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lodestone of my memory; not until I felt the open breezes blow, and our course align with my pointing arm. Then, I opened my eyes.
    We were in open water and the skiff leapt forward with each pull of Joscelin’s arms, drawing toward an unseen destination, a blur on the horizon. Swish, dip, pull. The rags tied round his hands were crimson with blood, blood smeared on the oar-handles.
    It was a blur on the horizon. It was land.
    “Go!” I shouted. “Go, go, go !”
    Joscelin’s face was blind and unseeing with concentration, his arms moving with relentless precision. I saw the muscles in his shoulders surge, his legs bracing and flexing. The skiff flew over the waters like a swallow on the wing. In the prow, Imriel knelt and looked backward, past Joscelin, past me, charting the progress of our pursuers. I saw the alarm reflected in his face. I did not turn to see why.
    Ahead of us, the blur resolved into land; an island, small and unprepossessing, easily missed in the vast Lake of Tears. And it too was green and verdant, but it was marked, stamped by the footprint of mankind. I saw the shallow beach where the underbrush had been cleared, with a fishing boat on the shore and the structure on the hill above it; round, like the temple in Tisaar. I saw the path that cut like a blaze through the green, and evidence of a garden, a sown field, shapes too regular for nature.
    “Kapporeth,” I whispered. “We have found it.”

Seventy-Six
    WE SCARCELY beat our pursuers ashore.
    Imriel leapt out of the skiff the instant our prow touched land, hauling on it. I scrambled to grab Joscelin’s weapons, ignoring the rocking of the vessel as he disembarked. By the time I followed, tossing him the oilskin bundle, the Sabaean craft had landed.
    It was a footrace, after that.
    I caught a glimpse, as we raced for the path, of the soldiers who emerged from the Sabaean craft. To be sure, their armor and their weapons were ancient, of bronze and not steel, but the edges were no less keen for it, and there were at least twenty of them.
    We had steel, yes. We had Joscelin.
    He shoved his daggers into the empty sheaths on his belt as he ran, disentangling his baldric and slinging it over his shoulders, his sword jouncing in its scabbard. The oilskin cloth fell by the wayside as he tucked one vambrace under his arm, struggling to force his bleeding left hand into the mesh gauntlet of the other. Leather straps flopped with every stride, impossible to buckle on the run.
    And then we were there, in the clearing atop the hill, with the round temple shut tight and slumberous in the early morning light, while twenty Sabaean soldiers fanned out to surround us, their bronze blades drawn and gleaming in the sun.
    “I knew it,” said Hanoch ben Hadad, jutting his black beard. “I knew it! There were too many women paying visits to my sister. I told the Sanhedrin as much.”
    “How is it, my lord captain?” I asked him softly, watching Joscelin fasten his vambraces out of the corner of my eye. “Is your sister not worthy of company? I found her a gracious hostess.”
    “Woman’s folly,” Hanoch said in a hard voice. “Prey to a gentle manner and a sad tale. She is aging, and lonely. It is fortunate for you my niece Ardath thought better of her folly and made confession to her husband Japhet in time for us to pursue. It would go worse if you had succeeded in profaning the temple.”
    Ardath. Yevuneh’s daughter, with the nursing babe in her arms. I felt sick at it, the blood beating hard in my ears. To have come this far! “Ardath knows not what she does,” I said, my voice sounding distant and strange. “It is fear that speaks.”
    “Fear, aye.” He nodded. “She fears for her children’s future, do we risk Adonai’s wrath. Such is wisdom, the truth of women’s wisdom; a mother’s fear. A pity you did not think to do the same. Your son will suffer for your folly. Give thanks to Adonai that we have halted you in time. If the Sanhedrin is merciful, it may be that you will not be put to death, but only enslaved.”
    “And how shall you be rewarded, Hanoch ben Hadad, for finding Kapporeth, where Nemuel’s shame is hidden?” I asked him, anger flaring. “I tell you this, it is Blessed Elua’s will that has led us here, over deserts and mountains and rivers, through dangers that would render you faint to hear told! It is no matter for you to decide, no, nor the Sanhedrin of Elders. It is for Adonai Himself, and it is the wisdom