The Ninth Slate
"You're permanently banned."
The Western District Temple.
"...That's all of it?"
Anton set down the wax slate.
The priest standing before him hunched his shoulders.
"...Yes. It's, well, Agria and Caron didn't come in."
"That much I already know."
Anton said, glancing sideways at him.
"What I'm asking about is the rest. Why do the other four look like this?"
"...They say they don't know who has jurisdiction now."
Anton raised his cup.
"...I beg your pardon?"
"They're asking whether it's us they should give it to. Word is going around that the Inspector is going to decide it all over again."
"...Hah."
Anton set his cup down on the table.
It made a sound.
"You."
"...Yes."
"How many years have those villages been paying us?"
"..."
"Thirty years."
Anton rose to his feet.
"Thirty years of paying, and suddenly this year they don't know?"
"..."
"Then you go and tell them where it goes. Where to pay."
"...Yes."
The priest didn't move.
"...Why are you standing there."
"...It's, well, last time we went there were houses that wouldn't open their doors."
"..."
Anton looked at that face.
So this one's gone soft too.
Anton opened a chest.
He drew something out of it.
A small pouch.
Then he tossed it down at the priest's feet.
Thud.
"...Father."
"Pick it up."
"..."
The priest picked it up.
"Give it to the village head."
"...The village head?"
"Were you planning to go around to all twenty-three households yourself?"
Anton sat back down.
"Get one village head, and the whole village follows. You didn't know that either?"
"That's how it's been done for thirty years."
I have to teach even this now?
The priest tucked the pouch into his robe.
"...How much should I offer them?"
"Use your judgment."
"...I'm sorry?"
"Whatever's left over after you've spent it, keep."
"..."
The priest's shoulders straightened a little.
"...Yes. I'll be on my way."
Anton raised his cup.
I knew that would work.
Once the priest had gone out, Anton refilled his cup.
His second.
This has become a bother.
There had never been any need to do this kind of thing before. When the offering season came, the villages carried their tithes in of their own accord. If they didn't come, you sent someone; once someone was sent, they came that very day.
And that went on for thirty years.
Now he had to put a pouch into the village head's hands.
All of this because of that boy.
Anton looked out the window.
'They don't know who has jurisdiction,' they say.
In thirty years, no one had ever asked that question.
When the offering season came, they brought it. Not one soul had ever asked where it was supposed to go.
Because it never occurred to them to ask.
...But now they ask.
Anton lifted his cup.
So they've learned that asking is allowed.
And the one who taught them that was that boy.
Anton drained his cup.
Well. That won't last much longer anyway.
They said there would be a trial.
There will be.
Three days later, guests arrived.
Three of them.
Priests from other districts.
Anton cleared away the cups and made room at the table.
"Welcome. Sit, sit."
"..."
The three of them sat.
No one touched a cup.
"...You've heard, then?"
The eldest spoke first.
It was the old priest from the last assembly — the one who'd gone on about the gods' portion.
"Heard what?"
"That boy is attaching a room to the village — to house them."
"...I heard."
"Did you hear what it's for?"
Anton raised his cup.
"To hold convicts, I'm told."
"I heard that too."
"Priest Anton."
The old priest leaned forward.
"Do you understand what that means?"
"A place for convicts means there are convicts. Tell me — in this country right now, where would you find a criminal worth jailing for years on end?"
"There are none. We wash them all away."
The old priest tapped the table with a fingertip.
"Which means, building that place is saying that from now on, we will no longer wash them away."
Anton set down his cup.
Ah. So that's how this one sees it.
"...And?"
"And? What do you mean, and?"
"And so — what exactly would you have me do about it?"
"..."
The old priest's eyes narrowed slightly.
"...Priest Anton. Does this sound like someone else's problem to you?"
"We both know full well how we've operated all these years, don't we?"
"When the offering fell short, we took our cut. What was taken never went back to the villages. And where it went, no one ever wrote down."
"Thirty years of that."
The old priest raised his cup, then put it back down without drinking.
"The only reason none of it has ever mattered is because nowhere does it get written down as a crime."
"But that boy is building the very place where it gets written down."
"And he means to put people in it."
The younger one beside him spoke up.
"...In our district, the skimming runs up to three passes."
"If that gets written down, how many years would I be inside?"
Anton looked at that face.
Ah. These ones are frightened.
Anton refilled his cup.
Slowly.
"...Reverends."
"Let me ask you one thing."
Anton raised his cup.
"What does it take to write that down?"
"...What do you mean?"
"Evidence."
"..."
"How many times the cut was taken, how much was collected, where it went. To write that down, where would it have to come from?"
"..."
The old priest paused for a moment.
"...It wouldn't come from the villages, surely."
"What do the villages have?"
"Do you think those people can do sums? Can they even read?"
"They're the sort who count last year's malloi on their fingers."
Anton set his cup down.
"If you take that to court and say it, what does it become? Memory. That's all."
"Memory is not evidence."
"...Then the temple ledgers—"
"We wrote those."
Anton shrugged.
"We wrote them, so they say we were right. And we were right. Measure it with the temple's bushel and it comes out exact every time."
"How do you catch something that has no error in it?"
The old priest said nothing at all.
"...Then—"
"...Then there's nothing?"
Anton smiled.
At the courthouse, trial preparations were rolling along.
Why is there so much paperwork.
Lysias had spent three days doing nothing but that.
Organizing the investigation report, laying out the slates to be submitted in order, drafting requisitions whenever something was missing.
The hearing was in six days.
"Hey. You see this? District tithe status."
Dion came over carrying a slate.
Lysias opened it.
...Huh?
Four of the six villages in the Western District had paid.
Wait, why would they pay?
Until last month nobody had paid. Jurisdiction hadn't been settled.
But suddenly they paid.
Lysias checked the dates.
All four had paid in the same week.
"...Hey. Someone made the rounds, didn't they."
"...How can you tell?"
"The dates are right there."
Dion looked at the line.
"...Ah."
He grabbed the village head, didn't he.
No need to go around to twenty-three households. One village head, and the village follows.
It was the same in my past life.
Whenever you wanted to put anything into a neighborhood, you got the neighborhood association president first.
"But, looking at it — Agria and Caron aren't on here, are they?"
"...Huh?"
Lysias looked at those two lines.
Empty.
They didn't pay.
Just then there was a noise from outside.
Clatter—
Clatter—
A cart.
Lysias looked out the window.
Two carts stood in the courthouse yard, loaded with sacks.
What is that.
A clerk came running in.
"Inspector."
"Yes."
"...There's, um, that out there."
"Yes, I see it. What is it?"
"..."
The clerk made a rather strange face.
"...They say it's an offering."
"...I beg your pardon?"
"From Agria and Caron, they say."
"..."
This is a courthouse, though?
Lysias went down into the yard.
There were twenty-some sacks. Wheat.
And resting on top of them was a single slate.
Lysias opened it.
— Agria Village. Eighty mal of wheat.
— One bushel verification. No skimming.
— Received by: Temple of Dike.
Lysias's hand stopped.
Temple of Dike?
That hasn't even been chartered yet.
Lysias read the line again.
— Received by: Temple of Dike.
I wrote this.
Two months ago, in a blank on the deposition record. In the field for the temple of jurisdiction.
Lysias looked at the sacks.
Eighty mal.
Last year it had been eighty-six. And after being skimmed and skimmed again, what the village actually paid out had topped a hundred.
But this year it's eighty.
Lysias recalled the yield.
Eight hundred mal.
That's exactly one-tenth.
It was precisely one-tenth. Not one mal more, not one mal less.
This might be a first.
It would be the first time this village paid its tithe and was done with it.
Lysias opened one of the sacks.
The grains were fat.
They sorted out the seed grain and paid with what was left over.
They paid with the good stuff.
Between the sacks another wooden board was wedged in.
Small. Too crude to call a slate.
Lysias opened it.
The writing was crooked. Several strokes were wrong.
To the honorable Inspector,
This year we sorted the seed and planted.
Thank you for measuring the bushel only once.
The village feels like it will live, these days.
Lysias looked at it for a while.
They hadn't measured the bushel only once. Nobody had measured it at all. The village had measured it themselves and carried it in themselves.
"...Hey. The village head wrote this?"
"Yeah. Says only two people there can read, so the two of them wrote it together."
Dion had come up beside him.
"One knew the strokes and the other knew how to join them, so it took them half a day, apparently."
Half a day.
Lysias turned the wooden board over.
There was more on the back.
"..."
— We paid here.
— We paid as you wrote for us, sir.
Lysias looked at that line for a while.
...Ah.
If this goes wrong.
The offering would have gone to the wrong place. Which would mean it hadn't been paid at all — and if it hadn't been paid, that village would be in jeopardy.
Lysias stood there a while, the wooden board in his hand.
"...Hey."
"Yeah."
"Put those in the warehouse. Keep them dry."
"...Yeah. But what do we do with them, procedurally?"
Lysias looked at the sacks.
"...Record them as received."
"...It hasn't been chartered yet, though?"
"..."
Lysias turned around.
"...It will be. So don't worry about it."
Lysias returned to his seat and opened the slate.
Six days remained.
He picked up his brush.
Two and a half months.
Six trips to the villages, six storehouse inspections, three requisitions for the government registries, and all the way to the merchant guild.
And all of that had come down to this much slate.
Lysias drew the wooden board from his robe.
And set it on top of the stack of slates.
I have to win this.
The trial opened in the morning.
Inside the courthouse. Seats stood among the pillars, and people sat in the lower rows.
Lysias stood at the inspector's bench.
Lots of people.
All six district priests had come. The same faces as the last assembly.
Behind them sat the clerks.
Lysias arranged his slates.
Eight of them. Two and a half months' worth.
Right, then.
The door opened, and Anton came in.
Lysias looked over at him for a moment.
Huh? He's dressed differently.
White robes. Gold thread in the sleeves, something draped over the shoulders.
His hair had been combed and swept back too.
He came in his very best.
Anton walked to his place.
His steps were slow. And midway, he glanced once toward the priests.
The old priest gave a small nod.
Anton took his place.
Then he looked toward Lysias.
"...Inspector."
His voice was different from the one he'd used raising cups in the Western District.
Low and composed.
"It grieves me that we should meet in a place like this."
He's changed his speech too.
"I will now begin the investigation report."
Lysias opened the first page.
"This concerns the tithes of the Western District. I interviewed twenty-three households of Agria Village, and confirmed skimming of tithe grain in twelve households. A minimum of one instance, a maximum of three."
Anton nodded.
"That is correct."
Huh? He's admitting it?
"...You admit it?"
"There was skimming."
Anton folded his hands before him.
"One cannot offer flawed goods to the gods. That is a priest's duty."
"Are you saying the Inspector was wrong to forbid it?"
Ah, this man.
"...No. That is not what I mean."
"Let me begin with the grounds for rejection. Blemishes, short measure, cracked grain. Is that correct?"
"It is."
"And the rejected grain was not returned to the villages. You took it away."
"Yes. One cannot leave tainted goods in a village."
Lysias set down his brush.
"That's a little strange, isn't it."
"...I beg your pardon?"
"If it's tainted, then it can't be left in the village. That's your position."
"It is."
"But it's fine to leave it at the temple?"
"..."
The courtroom went quiet.
"The temple is sacred ground, is it not? It ought to be cleaner than any village."
Lysias turned the page.
"Removing tainted grain from the village only to carry it into sacred ground — that doesn't quite square, does it."
Anton folded his hands.
"Inspector. The temple can purify."
"Ah, I see."
"It is the temple's work to cleanse the impure. The villages cannot do it; the temple can."
"Yes. Then you must have cleansed it."
"..."
"I'd like to see the purification records."
"..."
Anton's hands stopped.
"...That is—"
"You don't have them?"
"..."
"Last year, twelve households' worth was rejected in Agria alone. If you cleansed it all, you would have performed the rite twelve times."
Lysias raised his brush.
"If you held eleven ceremonies, that would be recorded, wouldn't it? Temple rites are recorded, as I understand it."
"..."
Anton said nothing for a moment.
"...It was not recorded."
"I see. Then I'll record that as absent as well."
"Inspector."
Anton raised his head.
"No doubt you'll speak of the bushel as well."
"Yes. I will."
"Do you know what happens if the bushel is left in the village? Every household uses a different one. Then a mal would mean something different in every village."
"..."
"Could we permit what is offered to the gods to be measured differently village by village?"
"Of course not."
"Then—"
"That is exactly why I'm asking."
Lysias pressed his hand on the slate.
"Whose word establishes the temple's bushel?"
"...I beg your pardon?"
"Who confirms that the temple's bushel is correct?"
"..."
Anton blinked a few times.
"...That belongs to the temple, so the temple—"
"If the temple makes it, the temple measures it, and the temple checks that it's correct—"
Lysias raised his head.
"Inspector."
Anton folded his hands.
And bowed his head.
Deeply.
"If I made life hard for the villages, I offer my apology."
"It is true the rejections were frequent. Taking on another district last year increased the portion owed upward, and I failed to look after those below."
"I will repay those villages. I will send grain down to them."
The courtroom went quiet.
Someone among the priests nodded.
Ah. This man.
Lysias looked at the back of that head.
He calculates frighteningly fast.
Lysias raised his brush.
"...Very well. Then let me ask."
"How much will you repay?"
Anton raised his head.
"...I beg your pardon?"
"You said you'd repay. How much?"
"..."
"That would have to be discussed with the villages—"
"The villages don't know."
Lysias opened the slate.
"I interviewed twelve households, and not one of them knows the exact amounts. They speak only from memory."
"So you, Reverend, must be the one to say it. How much you took."
Anton said nothing for a moment.
"...I have told you there are no records."
"Yes. I'm aware."
"..."
"My question is approximate. Was it one mal? Ten? A hundred?"
"..."
"...I do not remember."
Lysias wrote that down.
"You don't remember."
"Then you can't know how much you'll repay either."
"...Inspector."
"Yes."
"...What exactly are you trying to say?"
Lysias set down his brush.
"If you intend to repay, you need to know the amount."
"If you say you'll repay without knowing, that isn't repayment — it's simply a way of moving past this here, isn't it?"
The courtroom went quiet.
The old priest looked toward Lysias.
This time he wasn't smiling.
"...Inspector."
Anton adjusted his posture.
"How am I to state what I do not know?"
"If there are no records, then there are none. You cannot conjure something out of nothing, can you."
"If you know the amount, Inspector, then tell me. And I will repay exactly that."
Lysias looked at that face.
He's certain there's nothing right now.
He speaks like that because there's nothing. If there were something, he couldn't.
And those words can't be taken back.
He'd just said them in front of six districts. The clerks had written it all down.
— If the Inspector presents the amount, he will repay it in full.
Lysias tidied the slates.
Eight of them.
And beneath them, one more.
Right, then.
"...Very well. I understand."
"...I beg your pardon?"
"I'll tell you."
Lysias drew out the ninth page.
"One hundred and forty-eight mal."
The courtroom went quiet.
Anton heard that number.
It was the amount that had left the warehouse last year. Loaded in three installments, and at the final reconciliation he had seen that figure.
How could he—
"...Inspector."
He regretted it the moment it left his mouth.
"...Where did you get that?"
"..."
Lysias set down his brush.
"Reverend. If it's wrong, then simply say it's wrong."
"But you did ask where it came from."
Lysias opened the ninth page.
"The Thais Merchant Guild purchase records. Last spring, three transactions with the Western District temple."
"..."
Lysias turned the page around to show him.
It was dense.
Dates, items, quantities. And in the column beside them, weights.
Not a single blank line.
Beneath that, deeds of sale were attached. Papers acknowledging receipt.
And below those, an official seal had been pressed.
"..."
"One hundred and forty-eight mal. And the weights are recorded."
"..."
Anton's hands froze on the table.
"......."
The courtroom was silent.
Lysias tidied his slates.
He moved to set his brush back in the holder — and his hand stopped.
...Huh?
The lamps were tilted.
Not just one. The ones on the wall, the ones on the table, the ones at the base of the pillars.
All of them leaned toward the door.
A draft?
The door was closed.
There was a smell. Not incense.
Burnt ash. The smell of a hearth long in use — ash caked and smoldering.
Lysias raised his head.
The door was open. He hadn't seen when it opened.
Someone was standing there.
Lysias looked over.
The clothes were gray. Not temple robes, nor official garb.
Not particularly tall, either.
He looked around the courtroom.
The clerks sat at their places. The six priests sat too.
No one had stood.
When Eunomia entered, all six had risen. It had been the same at the last assembly.
But right now—
Lysias looked at those faces.
The old priest was looking at his slate. The younger one was murmuring something to his neighbor.
No one was looking at the door.
...Am I the only one who can see him?
Lysias stood there for a moment.
"..."
But if I'm the only one who sees him—
If only I can see him, he's come for me. If he's come for me, then attending to him is my job too.
Lysias looked around once more.
No one moved.
...Well. Since no one else is doing anything.
Lysias set the slates on the table.
And stepped out of the inspector's bench.
He walked to the door.
Up close, the face was impossible to place in any age.
Lysias stood before him and bowed his head.
"You've come, then."
He didn't know who it was. Didn't know the name, didn't know where he'd come from.
But his mouth had already moved on its own.
"...I ought to show you to your seat, but we're in the middle of a trial just now."
"...I'll guide you the moment it ends. It won't take long."
The man looked at Lysias.
And smiled.
Not a broad smile. Just the corner of his mouth curling up on one side.
...Huh?
"..."
Lysias looked at that face for a while.
Then a sound came from behind him.
A chair.
Lysias turned around.
Anton was standing.
His chair had been shoved back and toppled over, but Anton wasn't looking at it.
He was staring at the door.
"......."
Anton's mouth moved.
No sound came out.
It moved again.
"...How—"
"...How are you here."