Sect Year 1 · ninth month · day 24 · Azure Stream Sect, Inner Court, north ridge
Through the afternoon the ridge was quiet. Lin split kindling behind the cave with the small axe, and stacked it against the rock where the wind could not get at it, and when he had finished the stack he split more. Pei came out once with a basket of the cave’s washing and hung it on the line between two pegs. She didn’t speak to him, which he took as a sign that the day had gone well in the kitchen. Su stayed inside at the table with the bound book and the hand copy of the charge. Once he heard her read a line aloud, very softly, and stop, and read it again.
“He’ll come up himself,” she said, when he came in for water. She didn’t look round from the page. “Xu. He won’t send a runner. He’ll want to be seen walking up the ridge with nothing in his hands but a jar.”
“Why would he want to be seen?”
“So nobody in the Outer Court can say afterwards that he came up in the dark like a man with something to hide.” She turned a page. “He’s a very careful old man, Lin. It’s the only reason he’s still on the council.”
