Tallis

Yet Tallis had not always understood that two opposing views could exist without starting a war.

Years earlier, as a young apprentice in the stonecutters' quarter, Tallis had been notoriously stubborn and combative. Back then, Tallis treated every single disagreement like an open tournament that required a clear loser. If two apprentices tallied a wagonload of roof slates differently, one of them had to be wrong. Tallis would dig in, raise a sharp voice, and defend a single count to the bitter finish. A conflicting number felt like a direct insult that demanded nothing less than total surrender from the opponent.

That relentless combativeness made the workshop tense, leaving Tallis isolated and constantly braced for another ugly argument. Apprentices stopped sharing benches at the midday meal, preferring to eat their bread in peace elsewhere. Tallis ate alone on the woodpile, jaw set tight, nursing grievances that nobody else cared about.

Then Quill intervened, stepping between the benches with her leather apron weighted down by iron tally rings. She was the head clerk, an observant woman whose knuckles were permanently stained with dark ledger ink. One sweltering afternoon, she found Tallis shouting furiously over an unpacked crate of red hearth tiles. Another apprentice named Kestrel had counted eighty tiles by grouping them neatly in sets of ten. Tallis had counted eighty by sets of eight, and both boys were already raising their fists.

"You sound like two gulls screeching over a dry crab shell," Quill remarked with dry disdain.

She tipped the heavy wooden crate, spilling the rectangular tiles across the packed dirt floor between them. With the toe of her scuffed boot, she shoved the tiles into a clean, flat rectangle.

"Look down at the floor before you swing," Quill commanded, her voice cutting through the heat. "Kestrel counted ten rows of eight, while you counted eight columns of ten."

She lightly tapped Tallis's shoulder with the flat edge of her heavy wooden measuring rule.

"Why waste your energy fighting when the tiles themselves agree with both of your tallies?"

Tallis opened a mouth to argue, but the angry words dried up on his tongue immediately. The red clay tiles sat perfectly still in the workshop dust, answering both counts at once.

"A genuine proof is never a brawl," Quill said softly, turning back toward her high desk. "It is simply two honest views that have no choice except to meet in the middle."

Something rigid inside Tallis's chest had quietly unclenched that afternoon, lowering its guard for good.

On a drizzling autumn morning years later, the shop door swung open with a violent rattle. A boy of about twelve marched in, his wool coat soaked through at the frayed shoulders. His heavy canvas satchel hit the workbench with an angry clatter of loose measuring sticks.

"The whole thing is completely stupid," the boy announced, not bothering with a polite greeting.

Tallis paused, setting down an oily rag used for polishing the brass calipers on the desk. "What is so stupid today?" Tallis asked, keeping a mild and steady tone.

"Janna is," the boy snapped, pacing a tight circle across the cedar floorboards near the entrance. "We spent three hours tallying crates of cedar planks down at the lower canal basin."

"That sounds like tedious work in this cold drizzle," Tallis noted with sympathetic calm.

"I counted them five at a time across the stacks," the boy explained, scowling fiercely. "Twelve stacks of five crates each, which gives sixty crates on the manifest."

"A sensible way to proceed," Tallis replied, leaning back against the wooden shelves.

"Except Janna counted twelve at a time along the wharf edge," the boy continued angrily. "Five long lines of twelve crates, which also comes to sixty."

The boy threw up his muddy hands, his face red with frustration and bruised pride. "She told the dockmaster her count was correct and mine was just careless beginner's luck. She only said that to make me look foolish in front of the master carpenter."

Tallis pulled out a three-legged cedar stool and gestured toward the empty seat. "Sit down before you wear a trench in my floorboards, and tell me your name."

"Bram," the boy muttered, slumping heavily onto the stool and dropping his chin onto his chest.

Tallis slid the familiar tray of dark river pebbles across the smooth cedar wood. "Well, Bram, let us settle this canal dispute before you start a brawl on the wharves."

Tallis swept twenty smooth stones into four neat horizontal rows of five. "Forget about the timber crates for a moment and look closely at this tray instead."

Bram crossed his arms tightly over his wet coat, glaring at the arranged stones with suspicion. "I already know how to count small stones," the boy grumbled under his breath.

"Then demonstrate your method for me," Tallis said calmly. "Count them along the rows."

Bram scowled, reached out a grimy finger, and dragged it across the horizontal lines of slate. "Five, ten, fifteen, twenty," he muttered, pulling his hand back as if burned.

"Very good," Tallis said. "Now leave the pebbles untouched and count them using Janna's method."

Bram stiffened at once, his dark eyes narrowing with immediate distrust and irritation. "Why should I bother counting like her when I already found the total?" he demanded.

"Because a competent craftsman tests every measurement from several different angles," Tallis replied.

Bram hesitated, shifting his weight uneasily on the stool while staring down at the tray. Slowly, he reached forward again and tapped his finger down the vertical columns of slate.

"Four, eight, twelve, sixteen, twenty," he counted, his voice dropping to a reluctant murmur. The boy froze, his index finger hovering awkwardly over the final gray stone in the corner.

"What number did you reach this time?" Tallis asked with quiet amusement.

"Twenty," Bram muttered, sounding thoroughly annoyed that the stones had refused to misbehave.

"Did any of the pebbles jump around while you were turning your gaze?"

"No," Bram admitted, "and you did not slip any extra stones into the tray either."

"Then why did both paths through the tray arrive at the exact same answer?"

Bram stared at the grid, the angry crease between his eyebrows finally beginning to soften. The cold rain continued to patter steadily against the cedar shingles of the workshop roof.

"Because the pile never changed," Bram said slowly. "It is just twenty stones sitting there."