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Dawit Alta’ir reached forward to touch the plate, running light, quick fingertips over Teleus"

"You e your tools well," Dawit co the lain today I have not been able to do it myself, and I have been loath to entrust it to an untrained artist"

Dawit Alta’ir reached inside the cabinet again and began to take out tray after tray of inks and brushes, pales, an abacus set, and an astrolabe in pieces All of it was dust covered He ca it clean He and Telely Dawit set down the box, lifted from it one of two dozen ss Inside was yet another wax tablet ether with leather Dawit opened them out like a screen and laid them across his knees

"Can you see the map?" he asked

Telemakos had to tilt his head this way and that to catch the faintly scratched lines Some had been smeared or had melted back into the wax Abreha’s lion-and-star seal was imprinted in the corner

"Where is this?"

"That is of no consequence to you What you are to do is to copy it, perh to do it inal for fear of destroying it Can you do such a thing?"

"I’ll try"

"If your first draft is not good enough, make another Every map in this box needs to be copied Let us set out your workplace"

With no more fuss than that, Telemakos was apprenticed The astrono his ht Dawit probably could notHe wondered ould check the task for accuracy

Dawit interrogated him as he drew

"Now tell ranted you are not one of those who believes that anyone who can predict star showers or an eclipse must be a sorcerer Your father is an educated o, when he was very young He had a great collection of books that he had taken away from the Academy in Athens when Justinian closed it and sent the scholars packing Have you read your father’s books?"

"They were all destroyed before I could read," Tele over the blurred scratches he was supposed to copy "They were burnt with randfather’s estate, in Britain, after the battle of Cas, barbarians Tell ether throughout the afternoon When Athena’s wailing began again, Dawit shouted down the hole in the floor, "Take that creature elsewhere!" After that, all was quiet on the floors below, and Tele to think about his abandoned lion and his abandoned sister

At sundown the librarian brought the theh this was routine By the ti, they sat in darkness, but Dawit lit no lah the pulley hole

Dawit crossed the floor He did not touch the hanging crystals this ti thelowed pale rose in the leht

"Muna, all is very quiet down there"

Telemakos could hear Muna’s answer as perfectly as if she were standing by his ear, clear but not loud

"We have only just coardens Rasha and I have taken all this day and a deal of physical abuse in trying to te, and I think it is only the opportunity to pour melted butter all down my dress that has driven her to take food fro, and in about a dozen seconds she will begin to bellow Will it be you who spends the next hour singing her cal your hair from your scalp? My husband is ho battle with our new baby when he finally finishes his plotting and coroar fro in any case," Dawit said "She has father and ht her brother with her He will settle her Bring her up here"

"I had not heard he was in San’a to learn to be a nurse he is an accohter "He will soon put both of us out of work Bring her up I want to meet her And you will like the boy"

At last Dawit Alta’ir lit a laht had beenoff in the new flame Five minutes later Queen Muna stood in the doorway like the apparition of a genie, faintly glittering as the light caught her Her gown and headscarf were sage green silk figured with darker green She wore dozens of gold bracelets and a low tiara triled softly as she moved Athena sobbed and trembled in her arms, her face, buried in the queen’s shoulder

"Ah, my Mima," said Dawit softly "Little mother"

Telemakos flew to take back his sister