Chapter 23: The Palace Exam

The palace examination was held in the open, at the top of a flight of white steps, before the emperor himself.

I was not allowed past the vermilion gate.

Nobody's wife was.

We stood in the great courtyard below the steps, hundreds of us.

There were families, servants and cooks, all with our faces turned up to a hall we could not see into.

The palace had its own way of telling us what happened inside.

A herald stood at the top of the steps, another halfway down, and another at the foot.

What was said in the hall was shouted from one to the next until it reached the stone yard.

It came to us in pieces, a long way off, in three different voices.

I stood in the second row, in my good blue jacket, with the bag of candy in my sleeve.

My hands would not stay still.

"The first question!" the foot herald cried. "His Majesty asks each scholar: what is a river for?"

The yard rustled.

Some candidates answered quickly and some took longer.

The heralds called each answer down, and the crowd murmured over the good ones.

Then it was his turn.

"Lu Chengzhi of Qinghe!" cried the first voice. "First on the list of the capital halls!"

I stopped breathing.

A silence came down the steps.

"The Censor rises!" cried the second herald.

"He says a complaint has come from the house of Hua, salt merchants of Qinghe!"

"It says this scholar was declared mad by his county physician, and the registry hid it!"

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