CANTERLOT — The Treasury Office set Budget Day for four in the afternoon. The speech began at four. Line 40 of Form 12 stayed open.
Form 12 is the Annual Bit Schedule. Line 40 is the oat surcharge. Minister Ortho Keene has held the Treasury pencil since the second bell. Minister Dassel Rowe of Roads and Roofs has held the other. Clover Margin's sheet shows both marks and no closing hour.
Margin keeps the public window on the second floor. She put the working copy on the ledge at 6:14 a.m. She read the header into the day book at 6:16. The header said Budget Day. The line under it said continuation. The day book shows continuation on seventy-six mornings before this one.
"They can call the hour," Margin said. "The form is the one I stamped in Frost Month. Line 40 is still held."
Room B is at the end of the west corridor. Keene sits on the west side. Rowe sits on the east side. Between them are the schedule, a tin of dry crackers, and a cot. Housekeeping loaned the cot on the third sitting. The slip on the frame reads "until the line moves."
The room log calls this the seventy-seventh sitting. The program from the Palace Press calls it one day. It lists remarks, the chest, and a surprise. A press clerk struck the surprise at 11:10. Keene's note said the surprise had been spent in week four.
Porter Gladbox brought the chest up the west stair at 3:40 p.m. The bow had come from the palace laundry on a flat card. He set the chest on the stand at 3:51. He opened it for the count. The count took one minute. Inside were yesterday's working copy, two red pencils, and a cracker broken on the lid.
Princess Celestia entered the gallery at 3:58. She stood. The table stayed with the ministers. Keene read the podium copy. It runs nine pages. Form 12 runs forty-one. The podium copy names the offices and the concord. Where the oat surcharge would run, the line says "as continued."
Rowe stayed in his chair. At 4:11 he wrote in the east margin the sentence from 7:02 a.m. The words match. "Roads will not initial a cut that moves the sluice money."
The sluice money sits on slip 4481, pinned to the granary page. Ilex Brant, Minister for the Granaries, asked at noon to have the pin pulled. His grain total has stayed on the oat argument since sitting twelve. The chairs were under the stacks. At 2:18 he sat on the cot.
"Take the pin off and I can go back to my office," Brant said.
Margin wrote "pin only" under his name at 2:19.
The speech ran twenty-six minutes. The program had allowed forty, with a gap after the concord line. The gap came at 4:22. A pony in the upper row coughed. A guard moved his spear. Gladbox watched the bow. Keene read the word harmony off a page with the number left blank. He read it twice.
"The day was orderly," Celestia said.
At 4:31 she sealed Harmony Decree 19. The decree is one page. Margin read it at the ledge. The operative line cuts four bits from a lantern-oil fee. Those four bits already sat in pencil on Form 12. The night clerk had found a double count in week two. Margin's book calls the four bits a correction. Decree 19 calls them an act of concord. It calls the rest of the schedule continued.
Celestia left at 4:40. Gladbox took the chest at 4:44. The bow was even. At 4:46 Keene asked for a fresh sheet. Rowe kept the morning copy. A fresh sheet, he told the log, would make the old marks look like a beginning.
Torren Ash had been at the window since 8:10 with slip 4481. He keeps the mill sluice on the north road. The slip asks for timber and two days of a crew. The sum fits in the margin the ministers have traded since Frost Month. Ash watched the board from the bench.
"I can skip the speech," Ash said. "I need a yes or a no before the frost gets in the gate."
At 7:02 p.m. the board posted Decree 19 under the heading Settled. Margin stamped the public copy at 7:06. Her stamp on line 40 read held. The loan slip on the cot still read until the line moves. Her stamp on slip 4481 read pending.
