The outer desk logged Nessa Pell at 08:40. The book is the blue one, in the outer office of the First Chair of the Council. The line read counsel. Under it sat a CF-12, visitor with voice. The occupation box was empty. Ida Moss filled the hour and the name, and left the box empty.
Pell hears hounds for a fee. Her card says so. Moss clipped the card to the CF-12. The card gives a room over the tack shop on Reed Street. The oath line under it stayed blank. Moss wrote "card attached" in the left margin and initialed the note.
Alden Parr has held the First Chair since the winter vote. He signs the morning orders. His card was in the 07:50 tray. The card said, "Listen first." The card stopped at that sentence.
Four hounds stood on the service stairs. The guard note at 08:22 read, "four hounds, leashed, second landing, no pass." They are copies of a dead hound. The duplication charter, file 19-C, lists one closed entry and four live issues. The closed entry is named Minister. Parr uses that name for the four that still eat. The charter calls them Issue A through Issue D. Issue B has a chipped tooth. The kennel sheet records the tooth and the feed.
Pell came by the main stair with a canvas bag and a round cushion. She set the cushion in the visitor chair. She set a tin bowl by the inkwell and filled it from the carafe. The CF-12 has a line for equipment. Moss logged the bowl as equipment, to be returned. Pell asked for the surplus figure in a plain voice. She said the cushion heard better that way. Moss read the figure off the levy sheet, once. The cushion stayed where she had put it.
Pencil already marked the right margin of the spring grain rate when Moss unlocked the desk. The spring rate sat half a point over the winter rate. Her own pencil was in the drawer.
Sable Croft, a grain factor from the east lots, had been in the corridor since 07:10 with slip fourteen. The 08:40 block is the public half-hour. The card nailed inside the wicket says so.
"I had slip fourteen," Croft said. "They called the cushion. My hour went to Thursday."
Her case was three wagons and a short count at the Reed scale. Moss struck the hearing over to Thursday, initialed the stroke, and wrote 08:41 on the office copy. That copy went into the day folder.
Pell stayed twelve minutes. The inner door stayed shut. Through the copy-room vent she spoke to the cushion, and she used the name Minister.
On the landing Pell said, "He was short this morning. He wanted the rate where it sat in the spring. I say what he says. The Chair writes."
At 08:57 a page came out with a harmony slip. Six lines. The small seal. That seal lives in the left drawer of Moss's desk, beside the lost-badge blanks. The slip put the crown grain rate back half a point. The citation read "counsel received." The name line was blank. Moss stamped the office copy at 09:01 and left the smudge. The blotter hangs with the large seal.
Rook Halden, press under-secretary to the Chair, took the landing after Pell left.
"We logged a visitor," Halden said. "The visitor brought a cushion. I can read you the line. The hounds stay a household matter."
File 19-C authorizes four live bodies, feed, and a stall on the service side. Feed is charged to household. Moss checked the charge before noon. Household pays the feed. The rate is the one on the public board.
Willa Trent, in the seal room, answered the runner at 11:16. "The small seal is for matters that stay under a page," Trent said. "This stayed under a page. The day court was left off the call."
The day court list went up at 09:30 with forty-one names. The list skipped Croft. Her new slip reads Thursday, 08:40, wicket three. Moss wrote her under the wheelwrights in smaller letters.
The noon pouch carried the harmony slip to the coin office. Clover Margin stamped the receipt "posted" at 12:04 and entered the half point on the rate card. The counsel line remained blank.
At 12:10 the guard note was still on the spike. Four hounds, second landing. Issue B had the tin bowl. The bowl was empty. The pencil in the margin matched the half point, and matched the spring figure Moss had read aloud.
