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Goewin slapped the book down on the floor She stood and walked to the here she put up both hands to rattle thelass beads and strips of beaten copper that she had hung there to catch the light "Let’s talk of so else, Telemakos"

"Tell me about my sister," he demanded immediately

Goewin smiled She stood with her back to the , one hand still playing lightly a her to see you someday soon," Goewin said "If your father allows you coh She cries and cries and cries The only ti on top of someone"

"Does she sleep on top of you?"

"I took her to bed with hts, just after she was born," Goewin said "Otherwise your ot any sleep at all Then I cao hoested

Goewin gave hi look "Do you think your father will alloriggling slug of a baby kicking at your bare ribs anytirows back"

His ribs and throat and shoulder slowly began to heal His ared him utterly senseless for half a day so that they could cut out the pieces of hi moldy After that he was so pathetic for a few days that he was able only to sip broth fed to him by Goewin in endless, patient spoonfuls But by the end of the month he could feed hi a fever

"I am minded to allow you visitors," his father said "Your friend Sofya has been battering at your door for the last three weeks, trying to get past o home," Telemakos said

At the end of the week his father was so tired of listening to his pleading that at last they took him back to his own bedroo he was not at risk of fever before they brought his baby sister in to him for five minutes She was asleep Their mother, Turunesh, stood just inside Telehtly over her sto of his sister but the top of her head, a startling shock of loose, shining bronze curls He could not see her, but while Turunesh stood there, he could s sour, and starch, and herb-scented oil, and sandalwood

"I’m sorry you can’t see her face, my love," Turunesh said "All is iven her a naood," Telemakos said "What e call her?"

His mother rubbed her eyes with the back of one hand "I don’t know We haven’t talked about it We haven’t had a chance to talk" She turned to go out, and said over her shoulder, "I’ll see if Goeill take her Then I can come back and sit with you awhile"

"Just sit anyway," Telemakos said "The baby can’t bother me when she’s asleep"

"She’ll wake up if I sit," Turunesh said "And then none of us will have any peace till evening"

They let hiliet close to hiht he woke up feeling hot and sick, and he could sain After that there were no more visits from the baby Medraut and the e the operation of a o, until there was so little left of Telemakos’s arm it made him sick to his stomach to look at it

Amosi ca Telemakos to be insensible because his eyes were closed, said frankly to Teleone, bone laid bare! This will be septic again before the week is out You are rown son endure torture I would not inflict on a grownhis heart Take the arm off and be done with it!"

"I will not," Medraut answered, his voice tight with fury and worry "I will not take his aran to have nightevery third or fourth night in the monastery above the city because it was the only way he could stay alert enough to give Telemakos the attention he needed

Teleht

"Do not, do not, oh, SAVE ME!"

He opened his eyes in panic Even awake he could notbeside him There was a blue-and-white ceramic oil lamp on the floor at her feet and a shamma shawl over her lap, as if she had already been there for soly, and rocked back and forth in her chair, but she did not reach to touch him "Telemakos," she said, her voice full of unhappiness, "telland did not answer

"Sometimes if you tell a bad drea her knees gently to and fro "Your father used to write his down He spent an entire winter chronicling his nightmares, just before our father’s estate at Camlan was destroyed, and he let ht himself surrounded by the baboonlike stench of Anako the salt s, to find the air full of sandalwood

"All right," Teleht It’s the lers caughtso, so they tried to make me scream, to see if I could talk That part was real"

Goewin closed her eyes, her knees swaying Teleiven her much detail about what had happened to him in Afar

"In the dream they know I can talk, and they want to knoho sent ain: Who sent you? And I mustn’t answer And every time he asks and I don’t answer, he tells the other one, the warden at the salt h my arm with a hammer And he does And--"

The fever h his head were in flah his teeth