Ilario, the Stone Golem (50 page)

If
Honorius
hears
of
this,
no
possible
concern
about
politics
will
stop
him
from
protesting!

‘Apologise.’ I could barely get the word out without stuttering. ‘Lie

and beg pardon. From Videric.’

King Rodrigo Sanguerra nodded, speaking for the first time in long

minutes. ‘Yes.’

In the city’s cathedral, in front of four, five, perhaps six thousand

people.

People
that
I
know
.

I desired more than anything to walk out. One shake of my hand, to

scatter loose and bloody fragments across the delicate wood patterns;

then I might push my way past Safrac de Aguilar and out—

But if I run through the passages of this castle, I will only meet more

people that I know.

‘You want me to claim that I lied. That I ran away. That I was too

afraid to come back and tell the truth. You want me to say this in front of

every prominent citizen and nobleman of Taraconensis.’

I found a kerchief in my leather purse. When I wrapped it about my

hand, it turned scarlet through the bleached cloth.

‘You know that if I say this in public, it doesn’t matter what the truth is

– I can’t rewrite it, after.
That’s
the story that will spread out and be believed.’

‘Yes,’ King Rodrigo Sanguerra said.

I did not look at Rekhmire’. I looked at the king who had owned me.

‘No.’

248

7

Since too many eyes were watching every boat on the way out and back

to Zheng He’s great floating wooden island, His Majesty Rodrigo

Sanguerra Coverrubias changed his decree, and said that his guests

should live ashore for the time being, quietly out of the way, in an

obscure part of the palace’s south wing.

Rekhmire’’s hand clamped on my elbow the moment we passed

through the doors and were alone.

‘Ilario, listen to me!’

‘
Now
you talk to me? You should have done that before!’

I threw him off with a vicious movement, caught from the corner of

my eye how he stumbled, and swung around fast enough to catch hold of

him, preventing him falling.

Not strong enough to hold up his weight, I found the two of us taking

staggering round steps as if we danced; until the room’s wall caught me

squarely between the shoulder-blades, and both of us leaned up against

the other, gasping and panting.

I felt the taut expansion of his shoulder and arm muscles; had a

moment to think,
Walking
with
crutches
has
begun
to
alter
the
shape
of
his
body
, and then his other hand got a grip on his staff, and he pushed himself back from me and the wall.

He swayed but stayed on his feet. ‘
What
should I have spoken to you

about?’

These chambers were higher up than Honorius’s prison, I registered,

and less well-appointed. But airy and light: Onorata would be content

here.

I ignored his question. ‘I’m risking this disguise once more. Tottola

and I will bring Onorata and Carrasco ashore this evening at dusk. Is this

my chamber, or yours?’

‘They have given me the choice of rooms opposite,’ Rekhmire’ got

out, sounding as if he choked. ‘
What
have
I
not
told
you?
’

The exertion had not sapped my explosive temper: I had all I could do

to rein it in. I desired to throw anything that would break. Instead, I

faced the Egyptian, stabbing a finger towards the open windows, where

Taraco drowned in the afternoon’s white heat.

‘This is not Carthage!’ I yanked at the leather laces tying closed the

neck of Attila’s mail-shirt, but it made me no less heated. ‘This isn’t

249

Rome! Or Venice! Or Alexandria! What happens to me here happens in

front of people I
know
!’

There are few ways to be got out of a mail-shirt with dignity. A

thousand riveted metal rings form a net that cling to the body. Pulling

one’s shirt off upwards only results in yanking at chin, ears, and

capturing hanks of hair to pull out.

The Egyptian was tall enough that he might have held the mail-shirt’s

shoulders still while I eased myself down out of it, but I felt absolutely no

inclination to ask his help.

I copied remembered instructions from my master-at-arms, bending

over and putting my hands flat on the floor. I shook myself until the

armour’s own weight inverted it, and brought it sliding smoothly down

over my torso, shoulders, arms and head.

The mail-shirt thudded to the floorboards at my wrists as a small

bundle of metal.

I straightened up, gasping with relief, kicked at it, and all but fell over

with dizziness.

In the voice of a man who has lost his breath again, Rekhmire’

observed, ‘A sight I wouldn’t have missed for the world . . . ’

‘
I
will
not
look
like
a
liar
and
a
coward
in
front
of
the
court
I
grew
up
in!
’

The Egyptian’s amusement vanished. ‘I would not laugh at you—’

There was a joint-stool by the couch: I kicked it the length of the

panelled chamber.

‘I will not look like a liar and a coward in front of
Videric
!’

Tottola was engaged at the outer door in conversation; I thought it

might be with members of the royal guard. I had no hope of

understanding a word with rage deafening me.

‘Ilario.’ Rekhmire’ put out his hand: I stepped back.

‘Videric made my mother try to kill me. I’ll stand in the same room

with him, but – claim this never happened? That I’ve
lied
?’

Rekhmire’ grabbed my upper arms, staring down the inch or two

difference in our heights.

‘And you didn’t plan your story well enough,’ I said bitterly. ‘Videric

allowed his
child
to be abandoned and sold! To live here at court as Rodrigo’s tame freak. How will
that
reform him in men’s eyes?’

Rekhmire’’s intent gaze made my heart hammer; I felt a pulse beating

in my throat. His mouth quirked, in something like amazement.

‘Oh . . . I can devise an answer for that, too. Say that Videric, as your

father, wanted you to have a good life at court – but he knew you would

suffer prejudice as a hermaphrodite. As the King’s possession, no man

could ever harm you.’

Rekhmire’’s expression was sardonic.

‘And if you lived anonymously, court factions could never use you to

discredit the King or your father . . . Suppose we say, on Videric’s

behalf, that coming to court as the King’s Freak is the only way you

250

could have lived here as yourself? Not having to pretend to be either

wholly a man or wholly a woman.’

Rekhmire’’s fingers gradually loosened their grip.

I would have bruises, I realised absently. ‘And why was I a slave?’

‘Oh, that was
your
idea.’

I blinked.

‘When you thought of coming to court, you were afraid you’d hear too

much in royal company. You wanted to keep it confidential. If you were

King Rodrigo’s property, no man could ever ask you to bear witness

against the King or your father.’

The surface of my eyes felt dry: now I found I couldn’t blink. ‘Is there

more?’

Rekhmire’ snorted. ‘What could be more clear? Lord Videric has

always had Ilario’s best interests at heart. He wanted you safe from

gossip and conspiracy and harm – and to be able to live openly as the

hermaphrodite you are. Which you did. Until you were foolish enough to

run away from some quarrel in Carthage . . . ’

Tearing my gaze from his caused me to shake. To have such an

interpretation of the facts, and to have it be so far from the truth – and so

plausible.

I walked numbly to the window, not seeing the brightness beyond the

rippling folds of draped linen, or smelling the sea. ‘How long did it take

you to cook
this
up?’

There was an audible sigh behind me.

‘Ilario . . . I considered all aspects of the matter, from when it was

raised at home in the city, all through our journey. Men here are
ripe
for

belief. Don’t assume only soldiers and courtiers can see that Carthage

wants to send the legions in.’

Rekhmire’’s voice came closer.

‘This is an excuse and a pretext. In other words, it’s what we wanted,

to allow Aldra Videric back. Ilario’s falsely-accused and dutiful father

comes back to Taraco as First Minister. What does it matter what you

have to say?’

My breath came short. ‘It matters because he tried to kill me.’

‘This is just pride!’

I spun about, and nearly collided with Rekhmire’ directly behind me.

I glared up at him. ‘It is not
pride
. I was all but killed in childbed because of Videric.
Onorata
would have died. Videric is the man who sent my mother to kill me in Carthage, and because of him, she was

willing to do it!’

Anger’s heat stifled me more than wearing the mail-shirt. I wrenched

the laces of my doublet undone, pulled at the neck of my shirt, and sank

down on the room’s bed. My scant baggage was there: I dug in it so that

I might go barefoot and in my Alexandrine tunic again. At least until I

must return to the ship for Onorata.

251

I stopped with the linen tunic in my hands. It still smelled of Zheng

He’s ship.

‘Don’t ask me to do this. Would you let them brand
you
a liar? This would become the truth, for the rest of my life. And Honorius’s. And

Onorata’s.’ I winced. ‘
They’ll
say
Videric
is
her
grandfather
.’

The Egyptian frowned, seeming to turn inward to where that clever

mind devised infinite complicated stratagems.

‘If Onorata stays in these chambers, there’s little enough to connect

her with Videric. You’ll dress as a man, I assume? Who would think you

connected with a baby?’

That obvious, and it never occurred to me. And Honorius’s soldiers

would act as our servants, so less gossip will spread.

Rekhmire’ observed, ‘That answers the problem in the short term.’

‘You haven’t some long-term plan involving her, too? You surprise

me!’

Rekhmire’ supported himself on his stick, and lowered himself to sit

on the edge of the bed. ‘What would you have had me do?’

‘
Tell
me!
’

‘If I have considered this before . . . ’ He pulled off his headband and

rubbed at his temples. The long curve of his broad back formed a slump.

‘It was never certain this would happen. Not certain your King would

agree to it, if I suggested it. I said nothing because I would not worry you

with the matter, in case it never arose.’

Sheer disgust silenced me.

I leaped up, went to the door, spoke to Attila, and asked him to wake

me at dusk. And with that done, I cast myself down fully clothed on the

bed as if Rekhmire’ were not present, and fell unexpectedly hard into

sleep.

He did not wake me before he left for his own rooms.

Ramiro Carrasco and I endured the crossing back from ship to shore,

Onorata screaming her displeasure at the boat, the sea-spray, and the

palace apartments.

‘You owe me a debt of some sort,’ I remarked as we entered our

chambers. ‘As recompense for trying to kill me. What about an honest

answer to a question? Forget you’re my property. Tell me what you

think.’

The secretary-spy hesitated, seeming bewildered. His hand soothed

Onorata’s back. She made a little fist and rubbed it up and down the arm

of his tunic, screaming fit fading down to gulping sobs and then silence.

He made as if to offer her to me and I shook my head. ‘The way I feel

now . . . ’

She’ll scream all night if I take her.

Ramiro Carrasco smoothed Onorata’s hair back from her pink

forehead, as if it helped him to think. There were milk-stains on the

252