Ilario, the Stone Golem Read online

  I LARIO:

  THE STONE

  GOLEM

  A Story of the First History

  Book Two

  Mary Gentle

  Contents

  Part One: Serenissima

  1

  Part Two: Alexandria-in-Exile

  79

  Part Three: Herm and Jethou

  199

  Epilogue

  359

  About the Author

  Other Books by Mary Gentle

  Credits

  Cover

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  What came before . . .

  Ilario: The Lion’s Eye

  The first story of the first history, in which we met Ilario: painter,

  scholar, hermaphrodite . . . and unsuspecting catalyst of destinies.

  Ilario has served King Rodrigo as the King’s Freak, but while

  surviving the ways of the court, Ilario has yet another lesson to learn:

  abandonment and betrayal. For Rosamunda, Ilario’s birth mother,

  has arrived—and the secret of Ilario’s shameful birth must be kept

  hidden.

  Fleeing a murder attempt, Ilario crosses the sea to Carthage,

  where the Penitence shrouds the sky in darkness. There, a fateful

  encounter with the scholar-spy Rekhmire’ spawns an adventure that

  will span continents, from Iberia to Carthage to Venice and beyond,

  from art to treachery, love to loss, from tenuous alliances to deadly

  machinations.

  And when last we left, Ilario was in childbirth, hidden away in the

  winding backstreets of Venice. But even there danger and intrigue

  stalk the would-be painter . . .

  Part One

  Serenissima

  10

  1

  Ramiro Carrasco has not seen me as a man!

  It was the only thought in my head.

  I couldn’t breathe. His hands pressed cloth and a bulk of goose-down

  feathers into my mouth and nose. My vision blacked into sparkles.

  My chest hurt as I tried and failed to pull in air.

  It can happen just this easily! – because people are busy for a few minutes looking at the baby, because these curtains are drawn—

  ‘Ilario’s heart stopped.’ Even Physician Baris¸ will say so. The labour of

  having the baby. Too much for a hermaphrodite body. Even Rekhmire’

  will believe it. The midwife will confirm it. Ramiro Carrasco has nothing

  to do now but wait until my face is blue and then scream out an alarm

  that I’m not breathing—

  And Ramiro Carrasco has never seen me dressed as a man.

  The pillow blinded me towards the left field of my vision, but left a

  sliver of my right eye clear. Carrasco stared down at me, his expression

  curiously desperate as he bore down with his full weight.

  I had time to think Shouldn’t I be the desperate one? and ceased to claw at the pillow, and at his rock-hard muscles.

  I let my arm fall out loosely to the side, over the edge of the bed.

  Hard ceramic clipped the tips of my fingers.

  My heart thudded hard enough to take the remaining air out of my

  lungs. My ribs ached with trying to breathe. And— Yes, this is where I

  saw one of the servants set down a water-jug. A brown-glazed pint jug,

  with a narrow neck, and two moulded loops for lifting.

  My head throbbed under the pressure of his hands. I slid my fingers

  through the glazed loops at the jug’s neck, gripped tightly, and locked my

  elbow. The weight pulling on tendon and muscle told me it was still

  completely full.

  Lifting pottery and the weight of water together, barely able to see

  where I aimed past the pillow and his arm, I brought the jug round in a

  hard arc. And crashed it into the side of Ramiro Carrasco’s head.

  With all the muscular strength of an arm that, while it isn’t male, isn’t

  female either.

  Pottery smashed. Water sprayed.

  Pressure lifted up off my face.

  3

  For a moment I couldn’t see – couldn’t claw the pillow away from my

  nose and mouth—

  A noise sounded to the side of me. A tremendous crash.

  ‘ Ilario! ’

  Clear air hissed into my lungs.

  Rekhmire’ stood looking down, pillow in his hand; there were the

  backs of four or five men behind him, low down, on the floor—

  Kneeling on someone on the floor.

  ‘Ilario!’ A knee landed beside me on the other side of the bed;

  Honorius’s lean and chilly hand felt roughly at my neck. Feeling for my

  heartbeat.

  ‘I’m alive!’ I gasped. Pain ached through my entire body. I hitched

  myself up on my elbows and gazed down past Rekhmire’, at where Orazi

  and Viscardo and Saverico were kneeling on, and punching at, the

  slumped figure of Ramiro Carrasco de Luis.

  ‘Don’t kill him,’ I added weakly. ‘ I want to.’

  Honorius gave out with a deep-bellied laugh, and ruffled my sweat-

  soaked hair. ‘That’s my son-daughter!’

  ‘What—?’ Federico stepped forward from the thunderstruck family

  group, boggling down at Carrasco. His shock looked genuine. ‘ What did

  he . . . He can’t have tried— There must be some mistake—!’

  The door banged opened hard enough to bruise the wood panelling,

  Neferet and her midwife and priest piled into the room, together with

  those others of Honorius’s men within earshot. Tottola and his brother

  between them completely blocked the doorway.

  I felt tension infuse Honorius, through his hand on my scalp.

  He looked across, caught Orazi’s eye, nodded at Aldra Federico, and

  then at the door. ‘Get them out of here!’

  Federico blustered, Sunilda burst into tears, Reinalda threw her arms

  around her sister and led her out through the door. Valdamerca, tall

  enough to look Orazi in the eye, made a fist and punched at the

  sergeant’s mail-covered chest as he and the two German men-at-arms

  bodily shoved all of my foster family out of the room.

  The slamming two-inch-thick oak cut off Valdamerca’s virulent

  complaints and protestations of innocence.

  Still coughing and choking, I got out, ‘I don’t suppose they did know

  he’d do that!’

  ‘They don’t matter.’ Honorius spoke with enough habitual authority

  that I didn’t for the moment desire to question him. He beckoned with

  his free hand. ‘Physician. Come and see to this! I want Ilario thoroughly

  checked.’

  Rekhmire’ stood back as Baris¸ bent over me.

  I reached out one hand to the Egyptian, and one to Honorius on the

  other side, and squeezed both hard. ‘The son of a bitch tried to kill me!’

  4

  Rekhmire’’s severe face was grey, under the ruddy tone of his skin.

  ‘We should not have let him lull us.’

  Honorius turned back from confirming with the Turkish physician

  that, yes, I might have bruises, and yes, I had been constricted as to air,

  but in fact there was – as I wanted to shout – nothing wrong with me!

  ‘Nothing that eighteen hours of labour doesn’t p
ut into the shade . . . ’

  I may have muttered that aloud.

  Honorius pulled his hand-and-a-half sword half out of its scabbard,

  the noise muffled by the loud room. ‘Finally. Finally, we don’t have to

  worry about Carrasco any longer!’

  Neferet, the Venetian midwife, Physician Baris¸, and Father Azadanes

  all raised their voices, crowding around Honorius, impeding his sword-

  arm.

  He ignored them, looking only at me.

  I stared down off the edge of the bed, at Ramiro Carrasco de Luis

  sprawled supine on the floorboards.

  Unconscious, by the trickle of blood staining his chin. Or perhaps he’d

  just bitten himself while mailed fists were punching him.

  His face was bruised, bloody; his lashes fluttered a little and were still. I

  saw the pulse beating in his throat.

  ‘You can’t kill him while he’s unconscious.’ It was not a rational

  objection, but I could come up with no greater argument. My hands

  shook.

  Trying to keep control of my voice, I added, ‘Denounce him to the

  Council of Ten. Let them arrest him!’

  For all I could see Neferet’s face a strained grey, my bitterness spilled

  out:

  ‘Put Carrasco in a Venetian dungeon! Let my noble stepfather Videric

  explain to Venice why his spy is in prison! Or let my damn foster father

  explain why his secretary just tried to kill his fosterchild!’

  Rekhmire’ had not let go of my hand; he must feel how I trembled. His

  own hand was not completely steady. The Egyptian looked down at me

  with a warm expression.

  ‘That’s my Ilario! Yes. Let’s use this to cause as much trouble for the

  Aldra Videric as we can, shall we? And Aldra Federico, of course.

  Complaints, lawsuits, public gossip . . . ’

  By the time I rolled my head over on the bolster to look up at him,

  Honorius was reluctantly nodding. He shoved his sword into his red

  leather scabbard with the ease that only comes from long use.

  ‘It’s not a bad idea. But, Ilario, if you’re hurt . . . If you just want me to do this . . . He’s a dead man. I have enough influence here that I won’t

  need to answer for it.’

  Despite the storm of protests from the Venetians and the Alexandrine,

  I thought he was probably correct. Apart from anything else, the retired

  Captain-General of Castile and Leon is a friend of the successful

  5

  mercenary general Carmagnola, whom the Venetian Council currently

  employs and won’t wish upset.

  Years in Rodrigo’s court can teach many things.

  I have a clear picture in my mind, in the hopes of later making a

  painting of it. Ramiro Carrasco’s face as he held the stifling pillow over

  me. And his absolute and strange desperation.

  ‘Don’t kill Carrasco.’ A sudden unannounced fear went through me,

  jagged as lightning. ‘Is the baby— Did the baby die?’

  That sent the crowd to the cradle.

  I slumped back on the mattress, shutting my eyes. So small, born so

  much before its proper time . . . Likely she will have died when all this violence shattered the atmosphere of peace in the room. For one

  moment I was completely certain.

  It – she – did not feel like my child. I could feel no love, no warmth, no

  attraction to her. A sheer wave of fear rushed through me; making my

  head feel as if it was swollen, and my vision black as grief.

  ‘Here.’ Honorius placed the carefully-wrapped warm bundle on my

  chest: it wriggled and thinly whined. ‘She’s here. She’s just hungry.’ A

  confused look went across his sun-burned features. ‘I think she’s

  hungry.’

  His men looked amused, Rekhmire’ gave him a look of sympathy, and

  the unspoken stare that commented ‘Ignoramus!’ came – I noted as I

  gazed around – from the midwife, Baris¸ the physician, the priest, and

  Neferet. I wondered at that last.

  ‘I,’ I said, ‘don’t know any more than you do.’

  Rekhmire’ gave a nod, and turned to speak to the midwife.

  ‘Wet-nurse,’ he said.

  The men-at-arms dragged Ramiro Carrasco de Luis out by the heels

  of his boots, and I heard his head bang against every tread on the way

  down the stairs.

  6

  2

  With a chair moved close to the window, and a blanket about me, I could

  avoid the worst of the draughts coming in around the cracked wood, and

  still gain a clear view of the blue sky.

  Winter’s heavy grey and sharp blue was softening, and the frost

  whitened the earth only in the early mornings and late evenings.

  I kept the room warm for the baby, although the air outside in the

  middle of the day was temperate enough for me to cast off an over-robe.

  While making my own way as far as the Riva was impossible, I heard

  from my father that ships from other ports already began to dock in the

  San Marco basin.

  ‘Travel’s becoming possible again.’ Restless, I abandoned a sketch of

  my knife and plate – the elipse of the plate defeating me – going to lay on

  my bed that was now beside the hearth with the child’s makeshift cradle.

  I watched Rekhmire’ experimenting with a walking-staff taller than he.

  ‘Messages. Men. We’re not cut off. Or, soon won’t be.’

  The Egyptian finally settled on using just the one crutch, lodged under

  his right arm. He had abandoned the linen kilt of the Alexandrines for a

  tunic and trousers in the Turkish style. I suspected this was so that no man could look at his knee, now that the bandages were off it.

  A clatter of rapid footsteps sounded. Rekhmire’ shifted himself with

  difficulty to open the room door. The noise resolved itself into Neferet,

  wearing pattens that tracked mud down the passage past the bedroom.

  She gave a distracted wave of her hand, not stopping to speak, or pet the

  new-born.

  ‘No news of Leon Battista,’ I speculated.

  ‘Still in the Doge’s prison.’ Rekhmire’ thumped his crutch against the

  floorboards. ‘As is your Ramiro Carrasco de Luis. A man I hope rots there.’

  I felt no love for the baby – which convinced me I was the monster I had

  always assumed. A true mother would well up with love, knowing the

  child as her own.

  If I felt anything, it was fear and wonder.

  Amazement had me laying with her in the crook of my arm, tracing

  her perfectly-folded eyelids and dark lashes, and having my stomach jerk

  whenever her flailing hand intersected mine. I couldn’t tell if her fingers

  closed of their own volition over me.

  7

  Fear made me watch like a patient falcon as her skin colour passed

  from blue-red to red to the normal shade – and panic when her feet

  stayed the peculiar blue-purple of the new-born. It took Baris¸ an

  afternoon to reassure me that this would change in several days, and I

  blushed at seeing the Turkish doctor after that, feeling a fool.

  ‘I’ve been asked all questions!’ Baris¸ gave me an aquiline smile as his

  fingers checked the red fontanelle patches on her skull. ‘The fathers,

  they’re the worst. “If it cries when it sees me, does that mean it’s not mine?”’

  I thought of asking him if he
was ever asked that very question by

  mothers.

  But that might lead to disquieting information about his previous

  Caesarian surgeries, and I had, if I was honest, no desire to know. I

  merely desired my burning belly to heal.

  ‘She doesn’t cry,’ I said. ‘Is she too weak?’

  ‘Some of them don’t.’ He smiled down at her, lines creasing all his

  narrow face, and touched his finger to her perfect cheek. ‘When she

  does, you’ll be sorry you asked! Now, have I told you how to care for the

  birth-cord?’

  Fear made me lay awake hour after dark hour in the night, waiting for

  her to wake, and Tottola or Saverico to bring up boiled cow’s milk so

  that one of us might feed her with spoon and cup. After the first few days

  she turned her head repeatedly from the hired Venetian woman who had

  more milk than her own son could drink.

  But she grows heavier on animal milk, I judged, weighing her in my two hands every day. And she did not have the stolid, lethargic look of those

  lambs that refuse to thrive. I wondered if I might judge her in the same

  way that one judges a beast, or whether humankind is different.

  After five days, her birth-cord dropped off. It was the last of the

  landmarks Baris¸ had charged me to watch for: her bowels and bladder

  both proved themselves functional earlier, and I learned to pin cloth

  around her.

  She was yellow for a few days, which the Turkish physician also

  dismissed as a cause for fear.

  I felt fear of the darkness; fear of the cold winter nights with the damp

  blowing in off the lagoon; fear of every gossiping rumour of plague or

  fever. Her eyes moved under her eyelids as she dreamed. I wondered if

  she could dream of Torcello, and the sights and smells imprinted on me

  while she began her birth.

  My time passed in small landmarks and the overhanging dread of

  death.

  Days went by. I grew stronger. Neferet lost her womanly plumpness and

  grew gaunt with worry.

  8

  I knew Rekhmire’, as well as Neferet, must be contacting all the men a

  book-buyer would know in this city – but Leon Battista was a son of the

  Alberti family, it seemed, and the Alberti family had been exiles in

  Venice these twenty years. If their accumulated interest couldn’t move