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It is down to you and me. For a single position.”
    I made The Peace in return. “For the garland,” I said, as the courtiers did before a race.
    He laughed. “For the garland!”

     
    Classes were now individual, or at most in twos and threes.
    I had Sartoran translation with Birdy, and we all came together again for Discourse. We had to delve for corroborative evidence, then we had to present our thoughts succinctly and politely. We would never be permitted to argue with those who employed us, so from now on, we were to regard our classmates as employers. Credits were earned (or marks garnered) on our manners and abilities to correct factual error yet avoid the attempt to persuade unless our opinions were sought. We had to discern the difference, because our employers would not always be clear which they wanted.
    I caught sight of Sheris from time to time. Faura sometimes appeared in the staff dining room—she had made new friends and, judging by the decrease in hair fingering, she had gained by the transfer.
    I never saw Tif, who lived in the city.
    “Should I send her a message?” I asked our counselor, old Scribe Aulumbe, when I was summoned for progress interview.
    “Why have you not?” she asked.
    “Because it might be felt that I am gloating.”
    “Are you gloating?”
    “No… yes… it is difficult to define. It’s just that we both wanted to be where I am, and the entire family wished to see us there. And I miss her.”
    “Do you miss her, or do you miss your childhood relationship?”
    “Are they not the same?” I asked.
    “You must decide that. For now, do you have family gatherings at which you can be friendly outside of the environment of our labors?”
    “No. We’re all scribes. I go at New Year’s Week to my parents in Ranflar, and she goes to her mother in Sartor, or our grandmother up in Altan.”
    The scribe touched her fingertips together and said, “You might send her a friendly note and see if she returns the wish for contact.”
    That friendly note, so simple to suggest, turned out to be more difficult to write than I thought. No, it turned out to be impossible, for it seemed that my entire life might be seen as a reproach, or a gloat. And so the days slipped by as I thought about it and even wasted some paper in attempts, but I could always hear Tif’s scorn. And Tif never wrote to me.
    The rest of the royal scribes were friendly enough, and I kept my friendship with some of the kitchen folk, but it was casual friendship—talk at mealtimes. They continued to go off without me for recreation, even after I turned sixteen. It wasn’t exclusion; I could see it was habit. To them I was still “the youngest.” So I studied harder than ever, which made the loneliness recede.
    Over winter the stonemasons began dismantling the old palace—work that ceased as soon as court returned, so that the nobles would not have to hear the noise and breathe the dust. Because it would, therefore, be a very slow process, they’d let the back garden grow wild to hide the unsightliness.
    I was listening to the thumps and clatter of great stones being dislodged as I stood by the open window of the scriptorium, waiting for Scribe Halimas, who had summoned me.
    He came striding out, robe panels flapping. “Good. You are here. Come inside.” With a sweep of his long sleeves toward the window he said, “The queen is there herself, pacing out where the new wing will be built.” His brows slanted steeply. “The dukes have already argued over how much space each should get.”
    Many courtiers bought or hired enormous, handsome houses along the Sentis Canal. But the dukes had been granted the right to housing in the royal palace by decree, when King Martande bound his nobles to him for the spring and summer season—what used to be considered the season of warfare. Rooms in the royal palace, cramped though they might seem to nobles accustomed to their own palaces, were a fiercely guarded