By contrast, there was easily enough jewelry on all other royal
dignitaries present to assure their inevitable drowning should one of
them happen to accidentally fall into the moat.
Her hair was still the same length as always, almost to the waist in
back. Sometimes, she kept it in a single long braid fastened at the end
with a tiny black ribbon.
She took with her everywhere now her kit, consisting of the various
tools and artifacts of her trade.
This consisted of two little wooden marking sticks kept in a black
leather pouch, and a small honing stick of rough-surfaced lava rock
from the stone masons quarter, for resharpening the marking sticks when
the moist clay softened and distorted their tips. Actually, one had to
set aside the dampened one to dry and use a dry one, and when the
dampened one was dry, then to sharpen. She blinked ruefully at the
memory of the day she had unknowingly tried to sharpen a dampened
stick, and shredded it instead, thereby incurring the wrath of Ibi. How
far she had advanced since that fateful day.
Also, she carried in her writing kit three thin soft clay tablets for
writing on, housed in flat split-bamboo frames fitted with more bamboo
strips to make a back support and allow for greater thinness, and a
small fired clay bottle of water to soften the clay with the judicious
sprinkle of a few added drops as needed.
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