The Stone Golem Read online

  Honorius took no notice of my nails digging into the thin leather glove he wore under his gauntlet. He bowed with the skill of a courtier, and spoke with the bluntness of a soldier. ‘Yes, lord. She can wed whenever you desire.’

  There is nothing else he can say, I admitted to myself. Anything else will smack of trying to win concessions, either from the Alberti family or the Doge himself, and this Foscari is likely to find some way to remove Leon again if he thinks his decision is being used for advantage.

  The Doge looked across the vast chamber at me. ‘As soon as you are wed and able to bear the journey, you will leave Venice and join your husband in Florence.’

  Leon Battista choked. ‘Florence!’

  ‘You may join your family there,’ Foscari said amiably. ‘Other members of your family are also returning, I understand. We will miss them, after so many years in our Republic.’

  The candlelight showed his face all innocence as he taunted Leon Battista.

  ‘As I understand,’ Foscari concluded, ‘the ban against your family in Florence has been lifted. Your exile is over. There are already moves to make your father one of Duke Ludovico’s councillors. Of course, the agitation and rabble-rousing will stop; it doesn’t become the Alberti to act against their own Duke. As I’m sure your family will tell you.’

  It was clear enough to me: the Alberti family have been given a place in Florence again–on the condition that they keep their insurrectionary son under control.

  Leon was close enough between his guards that I read the realisation in his face. No more pamphlets, no attacking the Republic of Florence for its injustices, because the Albertis have a stake in the city again–as it stands. No more talk that might lead to revolution. The poor will stay poor, and at the mercy of the powerful.

  Leon’s expression closed. He bowed.

  He might continue to think his family had sold him out. Or he might tell himself that ideals of good government are a naive man’s illusions. I didn’t know him well enough to know which way he would go.

  Once again, I thought. I’m marrying someone–and I have no true idea of who they are.

  6

  ‘It’s arranged.’ Honorius threw off his cloak, and came to stand by the hearth. ‘The banns will be read thrice, and then you’ll be married.’

  I sank further down on the settle, easing my shoes off. My toes were hot and cold at the same time, and I wriggled them in my stocking-hose, presenting them to the fire. ‘Good! Tell Neferet she and Leon can leave as soon as we’re done.’

  Honorius nodded soberly. Rekhmire’ shot me a questioning look.

  Dear god, I thought.

  He wants to know if I’ve told Honorius what happened in Rome—

  ‘It won’t be legal,’ I blurted out.

  Honorius turned his back to the fire, hitching up the skirt of his doublet and warming his backside. ‘How could it be? I’ll be honest, Ilario, I don’t know if you can marry. As a man-woman—’

  ‘I can marry.’

  ‘What?’ He suddenly frowned.

  ‘This gets Leon safely out of Venice,’ I said. ‘But you should know…I went through a Christian marriage ceremony in Rome. To an Etruscan woman, Sulva. I was married: that time as the groom. This time, it will be the bride.’

  I have rarely seen such an expression.

  ‘Groom?’ Honorius stared at me. ‘Bride.’

  ‘You should reassure Leon it’s in name only,’ I emphasised dryly. And then, as the thought occurred to me: ‘Although it may not bother him: he’s with Neferet, after all.’

  His face made me itch to reach for my chalks, in the same way as I had wanted to in the Doge’s hall. The difference being that Honorius, unlike Foscari, made me want to smile.

  Rekhmire’ crossed the room in answer to a soft knock at the door. Tired enough to watch without seeing, I barely registered one of the house servants pass a note to the Egyptian.

  ‘Life.’ Rekhmire’ observed as he came back from the door.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Our assassin–Secretary Ramiro Carrasco de Luis. The Doge’s Council have committed him to prison for life. I suspect he’ll end up on one of those islands.’

  The Egyptian’s nod towards the unshuttered windows made me follow his gaze. A small patch of blue sky showed between the buildings opposite. The canal reflecting the sky’s light back to it. I thought how brilliant it would be out on the lagoon.

  In which are isolated small islands, covered in cypresses, which they call lazaretto: quarantined islands for sufferers from leprosy, or prisoners who will never be released. Sometimes both on the same island.

  If that made me shudder, I had only to remember the moments of not being able–because of another’s physical force–to breath in air. Nothing kills human sympathy so fast.

  ‘We won’t be rid of him.’ Honorius spoke without moving away from the fire.

  ‘A life sentence,’ Rekhmire’ began irritably.

  ‘Not Carrasco.’ Honorius glanced down apologetically, evidently realising he robbed me of heat. He sat, beside me, his back nearly as upright as the oak settle’s. ‘Videric! Or, some other man, or men, sent by Aldra Videric. Videric will send more spies. More murderers.’

  The tone admitted of no doubt. I glanced automatically towards the cradle in the corner of the room, to reassure myself that Onorata slept.

  No matter that a child doesn’t understand, I think she hears the tone of a man’s voice…

  ‘You’re right.’ I rubbed at gritty eyes. ‘I saw them drag Carrasco off and was glad–that lasted, oh, a quarter of an hour. And then I realised that as soon as Videric stops getting what reports Carrasco was sending him, he’ll send other men, to replace the ones who attacked us on Torcello.’

  In my mind I have the flare of a striped cotton robe as a man turns, the clack of his war-sandals on tiles as he walks away, leaving me with a woman who he fully expects to murder me. That’s the last time I saw him, I realised suddenly.

  I ran for a ship immediately after my mother–after Rosamunda–tried to kill me.

  I know he sent her after me. I know he will have sent others. But that’s the last I saw: his face concerned with worry for his wife–and all of it a flat-out lie, to get me into the same room with her so that she could put a dagger into me.

  It is more than three quarters of a year now. I wonder if that fair hair, that burly profile, look any different. If exile back to his estates at Rodrigo’s order has made him look old. Or whether he merely bides his time, knowing that sooner or later one of the murderers he sends will kill me. And then the scandal may have the chance to die, too, and he may in the future come back to court…

  ‘Carrasco’s arrest solves nothing.’ Restless, I rose to walk about the room, careful not to tread the hem of my petticoats underfoot. ‘If no one else tells Videric, Federico will–because God forbid my foster father shouldn’t be scrambling to be in favour with every faction he can find!’

  Honorius seemed surprised at my bitterness. ‘You know him better than I do. This Federico, I mean. Videric I remember as Rodrigo’s Chancellor, before I went north for the Crusades.’

  He looked a little bitter himself, and I wondered if his expression mirrored mine–or mine his.

  ‘Ilario, you can’t expect me to be unbiased. Videric blackmailed Rosamunda into staying with him instead of leaving with me.’

  Much as I like the idea that Honorius is my father, it still jolts me that Rosamunda remains my mother.

  And that that is irrevocable, no matter that the man I thought my father is only a stepfather–my mother’s husband.

  And a man who will send other men to kill me. I have considered this, wide awake in the Venetian darkness, while the campanile lets me know it is three, four, five in the morning.

  Rekhmire’’s crutch struck the floor with a hollow sound as he came to peer out of the window, at the narrow view afforded of the Campo S. Barnaba from this room. ‘I’m told the Council’s dungeons aren’t go
od for the health. It’s possible Master Carrasco won’t be transported to the lazarettos.’

  A breath of chill touched me that was not this winter cold. If there were other Alexandrines here, I would suspect that was an offer…

  ‘All the while Carrasco was here,’ I speculated, ‘Videric evidently felt he would kill me. He either doubted, or he sent the men who attacked me on Torcello to assist Carrasco. Now…I have no idea how many men he can hire who would murder me for money, or where they’ll be, or how long it’ll take them to get to Venice–if he didn’t give up on Ramiro Carrasco and send them weeks ago.’

  I intercepted a look between the two men.

  ‘You’re right,’ Honorius agreed as if the Egyptian had spoken. ‘It’s even more unsettling when that happens in petticoats.’

  ‘What, when I prove I have more wit than a firefly?’ I glared at both of them. ‘Remind me never to dress up as a woman again, once I’m out of Venice.’

  Rekhmire’ gave me a crooked smile. ‘Breeches or petticoats, you are still in need of a good beating. I regret I never took my opportunity as your master.’

  Such jokes are a lot easier for the master to make. But, free, I can afford to smile at them, and I did.

  His expression becoming serious, Rekhmire’ stated, ‘Aldra Videric will send more men: he cannot afford not to. More hired men who won’t think twice about killing. Sooner or later, there will be a slip–even among your men, Master Honorius.’

  I miss Rekhmire’’s presence at the wedding, I realised, looking around the cold and gloomy Frankish church. He had been a rock of comfort when I went to Sulva, however much he may have disagreed with my reasons for that marriage.

  ‘Man and wife,’ Honorius murmured in my ear, as we walked down the aisle to the altar-rail, his baritone surprisingly quiet for a man used to shouting across battlefields. He proceeded to prove himself far too much in the Egyptian’s company of late by adding, with black humour, ‘Which one would you like to be?’

  I clapped my hand up to my mouth, hiding a splutter of horrified amusement. I bowed my head, and hoped the looming members of the Alberti family would take it as feminine shyness. ‘The Lion of Castile is about to come to a horrible end in the Most Serene Republic, I hope you realise?’

  ‘Ah, what it is to have a dutiful daughter…’

  He squeezed my arm with quite genuine encouragement and stepped forward to consult with the group of middle-aged men in dark velvet and miniver fur. I caught sight of Leon Battista at the back, his Roman nose all the more prominent for the gaunt lines of starvation in his face.

  And that would be how they convinced him…

  I wished again that I had Rekhmire’ at my shoulder, to exchange looks of realisation, and to discuss, sotto voce, whether it would be wise to go through with this, despite Neferet’s pleas.

  A persistent wail echoed into the high Gothic beams.

  Honorius took Onorata out of Attila’s arms, displaying her in her swaddling clothes to the Alberti men. Unused to it, she found the bindings uncomfortable, and her crying had a determined edge. I bit my lip and stayed where I had been left.

  ‘A girl?’ The older Alberti sounded displeased. ‘Well, there is no need to worry about dowries, she can always be put in a convent. There’s time for a son later. At least this proves my grandson capable of siring a child.’

  The significant look he shot over his shoulder at Leon led me to suppose he had made aspersions to the contrary. Leon’s mouth set in a thin line: he did not look towards me.

  I thought it was I who was making the sacrifice here. But I have no lover to object to my name being coupled with another’s.

  Honorius handed my baby back to the large Germanic man-at-arms, and Attila took a longer way down the church so that he might pass me, heels ringing on the flagstones, and let me look at Onorata as he passed. Her face was scarlet, her eyes screwed up and hot with tears. He touched a forefinger to the swaddling bands and gave me a significant look–by which I knew him off to remove them.

  I have marked the sympathy between soldiers and small children before now, in Taraco; I had not ever thought I would be grateful to it when it provided me with at least six persistent and efficient nursemaids. Even if they are not half so enthusiastic during the small hours of the night, or when it came to changing breech-clouts.

  ‘Madonna Ilaria.’ The priest beckoned me forward to stand at Leon Battista’s side.

  S. Barnaba had nothing worth the looking at, its altar-piece was third-rate, and the Green priest–evidently hired by the Alberti family–rattled through the ceremony so fast that it reached the moment of commitment before I was ready for it.

  Leon had no shred of prison dirt on him now, even the stench being eradicated in favour of soap and civet, but I could recognise the expression on his face. That of a slave who has been punished by dark and isolation, and found it full of unexpected monsters.

  ‘Yes.’ My mouth formed the appropriate words before I was aware I had made my decision. Consenting to wed this man, in name only, is nothing more than words to me. It is freedom to him.

  I walked out of the church married for the second time in half a year. This time as the bride.

  ‘We understand your daughter and the child cannot travel as yet.’ The Alberti patriarch spoke to Honorius, without even a glance towards me. ‘We will send our son from Florence to collect her, as soon as she may.’

  The proper things were said, the Alberti men departed in a splendidly-decorated oared boat, and I noted Leon Battista slipping quietly off into the Alexandrine embassy ahead of us.

  It took me a time to settle Onorata, she being too disturbed to sleep–eventually conceding only when Attila fetched a bowl of milk and a spoon from the kitchens, and sat by the fire to feed her with infinite patience.

  I recall those hands, so much larger than my child’s head, loosing the bolt that tore the Carthaginian agent apart. It will not be the first or last man that he has killed.

  I made a sketch with coal and chalk, that was only broad shapes except for the features, but caught the difference between the two faces: one still unmarked and with deep clear eyes, the other with half a lifetime worn into skin creased with staring through sunlight.

  Coming downstairs, I walked into Rekhmire’ as he left the main room, and clutched at him to keep both of us on our feet.

  A fragile Venetian glass hurtled through the door and smashed on the opposite wall.

  Rekhmire’ wouldn’t be able to bend down with his crutch; therefore called for one of the Egyptian’s servants to sweep up the fragments. I nodded towards the open door, hearing loud raised voices beyond.

  ‘What is it?’

  Rekhmire’ finished steadying himself with a grip on my shoulder, and brushed himself down. ‘It’s Master Leon Battista. He says he cannot travel to Alexandria, it appears.’

  Alexandria would be a good refuge for him–for us all, I thought. It was too cold to stand in this passageway, spring or not, and besides, was curious as to the actions of my husband. I strode through the open door, Rekhmire’ behind me, the cloth-padded end of his crutch stomping down on the floorboards.

  Neferet instantly flung away from Leon Battista, where the dark man stood silhouetted at the window, and glared at me. ‘Here she is. The happy bride! No wonder you won’t leave Venice!’

  Slave or free, I can recognise when someone desires a mere target for their temper. Without venom, I reminded, ‘You asked me to do this.’

  She stalked out of the room, pulling the door behind her with a shattering crash.

  Rekhmire’ took some moments to arrange himself in the armed chair by the hearth; I took the settle, and after a moment Leon Battista walked to sit beside me.

  ‘That’s poor thanks for saving my life.’ He spoke firmly, holding my gaze. ‘I’ve told Neferet the marriage will remain in name only: she has no need for concern. Please don’t take that as an insult–if I were not hers, I could seek for no better woman than you for my w
ife.’

  Rekhmire’’s luminous dark eyes caught mine. Whatever else Neferet might have said in her rage, I perceived that ‘hermaphrodite’ was not one of those words.

  ‘I don’t take offence,’ I said, and attempted to sound as if I only changed the subject out of feminine embarrassment. ‘I had expected you and Neferet to be on the first ship out for Alexandria-Constantinople?’

  Leon Battista looked down at his hands. The knuckles were more prominent than they should be. He rubbed his fingers together.

  ‘My family’s exile is ended, on condition they rein in their rabble-rousing son.’ His expression turned sour. He looked up, without lifting his head, and met my gaze through his long, dark lashes. ‘Therefore, I have to be seen in Florence. With my family, carrying on the family’s affairs, and not fomenting rebellion against the Duke.’

  Rekhmire’ leaned forward and prodded the coal with one of the fire-irons. He sat back with a grunt. ‘The Alberti family expect Master Leon Battista to be in your company, Ilario, as soon as you may travel. Not Neferet’s.’

  The short walk from church had given me enough time to solve that problem. ‘Tell them I died! Plague. Cholera. Anything! It happens all the time. You can safely tell anyone that, just as soon as I can leave Venice.’

  Not before. I would be very surprised if the Alberti didn’t have men watching their son’s wife. And, by his expression, I had no need to spell that out.

  Leon’s mouth quirked. ‘There’s no need to condemn you to an early grave. When it becomes possible, I can prove our marriage void.’

  ‘You can?’ All the banns and church offices had been what I understand the Frankish marriage ceremonies to be. I could not help looking at him in surprise. ‘How?’

  Leon Battista took a deep breath. ‘I married Neferet six months ago, in the autumn.’

  My mouth was open, but I could make no sound come out.

  ‘Although,’ he added, ‘for obvious reasons, I can’t take Neferet to Florence as my wife–the family would insist on having a council of midwives to examine her, to confirm that she was a virgin before she married me, and capable of child-bearing. And that…’