Then Beel’s fellow novice collected the empty mugs and vanished, leaving Beel to his teaching duties.

Skif should, in fact, not be here at all. He read and wrote as well as any of the children at these tables, and the law said only that children had to be able to read, write and figure to a certain level before their compulsory education was complete, not at what age a child could be released. Skif enjoyed reading and even took a certain aesthetic pleasure in writing; it would have been hard for him to feign being bad at either. Beel probably would have quickly caught on before long and sent him back to the tavern where he’d quickly be slaving for Kalchan—and doing without his breakfast. But figuring had never come easy to him, and it was boring besides. He still couldn’t add two numbers of two figures each and come up with the same answer twice in a row, and in all likelihood neither answer would be the right one. Needless to say, although he pretended that he was trying, his progress was glacial. He had to make some progress, of course, or even Beel would suspect something, but he was going to put off the evil day when Beel would pronounce his education complete for as long as he could.

In the meantime, since he was so good at reading and writing, during those lessons Beel saw no reason why he should not take some of the workload off of his own shoulders, and Skif was put to tutoring the youngest children, including Dolly. He didn’t mind; he was big enough to be able to bully those who weren’t at all interested in learning things, and Beel had no objection to his delivering admonitory cuffs to the ear if it became necessary to keep discipline. That was the main thing that was hard about being the tutor; littles like Dolly who wanted to learn just needed some help over the rough spots.

It was turn and turn about then, and time for one of the other boys to tutor Skif—along with children three years his junior—in figures. For Skif, this was the worst part of the day, and not because he himself was a discipline problem; being anywhere other than the tavern was an improvement and he wasn’t eager to get himself kicked out.

It was horribly cold in this room—there was a fire, but it didn’t get things much above freezing and by now they were all suffering from icy hands and feet. He was bored. And breakfast had long since worn thin. Only in summer was this part of the day bearable, for as cold as the temple buildings were in winter, they made up for it by being pleasant in summer, and smelled of ancient incense rather than the reek of privies, of garbage, and of the muck of all of the animals hidden away in back courts.

There!

The heads of every child in the room, Skif’s included, came up as the bell summoning the faithful to Midday Service rang from the top of the Temple. If they’d been a pack of dogs, their ears and tails would have quivered. Novice Beel sighed.