Ilario, the Stone Golem by Mary Gentle Read Free Book Online

of my arm, I stepped forward and waited
    until Honorius finished repeating verbally what he had dictated to any
    number of the Doge’s secretaries.
    ‘Lords, seigniors, illustrious Duca .’ I let my Iberian accent come out, and caught Leon Battista’s eye as I looked up as modestly as I could. ‘If
    the late Tommaso Cassai, artist in Rome, could speak to you, he would
    tell you about the truth of this—’
    Yes: he’d tell you I’m lying in my teeth!
    ‘—If you wish, I will swear an oath that Messer Alberti promised me
    marriage before he seduced me, and I therefore considered us
    betrothed—’
    I said I would swear it. Not that it would be true.
    Because I will swear myself black in the face if it helps. And if court life teaches you anything, it is how to lie with the greatest innocence.
    ‘—I don’t beg you not to punish him, illustrious sirs. Only to have
    mercy on my child. Who needs her father!’
    28

    And that may be true – or she may already be overburdened with a mother-father.
    The man to Foscari’s right said, ‘We could order some settlement
    made out of the prisoner’s estate?’
    Honorius’s hand closed around my elbow and gently pulled me back –
    but I had no chance of breaking his grip. He glanced down as he let me
    go, and stroked a fingertip over the baby’s fine fluffy hair where it
    protruded from under her linen cap. I saw Doge Foscari register his
    smile.
    That’s useful: he sees that the baby’s grandfather is willing to acknowledge her —
    My thoughts were interrupted by a burst of deep-throated laughter
    from the councillor on the Doge’s left hand:
    ‘That is poetic!’
    He was overweight, with the high colour fat men in middle age get. I
    stared at him, not knowing whether to wish him dead of a heart spasm on
    the spot. Foscari lifted his eyebrow again, as if he wished to seem slightly
    disconcerted; the other men on the council followed his lead by
    frowning.
    ‘Poetic justice, perhaps.’ Doge Foscari linked his fingers together on
    the polished dark table. The cabochon-cut rings he wore reflected in the
    shine, in dark incarnations of their colours: emerald, ruby, sapphire. I
    wondered which, if any, was the ring with which the Doge of The Most
    Serene Republic weds the sea every Easter-tide. The council put their
    heads together again and I couldn’t hear anything they said.
    Rekhmire’ touched my shoulder, and Saverico took the baby out of my
    arm, returning her to another wet-nurse brought for the look of the thing.
    I dabbed at a damp spot on the silk brocade bodice Neferet had loaned
    me, and saw my fingertips shaking.
    Not the time to be holding a child . Nightmare visions of her fragility assailed me, and I blinked them away, staring across the room at Leon
    Battista. At this distance I could see little enough – only that he seemed
    well-dressed, grubby, pale with his time in prison; but had evidently been
    kept in locked apartments, rather than down below us in the dungeons.
    That will not stop them hanging him now, if they decide to.
    We would look like a normal aristocrat family gathered in this justice
    hall. Even an Alexandrine secretary would not be so unusual. I wondered
    how many of the councillors were looking and wondering where the
    other representative of Alexandria was this morning. Do they know she’s his lover? Do they know ‘she’ should be here in place of me?
    Hot sweat gathered, and rolled down my back between my shoulder-
    blades. The canvas straps of the corset chafed under the sleeves of my
    bodice. For the first time in a number of years, I wished for a sword, and
    the memory of my knightly training.
    29

    ‘You paint, Donna Ilaria,’ Foscari remarked, leaning forward and
    speaking plainly and clearly to me.
    It may have been how he spoke to foreigners uncertain of the Venetian
    language. It felt as if he spoke to a child of eight or ten winters.
    ‘I was studying the New Art in the studio of Tommaso Cassai.’ Some
    truth