“Oh, you’re hurting me, you little slug—” He bit his lip. It was his own fault. “All right. We’ll move you. Come on—” He wanted to move her carefully, but he was so clumsy. He had to gather all his strength and then sling her from one side of him to the other. Again she let out a shrieking hiccup. She was less secure held this way, but he did not have the strength to hold her otherwise.
Her small body was still now, as if to be held against him—or anyone—was the only thing she ever wanted. After a minute or so he collected himself and struggled to his feet. He could not lever or pull himself up as long as he was clinging to the baby. He fought against his own slight body, pulled down by Athena’s added weight, and found his sense of balance all skewed as well. He made it to one knee, fell back, climbed up again, and finally staggered upright. Athena gasped and choked with her crazy little hiccups.
She was laughing.
Every giddy dive and swoop made her yelp with rudimentary laughter. Telemakos leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes, triumphant and exhausted, clutching the baby against his chest. By the time he had stopped gasping for breath, his arm was aching with strain.
“I’m going to have to put you down,” he told his sister. He glanced quickly around the room. Everything in the nursery was alien to him. “I’m going to have to put you back in your bed. You’re still a stinker, but I’ll clean you up, all right? It will probably take me the rest of the afternoon.”
He did not know where any of her things were or what you did with them or how they worked. Athena began to whimper the second Telemakos let go of her; she was hysterical with fury long before he had even managed to get her dirty napkin off. She pulled her little legs up into her stomach and balled her brown, dimpled hands into tiny fists, screaming in great, long, choking waves. Telemakos fought her doggedly, absolutely as stubborn as she was.
“Do you be quiet!” he yelled at her at last. “I cannot help you any faster than this. I have only got one arm!”
“Telemakos.”
He fastened the last fold he had made, tightening the knotted cloth with his teeth. It was crude, and probably uncomfortable, but the baby was clean. Telemakos straightened and glanced over his shoulder. Goewin stood in the doorway.
“Let me help,” she offered quietly.
“Too late!”
He was slick with sweat, though he had long since pulled off his shamma and now wore only a kilt. He said proudly, “I’m finished.”
He sat down on the floor again, thoroughly spent. Goewin lifted the sobbing baby up over her own shoulder and asked, “Where in blazes is your mother?”
“Asleep.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. The two of you would wake the dead.”
“She takes my opium.”
Goewin gazed down at Telemakos, who sat panting at her feet, sweating beneath his bandages. He looked away from the calculating assessment in his aunt’s dark eyes. He was too dark skinned to blanch with pain or effort, but he knew he must be gray around the mouth and that Goewin would not miss the tightness in his jaw or the slight trembling that ran all through his body.
“God blind me, Telemakos, you are the image of your father sometimes,” Goewin muttered under her breath. “Look, boy, I haven’t the strength to carry you and the baby at once. Can you get back to bed yourself?”
“In a minute.”
“I’ll tell Ferem to come and bathe you.”
She stood gazing down at him while he caught his breath. Athena still let out a racking sob every few seconds, but it was not real crying: she, too, was catching her breath. Goewin watched Telemakos with sharp eyes as he dragged himself slowly to his feet again.
“About that opium,” she said.
“She takes it because I never use it.”
“Idiot.”
“Me or her?”
“Both of you.” Goewin herded Telemakos down the hall before her. He sat down on his own bed and thought, I will be asleep before Ferem gets here.
“Don’t try to clean the baby again,” Goewin said to him. “Anyone of the household will do that, if you ask. They can’t hear her from the kitchens or the stables. It’s not a bad thing for you to help with her, but it will be a pyrrhic victory if you poison yourself in doing it. You will die, Telemakos, you will die, if you infect yourself again. There isn’t any more of you to cut away.”
She turned her back and went to find the butler.
A day later Telemakos was in Athena’s room again, swooping her up over his shoulder once more. He took her back to bed with him, propped her against his hip, and shored her there with cushions so that she could see the sunbird at the window. Athena’s small, uncoordinated hands moved slowly, grasping for the far, bright feathers and the bright water; then her hands distracted her and she stared at them as if there could be nothing more fascinating. She tried to put them in her mouth and missed.
Telemakos gave her the sistrum that he used to summon Ferem. It looked like something that had been stolen from a church, possibly liberated from the monastery at Abba Pantelewon by his father. It was a fork of mahogany with shining silver bells threaded on wires between the tines. Athena reached for it, missed, and reached again. She moved her hands with slow deliberation, purposefully, but without skill. The fingers of her right hand closed around the sistrum’s handle as if by accident. The polished wood was the same color as her hand. It was too heavy for her to hold if Telemakos let go, but she shook it so that the bells chattered faintly. It surprised her, and she let out her funny little hiccup of delight.
“Clever girl!” Telemakos laughed also, and gently pulled the rattle away. “Do it again.”
This time she caught it in her left hand.
“Both hands!” Telemakos crowed. “Well done. Clever girl—” He faltered suddenly. “Lucky girl,” he whispered. “Well done, lucky girl.”
When the baby began to whimper with hunger, Telemakos hid her under his blankets, letting her suck on his fingers to keep her quiet while Ferem brought him a bowl of milk. When they were alone again, Telemakos fed his sister with a napkin twisted into a makeshift teat. It took at least an hour. In the evening Medraut found his children curled against each other, sound asleep.
After that they gave up trying to keep the baby away from Telemakos.
IV
THE LURE OF SHADOWS