Sect Year 4 · seventh month · night of day 9 · the thirty-eighth life: the Vault quarter, his seventh year
The notch-board hung on the wall of the cutting room, a flat plank as long as a man’s arm and scored in rows with small marks. At seven Jorn knew what every mark meant. A straight notch was paid. A notch with a hook at its foot was owed. A notch with a crack running through it was carried, and that was the one his father would not let him cut yet.
The top row of the board had been cut by his grandfather before the bench was moved into this room. Those notches had gone silver-grey with age, so that a child could not tell from the marks alone which of them were paid.
Every evening after the bells Jorn stood at the bench and practised on the scrap strips, and every evening his father looked them over without praise or blame and tossed the bad ones on the fire. He liked the sound the good ones made when they fell onto the bench, a clean small knock, like a key turning in a lock.
“Show me the crack,” Lisk said from the doorway.
