Sect Year 3 · eighth month · day 21 · the guest court below the Outer Court gate
The guest court stood at the foot of the Outer Court steps. There, the stream path came out of the trees. It was a low building of grey stone with a slate roof and a yard churned to mud by a hundred hooves. A trough of green-slimed water stood under the roof edge.
A bell hung from a post at the gate. A stable boy had the rope in his hand and was swinging it idly. That way, the clapper knocked against the iron now and then with a flat, unimpressive note. The old woman who kept the guest kitchen sold millet cakes and dried plums from a basket by the door. She took Tang’s coin without looking at it and did not look at the guards at all.
The party sat down at the middle of the day, when the sun stood directly over the yard and cast no shadow worth the name. The guards set the tin case on the end of the long table in the common room. Tang sat down at its head with his register in front of him and his cap on the bench beside him.
