On the slab of wood across her knees lay a thick disc of clay with her stylus standing upright in its exact center. Over the stylus she placed a loop of flax, then inserted the point of the teak-stick into the same loop, pulled it taut, and, taking greatest care to obey its length, traced in the clay a perfect circle around the stylus. She took a long breath—so far, so good. Then she moved the stylus to a place on the edge of the circle, and once more tightening the loop of flax with her stick, she drew across the circle another line curved like a rainbow. Again she moved her stylus, this time to the juncture where one end of the rainbow-arc touched the edge of the circle, and again she traced. When she had done this six times, she removed stylus, flax, and teak-stick to sit for a moment just gazing. In the moist-scented roundel of fresh clay she had etched a perfect shape with six points—no, not just points. Narrow almonds, like the petals of the blue saffron flower after which she was named.
