Ilario, the Stone Golem (42 page)

Surprisingly enough, the only relief from that fear had come in

Alexandria, when in a fit of sleepless volubility I voiced it to Ty-ameny.

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‘Great Sekhmet’s claws!’ She had shown her white teeth in a grin. ‘I

hated all of my three! Asenath wouldn’t feed; Esemkhebe wouldn’t stop,

and Peshet was always bawling her head off for me when I needed

urgently to sit in council. And then my breasts would leak milk all

through the diplomatic meetings.’

Ty-ameny had shaken her head.

‘Some mothers only like infants. Perhaps that’s why they have more. I

didn’t
begin
to love mine until they were old enough to move about and

talk.’

It made me feel a little less guilty.

I felt a touch on my arm, and returned to myself to find Rekhmire’

frowning slightly.

‘I had meant to broach this before,’ he remarked, apparently idly. ‘As

an assistant to one of the Royal Library’s buyers, you’re entitled to a

finder’s fee, and a small remittance when your work is otherwise

satisfactory.’

He indicated other drawings spilling across the low bed. The war-junk,

from every angle that I could contrive; including the upper crow’s-nests.

‘You intend these as studies for a painting, but I doubt you ignorant of

the fact that copies will be well-received by Ty-ameny and her

philosophers.’

The philosophers having taken thorough advantage of my presence

before we left Alexandria, I thought I could speak reasonably well as to

their infinite curiosity.

I forced a smile. ‘If I copy scrolls you want, yes; pay me a fee. You can

have copies of these drawings in any case. It’s not like I’m Ty-ameny’s

cousin . . . ’

‘Do you despise spies so much then?’

It came as a lightly-voiced question, Rekhmire’’s gaze not on me, but

directed at Carrasco and Attila’s preparations in the far cabin, and

Tottola’s quiet amusement at the sheer number of things they took with

them. The Egyptian spoke as if the answer would mean nothing of any

significance.

I said, ‘You were born to it. Alexandria’s your home. It’s not
my

country.’

He seemed unsatisfied.

I got up to hold the main door open, while Carrasco and baby and

parasol and escort left the cabins. Not that I mistrust Attila or Tottola, but I knew how little Rekhmire’ cared to discuss any business in front of

Ramiro Carrasco.

The cabin’s floor had been padded in places with some cloth very like

a tapestry; it was soft under my feet when I kicked my sandals off.

Padding back towards Rekhmire’, I observed, ‘You want to know if I

despise you, for being a spy.’

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The Egyptian rapidly smoothed down the folds of his linen kilt. That

action was automatic by now: it hid his scars.

Apparently studying the ink-scroll hanging down from one ceiling-

beam, he remarked, ‘That would be one of the reasons I have never

forced you to see what my business is.’

‘
Chun
zi!
’

His eyebrows climbed up towards his shaven scalp. ‘And that would

mean?’

‘“Moron”!’

‘Fascinating.’ He took his tablets out of the bag at his belt, and incised

a quick note in the wax. If he had been another man, I would have said

he was suppressing a grin. ‘Why is it you can be impolite in thirteen

languages, painter?’

‘Probably the people I travel around with, book-buyer!’

The Egyptian snorted.

‘Of course,’ I added, ‘I may not be saying it right. My ear still isn’t adjusted to Chin voices.’

‘Perhaps,’ Rekhmire’ agreed. ‘But the tone was unmistakable – at least

to a foreign barbarian . . . ’

He glanced away from me, at the dark wooden beams, and the

intricately inlaid chests we had been loaned for our belongings. If he was

pleased not to be despised, he was also embarrassed, although it would

have been necessary to know him well to be aware of that.

‘Listen—’ He held up his hand.

For a long moment I heard nothing, only the natural creaking and

shifting of a ship, even one this size.

Creaking in rhythm.

I shot to the cabin door and looked up.

Against the hazy sky, all of the sails were belling out, one by one, to catch the wind.

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2

On the morning that we passed the Balearic Islands, Onorata taught

herself to roll.

I had her on the floor-tapestry that the Chin-men used instead of fur

rugs, laying on my belly so I might look her in the eye. She went from staring vaguely in the direction of the ceiling to thrusting with one still-small arm at the floor, and was abruptly over on her front.

We surveyed each other in equal surprise.

She broke out into a crow of laughter.

‘Clever!’ I wondered if she had wit enough yet to imitate, and if she

copied the position of her mother-father. I sat up, thinking to encourage

her to roll back the other way.

A fist rapped against the slatted wooden door, the knocking done in a

Frankish fashion.

‘In!’

A dark-haired figure slunk in from the deck: Ramiro Carrasco de Luis.

He shot a wary look over at Tottola, apparently asleep in one corner with

his arms and ankles crossed.

‘May I speak to you, madonna? Mistress?’

Three months of seeing me in skirts in Venice evidently established me

as a woman so firmly in his mind I will not shift it.

I sighed, and reached over to nudge Tottola’s boot.

The large man’s eyes were already open.

‘Will you take her for a while?’ I nodded towards the inner room. ‘I

won’t be long. It’s probably those
chou
ba
guai
goats again!’

Tottola’s dark expression changed to a grin at that. He scooped an

indignant Onorata up and made for the door.

Clearly he thinks Ramiro Carrasco will one day try again to assassinate

me.

Well, I was hardly joking when I told Carrasco that, as a slave, I would

take care to be trusted for a long time before I killed my master. And

then the judges might blame someone else.

The German man-at-arms snorted, ducking under the door lintel to

the inner room. Ramiro Carrasco kept quiet, in a manner that told me, if

he wasn’t yet used to being a slave, he had some idea of what behaviour

was expected of him.

I stood, tugging my tunic straight, picking up my leather sack. The

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tiny inlaid drawers of the Chin furniture ideally suit painting tools.

Remembering to clean and put them away is essential, however, and my

hellion child had distracted me.

‘You can get me a bucket of hot water when you’re done . . . ’

Ramiro Carrasco stood awkwardly in the middle of the cabin; a life

study would show tension in his shoulders and spine.

‘What?’ I demanded.

‘I need to talk to you.’ He glanced at the door to the back cabin, that

stood ajar, not by accident. I saw him take a breath, expanding his

sternum; he scowled to himself.

His feet were bare, dirty, and callused, now. He wore a bleached and

dirty tunic, pulled down over a Frankish shirt that hung to his mid-thigh,

and his hose were rolled down to his knees in the heat. I saw his sleek black hair had grown down to touch his ears, and was no longer sleek,

but breaking out into curled ends. Someone must have given him orders

to shave: dark stubble patched his jaw.

His hand came up, fingers hooking under the smooth iron of his collar.

In the clear light from the cabin window it was possible to read
::I
am
owned
by
Ilario::
engraved in Venetian script.

‘Ramiro?’

‘I have to . . . ’ His head came up.

For a stark heartbeat I wondered,
Should
I
call
Honorius’s
men?

Ramiro Carrasco bent down, awkwardly, on one knee and then the

next, until he was kneeling in front of me.

‘Get up!’ I must sound shrill, I realised.

‘
Please
.’ The Iberian hunched into himself. His face showed a shining

pink where the stubble did not grow. His fingers locked into each other.

‘Please, I’m begging you – slaves beg, don’t they? Please. Ilario -

mistress—’

I shot a glance at the inner door; Tottola was not visible. He would be

alertly listening. Judging whether to guard Onorata or myself first.

Flushing as red as Carrasco, fully as embarrassed, I hissed, ‘Stand up!

What
is this about?’

His head lifted.

I saw a vestige of Ramiro Carrasco de Luis in Venice in the jut of his

jaw. His hands shook where he clenched them together. All of his body

where he knelt down on the war-junk’s deck had a faint shiver to it.

I grabbed him by the shoulders of his tunic and hauled, not caring that

I heard fabric tear. All but throwing him up off the deck and onto his

feet, I spat out, ‘You don’t kneel to me!’

He stared wildly.

Too used to thinking of ‘Ilaria’, with a woman’s strength.

I stepped forward and he automatically stepped back, stopping only as

his spine came into hard contact with the ship’s hull beside the outer

door.

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He blurted out, ‘You have to kill me!’

‘
What?
’

Attila’s voice sounded from the deck outside. ‘Need any help?’

I stretched across Carrasco to open the outer door.

The German man-at-arms leaned up against the door-frame, appa-

rently casual. I had seen him draw his blade in a heartbeat from just such

a stance.

‘What a way to live a life!’ I muttered, saw him grin with feral teeth, and nodded politely. ‘I’ll shout if I need anything.’

Attila returned the nod. I believed he chose to view me a male at such

moments: a man, who of course would need little assistance with

Carrasco.

I pushed the door closed as Attila placed his back to it.

‘Now.’ I stared at Ramiro Carrasco without moving away from him.

‘What is this?’

He stood as if the hull held him up. ‘You have to kill me.’

‘
Kill
you?’

In the port’s clear light, his skin had an unhealthy shine. Ochre and

green, if I had to choose pigments. Lines cut deeply into his face, and

could have been dehydration, or pain, or fear, or all those things.

I shook my head, and pointed at a low stool. ‘Sit.’

Ramiro Carrasco looked uncertain. I recognised that. The slave does

not sit before the master.

I
am
doing
you
no
favours,
if
you
ever
pass
to
another
master
, I reflected.

The unlikelihood of that circumstance made me feel a little better. I

indicated the stool again. ‘Do as I say.’

He collapsed onto the lacquered and padded stool as if his legs folded

up under him. His eyes did not leave my face.

‘Why would I
kill
you?’ Exasperation sharpened my voice to high

tenor; I dragged it downward. ‘Carrasco. If I
wanted
you dead, I

wouldn’t have bought you in Venice!’

He began slowly to rub his hands over his arms. For all the heat, I

could see the fine black hairs at his wrists standing up on gooseflesh.

‘This ship is going to Taraconensis.’

No question in his tone. Keeping any rumour from a ship’s crew is a

lost cause, but Carrasco in any case might know the Balearic coasts by

sight.

He raised his head. Luminous eyes showed rawly accessible pain,

hatred, fear. ‘You
have
to kill me. Because otherwise I’ll betray you.’

I could not doubt the shaking honesty in his tone.

‘Why would you tell me about it?’

‘So that you can order your men – if I’m within Lord Videric’s reach—’

Ramiro Carrasco stuttered over the Aldra’s name. ‘He’ll
find
out
that I’m here. Once we sail into Taraco . . . He’ll threaten my family. He’ll

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offer me what he can give me, but he’ll threaten them, and he owns

them!’

He spoke in Iberian, clearly forgetting in his desperation that Attila

and Tottola were both the other side of thin doors. He made fists of his

hands, clenching them so hard that his nails must break the skin in a

minute.

‘What can Videric
offer
you?’ I hesitated. ‘You wouldn’t trust him to offer you freedom?’