Sect Year 6 · first month · day 17 · the Hanging Reaches, the reading hall
Jiang Ziyue did not sit when she reached the long table. She laid the sales index open between the two lamps, squared it to the edge of the wood with the side of her hand, and stepped back so that Lin could read the page without leaning. The grey tithe book lay open at his elbow, its signed name line still blank at the foot of the last leaf. He hadn’t looked at that line in two days. He looked at it now, and then he looked at the index.
The reading hall was quiet so early in the day. Two clerks copied at the far wall with their backs to the room. The lamps had been turned low enough that the columns of the index ran together until Lin drew the page nearer to the flame.
“Read a sale the way the Court reads it,” Jiang said.
She didn’t raise her voice. It was the same flat, even voice she had used at the door when she told him the reading was set for the second month, and it had no more colour in it than the ink. Lin set his right hand on the edge of the page and began at the top left. There, the columns started.
