Ilario, the Stone Golem Read Free

argument not persuasive.
    ‘Sheer chance!’ I said, when Rekhmire’ had his prayer-box open,
    lighting incense to the eight gods within. ‘Chance plays far too much of a
    part in the world for men to be easy thinking of it.’
    Rekhmire’ finished his ceremony with a bow of his head to the Eight,
    and clipped the box shut again.
    ‘A man should always be polite . . . ’ He dusted incense from the front
    of his tunic and trousers, and used his crutch to cross the room, putting
    the prayer-box away in his oak chest. ‘ . . . Especially to minor gods. The
    advantage of deities who control small things is that one need never
    worry about why evil and pain rule so much of this world – minor gods
    are obviously too weak to prevent it.’ He hesitated. ‘I don’t know what
    the excuse of Father Azadanes’ God is.’
    I was inclined to smile at that, but very wryly. ‘Heathen! Pagan.
    Atheist!’
    Rekhmire’ snorted. ‘Make up your mind which!’
    The tiny, warm, damp weight of the child on my chest became
    something I was used to, as I rested in the great bed in the Alexandrine
    house and regained my strength.
    When I complained that I was strong enough, Rekhmire’ invited me to
    move, and I discovered how badly the stitches knitting the walls of my
    womb could hurt.
    I steered clear of Father Azadanes’ company, weary as I was of hearing
    about his ‘Green miracle’, and how he attributed the baby’s survival and
    mine to the Green Christ. It was difficult to avoid him, since he was
    much with Neferet.
    Once, coming into a room more quietly than I realised, I overheard
    Neferet asking, ‘But can’t your God make my body mirror what my ka is?’, and I backed out as silently as I’d come. Her – his – desperation hurt
    me.
    The more so because of her jealousy. She watched the baby, in my
    arms; watched it avidly enough that, if I hadn’t had Honorius with me, I
    would have been half inclined to offer it to her for adoption. Certainly no
    one would ever get past that lioness-of-Alexandria attitude to harm the
    child.
    9

    Physician Baris¸, with a sombre face, came to tell me he doubted his
    surgery could mend a womb like mine so that it could conceive again.
    Especially since it had been such a remote chance I should conceive the
    first time.
    I felt a rush of relief, and at the same time terror, looking at the
    miniature sleeping face and thinking, This is the only one .
    ‘Tell you truth,’ Baris¸ observed dispassionately, having finished his
    investigation of my healing surgical wound. ‘I’m more surprised to see
    you live than her. Frankly, it’s a miracle you survived.’
    He looked confused when I muttered, ‘Don’t you start!’
    The baby’s small size continued to flabbergast me.
    She was barely bigger than Honorius’s hand when he caressed her in
    her swaddling bands. Although she didn’t wear the tight strips of cloth
    for long – a day or so later, Rekhmire’ muttered something about
    barbaric customs, and (with Baris¸’s help) overrode the Venetian midwife
    and my father. The baby girl was allowed to lay on my bedcover, only a
    swathe of linen around her, in the patches of sunlight that made her dark
    eyes close and open as slowly as if she were under the sea.
    The stitches being painful for longer than I expected, I found myself
    frustrated in my desire to care for her. Neferet, unsurprisingly, took up
    every chance to feed or bathe her – somewhat more surprisingly, I had
    help from not only Honorius himself, but from Saverico and those others
    of the men-at-arms with younger siblings or their own children at home.
    Berenguer slid in and out of the room when she was a few weeks old, and
    left a fish carved out of ash-wood, that she might play with – or at least
    watch – in the shallow water of her bath.
    I wondered much if there might be something wrong with her. But I
    kept those thoughts to myself.
    After a few weeks, as she put on weight by the efforts of cow-