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fasted with them out of respect. There had been meetings these last two days, covert and secretive. That much, I knew. Of their outcome, I knew nothing.
    The rams’ horns blew when the lower rim of the sun touched the horizon, calling the Sabaeans to prayers. Sabaean temples are round, with a square room within-the Holy of Holies-and two concentric circles without, plus an alcove for the altar itself. Although we were not permitted into the temple proper, we were allowed into the outermost ring which skirts the court of sacrifice.
    There was a long procession leading to the temple, winding through the streets of Tisaar. Elaborate parasols were held over the heads of the priests, casting long shadows in dwindling sunlight. The mournful cries of the rams’ horns echoed over the city, finding an answer in the rhythmic pulse of two-handed goat-hide drums and the small hand-bells carried by the women. A red heifer was led before us all, lowing softly and adding her voice to the music of their worship.
    “Remove your shoes,” Yevuneh told us at the temple, “and stand here; no further. That much is permitted.”
    Most of the ceremony, we could not see, blocked by a sea of bodies, clad in Habiru garb with fringed shawls colored by blue dyes. I heard the prayers offered, and the lowing of the red heifer; I heard her cries cut short, and knew by the reek of blood and the charnel odor that followed that the sacrifice had been offered. Imriel looked ill at it. Then came more prayer in the form of song, and bare feet tramping the temple floor in dance, men and women in counterpoint to one another. Eleazar had been right-here were preserved traditions forgotten by the Yeshuites.
    The sky was violet when they spilled out of the temple, the three of us dispersed in their wake, struggling to find our shoes amid the crowd. In the southwest hung the new moon, a slender crescent scarce visible against the darkling sky. The Sabaeans lifted up their hands, praising Adonai for its return.
    And I thought ... Elua help me, but I thought of Asherat-of-the-Sea and her crown of stars. Asherat, who had once saved my life; Asherat, by whose mantle Melisande Shahrizai herself was protected. And I prayed, in that twilight, to the goddess Asherat, to Blessed Elua and his Companions, to Isis who knit the sundered pieces of her beloved Osiris, and to Adonai Himself, the One God of the Habiru.
    I do not know which one of them answered. I know only that when we returned to the household of the widow Yevuneh, the Council of Women had gathered to await us, and a mighty feast had been laid to break our fast and celebrate the new moon. Young and old were gathered alike this time, and the youngest was scarce six weeks old, a nursing babe in the arms of Yevuneh’s daughter Ardath. But it was Semira, eldest among them, who was appointed to give us their decision.
    “It has been determined,” she said in the lamp-lit courtyard, summoning her dignity and drawing her shawl tight across her hunched shoulders. “It has been determined that your presence among us constitutes a sign. And it has been determined that humility is the better part of wisdom. Your case is just. It is not meet that this mortal man-this friend you name Hyacinthe -should suffer for the transgressions of Rahab. This matter must be put to Adonai Himself. This we will help you to do, insofar as we are able.”
    My head felt light and dizzy atop my shoulders. I sank to my knees in Yevuneh’s courtyard, grasping Semira’s hand in my own and kissing it. “Thank you, my lady,” I said in Habiru, scarce daring to believe. “Thank you!”
    “Oh, wait,” she said testily, pulling her hand away. “You haven’t heard the how of it.”
    The how, it transpired, was complicated. We sat for long hours that night in the widow’s kitchen, poring over maps of the night sky; for that, it transpired, was the only means by which we might find the island of Kapporeth, the fabled land-mass in the Lake of Tears on which the Ark of Broken Tablets was hidden.
    “You see, here,” said Morit, who was entrusted with our teaching, as she pointed to a scroll. “Nemuel departed from the shores of what would be Tisaar.” She was a young woman and grave with her calling, coming from a family that had practiced the art of Mazzalah for time out of mind, mapping the night skies and charting time by it. “And here he writes, ‘The red planet of war hung low upon the horizon in the tenth degree of the Lion