Chapter 26

Finding himself ignored by the men discussing the looming battle, Duo headed further into the apartments where he found Jana and Falia setting out food. He could hear them grumbling about all the work they had to do that evening, so he ducked out of sight before they complained to him or asked him to help.

The chamber he had ducked into seemed to be unoccupied at first, and then he detected movement in a small, round bed with wooden sides. The room was lit only with the fading light of the second sun, but he saw small fingers grasping the edges before a series of grunts preceded the appearance of the top of a head with two large eyes that seemed to glow in the dark. If he were anywhere else, he probably would have stumbled out shrieking in fear, and as it was, his heart gave a skip before he felt a calming peace flow over him that could only have been induced by a Guerani.

"Well," he said aloud. "I guess you must be the imperial princess."

A little gurgle answered him which made Duo smile before he became aware of the movements on the bed. A woman had been lying on it, and she must have been sleeping, but now she raised herself up and her silky robe parted to give him a generous view of her ample curves. "Have you come to check on your child, my lord?"

"I am not the emperor," he told her. Duo nearly guffawed with laughter at the thought that any woman would make Trey stray from his wife.

She drew her robe together and he saw the disappointment on her face. "Who are you?"

"Maybe I should ask what you are doing here?"

"I have been caring for the child in the absence of her mother," said the woman tartly as she rose from the bed.

The baby was whimpering now, but the woman did not even glance in her direction as she gave Duo a thorough examination from head to toe. "Are you an imperial warrior?" she asked.

Before he could answer, the door opened and Duo turned to see Arora. She did not show any surprise that he was there, but she did show her displeasure in the woman. "Gadja, you may leave. I have no more need of your services. If you wish, you may inquire of Caelie if another wet-nurse is needed in Lord Apolo's nursery." She remained at the door, holding it open, and the other woman gathered a few belongings before heading toward it.

She paused beside Arora. "I will discuss this dismissal with the emperor. Perhaps he will not wish for me to go. Maybe you will be the one inquiring if anyone has need of your services."

"I will abide by his decision," said Arora calmly. Duo wondered how she kept from giving the impudent female a kick in the backside as she passed by her. She merely closed the door softly before turning to look at him. "Shamara is hungry. Will you bring her to me?"

Duo looked back at the baby whose head was bobbing as if she were rocking back and forth on her bottom. He had no experience with babies. Zilch. "Hey, maybe you should get her. I might drop her."

But Arora had already settled cross-legged on a mat near the window that opened to the expansive balcony facing the distant hills and she was loosening her garment. "She wants you to pick her up. You will not drop her."

His hands were shaking as he went to stand over the baby's bed, but when she titled her head to smile up at him, he could resist giving her an answering smile. "So, you are the first princess."

She gurgled in answer and when she took one of her hands from the edge of the bed, she lost her balance and fell back in a roll with a frustrated grunt. Duo scooped her up and as he swung her out of the bed, she gasped and then giggled.

"Stop playing with her and bring her to me. I have not fed her in a couple of days and that lazy female did not nurse her this evening. She was hoping her plump breasts would tempt my mate."

He held her out from him as he crossed the room and managed to get the baby to Arora without incident. When Arora put her to her breast, she immediately began to suckle. "There you are, dear heart," she crooned to the baby. "I know you are starving."

Feeling awkward, Duo said, "I'll leave you two alone."

Arora put up a hand. "She wants you to stay." She leaned forward to pat the mat facing her.

Although he would rather leave because he was uncomfortable with what she was doing, he sat across from her.

Arora smiled at him. "I sense how you are feeling. What I am doing is natural."

"Women on Earth weren't so open about it," he told her.

"Trey told me that many women preferred to do so in private as if it were something shameful."

"I don't think the feeding part is the shameful part." Duo deliberately kept his eyes from her breasts.

Arora laughed. "I would hate to think that the sight of my breasts would turn you into a rutting beast."

"Does it turn Trey into a rutting beast?" He still wasn't going to look at her, even if the baby was making smacking noises that made him suspect she was trying to get his attention.

"That is different. He is my bonded mate."

Duo would have to ask Trey how it felt to be bonded, what it entailed and how it felt. Madex had a hard time explaining it and what he did tell him made Duo wonder why a man would allow a female to have such control over him. He certainly understood why one of Trey's ancestors had outlawed it. There was too much potential for abuse. Hadn't Dax taken advantage of it to torture the crown prince?

"You did not have a chance to speak to Lady Virinea," remarked Arora, and then she smiled. "Trey is angry with his mother. I left him scolding her, but I doubt she will listen to him."

Duo laughed. "She had some solid plans that he won't be able to change."

"My mate forgets that his mother is not Calabrian. If she wants to take a male to her pillows, she will do it with or without his approval."

Before they could discuss it further, the door opened and Trey marched into the room after closing the it abruptly. He looked around for a moment in the darkening room, and seeing them near the door to the balcony, he crossed the room to them.

"My mother is impossible to reason with!"

"Hey, we were just talking about her," said Duo with a laugh.

"I can imagine what you were saying. She has been brazen in her attentions with Vaan, not just tonight, but during the trip from Imperia. He has managed to hold her off, but …"

"Why would he do that?" asked Duo which made Trey glare at him. "Your mother isn't a tired old nag to be put out to pasture. She's a fine looking woman that any man would like to ..."

"Don't say another word!" snapped Trey, and Duo saw him clenching his fists so he scooted a little closer to Arora who rolled her eyes.

"I was going to say 'court'."

"She doesn't want courtship! She outright told me that she hasn't been with a man since Zeno's death and she has no intention of going to her bed alone tonight." Trey's winced as if the idea of his mother having sex disgusted him. "I cannot believe she jumped back into bed with my father after what he did! When I told her that, she laughed and called me a prude. She said that was one thing they did well together."

Duo never knew his own mother, having been abandoned as an infant on the steps of a church, so he found it hard to sympathize with him. "Cut her some slack, Trey."

"She is a female of my house!"

"You want females to have more rights," spoke up Arora. "Does that not extend to the right to choose a partner with who to spend the night."

After a brief, angry look at his wife, Trey moved past her to the balcony where he started to pace. Duo looked at Arora. "Since he got his memory back, I don't even recognize him. Granted, he didn't have much of a personality before ..."

"I heard that, Maxwell!" Trey came to a stop at the door, and Duo could not see him clearly because the light of the first moon behind him was too bright behind him. "Would you care to step out here so we can discuss what you meant?"

Duo snorted. "You're planning to discuss it with your fists and I don't feel like going to bed all bruised and aching. I've got a good buzz going and I don't want you to ruin it."

"If you fight with Duo, I will spend the night with my brother and he won't heal you until tomorrow, so you can go to bed bruised and aching too," Arora told her husband over her shoulder.

"Besides, didn't you tell me it's dishonorable to fight with fists?" asked Duo.

"I'll make an exception for you," said Trey. "We both have terran blood."

"Well I'm not going to be the outlet of your anger towards your mother." Duo glanced at Arora and saw that she had put the baby to her shoulder and was patting her back. Shamara had lifted her head and she must have been looking at her father because his stance suddenly eased and his fists unclenched.

"By the gods, she is a rascal," he murmured as he dropped to his knees behind Arora and he leaned forward to kiss his daughter's head. As he leaned back, the baby loosed a huge belch that was accompanied by a splat. "Gods damn!"

Trey moved away and he brushed his hand over a crystal that flared to life and lit the room. Duo saw that Shamara had deposited a large, white gob on Trey's face which he was wiping away with the hem of his tunic as he headed towards the bathing chamber. "I hope that was not an indication of your approval of my mother. I certainly will not tolerate that kind of behavior from my daughter."

Arora dabbed at Shamara's mouth before she moved her to her other breast. "I can count on my daughter to diffuse her father's temper."

"That's pretty handy," laughed Duo. "She probably has a few more tricks up her sleeve."

"She has no sleeves," pointed out Arora. "And I do not understand what you mean."

"You know," he said. "Her bag of tricks." When Arora continued to have an odd look on her face, he said, "The things she does to get her way."

Arora opened her mouth to speak, but suddenly the baby grunted loudly and there came a loud rumbling sound from the wadded cloth wrapped around her bottom. Trey was coming back into the room rubbing his face with a drying cloth when she had finished and his lips pursed in annoyance.

"I don't think she liked how you were talking to Duo," remarked Arora.

Duo threw up his hands. "Hey, I don't even know her! I held her once when she was a tiny thing, and I picked her up once today."

Trey reached down to take the now soiled baby and Duo saw that Arora had not escaped the fallout. She glanced briefly at her husband before she headed to the bathing chamber and Duo almost laughed to see Trey watching his mate walk provocatively through the door as he stood holding a baby so sodden he thought the foul ooze might drip to the floor.

He must have been smiling because Trey scowled at him. "What's so funny? Haven't you ever seen a dirty diaper before?"

Duo scratched his head and said, "Only on the telecom at Seaside, and not any that looked like that. I don't think I have ever been this close to an actual dirty diaper."

Before he could react, Trey thrust Shamara at him and he had no choice but to grab the baby because he was afraid Trey would drop her if he did not. Reasonably he knew that he would not drop his own child, but he had managed to trick Duo into taking her.

"The clean wraps are over there," he pointed to a small pile of neatly folded cloth next to a basin of water on a table. "She got me too, so I need to clean up."

Without giving Duo a chance to protest that he had no idea how to change a diaper, Trey quickly followed Arora out of the room and closed the door to the chamber with a snap that warned Duo not to interrupt. Duo blinked at the closed door for a moment, but the foul odor was stinging his eyes, so he realized that he needed to act quickly or he would have to use the bathing chamber. If he interrupted them, he was going to be leaving with more than just a few bruises.

Carefully walking across the room, afraid that he might drop her, he was concentrating on his steps until Shamara began to squirm so he moved a little faster. "I don't blame you," he muttered. "I wouldn't want that against my backside."

He gently laid the baby on the cloth covered table, and she seemed to know that it meant that she was going to be cleaned because she stopped fussing. Duo looked at her face and saw her smiling, then waving her arms at him, so he reached up to tickle under her chin.

"You are a little cutie." She giggled and he laughed before turning his attention back to the problem.

His initial instinct was to tear the offending garment from her immediately and clean her, but if he did that, he would not be able to learn the secrets of Calabrian diapering. So Duo tried his best to ignore the mess as he studied the small garment, noting that it was going to be harder than he imagined since there did not seem to be any discernible fastening. The cloth was wrapped and tucked at the sides, so he started by untucking and then unwrapping, noting how it had been put on her so that he could duplicate the process. By the time he was done, his hands were covered in the creamy, foul smelling substance with which she had soiled the cloth.

What was it Trey had said? "Gods damn," muttered Duo, feeling a little guilty for cursing, but having some relief for his frustration.

"Don't move," he warned as he balled up the filthy diaper and setting it aside. He washed his hands, then used a cloth to wash the baby.

Fortunately, she cooperated because he did not know what he would do if she squirmed. Aside from some playful kicking accompanied by coos that made Duo feel less annoyed by his task, she did not hinder him. He probably used too much cloth to clean her, but he wanted to make sure both of them were clean when it was done. Noticing that her bottom was a little red, he looked about for any kind of lotion or cream, then smacked his forehead with his palm when he remembered where he was.

"Sorry, princess, but you're going to have to live with a sore bottom," he told her, then laughed when she smiled and kicked vigorously. Then his smile faded as he thought about how many times Trey must see this, how this tiny being must fill his world with joy. Duo would never be able to look forward to this.

Pushing away morose thoughts of his deficiencies, Duo took a clean cloth and after lifting her gently, he slipped it under her. He considered how best to go about diapering her, then he cracked his knuckles and set about reconstructing the diaper that had been put on her. The first attempt was a dismal failure, so he unwrapped the loose garment and tried again. That time he realized he had put it on backwards, so he was trying again when he felt tugging at his braid and he was about to deliver his usual scathing reminder not to touch his hair when he realized that Shamara had grabbed his braid and was pulling with all her might.

Duo reached out to pry off her tiny fingers, but her grasp was tight, and when he thought he might make progress, she suddenly grabbed it with her other hand and he nearly screeched when she yanked the braid in her hands, pulling his head down.

"What are you doing, Duo?"

Duo could barely turn his head to see that Apolo had entered the chamber. "What does it look like I am doing? I am changing her diaper."

"I've never seen Arora or Trey do it that way." He crossed the room and Duo saw him looking sternly at Shamara. After a moment of some silent communication, the baby released his hair and Duo rubbed his head.

"That wasn't very nice," he scolded the baby.

"I already told her that. She was only playing with you."

"I know how to get her back." Duo reached down to tickle the baby like he used to tickle Trynity, and he was delighted to see Shamara both giggle and squirm like Trynity used to. "There! Now let me finish." He tucked in the sides of the diaper and was pleased by the neat little package he had made.

"When they see you can do it, they will want you to do it again." Apolo told him with a chuckle. He looked around the room. "Where are Trey and Arora? I thought they were here. "

Duo nodded towards the bathing chamber. "I wouldn't bother them if I were you. They used the flimsy excuse that Shamara messed them, but I doubt they have needed this much time to clean up."

Apolo looked at the door for a moment, his brow raised and then he said, "You are right. I had better leave them to their privacy. I was hoping to speak to them, but it can wait. Do you mind if I spend the night with you again?"

"You don't snore, so that is a plus." He lifted Shamara from the table and without thinking, he tucked her against his side in the crook of his arm. She grasped at his tunic and tried to drag it to her mouth. "What should we do with the princess?"

"Bring her with us. I've slept with her before so I know she won't be a bother. Having the night alone with Arora might put Trey in a better mood, especially when he finds out in the morning that his mother did not go to her pillows alone."

Duo headed to the door. "I don't want to be around when he finds that out."

Apolo followed him. "Lord Vaan may enjoy the night, but he will be disappointed when he realizes that gracious Lady Virinea doesn't want any commitment with him. He wants a son, and a son that shares the bloodlines of the emperor would make him happy. Trey's mother confided in me that she does not want any more children, so I have helped her by making it impossible for her to conceive."

"Is Trey afraid that her actions will affect Lord Vaan's loyalty?"

"Lord Vaan has given his oath. Whether he is upset by gracious Lady Virinea's ultimate rejection or not, his loyalty to Trey will not be compromised. But if he is bothered, no one can ease him better than Trey's mother."

Duo grunted. "I wouldn't cross her if I were him. I saw her put an arrow in the heart of a lover on the pirate satellite. Maybe that's why Trey is worried. He saw her do it too, and I doubt he wants his mother to kill one of his warlords."

Apolo laughed as he opened the door to Duo's chamber. "At the moment, I doubt Trey is thinking about his mother and his mother is not going to end her liaison with Lord Vaan by killing him."

Sleeping with Apolo was odd enough, but putting the baby between them was even stranger. When he told Apolo that he was worried about rolling over on her in his sleep, Apolo laughed and told him that Shamara could protect herself. And when he felt that odd calming of his body that told him Guerani magic was at work, Duo no longer worried and was glad that he would have another restful night. He could get used to this.