“‘Jealousy is cruel as the grave.’ If I cannot leave you light, I leave you the Song of Songs.”
She went away up the stairs. For a moment we watched the glow as she lit her lamp in the upper hall, and then it was dark again.
Telemakos did not allow me to brood. He rummaged in the food bag and chattered and demanded that I tell him stories. He had invented a game, remember? Where you traced a picture of an animal in the palm of the other person’s hand and tried to guess what it was. He was astonishingly good at this, his invisible sketches quick and simple, focused on the most important characteristics of a thing: whiskers, fins, wings; a giraffe’s long neck; an elephant’s long nose; a lion’s mane.
He was good at guessing, too. I bent over his hand and drew a strange shape there.
“Winged serpent,” he said immediately. “Cheater. That’s not a real animal. What’s this—”
His design lost me in its complexity. “I give up.”
“Map of the world.”
I burst out laughing.
Eventually Telemakos fell asleep, suddenly sagging against my side in the middle of a story. I folded a blanket over his small shoulders, and over my lap. I slept well when I slept at last.
But I woke suddenly with the strongest, strangest sense of loss and betrayal I have ever felt. It was like the lingering of a nightmare, except I had not been dreaming, that I could remember. I sat up in the dark.
“Telemakos?”
There was no light at all. He had been sleeping with his head in my lap, but he was not there now. I brushed my hands blindly over the cool stone on either side of me.
“Telemakos!” I hissed. I did not dare to shout. Suddenly I did not like the sound of my voice in that still, closed place.
He was gone.
A warren of tunnels , he had said. One of them was supposed to lead to a city eighty miles away. Where in blazes had he gone—I did not even have a light. If I set out after him, we would both be lost.
“Telemakos!” I called in panic.
I called and called, softly, as I had called hopelessly to his father in the caves of Elder Field, half a year and half the world away. The memory of it was so vivid that for a time I did not know where I was. I stood again deep in the high king’s copper mines, my family lying still and shrouded at my back, calling and calling my brother’s name into the unanswering earth.
I cannot, I cannot be doing this again. I cannot lose my brother and his son in the same insane way—
I called Telemakos for an hour, perhaps; who knows how long. Then I threw myself on the floor in despair and cried until I could not breathe.
He came back, of course. I did not hear him or know he was there until he touched me, reaching out a hand lightly to make certain where I was, then locking his small arms around my neck affectionately.
“Goewin, Goewin! What happened? Why are you crying so hard?”
“You miserable sneaking little weasel!” I gasped, hugging him against me so fiercely that he choked, and tried to break free. “Pestilent son of a demon! Where have you been all this time? How did you find your way back? Good God, how you’ve frightened me!”
“I’m not so stupid,” he said defensively, and put into my hands a bobbin of his mother’s spinning, half filled with fine wool thread.
“You came prepared,” I spat through my teeth. “What if the line had broken?”
“It’s quite strong,” came his clear, confident voice in the dark; “try it.”
I tugged at a length of wool. He was right.
“Anyway, I could smell where our camp is. The tomb’s got such a different air to the tunnels; and Mother packed raisin cakes for us.”
“Give me your hand,” I said firmly.
I found it in the dark, offered willingly. I looped the thread around his wrist, three times, five times, a dozen times.
“What are you doing?” he whispered.
“Binding you to me,” I said sharply, pulling the knots tight and beginning to loop the thread around my own hand as well.
“Do
She went away up the stairs. For a moment we watched the glow as she lit her lamp in the upper hall, and then it was dark again.
Telemakos did not allow me to brood. He rummaged in the food bag and chattered and demanded that I tell him stories. He had invented a game, remember? Where you traced a picture of an animal in the palm of the other person’s hand and tried to guess what it was. He was astonishingly good at this, his invisible sketches quick and simple, focused on the most important characteristics of a thing: whiskers, fins, wings; a giraffe’s long neck; an elephant’s long nose; a lion’s mane.
He was good at guessing, too. I bent over his hand and drew a strange shape there.
“Winged serpent,” he said immediately. “Cheater. That’s not a real animal. What’s this—”
His design lost me in its complexity. “I give up.”
“Map of the world.”
I burst out laughing.
Eventually Telemakos fell asleep, suddenly sagging against my side in the middle of a story. I folded a blanket over his small shoulders, and over my lap. I slept well when I slept at last.
But I woke suddenly with the strongest, strangest sense of loss and betrayal I have ever felt. It was like the lingering of a nightmare, except I had not been dreaming, that I could remember. I sat up in the dark.
“Telemakos?”
There was no light at all. He had been sleeping with his head in my lap, but he was not there now. I brushed my hands blindly over the cool stone on either side of me.
“Telemakos!” I hissed. I did not dare to shout. Suddenly I did not like the sound of my voice in that still, closed place.
He was gone.
A warren of tunnels , he had said. One of them was supposed to lead to a city eighty miles away. Where in blazes had he gone—I did not even have a light. If I set out after him, we would both be lost.
“Telemakos!” I called in panic.
I called and called, softly, as I had called hopelessly to his father in the caves of Elder Field, half a year and half the world away. The memory of it was so vivid that for a time I did not know where I was. I stood again deep in the high king’s copper mines, my family lying still and shrouded at my back, calling and calling my brother’s name into the unanswering earth.
I cannot, I cannot be doing this again. I cannot lose my brother and his son in the same insane way—
I called Telemakos for an hour, perhaps; who knows how long. Then I threw myself on the floor in despair and cried until I could not breathe.
He came back, of course. I did not hear him or know he was there until he touched me, reaching out a hand lightly to make certain where I was, then locking his small arms around my neck affectionately.
“Goewin, Goewin! What happened? Why are you crying so hard?”
“You miserable sneaking little weasel!” I gasped, hugging him against me so fiercely that he choked, and tried to break free. “Pestilent son of a demon! Where have you been all this time? How did you find your way back? Good God, how you’ve frightened me!”
“I’m not so stupid,” he said defensively, and put into my hands a bobbin of his mother’s spinning, half filled with fine wool thread.
“You came prepared,” I spat through my teeth. “What if the line had broken?”
“It’s quite strong,” came his clear, confident voice in the dark; “try it.”
I tugged at a length of wool. He was right.
“Anyway, I could smell where our camp is. The tomb’s got such a different air to the tunnels; and Mother packed raisin cakes for us.”
“Give me your hand,” I said firmly.
I found it in the dark, offered willingly. I looped the thread around his wrist, three times, five times, a dozen times.
“What are you doing?” he whispered.
“Binding you to me,” I said sharply, pulling the knots tight and beginning to loop the thread around my own hand as well.
“Do
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