Sect Year 1 · twelfth month · day 1 · the capital’s South Gate
Feyn had told them to come back when the new month opened and the Registry’s seals were unlocked. They came back at first light, with the rain still falling and the fire bowl already smoking in its clay pan. Feyn kept his seals in a wooden box with a brass hinge, and he lifted the lid the way a man lifts a cloth from a sleeping dog. He took out a pad of paper, a stick of red wax, and a small iron stamp with a fish cut into its face. Then he looked at the tray at his elbow. There, the coppers lay in a heap, and he looked at Lin.
“A copyist’s pass needs a sponsor’s seal,” he said. “Four silver. The Registry’s fee for a wandering fighter is six. A wanderer is a man we must keep an eye on, and keeping an eye on a man is not free.”
“Ten silver, altogether,” said Su.
“Ten, in silver, or the copper equivalent at the Registry’s rate, which is worse.”
Lin looked at the stamp. Feyn had set it on the pad with the fish facing up, and the fish looked back at him with the flat, bored eye the Registry gave everything it stamped. “What does the seal do, once it’s on the paper?”
