Sect Year 3 · eighth month · day 16 · the Azure Stream spring-house, below the grave
The light came back low and yellow through the alders in the middle of the afternoon, and the drips off the roof edge slowed to one every few breaths. Tang Hengzhi waited until the last heavy drop had fallen. Then he unrolled the eastern roll across the plank table and weighed its corners with four smooth stones he had taken from the edge of the spring. He sat down on the bench across from Lin, and he began.
Down the slope the guards had got a fire going under the terrace wall, and its smoke came up through the wet alders in a thin grey thread. Lin could hear them talking. One laughed at something and was hushed. Through the trees the roofs of the Outer Court showed, and past them the lower roofs of the Lower Market. There, the grain tower stood with its blue door turned away from the hill. He couldn’t see the door from the spring-house. He knew where it was.
The roll was longer than the writ and wider than a man’s arms could span. It was written in two columns, in the same hand throughout and the same black ink. The left column held the births the eastern counties had registered over ten years, name by name, each with its date and household and clerk’s mark. The right column was ruled in thin red lines. It was…
