Ch. 009| The Preliminary Instruction

Crimson Ring Year 1218, Solstice Month, the twenty-second day, afternoon.

Roen stayed in Lodge 247 the whole afternoon and did not go out.

The sheet on the table and the blank bronze plate went on lying side by side. He sat on the bed and looked at them a while, then went to the table and looked a while longer — not reaching, only looking. Afternoon light came slanting in at the small window and fell at the edge of the table; the bronze ink on the sheet was a shade darker than in the morning.

The Academy was quiet in the afternoon. Footsteps passed outside the lodge quarter now and then, but never stopped at the door of Roen's lodge. The Academy left him alone and did not disturb him. The kind of being unattended he had known in the northern Border Army came of everyone being too tired; the quiet here was far more orderly, as though someone had arranged it.

The brass clasp at his chest pulled steadily. Direction, the centre of the city; strength, the same as last night. There was no further pulse.

At the Hour of the Dog the kitchen brought supper. The one who came was a man scholar in his thirties — not the woman of the morning, and not the man of the night before. The Academy's kitchen had at least three on the rota.

He set the tray down, did not look at the sheet on the table, and turned and went out.

Like the woman scholar in the morning — no look.

At the Hour of the Pig the lamp went out; at the Hour of the Rat there was no further swing of the clasp. The whole night was quiet.

On the twenty-third day he woke of himself at the Hour of the Rabbit.

---

At the Hour of the Dragon, Ge came and knocked.

Ge stood in the doorway in the same posture as the two times before.

"The Preliminary Instruction," Ge said. "Come with me."

Roen locked Lodge 247 and went north with Ge through the outer court. Past the four colonnades of the inner court, they entered the South Hall complex on the north side of the plaza.

The South Hall complex was in fact the entrance hall of the Black Tower — two buildings joined; from outside they looked like two, and inside a flagstone passage connected them. Ge took Roen through the South Hall and into the entrance hall of the Black Tower.

The inside of the Black Tower was narrower than Roen had imagined from outside. The ground floor was a round hall enclosed by stone walls, with a spiral stone stair at the centre leading up. No windows. Lamps hung on bronze hooks along the wall, very steady, as though fixed in place by some means — the flame had none of the wavering it has in wind; it burned in another way. Roen had seen Border Army oil lamps, had seen waystation charcoal, had seen the hand-lanterns of coaches on the highroad. This kind of fire that did not waver he had not seen.

It might be some cursed-blood mechanism of the Academy's; it might be some formula of lamp oil. He did not ask.

Ge took Roen up the stone stair.

"Third-floor south hall of the Black Tower," Ge said, pointing as she climbed. "The Preliminary Instruction is there."

The stair spiralled up. Passing the second floor, Roen saw that it too was a round gallery, with doors on all sides into various small halls, all shut. The third floor was quieter than the second, and the gallery broader. A few scholars' robes came and went through side doors, not greeting one another.

The south hall was at the southernmost point of the third floor, before a double wooden door. Ge stopped.

"Someone inside will teach you the rules," Ge said. "The demonstration is at the Hour of the Monkey. I'll come at the end of the Hour of the Horse to take you back to the lodge."

She did not push the door. She turned and went off along the gallery.

Roen watched her round the first bend and disappear.

He pushed the door and went into the south hall.

---

The south hall was smaller than he had imagined. Not a great lecture hall, but a square room. The floor was laid with blue-grey flagstones, a stone pillar at each of the four corners, the ceiling raised to about the height of three men stacked. At the centre was a round area of ground slightly larger than the flagstones, and cut into it was a circle with two crossed lines inside it — not the Academy crest; another figure. Roen had not seen it.

About twelve newcomers were already seated in the hall, on wooden stools ringing the central circle. The seats around the circle were divided into an inner ring and an outer, the inner close to the circle, the outer further off.

Roen looked quickly over every cuff and its house figure.

Eight seats in the inner ring, seven taken — the main lines of all seven houses had come. House Vowkey had two double rings; the other houses one each. The last seat was empty.

Eight seats in the outer ring, five taken — one House Mirrorcourt mirror figure, and three whose cuff figures were cadet-branch patterns. The thin, small one was Xun, the recommended commoner. Three seats empty.

The Academy's inner-and-outer arrangement plainly went by house rank. Main lines within, cadet branches and recommended commoners without. In Roen's sleeve was a blank bronze plate — special branch. Neither ring had a place for him.

Against the wall by the door of the south hall was a taller wooden stool — unoccupied, empty. Roen guessed it was for special branches, or for observers.

He went over and sat down. Against the wall. Further out than the outer ring.

No one turned to look at him. Newcomers do not greet one another; that was Academy custom — the same as at the Rite of Investiture the day before.

---

Roen noticed one person.

An inner-ring seat, near the centre of the circle. A young man, eighteen or nineteen, in Academy grey, the under-layer at his cuff showing the bronze hourglass figure of House Hourshift. He sat with his back very straight, hands on his knees, eyes on the centre of the circle. A thin face, a pointed chin, dark brown eyes, prominent brow.

He turned to look at no one, and no one looked at him of their own accord.

But between the seats of the other inner-ring newcomers and his there was at least one empty stool on either side.

Roen understood — that was the highest position in the inner ring, and the other inner-ring newcomers did not dare sit beside him. The distribution of empty stools in the inner ring had meaning: it was not that there were too few people; it was that some who had the standing to sit beside him did not dare.

Which meant two things. One: Roen had not yet fully worked out the house hierarchy inside the Academy. Two: the house hierarchy inside the Academy might not exactly match the house hierarchy of dynastic custom.

He turned his head to the left. A House Vowkey cadet-branch girl seated in his outer ring had also given the young man a glance, and drawn it back. She was about seventeen, thin, with short hair.

She noticed Roen looking at her, did not avoid his eyes, and said, very quietly: "Cyrus of House Hourshift. Eldest son of the main line."

Having said it, she turned her face straight ahead at once, as though she had never spoken.

Roen heard. He did not answer.

Cyrus of House Hourshift.

Eleven years on, on the night Roen read the three-house-attested recall writ in the Border Army exile camp, he had worked through in his own mind why House Hourshift might want him dead — Cyrus needed a target he could point to publicly. That was the first time he had touched the name Cyrus in his thoughts.

Now that name sat twelve paces from him. Back straight, eyes forward. Not looking at Roen.

---

The Hour of the Snake.

The door of the south hall opened again.

A man scholar past forty came in. Grey robe, a figure embroidered at the collar — the same as the very small figure at the collar of the master of rites the day before. Like none of the seven houses'; Roen had not seen it.

The newcomers rose.

"Sit," the man scholar said, his voice level, of the same kind as the master of rites' the day before.

The newcomers sat.

"I am Liu Rong, this year's officer of the Preliminary Instruction," he said. "The Preliminary Instruction is a newcomer's first formal course in the Academy. Its content is the fundamental use of one's own house cursed blood — each newcomer, under the supervision of his own house's scholar, will make the first demonstration of house cursed blood within the Academy."

Liu Rong went to the edge of the circle and walked about half of it, speaking as he went.

"Time of demonstration: from the Hour of the Monkey, the newcomers of each house in turn. Place of demonstration: the centre of the circle. Purpose of demonstration: to establish the Academy's uniform standard for assessing cursed blood. At the close of the Preliminary Instruction, each newcomer is assigned a preliminary grade by the instruction officer — from grade one to grade seven."

Liu Rong stopped on the north side of the circle, facing all the newcomers.

"Special branches do not take part in the demonstration. But they are required to be present and observe."

No one in the south hall turned to look at Roen. But Roen knew they had all heard.

"Preliminary grades are for the Academy's internal record only. They are not disclosed to the houses, and not disclosed outside," Liu Rong went on. "The grade does not determine standing; what it determines is subsequent course assignment."

That phrase, not disclosed to the houses, Roen took in. Inside the Academy the houses had no reach over the grading of their own children — the Academy gave every newcomer a standing the houses could not settle. That was an invisible line between the Academy and the Seven Great Houses.

He finished a passage and paused a beat.

"You may rest before the Hour of the Monkey. There is water and there are pastries in the central gallery."

He went out of the south hall.

---

The newcomers rose one after another and went toward the door of the south hall. The inner ring went first, the outer ring after them, and last of all Xun and Roen.

Cyrus of House Hourshift rose, straightened the hem of his robe, and walked to the door. Passing the House Vowkey cadet-branch girl in the outer ring, he did not look at her. Passing the wooden stool where Roen sat, at a distance of about three paces, his eyes were forward.

Roen did not move.

Cyrus passed him and went out of the south hall.

The brass clasp in the inner pocket at his chest — in those two breaths while Cyrus went by, that invisible line swung briefly toward the direction of Cyrus.

Not a wide swing. Slight — as though the line, drawn taut to the northwest, had been pulled briefly a little west by something. Then, after Cyrus had gone out of the south hall, the line returned to its former direction.

The whole thing took about two breaths.

Roen did not let his face change.

That invisible line would move for a particular person as well as for the Crown — this was the first time. It moved very slightly: toward the Crown it held steady and had direction; toward Cyrus it only swung once, and returned as soon as Cyrus went out. He could not say what that meant, only that Cyrus now occupied a place in the reckoning of the clasp.

At the Rite of Investiture yesterday, the clasp had also moved once for a certain gaze at the northeast corner of the plaza. That person he had still not seen clearly. That one at the northeast corner and Cyrus might, in the clasp's eyes, be of one kind.

---

The newcomers had all gone from the south hall, leaving only Roen and a cleaner in a scholar's robe. At the cleaner's hip hung a silver plate of the same pattern as Ge's — four characters, Blacktower Academy · Hall Attendant.

The hall attendant did not look at Roen and began tidying the dust around the circle with a soft broom. The motion was even, unhurried, the rhythm the same as Ge's step.

Roen did not go to the central gallery for water. He sat where he was and looked at the circle with two crossed lines inside it at the centre of the ground.

That figure was not the Academy crest (a black tower of seven rings with the topmost empty). Nor was it the figure on the sheet on the table in Lodge 247 (a circle with a single stroke).

It was the mark of another system inside the Academy.

The third-floor south hall of the Black Tower, the centre of the circle. One more place he would not forget.

At the Hour of the Monkey, Cyrus of House Hourshift would demonstrate his house's cursed blood at the centre of that circle.

Roen would watch from this position of his.

He did not know how the clasp would react. But he knew that reaction ought to be more marked than the one at the door just now — Cyrus starting his house's cursed blood and Cyrus merely walking past were two different things.

At the Hour of the Monkey there would be one more piece of information. One more piece, and one fewer invisible line.

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【Ch. 009 End · Lodge 247, Blacktower Academy → the third-floor south hall of the Black Tower】