Then he glowered down at his withered old hands, and said, as if speaking in Mearch's presence instead of Si'Wren's, "It had better not, Mearch."
* * *
Si'Wren sat at court every day, whether her Emperor appeared or no.
When Emperor Euphrates did not show, Borla usually heard the cases. Any problem which he did not feel himself adequately competent or suitably authorized to deal with, he literally bound the suspect over for Emperor Euphrates to dispose of later at his convenience.
Si'Wren learned the complex, elusive ebb and flow of court politics, the petty social concerns, the lawsuits, the drastic and petty religious differences, and a host of other lost causes.
For practice, she always had to record everything, even if one of Ibi's shaven-headed underlings was present making official copies. Si'Wren did not write it out word-for-word, which would clearly have been impossible, but only took down names, dates, and a few crucial details about any complaints or petitions.
Then, tiredly, she would retire to Ibi's quarter, and knock the clay filler from the frames, kneading the used clay with a little water until she had worked it soft and pliable again. Then she would prepare the boxes by refilling them and wiping their outside frames clean of dried-on clay dust and leaving them covered with moist cloth of flax weave. She would also set her dampened wooden marking sticks neatly laid out to one side to dry at day's end, and also saw to various other details of her daily chores. Finally, exhausted, she would retire and sleep soundly until the cock crew in the early predawn darkness to signal the start of a new day.
Upon arising and finishing with her toilet, she would take with her a set of dry sticks to sharpen with a small piece of honing stone, and lift the dampened linen from her restored clay tablets to find them looking fresh and soft with a dull smooth gleam when she took them up to bring along with her for the day.
Mearch appeared one time in Ibi's shop, equipped with a wooden staff. Advising her that he was still working on his assignment for her, the Master Armorer made crude knife marks on the rod with a stubby but wickedly sharp flaying knife as he measured her height, the length of her limbs, and some other proportions, accomplishing all with a swiftness and unconscious poise that betrayed long practice at this sort of thing.
"I shall go, and do, and then I will return, and then you will see," he finally said. Then his face briefly illuminated with a cheery smile.