The Pitch Registry posted Docket 11-R at 05:40. The office was the Clerk of Filings, east window, Manehattan. President Calder Vane will depart on the second morning for Velin Quay. The docket calls the trip a courtesy. Annex B lists eleven chairs of the eastern pitch federations. Those chairs hold thirty-eight votes in the Registry Congress. The Congress elects the president on the first of Leafmonth. Vane's name is the only one on the preliminary roll. He is going anyway.
Form 11-R is four lines and a seal box. Line 1 names the office: President of the Pitch Registry. Line 2 names the hour of departure: 06:10, North Wharf. Line 3 names the carrier: the chartered hull Second Watch. Line 4 states the purpose in the Registry's own words: "a non-electoral courtesy to advance cordial play among the eastern pitches."
Annex B sets a closed hall at Velin Quay on the third morning at 09:00. It sets a breakfast at 08:10. It sets a photograph at 10:30 with a replica of the Registry seal. It names the eleven chairs and prints a vote count beside each. The counts add to thirty-eight. Thirty-eight is a majority when the other benches stay home. They do.
Seal 4-H arrived last week. The Harmony Office issued it at 11:02. The decree is one page. It says the visit "advances cordial play." It cites Form 11-R. The page ends there. A clerk stamped it. The stamp is larger than the text.
Clover Margin read both papers at the window at 06:15. She is Clerk of Filings. She put Form 11-R on the left nail and Annex B on the right.
"Line 4 says courtesy," Clover Margin said. "The annex says chairs, votes, and a photograph. I file what is written. I do not file what is meant."
The petitioner came at 07:02. Her name is Ness Harlow. She is secretary of the Two-Pitch Union. One vote. Off the breakfast list. She asked for the guest list and the cost line. Dusty Verdict, duty clerk for petitions, logged the request as Petition 11-R-2 and wrote the hour in the margin.
"The form told us the election was administrative," Ness Harlow said. "Administrative does not charter a hull. I want the seating chart and the bill."
Dusty Verdict copied Annex B for her at 07:18, and the cost line with it. Page 3 lists the charge under hospitality: 2,400 bits for the breakfast, 800 for the hall, and 160 for the seal replica. The line calls the replica representational. The original seal stays in Manehattan. Vane will stand beside the copy.
The president's office answered at 08:05 with a note on office paper. The note said the trip matched Seal 4-H. The note said the chairs had requested the visit. The hour of the request is blank on the note. Clover Margin checked the nail and the drawer. She wrote "letters absent" at 08:22.
Sunny Mandate signed Seal 4-H. He is deputy for cordial play at the Harmony Office, which sits above the Registry. His name is on the trip list once, marked observing. The eleven chairs are marked present.
At Velin Quay the eastern bench keeps forty chairs over the tide stairs. Calendar filings stay in the cabinet. Docket 11-R carries the breakfast.
Soren Hale, chair of the North Reed federation, sent a one-line reply at 09:04. Hale holds four of the thirty-eight votes. "We will attend the hour we were given," the reply said.
Vane has held the office through two elections. The preliminary roll for Leafmonth went up at 04:00. The roll is one line. The line is Vane.
Article 12 reads, "A candidate shall not apply Registry funds to the seeking of the office." Page 3 charges the breakfast, the hall, and the replica to hospitality. Clover Margin underlined the word twice. The marks stayed on the nail.
Ness Harlow was at the window at 09:40 with Annex B and the cost line. Dusty Verdict kept Petition 11-R-2 in the open tray.
"The roll is one name," he said. "The annex is eleven chairs. Both are filed. The petition stays open until a stamp shows who pays."
Second Watch took fuel at North Wharf at 09:41. Departure stays 06:10 on the second morning. Seal 4-H is one page. The seating chart runs three. The request letters are still off the nail.
