Nile Builder: The Architect from the East

Chapter 108: Chapter 2: The Old Guard Objects — The Tangled Interests Laid Bare

”What they are against is not the ancient way at all.”

These words were spoken early on the morning after the first day of court. In the courtyard of the Bureau, Lu Zhu pushed a bowl of water to Tia’s hand and sat down himself before the table. Spread on the table was yesterday’s ”account” from the hall — not an account of grain, but an account of words. Who had struck first, and with what; which sentence had been aimed at the laws, and which at the people; all of it was written down, line by line.

The account of words was Tia’s work, done through the night. She had sorted every sentence into its kind: this one was ”the ancient way”, this one ”the proper order”, this one ”go slow”. Sorting to the end, she found one thing — in the whole pageful of words, there was not one sentence that said ”this law is wrong.” Every one of them said ”this law is in the way of someone.”

”Listen to their words.” Lu Zhu said. ”The one who bites at the ancient way — how much land does his family hold? The one who bites at waste of strength and wealth — how much grain has he hoarded? The one who bites at cutting off the incense — what does he live on?” He paused. ”Lay all that out, and it becomes clear — what they oppose is that each of the four laws has cut into a piece of their flesh. The ancient way is only the skin over that flesh.”

”Skin.” Tia repeated the word. ”That is the exact word.”

”Exact it is.” Asaf took it up. ”But this skin — they have worn it for a thousand years. The men in that hall, the pharaoh among them, all know the skin. What we must do is lift the skin, and let what is under it see the sun.”

”How do we lift it?” Kamon asked.

”We do not lift it.” Lu Zhu said. ”The accounts lift it.” He tapped the account of words on the table. ”Every sentence of theirs about ’the ancient way’ has behind it a piece of land, a granary, a grain road. Match those up against the sentences, and the skin tears itself.”

”They match.” Tia said. ”The day the tall thin man bit at the Ever-Normal Granaries, his eyes went to the old priest three times. Granaries one every fifty li — what they cut into is the temple’s grain road through the countryside. The grain comes in, goes first into the temple granary, and only then is the official price discussed. That has been their income for decades.”

”When the square-faced one bit at the dwelling law,” Asaf said, ”I kept it in mind. His own estate put up a whole row of new storehouses just last year. Once the rules for houses stand, that row of storehouses of his will likely fail the ’shape’.”

”And the medical houses.” Shafi said. ”Once the account of the medical house is posted, the price of medicines has a standard. Before, the price of medicines was set by the temple dispensary.”

”The corvée article,” Asaf said, ”needs no explaining at all. The land of the estates, two seasons a year, runs entirely on pressed labor that costs nothing. Abolish the busy-season pressing, and they will have to hire at the guild’s rates. One able-bodied man for one day — how much grain does that cost them? Enough to make their flesh ache.”

”With their flesh aching,” Lu Zhu said, ”they fight this hard.”

”Urgent or not,” Meru said, ”only when they are urgent do they bite people. Yesterday was the first round. Today they will change the shape of their biting.” He knocked his pipe. ”We must be ready.”

”We are.” Lu Zhu said. ”In the hall today, who speaks and what they say — Tia writes it down. When we come back, we match it against the accounts.”

Tia dipped her brush in the charcoal ink and said: ”I will write. But writing down their words alone is not enough.”

”What more is to be written?”

”What they do not say.” Tia said. ”Which law they did not bite at; which number they walked around. The places they walk around are the places where they are weakest.”

”Right.” Lu Zhu said. ”Wherever they walk around, that is where we drive the nail.”

By now the daylight was fully up. From the alley, the breakfast sellers’ cries came in, one after another. Lu Zhu rose, rolled up the account of words, and said: ”Let us go. Today, we see what tricks they bring out.”

On the day the deliberation resumed, the hall was more crowded than the day before.

The counties and prefectures had sent more people. Some of them had not made it in time yesterday; some of them had received word in the night and been called in overnight. The nobles’ seats had moved forward another row. The old priests no longer shrank into the corner; their white robes lined up along the side of the hall, and the line looked like a wall.

The pharaoh sat down, looked around the hall, and said: ”Deliberate.”

The first voice still belonged to the old noble. Today he did not slap the table; he had changed his approach, and he spoke slowly and deliberately, like a man setting out a difficulty of the greatest weight: ”Pharaoh. After yesterday, this old servant thought through the night. These four laws — their intent is good. But even good medicine must be measured against whether the patient can swallow it.” He paused. ”To say nothing of the rest, take only the Ever-Normal Granaries. One every fifty li, and for each one how much material? How much labor? Across the whole land, several hundred granaries — where will the material, the labor, and the grain come from? The war has only just settled, the treasury is empty, and the north still keeps troops in the field. To raise great works at such a time — is it not . . . a little too hurried?”

”The gentleman speaks well.” a civil official took it up. ”Go slow. Wait until the autumn harvest has brought in grain, wait until the treasury is a little fuller — then deliberate, and it will not be late.”

”Go slow.” a third one joined in. ”Go slow, and the sky will not fall.”

The hall filled with ”go slow.”

Asaf did not rush to refute it. He waited until the voices had fallen, and then said: ”The honored gentlemen say ’go slow.’ Then let me ask one thing: go slow until when?” He looked around the hall. ”Thebes was under siege for four months, and the villages outside the walls had not one official granary among them. Before the siege, they waited — waited for the higher-ups to build the granaries. How many years did they wait? And what came of the waiting?” He paused. ”The rebels came of it. And when the rebels came, their grain was buried in the flues under their own beds. Honored assembly — the words ’go slow’ — how many years have the people of Thebes been hearing them?”

The hall went quiet for a beat.

”Sir,” Tia stepped forward, ”you worry about the material and the labor. Let me give you the numbers. One granary: thirteen thousand mud bricks, two hundred and twenty timbers, nine hundred and forty man-days of labor. These figures were worked out on the ground in Thebes, in real work. The material, the merchant house supplies at the official price, supplied first and settled after; the labor, hired in the idle season, at the guild’s rate.” She paused. ”This is not the raising of great works. It is spending the money on the edge of the blade.”

”Well said indeed!” The tall thin man could hold back no longer. ”The official price? What official price? It is whatever your merchant house says it is!” He pointed at Meru. ”He, a boat-runner, sitting in the court — what is he watching but the material for the granaries of the whole land! By the time the granaries are built, how fat will he have grown?”

Every eye in the hall turned to Meru.

Meru rose unhurried, knocked his pipe on the corner of the table, and said: ”Sir, let me, Meru, put my words down here today. The material for the Ever-Normal Granaries — the merchant house supplies it. The price is the official price, the open price. And the accounts are posted monthly, the same as the accounts of the official granaries.” He paused. ”If the gentleman thinks I can grow fat on it — then let the gentleman come and take up the trade himself. The price is fixed. Whoever does the business, the price is the same.”

”You—”

”I have not finished.” Meru said. ”The merchant house supplies the material not for the profit of these few granaries. It is for the road ahead, for a world with a way in it, for roads that are good to walk. In the gentleman’s eyes, trade is making money. In my eyes, trade is making the road long.”

Someone in the hall called out, low: ”Well said.”

”Pharaoh.” The Royal Steward stepped out and pressed his hands down toward both sides. ”Honored assembly, hear this old servant. In today’s deliberation, one matter at a time. If we speak of the Ever-Normal Granaries, then we speak of the Ever-Normal Granaries. Let no one drag the affairs of the merchant house or the guild into the grain law.”

”The Royal Steward speaks rightly.” The county magistrate from the south rose again. ”Your humble servant has a thing to say, though I do not know whether it is my place.”

”Speak.” the pharaoh said.

”Your humble servant comes from the south.” the magistrate said. ”The granaries of the south — some are broken, some are empty. Last autumn, the grain could not be sold, and two tenths of it rotted in the granaries. Before your humble servant came to the new capital, I made a detour on purpose, to look at the working sample of the Thebes granaries. One feeling, and one only — granaries like those, the south is starving for them.” He paused. ”And so, this law of the Ever-Normal Granaries — your humble servant seconds it.”

”Seconded.” The official from the north in the thick robe also rose. ”The villages behind the border wall — what they fear most is not the Hittites. It is the grain road cut off. If it is truly one granary every fifty li, the haul shortens by half, and the border folk can sleep through the winter with easy hearts.”

”Do you hear?” Asaf looked around the hall. ”These are words that come up from the ground. They do not speak to the gentlemen of the ancient way. What they speak of is one thing: the granaries — are they lacking or not.”

From the nobles’ mass, someone snorted: ”Two sesame-seed officials. What do they understand of governing the land?”

”They may not understand governing the land,” Asaf said, ”but they understand what an empty granary tastes like. Honored gentlemen — who among you has truly been hungry?”

The hall went still for a moment.

It was at this moment that the old priest rose.

He did not look at Meru. He bowed to the pharaoh: ”Pharaoh. This old servant will say two things.” He straightened. ”In the matter of the Ever-Normal Granaries, this old servant understands nothing of works, and will not presume to speak. This old servant will ask only one thing — if the granaries are built out in the countryside, whose granary does the country grain go into first?” He paused. ”For a thousand years, when the people reaped their grain, they offered to the god first, kept the seed after, and only the rest went to market. The temple’s granary is the people’s granary. Now, with official granaries raised out in the countryside, the people’s grain walks through the official granary’s door — and the temple’s granary, will it not stand empty? And the handful of grain before the god — who will still offer it?”

”Sir,” Imset spoke, ”I have heard you clearly. What you fear is not that the god’s table will lack grain. What you fear is that the grain of the temple granary will no longer pass through your hands.”

”You!” The old priest’s white robe shook.

”I came out of the temple,” Imset said, ”and I know the workings of the temple granary. What goes into it is the people’s grain; what comes out of it is the market’s price. And who grows fat on the passage between the one and the other — the gentleman knows better than I.” He paused. ”The law of the Ever-Normal Granaries is written: grain taken in at the official price; grain let out at the fair price; the accounts posted. When these three stand, the people’s grain will truly have gone into the people’s granary.”

The faces of the white robes in the corner had all gone grey.

”And what of the medical houses?” Another noble came out, one who had barely opened his mouth the day before, his voice oily. ”This ordinance of the medical houses reaches too wide. Medical points in the villages, medical houses in the county seats — what sickness a patient has, what medicine he takes, the officials want a hand in all of it. Is this raising the common people like infants? For all these years no one managed them, and did people not survive?”

”Surviving, and living well, are two different things.” Shafi rose to her feet.

She did not speak often. With this one standing up, every eye in the hall came to her. She held her thin book before her chest, and her voice trembled a little, and not one word of it shook: ”Thebes was under siege for four months, and what the city feared most was not running out of grain. It was running out of medicine. Does the gentleman know what a wound with pus in it and no medicine can rot into?” She paused. ”Our field hospital saved one thousand one hundred and thirty-seven patient-visits in four months. But outside the walls? The villages out there have not one medical point among them. And when the people there fall sick — what then?” She stopped. ”They bear it. And when they cannot bear it, they are gone.”

”Let me say one thing more.” She opened her thin book and drew out a page. ”This is the frostbite prescription sent back from the northern border. One page, and it saved the soldiers of the north through a whole winter. The gentleman says the officials reach too wide — should a page like this not be reached for?”

The oily noble opened his mouth, and in the end no words came to him.

”Good.” The pharaoh suddenly said one word.

Just the one word. But every person in the hall heard it.

The tall thin man could no longer sit still. He had been holding his strength in for a long time, and what he was waiting for was exactly this moment. He cupped his hands toward the head of the hall and said: ”Pharaoh. The honored assembly speaks of the medical houses and the Ever-Normal Granaries, and the flowers rain down from the sky as they speak. This old servant will ask one figure — that ’threefold’!”

The hall fell quiet.

”Abolish the corvée, and harvest three times the grain.” The tall thin man said. ”Who reckoned this? How was it reckoned? On what grounds is it threefold?” He looked around the hall. ”Gentlemen, think. The land of all Egypt — the dry is dry, the flooded is flooded, the wasted is wasted. And she says the harvest will be three times more — is that grain grown from the ground, or conjured out of the air? If this figure is false, then that whole trunkful of accounts of theirs is paper glued together!”

”Sir,” Tia stepped forward, ”you want to hear the method of the reckoning?”

”I do!”

”Then I will speak.” Tia turned the ledger to that page, and her voice was steady. ”One county on the West Bank, two thousand men levied in the busy season. With the men in the fields, one mu of wheat yields ten dou; with the men pressed away for a month, the wheat is sown half a month late, and one mu yields seven dou. The difference is three dou.” She paused. ”Two thousand men farm twenty thousand mu. Twenty thousand mu, three dou short on every mu — how much the whole county loses, the gentlemen can reckon for themselves.”

Somewhere in the hall, a man drew in his breath with a hiss.

”And that is not the whole of it.” Tia said. ”The wheat is not the only thing sown late. The vegetable gardens have no one to water them, the orchards have no one to tend them. Broken pieces added together, one county, one busy season — the grain lost comes to this.” She held up the page. ”To hire two thousand men at the guild’s rate, one month’s wages, comes to this. Set the two figures side by side — is the grain gained not three times the wages?”

She turned the page toward the tall thin man: ”Sir, have I reckoned anything wrong?”

The tall thin man’s face went red and white by turns. He opened his mouth and said: ”You . . . you take one county on the West Bank and reckon the account of the whole land with it?”

”The West Bank is a true account.” Tia said. ”The other counties will only be worse than the West Bank — the West Bank at least has the merchant house, and the guild. What of the counties whose trade roads are cut off altogether? If the gentleman can produce one county where pressing men in the busy season did not miss the farming season, I will swallow this page right now.”

The tall thin man’s mouth opened and shut, and shut and opened.

”Enough.” The pharaoh raised his hand. ”The matter of the numbers — let the Royal Steward go and verify them.” He glanced at the Steward. ”Verify them carefully. If these numbers can stand, then they stand.”

”Yes.” the Royal Steward answered.

”Do not turn the matter aside!” A square-faced noble rose. ”Today the deliberation is the corvée!” He turned to the pharaoh. ”Pharaoh, of the other laws, this old servant will not presume to speak. But this one, the corvée — it must not be touched! The corvée is the foundation of the royal power! The former kings dug the canals, raised the temples, built the palaces — which of these did not rest on the corvée? And now the busy-season pressing is to be abolished — to say it small, the officials will have no one to do the work; to say it large, someone is using this chance to cut away the royal power!”

At these words, the hall hummed.

The three words ”cut the royal power” — no one in the hall could bear to hear them.

”Sir, weigh your words.” Asaf stepped forward. ”The four laws, word by word, all share the pharaoh’s burdens. No levies in the busy season — the land has people to farm it, the grain has people to reap it. When the grain comes in, the royal granaries are full. When the royal granaries are full, the royal power stands steady. Can the gentleman not work this account?”

”Do not fob me off with accounts!” The square-faced noble said. ”No levies in the busy season, hired labor in the idle season. And the money for the hired labor — who pays it? The treasury, of course! And the money in the treasury — where does it come from? The people, of course! Say it however you like — it is all just another way to scrape a layer off the people!”

”Scrape the people?” Kamon pressed his hands on his knees and rose. ”Sir, your estate — how many men does it press in a single year?”

”What business is that of yours!”

”You will not say?” Kamon said. ”Then I will say it for the gentleman. The fields of the West Bank, the land of the noble estates — when the busy season comes, a single pressing takes over a hundred men. These men are brought in with ropes, they work for no pay, and they eat their own dry rations.” He paused. ”Sir — who is it, in truth, that scrapes the people?”

”You are spitting blood at the innocent!”

”Enough.”

The pharaoh raised his hand. The hall went quiet.

”Today’s deliberation ends here.” He said. ”Tomorrow, it continues.” He rose, took two steps, and stopped. He turned back and said one thing: ”From tomorrow, the deliberation goes one matter at a time. If it is the Ever-Normal Granaries, then only the Ever-Normal Granaries. If it is the corvée, then only the corvée. And whoever mixes other words into it—”

He did not finish the sentence. But every person in the hall understood.

On the road after the court rose, the two sides walked their own ways.

The nobles’ carriages left one after another. The old priests followed behind the carriages, their white robes dragging in the dust, and they did not trouble about the dust. The reformers still went on foot. On the main street, Kes suddenly said: ”Teacher, today they did not speak one word of the ’numbers’.”

”They do not dare.” Lu Zhu said. ”The numbers, on their side, are caved in. So they walk around them — around to the ancient way, around to the royal power, around to ’go slow’.”

”Around and around,” Tia said, ”it all comes to one thing: their income must not be touched.”

”Right.” Lu Zhu said. ”So tomorrow they will keep walking around. And we do not follow them around. We nail the numbers into the floor of that hall.”

That same afternoon, the word was already going around the Civil Affairs Bureau.

A few junior clerks gathered by the well in the back courtyard, drawing water and muttering together.

”Did you hear? Another whole morning of quarreling today.” one said.

”How could they not quarrel?” another said. ”Those four laws — which one of them does not poke into fat meat? Stand up the Ever-Normal Granaries, and the temple’s grain price is set. Post the medical accounts, and the price of medicines comes into the open. Abolish the corvée, and the unpaid labor of the estates is gone. This is not making law — this is cutting off their money road!”

”Cut it, then.” the third said. ”Cut the money road, and then the living road can be mended. You never saw what four months in Thebes were like. My cousin was trapped inside the walls, and he said: if those lords had not held back the grain, would the price in the city have doubled over and over?”

”Say what you like,” the first one lowered his voice, ”but they hold the power and the land. Whether the laws can stand — that is hard to say.”

”Whether they can stand,” the second one hauled up the bucket, ”depends on the people’s hearts. And the people’s hearts — you cannot see them from the hall, but you can see them from the street.”

”And one thing more.” The old scribe, who had said nothing all along, knocked the ash from his pipe on the edge of the well. ”Watch the will of the palace. These days the pharaoh examines evidence every single day. And what does he examine? Not the ancient way. The numbers. If the numbers stand, the laws stand. Do not be fooled by how fiercely they quarrel in the hall — the one who truly decides is one man only.”

”Then us,” the junior clerks looked at one another, ”what can we do?”

”Do the accounts.” the old scribe said. ”Do your own duties properly. When the laws truly stand, the first things that will be needed are these accounts in our hands.”

”Right.” the clerks nodded. ”The accounts must not go to disorder.”

In the streets and lanes of the new capital, the word went around too.

Some spoke well of it, some cursed it, and most of all, half-believed and half-doubted. In the evening market, two grain sellers put their heads together: ”Did you hear? The Ever-Normal Granaries, one every fifty li. From now on, grain is taken in at the official price.”

”The official price?” The other curled his lip. ”When was the official price ever high? Wait and see — they take the grain, press the price down, and we would have been better off selling it ourselves.”

”Surely not. It is written in the law — the granary follows the people, not the official.”

”And what does the writing matter? It is written ’no harassing the people’, and that never stopped—”

”Shh.” Someone beside him tugged at him. ”Over there. Temple people.”

The two sellers looked up, and sure enough, two white-robed men were drifting along the far side of the street. One of them was talking to an old woman buying grain, and with every sentence he pointed once in the direction of the official granary. The old woman listened, and the look on her face slowly sank.

”Did you see.” the seller said in a low voice. ”The law is not yet standing, and the words have already arrived.”

”What words?”

”They say the new law will bring a ’storage levy’ — from now on, anyone selling grain and anyone buying it will have to pay it. And whoever does not pay, their grain is seized into the official granary.” The seller curled his lip again. ”And there are those who say the posting of the medical accounts is to hang the sick people’s family affairs out in the street.”

”That — who made that up?”

”Who made it up does not matter. Say it often enough, and it becomes true.”

”So is it true or not?”

”How should I know.” the seller said. ”In a couple of days, we will see what the Bureau side has to say.”

On the worksites, the word reached too.

At the midday rest, a group of craftsmen squatted at the foot of a wall eating their dry rations, and the talk worked its way around to the ”house inspections.” A young one said: ”I heard the new law will inspect houses. Whose house does not fit the shape — torn down and rebuilt, at his own cost. My family’s two rooms are mud-brick from my father’s time, and if they really inspect . . .”

”Who did you hear that from?” an old master beside him asked.

”Everyone at the docks says it.”

”What the docks say,” the old master broke his flatbread in two and washed it down with water, ”how many tenths of it can you believe?” He paused. ”What kind of man the Chief Builder is — do we not know it by now? Every house he ever led us in building — when did he ever take one copper piece too much from anyone? If he really wanted house inspections, the first thing he would do is hand us the pattern of the house, and let us measure and mend by it ourselves. Tear them down? Tear down nothing.”

”Then . . .”

”Stop ’then-ing’.” the old master said. ”Wait for the law sheets. I hear the Bureau is going to post them on the worksites. Once they are posted, one look and you will know.”

”What are law sheets?”

”They are what you get when the law is written in plain words, on paper, so that all of us can understand it.” the old master said. ”Wait. Just these couple of days.”

The young craftsman said no more and went back to his flatbread with his head down. But his brow stayed knotted.

Outside the medical house, a crowd had gathered too.

Several women waiting for their medicines were asking the medicine boy about the ”hanging out of family affairs.” The boy talked himself hoarse, and the women still half-believed and half-doubted. In the middle of it, Shafi came out with a roll of paper in her hands. She did not explain anything. She only pasted the roll onto the wall outside the medical house.

Four words were written on the paper: THE MEDICAL ACCOUNTS ARE OPEN. Underneath, line after line of figures — what medicines had come in this month, how many jin, at what price, how much had gone out, how much remained.

”Come and look, all of you.” Shafi said. ”This is the account of the medical house. From now on, it is posted every month. What sickness belongs to which household, how many doses of medicine they took — the account does not write that. The account writes only: how much medicine came in, at what price, and to whom it went — all by the two words ’fair price’.”

The women crowded up to look. After a while, an old woman said: ”This — is it true there is no one’s name written on it?”

”No name.” Shafi said. ”Sickness is each person’s own; the account is everyone’s.”

”Then that is good.” The old woman let out her breath. ”With this account posted, the gossipers will have nothing left to say.”

”Whether they have anything to say,” Shafi said, ”look at the account.”

The rumors ran faster than the wind.

By the third day, even the worksites outside the city had heard them all. Some said ”the new law will inspect houses, and any house that does not fit the shape will be torn down and rebuilt at the owner’s cost.” Some said ”the examination of physicians — any old pharmacist who cannot pass it will never practice medicine again.” And the wickedest one said ”once the corvée is abolished, after the autumn they will collect grain by the head — three times over.”

Lu Zhu gathered these words, one by one, as they came in, and laid them out on the table.

”Do you see.” he said. ”We reckon accounts in the hall. They spin words in the streets. The accounts in the hall, they cannot beat; the words in the streets, we cannot catch.”

”If we cannot catch them,” Asaf said, ”then the words must be made to break themselves.”

”Break them how?”

”Real deeds can break them.” Asaf said. ”The Ever-Normal Granaries have not begun taking in grain, have they? Then in Thebes, first — hang the wooden board by the granary gate. The price for grain taken in, written on it; the price for grain let out, written on it too. When the prices are fixed, the rumors are paper.”

”And the medical houses.” Shafi said. ”The accounts were always going to be posted. Post them, and the patients will look for themselves. When they have looked long enough, they will not believe that ghost talk about ’hanging out family affairs’.”

”And here in the new capital?” Kamon asked.

”Here in the new capital,” Lu Zhu said, ”the guild’s people and the worksite people are ready-made mouths. Three thousand men on the worksites, each one saying one true sentence — that is faster than the legs of any rumor.”

”And one thing more.” Tia said. She spread out a roll of papyrus. ”I want to draft a thing — ’law sheets.’ The four laws, one article at a time, written in plain words. What the Ever-Normal Granaries are for, what the dwelling law is for — one sentence, and a man can understand it. Posted at the mouth of the worksites, in the markets, by the docks. So that a man who cannot read, hearing someone read it aloud, can understand it too.”

”This is the right method.” Lu Zhu said. ”The law cannot live only in the hall. It has to walk into the streets, where people can see it and touch it.”

”Then . . .” Hapy said, ”who posts them?”

”The guild’s people.” Kamon said. ”Thirty craftsmen, half of them idle. From tomorrow, they take turns going out into the streets. They read the sheets aloud to the people who cannot read. Whatever the people ask, they answer. What they cannot answer, they write down and bring back, and ask Tia.”

”Good.” Lu Zhu said. ”Then it is settled.”

”And letters.” Asaf said. ”Write a letter to Thebes, and one to the West Bank.” He paused. ”To Thebes, write to the chief officiant, to Nefer, to Uncle Woser, to old Montu — the four great statutes are being blocked in the court, and the people of the city must know. To the West Bank, write to the guild’s old masters, to Old Camel and his people. Whether the new laws can stand depends on how the people’s hearts of those two places answer.”

”I will write them.” Tia said. ”The affairs of Thebes, I know them well.”

”I will write too.” Kes said. ”I will write to the north. Senior brother Seb and General Horenheb should know what is happening in the court. Their words carry weight in the hall.”

Tia’s letter was written that same night.

Under the oil lamp, she wrote slowly. She wrote a sentence, and paused, as if weighing every word before setting it down. There was no complaint in the letter, and no cry of wrong. She wrote out the state of the court, matter by matter: the four laws have been laid before the court; the conservatives are biting at such and such articles; the pharaoh’s mind is not yet decided. At the end, she added two lines:

”All the affairs of the city now rest upon all of you. If the fathers and elders of the city are willing to bear witness for the new laws, they need only write down their own true circumstances and press their handprints to them. One man, one print, and every print is iron proof. The day this letter arrives is the day the writing begins.”

”This letter,” Asaf said after reading it, ”is harder than any statement made in the court.”

”It is not the letter that is hard.” Tia said. ”It is the people of Thebes.”

Kes’s letter went north on one of the merchant house’s boats. It was not long, only a few lines: ”Senior brother, General: in the court, the four laws are being deliberated. Some are making a matter of ’the hearts of the soldiers’, saying that once the corvée is abolished, there will be no one to build walls for the border army. I could not bear to hear it in the hall, but I had no evidence to refute it. What do the soldiers of the north truly think? Give me one true sentence. When the true sentence arrives, it will have its use in the hall.”

When the letter was sent off, the sky was just going dark. The wind over the river carried the damp of the spring water, cool in thin threads.

”We wait.” Kes stood on the dock, watching the boat’s shape melt into the dusk. ”The answer from the north will take ten days on the road.”

”Ten days,” Meru said, ”is enough for three more rounds of quarreling in the court.”

”Quarrel, then.” Kes said. ”When the true sentence arrives, we will see what they have left to quarrel with.”

”Write.” Lu Zhu said. ”All of you, write. Let the letters travel fast — on the merchant house’s boats.”

”The boats are my affair.” Meru said. ”Downstream fast boats, seven days to the West Bank, ten to the north.”

”Good.” Lu Zhu said. ”Then it is settled.”

When he had finished speaking, he took two paces across the courtyard, and suddenly stopped.

”There is a thing I have been thinking.” he said. ”Once, I believed in only two things — drawings, and ledgers. Drawings do not deceive, and ledgers do not lie.” He paused. ”But these days I have come to understand. To make a law stand, drawings and ledgers are not enough. First the people’s hearts must come and stand on our side.”

”How do the people’s hearts come over?” Kes asked.

”Let people see the good of it.” Lu Zhu said. ”See the granary built and the grain no longer going damp. See the house raised to the pattern and the fire no longer taking it. See the medical point opened and someone there to tend the sick. See it once, and they believe once. See it often, and they come over.”

”So,” Asaf said, ”we must let all Egypt see it.”

”First let the new capital see it.” Lu Zhu said. ”Then the people of the West Bank, of Thebes, of the northern border. And last of all, let the people in the hall see the people’s hearts outside it.”

”How long will that take?” Kamon asked.

”I do not know.” Lu Zhu said. ”But it will still be sooner than quarreling in the hall until dark with a crowd of men who understand everything perfectly and pretend not to.”

The first batch of law sheets went up at dawn the next day.

Kamon took several craftsmen and pasted his way along the main street. Everywhere a sheet went up, a crowd gathered. Those who could read, read by the morning light; those who could not, listened. When the reading reached the line ”no levies in the busy season, paid labor in the idle season, every requisition kept on the books,” a man with a carrying pole forgot to set the pole down, and chased after, asking: ”Is it true, what is written up there? The officials will truly stop pressing men?”

”The law is not yet standing.” the reader said. ”But the words up there are the words of the law. When the law stands, they become true.”

”And how long must we wait?”

”How long,” Kamon said, ”depends on you.” He pointed at the people gathered around. ”The law is not made by the few men in that hall. It is made by all the people of Egypt, one vote of the heart from each.”

”Then what can we do?” someone asked.

”Understand the words of the law. And tell other people the things of these years.” Kamon said. ”Whose household had a man pressed in the busy season, whose grain rotted in the old granary, whose sick had nowhere to go — these are all words. And when these words pile up, that is the people’s hearts.”

”The people’s hearts . . .” the pole-carrier murmured. ”Can that thing go up into the court?”

”It can.” Kamon said. ”Soon.”

By the third day of the law sheets, the wind in the city had begun to turn.

At first the half-believers, seeing a sheet, still opened with ”true or not?” But the men standing beside the sheets were not officials, and not priests — they were neighbors from the worksites, the lanes, the docks, the faces a man saw every day with no need to look up or down. Words from their mouths carried one measure more of solidity than words from the mouths of white robes.

By the fifth day, the crowd around the account posted outside the medical house had grown; in the market, people had begun to argue with the price-gouging stallholders using the two words ”official price”; even in the villages outside the city, bold young men had come into town to copy the law sheets, saying they would carry them back and read them to the whole village.

”Look at it.” Lu Zhu said, standing at the mouth of the lane. ”The people’s hearts — a slow thing. But once it starts moving, it cannot be stopped.”

And it was that same day that Asaf and Tia went to the Civil Affairs Bureau to fetch old records, and on the way back, passing the palace wall, they met the Royal Steward coming out with his people. The Steward saw them and stopped, and said: ”The two of you. The numbers the pharaoh asked me to verify — I have verified them.”

”And?” Asaf asked.

”Three days of verifying.” the Steward said. ”The acreage of the West Bank — it matches. The guild’s wage rates — they match. Three years of harvest accounts — they match.” He paused, and lowered his voice. ”I have kept official accounts for half my life, and this is the first time I have seen accounts I could not shake. Your numbers are true numbers.”

”Sir,” Tia said, ”these words — we have waited a long time for them.”

”Keep waiting.” the Steward said. ”True numbers will speak, sooner or later.” He cupped his hands in salute and went. A few steps on, he turned back. ”One thing — in the hall tomorrow, I will answer the pharaoh with only four words: the numbers are true.”

”Our thanks, sir.” Asaf bowed deeply.

That night, Lu Zhu went to bed earlier than usual.

But he did not sleep soundly. In the middle of the night, he heard footsteps outside the courtyard — light-footed steps, as if they paused outside the wall for a moment, and then went away. He did not get up. He only tightened his hand around the charcoal pencil by his pillow.

Near dawn, he went out to the well to draw water. On the rim of the well lay a thin layer of dust — the same dust as from the worksites of the new capital. He crouched down and looked at it for a long time. In the dust was half a shoe print, and it was new.

”Someone was here.” he said in his heart.

He walked a full round along the foot of the wall. There was no hole in the wall; the door of the records room was locked sound. He went back to the well, drew a bucket of water, and washed the dust away.

”Come, then.” he thought again. ”What we have laid out in the open is not afraid of being looked at. The ones who are afraid are them.”

After full daylight, he told Asaf of it. Asaf was silent a while, and then said: ”It is not only the Bureau. Last night, when Tia went back to the Civil Affairs Bureau, she felt someone following her too.” He paused. ”These days, be careful coming and going. The trunk — it does not leave a man’s side.”

”The trunk,” Lu Zhu said, ”from tonight, it sleeps in my room.”

”Then you . . .”

”I will watch it.” Lu Zhu said. ”Four months of blood and sweat are in it. Whoever wants to lay a hand on it must get past me first.”

When he had said it, he turned and washed his face at the well. The well water was cold, and it jolted a man awake. He looked up at the sky — the rim of it was already whitening.

”In the hall today,” he said, ”we keep driving the nails.”

That same night, the lamps in the deep mansion were lit again.

”Are the word-spreaders all out?” the old noble asked.

”All out.” the tall thin man said. ”The market, the worksites, the docks, the villages outside the city — everywhere, there are people. Within three days, the whole city will have heard it.”

”Heard is not enough.” the old noble said. ”It must be believed.” He thought a moment. ”Spread the ’storage levy’ one more round. Make it concrete — which street, someone has already paid it, and how much they paid. The more true it sounds, the more it is believed.”

”And the medical houses.” The young man in the white robe pressed forward. ”Our people there say that what the common folk fear most is the ’examination.’ So spread this: any old pharmacist who cannot pass the examination will be swept out the door. Cut off the road of practicing medicine — no one will dare not believe it.”

”Spread it.” the old noble said. ”They want the people’s hearts, do they? Then let us first throw the people’s hearts into disorder.”

”And in the hall.” The old noble slapped the name-list down on the table. ”From tomorrow, change the method. Do not quarrel with them over the laws — quarrel over the ’people.’ That Imset, with his old accounts and Nekhem; that Kamon, a mere craftsman household; Meru, a foreign trader — the court sits to deliberate the affairs of the land, and what sort of men are sitting in it? That one sentence alone will turn half the officials against them before another word is said.”

”This move is sharp.” the tall thin man rubbed his hands. ”Dirty the men first, then dirty the laws.”

”And the officials of the counties and prefectures.” the old noble said. ”The two who stood up today, one from the south, one from the north. Write them down, both. Find out why they spoke for that lot. Did they take benefits, or do they truly believe? The ones who took benefits — give them three times the benefits. The ones who truly believe—” he laughed coldly. ”Make it so they cannot stay in their posts.”

”Cannot stay?” someone asked. ”How is that done?”

”Grain, material, assignments — which of these is not in our hands?” the old noble said. ”Their county wants a canal dug — whose storehouse does the timber come out of? Their county wants grain moved — whose dock does the boat pass? Grind at them, slowly, until they learn to shut their mouths.”

”Understood.” the men answered.

”But . . .” the tall thin man hesitated, ”on the pharaoh’s side, the Steward is with him every day, examining the evidence. If these words of ours reach the palace . . .”

”Let them reach it.” the old noble laughed coldly. ”What does the pharaoh fear most? Disorder. Once the people’s hearts in the streets are in disorder, he will be more anxious than we are. By then, will we even need to block anything? He will press those four laws back down with his own hands.”

”High.” The whole room nodded.

In the lamp-shadows, the transcribed seating list lay under the old noble’s finger, tapping, tap by tap. On the list, the names of Lu Zhu, Kamon, Meru, Imset, one beside the next.

”Wait.” the old noble said. ”And we will see who loses his nerve first.”

And at that hour, in the lanes of the new capital, the early-rising folk were already putting their heads together by the wells, talking in low voices. They said a sentence, and glanced once toward the official granary, and then once toward the deep mansions.

”Did you hear?” someone said in a low voice. ”The law sheets say the granaries are to be built out in the countryside, one every fifty li. From now on, a man can sell his grain without even carrying it into the city.”

”That would be a fine thing.” another said. ”But did they not say last time that there was to be a ’storage levy’?”

”That was a false rumor. The medical house has posted its account — how much a measure of medicine costs, written out plain. And the Bureau’s people are out in the streets every day, reading the law.”

”Then . . . who do we believe?”

”Believe what your own eyes see.” the man said. ”Yesterday I saw it with my own eyes — the account posted outside the medical house. My wife’s medicine, two tenths cheaper than before. That, at least, cannot be false.”

”True enough.” Several of them nodded. ”What is seen is sturdier than what is heard.”

The old guard struck in shapes that changed by the day, and everything they struck with was interest, and none of it was reason. The deep mansion sent its rumor war down into the streets; the reformers answered with the law sheets and the open accounts; and the people’s hearts, for the first time, had begun to stir.

The sky was not yet fully light. The rumors ran through the lanes, faster than people; and on the wall of the Chief Construction Bureau, the first batch of law sheets lay rolled up, waiting only for the dawn, to be carried out and posted. The battle of the court has come down into the streets. And in the streets, who wins — that is for the people’s hearts to say. And the people’s hearts — the hall cannot see them, but they are there, in every lane, half-believing, half-waking, stirring to life.

(End of Chapter 2)