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that dated back toColend’s early days, depicting King Martande (then a herald scribe) with his pen. No swords or horses or bodies of dead Chwahir. This room was a testament to the power of the word.
    “Scribe Emras,” old Senior Scribe Selvad said, her voice wavering. “You are come before us for your final evaluation.”
    I stood facing them, my hands together in the formal gesture of peace, and bowed my head so that my chin touched my fingertips. “I am.”
    Senior Scribe Halimas tapped his finger on his bony knee, ignoring a sidelong look of mild affront from short, newly appointed Senior Scribe Aulumbe. “And so?” he prompted.
    It was then that I realized that they were not to provide the evaluation. It was my responsibility.
    I had to breathe to control my nerves, for hard as it had been to brace for the prospect of hearing all my faults and shortcomings enumerated by my seniors, self-evaluation would be much harder.
    I said, “My best skills are art script and history. My parroting is best in our languages, but I usually test with high reliability at five thousand words in unknown tongues.”
    “Good enough for your present post,” Senior Scribe Louvian observed, his red brows lifting. “But Princess Lasthavais may well be proclaimed heir, or she might marry a king. If you wish to remain in her service, I counsel you to continue in expanding your limit. The heralds are not released into regular service until they have highest reliability at twenty thousand words. You should make that your goal.”
    “With respect, my dear colleague,” Senior Scribe Noliske said, her thin old fingers gesturing with grace. She was at least as old as Selvad, but her voice was firm, if husky. “With respect. If the princess marries abroad, the custom in Sartor is now for the home scribes to be left behind and fresh scribes appointed in the new kingdom. In fact, it is sometimes a note in treaties.”
    “Quite right, quite right,” several murmured.
    Senior Scribe Louvian lifted a hand in acknowledgement.
    Senior Scribe Selvad turned her black eyes on me. “I counsel you to exert yourself to build rapidity in script. You are not quite fast enough for thorough accuracy at the pace of conversation, and such a skill might be required as the princess gains experience. She will not have the leisure to keep up with correspondence. You must learn to be fast and accurate under all conditions—perched at the edge of her bath, in the dark if she wishes to dictate letters before falling asleep, on a shred of paper if you are summoned at a meal and have only a pocket scroll.”
    “Agreed, agreed,” echoed the others.
    Then Senior Scribe Halimas said, “Now for your evaluation of us as instructors.”
    There’s no use in reproducing my speech. It was as earnest and as pompous as we can be at seventeen, when we’re so sure we have the world figured out much better than our elders. My inner self brimmed with gratitude as I informed them that they had done well in training me, and they accepted that with the grace of long experience. I did see subtle signs (no more than a lifted shoulder, a slightly canted head) that they waited to hear what I would say about my six months of exile to the kitchen.
    It would be a number of years before I understood the risk they had taken in so drastic a correction, not just in sending me away but in requiring me to study on my own for half a year. When I told them that I had returned from the kitchens to the scribe world to see it anew and to appreciate what I had chosen rather than accepting my training as my due—this shoulder dropped, that canted head tipped back, and the rustle that soughed through them reflected back to me as relief.
    My heart expanded with thankfulness that their training had brought me to what I wanted most, and they were thankful that their experiment had produced such a well-trained, observant young scribe.

     
    On the tri-toned notes of the Hour of the Seal, which is the