Earth heart in an ornate book frame on the torso

It was Ketia, the tanner's daughter who sold him his eel-skin, who told him to stop trying to make it flat. Everything worth keeping, she said, holds its shape by curving round something that beats. So he drew the land as a heart, the green hills on the left where the blood comes in and the blue water pooling beneath them. He framed the heart in an open book whose pages lifted like waves, and he hung from its lower edge a fringe of black beads, each ending in a drop, so the rain would have somewhere to fall. Above the heart he set a small silver crown of scrollwork, because a heart without a crown is only a heart.

When the king came to inspect the work, he ran his finger over the coastline and asked where his own kingdom was. Hanno pointed to a patch of blue just above the beat, a little left of centre. The king said it was too small to be a kingdom. Hanno said that was how the world was made, that most of it was water and the rest was a few hills that had to keep pumping. The king laughed, then stopped laughing, and pressed his thumb to the place where the ink was still wet. It stayed there, a faint dark print, for as long as the vellum lasted.