She ca to find him.
Not in the library — in his office, the small room off the supply corridor that had beco his working space since Priam gave him the title. She knocked with a knock that was not Hector’s knock and not Fylon’s knock, sothing more direct — two taps, no apology in the rhythm, the knock of soone who had decided to do sothing and was doing it.
He opened the door.
She said: *"I want to talk about my role."*
*"Co in."*
She ca in and looked at the room — the tablets organized on the shelves, the shard collection on the window ledge, the working copy of the supply inventory spread on the table. She looked at it the way she looked at most things: quickly, comprehensively, filing.
She sat in the chair across from the table.
He sat.
She said: *"In the eting. You said I would share my records and my tracking and my willingness to connect things. And that the condition was that I would have a voice in what is done with what I find."*
*"Yes."*
*"I accepted those terms."*
*"Yes."*
*"I want to renegotiate them."*
He looked at her.
She was sitting with the composed straightness of soone who had prepared for this conversation — not rehearsed it exactly, but thought about what she wanted to say and in what order.
She said: *"The terms I accepted were the terms of an observer. Soone who provides data and participates in discussions. I want sothing different."*
*"Tell what you want."*
*"I want a task. Sothing specific and active. Not just tracking patterns and bringing them to the group — I have been doing that alone for two years. I want to be doing sothing that could not happen without ."*
Lysander said: *"Why."*
She looked at him.
*"Because I have been in that library for two years,"* she said. *"I have read everything in it. I have connected things that no one else connected. And the result of two years of that work was a room of six people who looked at my summary for ten minutes and found it useful."*
*"It was more than useful. Antiphus is using your data to refra his entire understanding of the patient presentations he has been seeing for five years."*
*"I know,"* she said. *"And I am glad. But Antiphus is doing sothing with it. I want to do sothing with it too."*
He sat with that.
He said: *"What specifically do you want to do."*
*"I want to build the education system,"* she said.
He looked at her.
*"The schools,"* she said. *"You have ntioned it — the idea of teaching children to read and write and calculate and understand basic geography and trade. Not just the children of nobles. The children of traders and craftsn and harbor workers. The generation that will be running this city when the pressure cos."*
*"I ntioned it once. In passing."*
*"I know. I was listening."*
He was quiet.
The education system was on his list — had been on it since the outline he had drawn up on the ship back from Sparta. Not the first priority, not the second, but present, because he understood that the long-term resilience of Troy depended not just on physical preparations but on a population with the basic literacy and nuracy to adapt to disruption.
He had not yet figured out how to start it.
She had apparently been thinking about it since he ntioned it.
He said: *"Tell what you have in mind."*
She reached into the fold of her garnt and produced a small tablet — her own, the personal one she carried everywhere.
She set it on the table between them.
*"Three schools initially. The harbor district, the craftsn’s quarter, and the eastern residential area. Each school needs a space — not a dedicated building yet, a room that is used for sothing else in the day but available in the early morning or late afternoon. Needs a teacher — soone who can read and write and has basic nuracy. The palace has several scribes who are not fully employed in their current roles, particularly the junior scribes who copy administrative docunts. They could teach two sessions a day without affecting their primary work."*
He looked at the tablet.
The layout was clear. She had thought about locations, staffing, timing. She had thought about what was available rather than what would be ideal.
He said: *"What would the curriculum be."*
*"Reading and writing first. The simplified script — the administrative form, not the full ceremonial form. It is faster to learn and more practically useful. Basic calculation — the kind used in trade and supply asurent. Geography — the trade routes, the key cities, the distances. Not theory. Application."*
*"Why geography specifically."*
*"Because the children learning this will spend their lives in a city whose survival depends on trade. Understanding where things co from and where they go and how far is basic knowledge for anyone who will work in that system."*
He looked at the tablet.
He looked at her.
He said: *"You have been planning this."*
*"Since before the eting. When you ntioned it I realized I had been thinking about it without knowing it. The library — I learned there because the resources were there and I was allowed to be there. Most children in this city do not have either of those things. I want to change that."*
*"Why,"* he said. Not challenging — genuinely asking.
She said: *"Because knowledge is not useful if it is only held by a few people. What I know about the temperature patterns and the harvest yields — it is useful because I can analyze it and bring it to people who can act on it. But if more people in this city understood how to read records and connect patterns, I would not be the only one doing this. There would be ten of . Twenty."*
He sat with that for a long mont.
*Twenty people like Arsini,* he thought. *In one city. In one generation.*
He said: *"You said three schools initially. What would you need to start."*
*"Authorization. From soone with standing to approach the scribes’ office and the district administrators. I cannot do that myself — I am a military officer’s daughter with no official role. I need soone to open the doors."*
*"I can open the doors."*
*"I know. That is why I am here."*
He almost smiled.
He said: *"The scribes. You have specific people in mind."*
*"Two of them. Thelon and Maris. Junior scribes in the administrative office. I have spoken with both of them — not about this, but I know their work from the docunts they produce. They are competent and underemployed and I believe they would be interested."*
*"You have spoken with them."*
*"In passing. In the archive. We have discussed texts. I did not tell them what I was thinking — I wanted to understand what was possible first."*
She had done the preliminary research before bringing the proposal. The way he would have done it.
He said: *"The spaces. You ntioned rooms that are used in the day."*
*"The harbor district has a storage room attached to the harbor master’s office that is empty in the early morning before the cargo work starts. The craftsn’s quarter has a eting space used by the guild council two evenings a week and empty otherwise. The eastern district — I have not found the right space yet. That is the part that is not solved."*
*"The eastern district residential association ets in a large room near the public well. The room is available most mornings. Fylon knows the association head — I can arrange access through him."*
She looked at him.
*"You already knew about the room."*
*"I have been thinking about the eastern district for other reasons. The room ca up in a different context."*
*"So the three spaces are available."*
*"If I make the right requests, yes."*
She was quiet for a mont.
Then she said: *"You are going to say yes."*
*"Yes,"* he said. *"I am going to say yes."*
*"Why did you make explain all of it if you were going to say yes."*
*"Because I wanted to understand what you had thought through and what you hadn’t. If I just said yes imdiately you would not know what problems I had already seen and I would not know what you had already solved. Now we both know."*
She looked at him.
*"The eastern district space,"* she said. *"That was the test."*
*"It was the gap in your plan. Yes. The fact that you acknowledged it rather than pretending it was solved told sothing important."*
*"What did it tell you."*
*"That you are honest about what you know and what you don’t. That is more useful than soone who has all the answers."*
She was quiet.
Then: *"The authorization. The scribes. The spaces. What do you need from before you can start opening doors."*
*"Write the proposal formally. Everything you told , on a tablet, with the specific nas and locations and the curriculum outline. I need sothing I can put in front of the scribes’ office administrator and the district managers."*
*"How formal."*
*"Formal enough that it looks like sothing that has been thought through. Not so formal that it looks like sothing that needs a committee to approve it."*
She almost smiled.
*"I can have it tomorrow,"* she said.
*"Bring it to the library. I will be there in the afternoon."*
She stood.
She said: *"The condition I set at the eting. That this is actually a group and not a situation where I bring my records and have no voice."*
*"Yes."*
*"This is what I ant."*
*"I know,"* he said. *"And this is what I ant when I accepted the condition."*
She looked at him for a mont.
Then she went to the door.
At the door she stopped — the stopping that he had co to recognize as the mont she said the thing she had been deciding about.
She said: *"You said knowledge is not useful if it is only held by a few people."*
*"You said that. Not ."*
*"You were thinking it. I could see it when I said it."*
He said: *"Yes. I was thinking it."*
*"Is that why you are doing all of this,"* she said. *"The network. The preparations. The changes. Because you know things that other people don’t and you want to — distribute the knowing."*
He sat with that.
It was not how he had frad it to himself. But it was not wrong.
He said: *"Partly. The other part is that I know what happens when the knowledge is not distributed. When only a few people can read the patterns and no one will listen to them."*
She looked at him.
*"Like Cassandra,"* she said.
*"Among others,"* he said.
A silence.
*"Tomorrow,"* she said. *"The library."*
She went out.
He sat in his office for a while after, the supply inventory spread on the table in front of him, not reading it.
*Twenty people like Arsini,* he thought again. *That is what the schools are for. Not the children who will be those twenty people. The city that will be different because those twenty people are in it.*
He picked up his shard.
Seven hundred and nineteen words.
*Keep going.*
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