The Nameless · The Eighth Branch

In this dynasty, to strip a man of his surname is a punishment. One so stripped, together with his whole branch, is called the Eighth Branch — the one ranked outside, after, and beneath the Seven Great Houses. Once the surname is gone, the name is set down in documents as "So-and-so the Nameless," and it is called out that way as well.

The capital's manual of etiquette runs to seven volumes. They are thread-bound, with red silk covers and the titles written in bronze ink, the cover edges long since worn white. The seven volumes are titled in this order:

Volume One    Regulations for the Attendance of the Seven Great Houses at Rites
Volume Two    Regulations for Entry and Exit in the Districts of Graycrown, the Capital
Volume Three  The Rite of Enrollment for New Students of Blacktower Academy
Volume Four   Procedures for Bloodline Attestation
Volume Five   Etiquette for Betrothal Negotiations
Volume Six    Rules for Attending the Deliberations of the Seven Houses
Volume Seven  Rites Reserved for Special Branches

The seventh volume is far thinner than the six before it; within, it is divided into eight sections, one to a branch. The first seven sections run two pages each, laying down where one stands at a rite, in what order one speaks, how headwear is worn, where the house crest is fastened, and what names are to be avoided. Turn to the section for the Eighth Branch — two blank pages. The paper is exactly the same as in the seven sections before it, the ball of the thumb pushed across it finds no rise or fall, and there is no trace of anything erased. The rite-officials' account is that it was left unset; an old clerk who has served in the document rooms says privately that the dynasty never meant to set it at all.

The Academy's book has such a page as well. When new students present themselves, the pages for the several houses lie in the front or the middle of the book, and a fingertip falls on them without searching; the Eighth Branch is on the last page, and the paper of that page is thicker than those before it, its edge already worn white — it has been turned to many times.

A nameless man walking in the capital has no house crest and no house horse. No one salutes him, and no one stops him. Yet on the day of the Rite of Investiture, the moment the master of rites called "Special Branch," several dozen pairs of eyes in the plaza turned at once; and after it broke up, one of those gazes was drawn back half a beat later than the rest.