Chapter 361 — Three Old Herbs

CHAPTER 361

Three Old Herbs

Fresh herbs filled the damp air of the Herb Hall.

Sixteen tables stood in two rows under open skylights. On each table, sixty bamboo trays held the morning's herbs, cut and sorted and still beaded with dew. A tower warden walked the aisle with a bell and read out the task.

The warden read prescription card nine: a Nascent Soul-grade Heart-Calming Pill. Each candidate had to choose nine herbs, weigh and prepare them, then brew a test dose over the candle burner. Using a herb that failed meant going home.

One candidate protested weakly at that. The warden pointed out the stairs; at least the trip was short.

Shi Feng stood at table fourteen and looked down at his trays.

Everything was fresh. Moonroot, dusk-fern, red-thorn bark, sky-pepper, a dozen others. The dew had been sprayed on evenly, the way a tower's servants did every morning. Master Ruan, two tables over, was already picking out his herbs with brisk, practised fingers.

Shi Feng picked up a stalk of dusk-fern and weighed it in his palm.

It was half a grain too light.

He frowned. Then he turned the stalk over. The underside of the leaf had a faint grey sheen where the dew hadn't beaded, as if the water was sitting on top of something that had already dried. He pinched the stem. It gave, but it didn't spring back.

Aged. Dried in a drying oven for a year, perhaps more, and then soaked back to look fresh.

He set the stalk on the spare tray at the corner of his table and went on.

The moonroot, two roots from the middle row, felt the same. The red-thorn bark was the third. Everything else in the trays was honest. Three herbs out of sixty. Someone had known exactly how many a careful candidate would miss. Hanging out a sheep's head to sell dog meat, as the saying goes.

Shi Feng thought, If I use them, the pill fizzles and I go home. If I set them aside, someone will want to see what I do.

He picked the other nine herbs, weighed each and set them in a neat row. Then he took a clean cloth, wrapped the three old ones in it and put them quietly at the edge of the table.

No shouting, no raised hand. The cloth was folded square.

Footsteps stopped behind him. The examiner had already marked his slate while he walked up.

“Number thirty-two,” Examiner Tao Heng said.

“Yes,” Shi Feng said.

“You’ve set aside three herbs,” Tao Heng said, looking at the folded cloth.

“They’re old,” Shi Feng replied.

Tao Heng unwrapped the cloth with one finger. He barely examined the dusk-fern before dismissing the objection.

“The tower's herbs are all fresh,” Tao Heng said. “They arrive at dawn. If you are accusing a Sky Pavilion kitchen of dishonesty, there is a form.”

“I'm not accusing anyone,” Shi Feng said. “I'm not using them.”

“Why not?” Tao Heng pressed him.

“They won’t hold the dose,” Shi Feng replied, keeping the old stalks separate.

Tao Heng looked at him a moment longer. His hand was steady, but the tip of his brush made a very small mark on the examiner's slate.

“Number thirty-two,” Tao Heng said again, to the slate this time. “Continue.”

Across the hall, a heavy man at table six began to curse.

His test dose had boiled over in the first minute. The candle burner popped, a grey froth crept up the glass, and the smell of burnt sugar rolled out across the room. The warden walked over and read the failure in the glass.

The warden identified aged dusk-fern. The heavy man protested that the Tower had supplied it on his tray and made it look fresh. The warden still pointed him toward the stairs.

Lei Wen had two aged herbs in his dose. His froth was thinner, but the warden's bell rang for him too. He stood very straight, whispered something that sounded like a curse, and went down the stairs.

Master Ruan did not look up from his own burner. His dose rose clear and amber. He smiled at his clear dose, pleased that fifty years of practice had kept him ahead of the failed candidates.

“Dusk-fern,” Master Ruan said, to nobody. “Hmph. The young never smell. Old ginger is spicier.”

Shi Feng's test dose took forty breaths. It ran dark gold, held its shape, and settled on the bottom of the glass like a good tea. The warden read it and wrote a number.

By the time the last candle went out, five candidates had gone home. Eleven stood left, with the old herbs in the waste bin.

“Three,” Sima Lan said.

They stood outside the Herb Hall on the stairs, in the white afternoon light. She'd been given a seat on the attendants' bench by a warden who'd decided he no longer wanted the argument. Her ledger lay open on her knee.

“Three herbs,” Shi Feng said.

“I counted from the gallery,” Sima Lan said, tapping her chalk against the page. “Aged herbs don't get into sixteen tables by accident. Nobody sprays dew on dried leaves unless they have a reason.”

“The reason was me,” Shi Feng replied, thinking of Tao Heng’s marked slate.

“Or the reason was everyone,” Sima Lan said. “Five failed. Maybe the tower wanted five to fail.”

“Maybe,” Shi Feng said.

She studied him, unconvinced that he’d told her everything he’d noticed.

“He wrote your number before he looked at your tray,” Sima Lan said.

“Are you sure?” Shi Feng asked, giving her his full attention.

“Quite sure,” Sima Lan replied, turning the page. “The slate was marked before he reached your table. I watched his brush.” She wrote a short line and underlined it twice. “I don't like things that are decided before they happen.”

“Neither do I,” Shi Feng said.

Behind them, in the doorway of the hall, Chief Examiner Tao Heng wiped his brush on a clean cloth and watched the stairs. He wasn't looking at any one of the eleven. He was looking at the one who had folded the cloth square.