Chapter 342 — The Tribute Board

CHAPTER 342

The Tribute Board

Outer Steward Mao Jun poured the tea himself, and Shi Feng took that as a bad sign.

Artificer Hall's Outer Affairs office stood behind the Sky Pavilion tower in Duanyang City, and they had walked there at first light. It was a grey two-storey building with a long wooden board hung across its front wall. The board listed every town that paid tribute to the sect, quarter by quarter, in neat black characters. The entries looked orderly. After a month in three of those towns, Shi Feng wanted the receipts checked before he trusted the board.

“Inspector Lin, Disciple Shi, please sit,” Mao Jun said. He was a round, soft man at early Foundation Establishment, with ink on his cuffs and a smile that never quite left his face. “A month on the road! You must be worn out. Drink first. Numbers are bitter, and tea helps. As the saying goes, good medicine is bitter to the mouth.”

“Then pour another,” Lin Langtian said, draining the cup. “We’ve brought enough numbers to keep you busy.”

Sima Lan sat at the side table with her ledger open and her face blank. Old Soot's basket stood beside her feet, with six pale green eggs sleeping in the ash under the toad. It hissed at the teapot, and Mao Jun glanced at it twice.

“Zhu Liu,” Shi Feng said.

Zhu Liu stood up so fast his stool fell over. He picked up the stool, then a thick bundle of paper, and cleared his throat.

“Qingtong Town,” Zhu Liu read. “The smiths paid two thousand spirit stones this quarter. Here is the stamped receipt. The tribute board says sixteen hundred received.” He turned a page. “Jinsha Ferry paid eighteen hundred. The board says fourteen hundred and forty. Cuiping paid twelve hundred in herbs and stones. The board says nine hundred and sixty.”

“Total,” Sima Lan said, without looking up, “five thousand paid, four thousand received. A fifth is missing.”

“Every quarter,” Zhu Liu added miserably. “For the six quarters I could find receipts.”

Mao Jun set down the teapot very gently.

“Ah,” Mao Jun said. “Yes. This matter. I have been meaning to raise it.”

“Have you?” Lin Langtian asked cheerfully.

“Certainly. It is a question of river damage,” Mao Jun said. “The barges from Jinsha lose a little cargo every season. Damp gets into the herb baskets. And then there is spoilage, and a small allowance for rounding.”

“Rounding,” Shi Feng said.

“Yes, Disciple Shi. It is only rounding,” Mao Jun assured him. “We round down, for safety.”

“Rounding goes both ways,” Shi Feng said. “Show me one quarter where you rounded up.”

Mao Jun kept smiling, but glanced quickly toward the book room. He hadn’t expected to be asked for an example.

“That…” Mao Jun said. “That would need to be looked up.”

“Please look it up,” Shi Feng said.

“Of course. Of course. I’ll bring the older books myself, so there’s no confusion,” Mao Jun said. He rose and bowed to Lin Langtian, then to Shi Feng, then, after a moment's uncertainty, to Old Soot's basket. “Please enjoy the tea. I'll be gone only a short while.”

He left by the back door. His footsteps went up a stair and then, quite clearly, away from the book room.

“He's gone to get his story straight,” Lin Langtian said, delighted. “Covering his ears to steal the bell, and doing it in good order. Look at that. A professional. Junior Brother, you have no idea how rare it is to find a steward who panics in an orderly way.”

“He didn't panic,” Shi Feng said.

“He bowed to the toad,” Lin Langtian pointed out, grinning.

“It kept you talking while he left,” Shi Feng replied. “Let’s see what he brings back.”

The basket gave a pleased croak. Sima Lan moved it another hand's breadth away with her foot.

“River damage,” Zhu Liu said in a small voice. “A fifth, every quarter, always exactly a fifth. Even the river isn't that tidy.”

“Write that down,” Lin Langtian said. “It’s the best line you’ve said today.”

Zhu Liu wrote it down.

Shi Feng walked to the window and looked at the tribute board from behind. The characters were fresh and even. Someone had repainted the whole board recently, because the old paint showed through at the edges. Shi Feng thought, He’s used to answering this way. Nobody here has pressed him hard enough to make him change the excuse.

“How long has Mao Jun held this post?” Shi Feng asked.

“Nine years,” Sima Lan said. She had already looked it up. “The old steward retired the autumn before.”

“And in nine years,” Lin Langtian said, counting on his fingers, “a fifth of every quarter.” He stopped and frowned at his hand. “That's a lot of fifths.”

“Thirty-six thousand stones, if it never changed,” Sima Lan said.

Lin Langtian's smile went away for a moment. The sect's whole coal debt was 2,380 stones, and it had been the dining hall's favourite sorrow for two years.

“Junior Brother,” Lin Langtian said quietly. “May I hang him from the gate?”

“Not yet,” Shi Feng said.

“Not yet! He says not yet!” Lin Langtian exclaimed. “Did you hear him? He’s learning.”

Mao Jun came back an hour later with three large boxes carried by two sweating servants. He opened each with a flourish and offered to answer any question, at any hour, at leisure. He looked tired and very pleased with himself. He said the books were in perfect order.

Sima Lan took the boxes without a word. She also took the Outer Affairs visitors' register from the shelf by the door, the dull brown one nobody ever read.

“Give me tonight,” Sima Lan said.

“For what?” Mao Jun asked, still smiling.

“To compare your books,” Sima Lan replied. “That’s my work. I won’t need you to stay and explain every page.”