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Dawit, sadistically, liked best to set his apprentice several tasks at once Telemakos would have to polish the enoreography aloud into South Arabian, and calculate latitudes on an abacus all at the sa scrolls and pens and tools with his single hand The pens had been Athena’s province; she had sorted and cleaned them and passed thes he dropped and to hold his pages flat
While Telemakos drew, the Star Master plied him with endless mental arithmetical calculations or drilled him in lists of stars or rivers or the principal cities of Persia
"Nadoms of Himyar and southern Arabia"
"Kinda and Qataban, Hadrah the pulley hole ca, but for once it was not Athena This was one of the bigger girls Inas?
"Ma’in" Tele, trying to recite the required list of kingdo on the voice below It was not Inas of Ma’in It was Malika, the lovely, preening girl who called herself queen of Sheba Her wordless keening alternated with angry, sobbed protests
"Sheba," Telemakos added
With the side of his hand Dawit pretended to slash his own throat, co instant silence He put the other hand behind his ear in exaggerated parody of a careful listener
Telemakos laid down his pen and bent his head "I am forbidden to eavesdrop in this palace," he said evenly, straining to catch the sense of the outburst below
"Pish You are not eavesdropping; even Harith at the other end of the scriptorium can hear that Their racket would wake the dead Come and listen"
Dawit knelt with his head tilted low over the pulley hole; his beard hung down the shaft No one in the room below see "I shall not, it was mywith no wealth of his own I do not care how famed he is in battle, I am a queen, not a prize!"
Inas’s cally, "Of course you are queen Be heroic! Don’t you see, if you dom remains intact, your own?"
"It does not," Malika sobbed "It all belongs to hi, and then Queen Muna’s soft voicethat Telelanced at Dawit The old h eyes like needle slits The Star Master whispered, rather loudly, "All the girls go running to hter when they feel sorry for the one another’s eyes, cuddling and kissing like kittens in a basket"
Muna’s voice floated aloft, then,to your husband, whoever it is you h I was born there"
"I should make a union Not a trophy," Malika said bitterly Tele so profoundly serious Then she ruined it by adding, with deep petulance, "And I want soe?" Telemakos whispered
"She’s ten," Dawit answered "It is only a betrothal Nothing will happen for so the news early! She’ll have tiet used to the idea"
Gedar the despicable olive an there He made a special trip up to the scriptoriuoodwill, if there was any token he could bear home with him for the lady Turunesh Kidane Tele an appropriate letter to his mother for Gedar to carry
Arrest Gedar, Telemakos wrote
"Dearest Mother, I miss you so much," he read aloud for Abreha "Give my love to all, my father, and Grandfather, and my aunt I am still kept apart from Athena, and miss her asI could just once follow her when she appears I have only seen Athena a single time this week, but I watch for her always
"She isn’t bearing our separation well They can’t let her near the songbirds; she tries to fling theest of Abreha’s children, and bite her on the hand like a nasty little dog She treats Queen Muna with such contempt it embarrasses me Why does us and the najashi’s children have all stopped trying to make her be nice to them, but Muna never even complains My heart bleeds for the abuse she takes so selflessly on behalf of the unfeeling little wretch"
The charainst his ribs to steady the quaking He thought: I a to learn to keep this blasted alare