On Tuesday the Crystal City share pit closed every major line where the dawn chalk had set it. The Rate Circle, reading from the arrival platform, held the winter lending rate at eleven bits in the hundred, the figure posted in the fall. The scroll repeated that posting, including a sentence about spring plantings. Nothing listed in the pit is priced for spring. The anthem covered the hour when prices are called, and the dawn chalk was entered as the close.
The lines that held included the cutters' combine, the glasshouse bond, the grit haulers' stake, and the lamp-oil cooperative. The cooperative's mark stayed put while its night cask was carried up to the platform. Traders in from the wards were told to keep silent through the reading. The note that left with the train had already called that silence the market making up its mind.
Above the board, the glass bead that shows whether the pit is moving had been lacquered to its wire. A steward set the lacquer before the scroll was opened, so the bead could not tick in front of the guests. The close was taken off that wire and marked steady. The lacquer was still tacky at dusk. Pit rule keeps a bead in place until the Rate Circle's clerk has accepted the day. The clerk accepted it from the carriage.
The lending desk under the pit had the eleven bits up on the same slate it had used in the fall. A copying clerk was sent to the platform with a fresh sheet in case the guests wanted the numbers to have moved in the reading. He brought the sheet back unsigned. The desk entered the day as received. His name on the errand line was the only new mark in the book.
The ceremony shut the lower coal window at noon. Haulers coming off the Crystal Mountains take the evening allotment there after the dawn weigh-in. The window stayed shut. The dawn ration was six lumps and a dip of oil for each working hoof, and the ceremony left that weigh-in where it stood. The dip, and the cask under the share pit, went to the platform torches. Breath showed in the counting lane by midafternoon. The hall stove had been banked for the guests.
Next Steps filed the dispatch from the platform before any pony checked the wire, and called the silence a disciplined reception. The Environmental Compliance Board logged the flat close the same hour and marked the pit's burn as improved, since a board that does not call prices can spare its lamps. The reading ran long enough for the southern crown's niece to set a hoof to the Crystal Heart for the engraving, and the train was called as soon as the scroll was rolled. Counselor Meridian Gloss, who advises the Rate Circle from a southern posting and rides back the same day, supplied the sentence the note had left open.
"A market that does not move has agreed," Gloss said. "We came up to say so, and the board said it back."
Hester Bram had been in the lower ward since the weigh-in. She hauls grit off the Crystal Mountains and spends the winter in the streets under the pit. The coal window was barred when she came back down the road. The sack at her hooves was the sack she had carried up.
"I pay eleven in the hundred now. I paid it last month," Bram said. "They read it to the Heart and shut the window for the length of a song. The lumps were counted at dawn. Hearing it from the train doesn't put a lump in the sack."
Ember Scale keeps the third-watch lamps under the share pit and the stair that serves them. The Board's slip was on the desk when the last car cleared the platform switch. Scale turned down two of the four lamps and set the remaining oil on the step a hoof can find by memory.
"They took the cask for the torches," Scale said. "I can hold two lamps until the watch changes. The other two stay dark. I was told the bead lets go if the hall warms. I am keeping the oil for the stair."
The coal window was still barred at the change of watch. Two lamps burned. Bram took the grit back up the mountain road at the weight the dawn scale had already given it.
