pictorial script of Alexandria might have declared him

envoy from the Moon, but there was a Latin copy also in the scroll case.

‘Perhaps,’ I said. ‘I may have been gone from Taraco some time. But

I know how much the east isn’t trusted. Unless you outright plan to tell

King Rodrigo that your Queen is using Admiral Zheng He to scare the

shite out of Carthage—’

‘That would be one option.’ Rekhmire’ took the scroll-case back. ‘I do

admit, the first approach might be better made by one of King Rodrigo’s

own subjects. But, Ilario, you’re in too much danger. What use is all of

this if a hired gang of thugs kills you at Taraco docks?’

‘Unless you plan on locking me up with Ramiro, I’m going ashore. I

want to see Honorius!’

The Egyptian slowly nodded. ‘I understand. Again, it would be safer if

the Admiral made an exception, and permitted the Captain-General to

come here.’

I wavered.
Onorata
is
in
the
next
cabin.
And
I
cannot
take
her
ashore
with
me
. ‘Would Zheng He allow that?’

We talked, after one of Jian’s officers took a message. I stood at the

port for a time, and then paced. Ramiro Carrasco answered Onorata’s

sleepy cries, and I let him feed her again. I watched candle-light shift and

change on men’s faces; stretched my spine, and caught a glimmer of grey

out in the open air.

‘Attila, if I can borrow one of your mail-shirts,’ I suggested – Attila

being slightly less large around his chest than his brother. ‘And wear a

helmet. If I carry a sword as the Alexandrine’s escort, no one will look at

me; you
know
that. No man looks in obvious places.’

Rekhmire’ opened his mouth to protest.

And clearly thought better of it.

‘Then we must hope there’s a way to get a message to Lord Honorius,

once we’re ashore.’

The cabin door opened. Commander Jian himself came in, meeting

my gaze and nodding his head sharply.

‘No man to come here,’ he managed, in Mediterranean Latin. ‘You go

ashore now?’

A glimmer of white showed at the oared boat’s prow.

Sebekhotep’s robes.

The Egyptian pilot must be there for reassurance or curiosity’s sake.

From what I recall, a six-year-old child could steer a boat to the quay at

Taraco.

We docked, and the ground was painfully hard beneath my boots.

How
could
I
have
forgotten
the
air
and
the
light!

Even before dawn, with the east bright but unscarred by the sun, every

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dew-wet breeze brings the scent and reality of home to me. No brush will

capture this.

I raised my head and looked around the quay as Rekhmire’

disembarked with appropriate dignity. I might wish to be a guard in

more than my clothing, but I was overwhelmed, as if I had not seen the

city since childhood. And, at the same time, the ghost-white buildings,

and the feather-silhouettes of the fronds of the trees, were as familiar to

me as my own skin.

Dawn turned the sea-spray yellow, peach, scarlet; the Alexandrine

banner unrolled in yards of blue silk down the offshore wind. I smelled

salt, the old Roman drains of Taraco, and the scent of outdoor food-

booths already beginning to cook for early workers. Fruit-sellers’ cries

echoed down the dusty streets.

I turned my head, looking thirty yards in the other direction.

There, where a coastal ship is tied up to the bollard, first catch of fish

already unloaded – that’s where I walked up the gang-plank of a galley

sailing south down the coast to Carthage. Two hours beforehand, my

mother attempted to stick a dagger into my stomach.

I thought of the blade, black with poison.

Most poisons that you can daub on metal do less harm than rust.

There’s always talk in court of such weapons; of poisoned cups, of scent

that can poison a pair of gloves . . . In all honesty, more men die of the

fever turning their guts out. And more women in childbed.

Tottola’s elbow caught me ungently in the kidney.

I shouldered the pennant of Alexandria, becoming an anonymous

soldier and banner-bearer. Tottola and Attila were in blue doublets of

one shade or another, and scarlet hose. They had not yet replaced their

household badges.

If we meet Aldra Videric at the top of this hill with a gang of hired

criminals, I thought – or Rodrigo and the royal guard out to arrest us –

these men could die around me now.

In which case, I’ll step out in front of them, because in either case it’s

me they want. And wasting a life because of that would be stupid.

I resolved not to mention it to Rekhmire’.
The
Egyptian
will
expect
something
more
sensible
from
me
.

The same feeling of familiarity and strangeness suffused me on the

winding road to the palace. Mountains shone on the horizon, blue glass;

but would be yellow rough scrub under the noon sun. Every peak and

trough, I remember. Plodding under the shade of palm-feathered

branches, bare-footed children shinning up the trunks out of our way; a

pavement shoe-maker looking up from his last as we passed him. And

the dark eyes of men stopping their work at tavern or shop or household,

momentarily and silently taking in the sight of soldiers as we trudged up

the steep slope.

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The intricacies of the Sanguerra fortress-palace begin with a crenel-

lated gate-house at the bend of the road.

It had been dark when we left the ship. By the time we passed men at

guard-house, courtyards, outer and inner baileys, and were allowed into

the palace proper, the sun had risen over the sea high enough to make

me sweat.

‘How much
more
of this!’ Tottola fingered under the unfamiliar

woollen collar of his winter doublet. (Neither man-at-arms had summer

gear with them.) Attila echoed his muttering.

‘It’s an old palace—’

‘Rabbit warren!’ Tottola interrupted me, under his breath.

‘—and you wouldn’t begrudge the King a chance to impress us, would

you?’

The tall armoured brothers grinned, instantly, and as instantly looked

as unimpressed as it is possible for a man to be.

The King’s guards were leading us towards one of the eastern

courtyards, I realised. This older part of the palace has Carthaginian

influence, from ancient days before they were driven out to Africa. Two

altars burned at the foot of a wide flight of steps, servants keeping the flames high, although invisible as the sun reached down to them. Above

the steps, a wall of niches and crumbling urns enclosed an open square.

Beyond the wall, poplar trees screened masonry pyramids. My hand

recalled painting the desert beyond Carthage. I shivered.

That chill, and the dusty green feathers of the poplars, took me

suddenly to Venice’s lazaretto islands; I turned my head to look at the

walls as we were marched past them –
Before
this
was
a
courtyard
.
.
.
it
was
a
necropolis
.

I have not ever noticed this before.

Would I notice, if I had not travelled?

Around the crumbled end of the wall, the character changed. We

walked over cracked sandstone slabs, with ahead of us the walls of the

castle’s east wing – a million featureless pale bricks running up to

corbels, and battlements, and the terracotta tiles roofing the machicola-

tions. Guards’ heads showed as small as grape-pips. The walls towered

high enough to block out most of the sky: certainly enough to humble

petitioners to a king.

King Rodrigo Sanguerra had his chair of state outdoors, under a

striped awning, beside a flight of palace steps with stylised faces carved

on their balustrades.

I could not see the King himself over the heads of the surrounding

crowd. Most were guards or servants – only a few courtiers would attend

an audience beginning this early; Rodrigo held it for common tradesmen

and workers, so they might not lose too much of the working day. The

guards shepherded us under the far end of the awning. Somewhat

shaded by the sun, I lowered the Alexandrine banner so it would not

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catch on the billows of cloth, and shifted up on my toes, to see if I might

see King Rodrigo.

Rekhmire’ caught my eye. ‘We shall doubtless wait the usual long

time; no need to waste it . . . ’

I nodded, and set myself to watching inferior courtiers as they came

and went, and men and women from the kitchens, in case there might be

a face I knew.

Heat bounced back off the stone, and the balustrade’s ancient faces

changelessly stared.

There!

‘Hold this!’ I hissed, and shoved my banner into Attila’s hand. He

caught it, much startled.

I stepped to intercept the path of a man whose broad face had often

sat across from me in the royal scriptorium, on those occasions when

Rodrigo Sanguerra had employed me for my actual talents.

‘Galindus!’ Seizing his upper arm, I shifted us into the partial

concealment of the flight of steps, where the wall cast a shadow.

I smiled. He frowned, briefly. I saw him abruptly recognise me – more

by voice than clothes, as many do.

‘Ilario! You’re back!’

‘Yes and no.’ I kept the smile with an effort, threw everything of our

acquaintance into my expression, and got my demand out. ‘You still hear

all the gossip, don’t you? Listen, Galindus, tell me this. Lord Licinus

Honorius – is he here?’

‘What?’

‘Licinus Honorius.
Il
leone
di
Castiglia
. Is he at court!’

Seconds dripped past like cold honey. Galindus shot an unmistakably

prurient look at the crowd around Rodrigo’s chair of state.

‘Well . . . ’ His voice held the avidity of a man with a piece of choice

gossip. My heart thudded until I thought it would tear.

Galindus spoke.

‘Well, yes. He’s here. Licinus Honorius.’

Honorius
is
alive.

I had not known how much I feared otherwise, until warmth entered

into every frozen blood-vessel in my body.

‘Honorius is at court? In the palace?’

Galindus looked left and right, his long dark hair whipping with the

jerky movement. He glanced above us, at the steps, for secrecy’s sake.

‘He’s here,’ Galindus whispered. ‘He’s in prison.’

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4

Attila gripped me about the elbow, hauled me two steps back without so

much as an acknowledgement to Galindus, and shoved the pennant’s