“Make out transfer papers,” the judge told a clerk. “Master Niklaren”—this was to the blue-robed man—”will you take charge of him?”
“Of course.”
For a moment Roach’s heart raced: he might be able to run before he ever saw Emelan! Then he met the Bag’s eyes and gave up that idea. The man—Master Niklaren?—looked too wise to fall for any dodge he might pull.
“I can’t make out papers for a ‘Roach,’” whined the clerk. “Not to a temple.”
“This is a chance, lad.” Niklaren’s voice was light in tone for a man’s. “You can pick a name, one that’s yours alone. You can choose how you will be seen from now on.”
Only as long as I stay, Roach thought. Still, the Bag was right. Roach had never liked his name, but no one argued with the title the Thief-Lord gave.
“Choose, boy, and hurry up,” snapped the judge. “I’ve other cases besides yours.”
The docks were too close to risk annoying these people. What name would temple folk like? Plant and animal names, that was it. He imagined robed men and women smiling at him and giving up the key to the temple gate.
Plant and animal names. A picture flashed into his mind: a green, velvet corner—but that wouldn’t do. He needed a tough name, one that would tell folk he was not to be trifled with. He studied his hands, trying to think—and noticed scarred welts across his right palm, a souvenir of a vine that grew on a merchant’s garden wall.
“What’s them vines with needles on them? Big, sharp ones, that rip chunks out when you grab ’em?”
The Bag smiled. “Roses. Briars.”
He liked the sound of that second one. “Briar, then.”
“You need a last name,” the clerk said, rolling his eyes.
A last name? wondered Roach. Whatever for?
The judge tapped the desk impatiently.
“Moss,” he said. No one would think he was moss-soft if he just didn’t use it.
“Briar Moss,” said the clerk, and filled in the blank space on his paper. “Master Niko, I’ll need your signature.”
Briar frowned. “Master” was a word for professors, judges, and wizards. The temples called women and men “dedicate.” Who was this man, anyway?
“Cut him loose,” the Bag—Master Niklaren—ordered the guards.
“Your pardon, sir, but you don’t know what he’s like!” growled one of them. “He’s born and bred to vice—”
Niklaren straightened and caught the man with those black, powerful eyes. “Are these remarks addressed to me?”
Roach shivered—was the room suddenly colder? The judge drew a circle of protection on the front of her robe. The guard’s face went as white as milk. His partner cut Roach free.
“Briar won’t run—will you, lad?” Niklaren bent to sign the clerk’s paper.
Briar/Roach sensed that the Bag was right. Something about this man made escape seem like a bad idea.
I’ll stick till we get to this temple place, he told himself. I can get lost there, easy.
In the city of Ninver, in Capchen:
In the darkness of the temple dormitory, when she was trying to cry herself to sleep with the least amount of noise, Trisana Chandler heard voices. It wasn’t the first time that she’d done so, but these voices were different. This time she could identify the speakers. They sounded exactly like the girls who shared the dormitory with her.
“I heard her very own parents brought her here, and dropped her off, and said they never wanted to see her again.”
Tris was sure about that one: it was the girl in the bed on her right, the one who had tried to shove ahead of her in the line for the dining hall. Tris had raised a fuss, and a dedicate had sent the girl to the back of the line.
“I heard they passed her from relative to relative, until there weren’t any who wanted her anymore.”
Tris yanked at one of the coppery curls that had jumped out of her nighttime braid. She was fairly certain about this speaker, too: the girl whose bed was across the room and two more beds to her left. She had tried to copy Tris’s answers to a mathematics question just that morning. The moment Tris had realized what was going on, she had covered her slate. She despised people who copied.
“Have you seen her clothes? Those ugly dresses! That black wool’s so old it’s turning brown!”
“And they strain at the seams. Fat as she is, you’d think she’d eat more at table!”
She wasn’t completely sure about the last speakers, but did it matter? The voices seemed to come from every bed in the dormitory, to cut at her like razors. Why did they do this, the ones she’d never even spoken to? Because it felt good to be mean with no one to see and blame them? Because it felt good to sneer as the group did, go after the targets that their leaders pointed out? Her cousins were the same; they followed those who loved to make fun of the outcast among them like ducklings chasing their mother.
When her parents had given her to the Dedicate Superior of Stone Circle, she had thought she’d run out of hurt feelings. It seemed that she hadn’t, after all.
Tris clenched her hands in her sheets. Leave me alone, she thought, speechless with fury and shame. I never did anything to most of you, don’t even know most of you….
No one noticed that the wind had picked up, jerking at the shutters on the windows, making them clack against their fittings.