MANEHATTAN — The faculty of East Spire Collegium called President Marrow Quill to the oak hall at 14:10 and asked why eleven complaints of assault had been closed under a harmony seal.
Quill holds the presidency and the chair of the campus harmony committee. He came with Decree 4. He did not come with Form 7-C.
Decree 4 left his office at 16:42 on the third of last month. It covered the eleven filings in one paragraph. It renamed each filing "unscheduled contact." It set a listening circle for the twelfth of May. Spring term ends on the fourth. The decree's notice block, the line marked "complainant notified," contained one word: posted.
The posting was a sheet on the inside of a supply-closet door in the east stair. Hollis Greer found it at 07:05 while he was mopping the landing. The tape had yellowed.
"I thought it was a lost-and-found," Greer said. "It had names. I took it down to the desk."
Pebble North, the records clerk, had taken the eleven complaints on a Tuesday in the frost month, between 08:12 and 08:40. Each one came in on Form 7-C. The form has a box labeled harm. On all eleven pages, the box was marked. North stamped the hour, wrote the names in the day book, and locked the originals in the clerk's tin. The day book has no column for tone.
Professor Anvil Reed, who teaches structures, carried three of the forms from the faculty floor to North's counter and waited for the stamp. She sat in the second row with her copy.
"I stood there until the stamp hit," Reed said. "The stamp is the receipt. I did not come here for a card."
The president's packet reached the benches at 13:55. Inside were Decree 4, a seating chart, and a card titled Restoration of Tone. The card told the faculty to leave timelines to the circle. Quill signed it. Corin Vale, deputy for campus climate, signed under him. Vale did not attend. The roll marked him absent.
Sable Hatch, chair of the faculty assembly, read the card into the minutes. Then she read the top of Form 7-C. The form's first printed line is "state what occurred." The card's first printed line is "begin with what we hope to restore." Hatch asked which paper governed. Quill said the seal governed.
"We have a process," Quill said. "The process carries a seal. I will not rush a harm into a charge while the circle is still ahead of us."
A lecturer asked who had questioned the ponies named in the forms. Quill said the circle would. Hatch asked who sat on the circle. Quill named himself, Vale, and a rotating chair. The routing slip on Decree 4, marked Exhibit C, left the investigator line blank. Under the blank, a clerk in the harmony office had written "to be seated."
The eleven complainants are on the adult roll. Four are junior faculty. Seven are senior scholars. Reed had asked the hall not to read the names. Hatch did not read them. The senior lecturer named in six of the forms remains on the spring teaching list. His section meets at 11:00 in the east stair. The closet where the notice hung is on that landing.
Magistrate Dusty Verdict keeps the civic docket two streets west. He was not on the seating chart. He stood at the side wall with the month's docket in a folder. None of the eleven appeared on it. On the ninth he had written to the president's office and asked whether any filing was a charge. The office sent back Decree 4.
"If it is an assault, it is a charge," Verdict said. "A seal is not a charge. I had room on the ninth. I have room this week."
Quill told the hall the Collegium would "hold the matter in confidence and in care." He did not say who had been questioned, or when. North had set the tin on the table at 13:40. When Hatch called the clerk, North stood, read the eleven stamp times, and sat.
"The form asks what happened and who was hurt," North said. "I wrote what they said at the counter. There is no box on it for tone."
Hatch's motion came at 14:51. It asked that the originals be entered in the faculty record and walked to Verdict's court by morning. The vote, called at 15:02, ran 86 to 4. The four were Quill's two aides, a trustee who had come to check the seating chart, and Vale by note. Quill said he would take the vote under advisement with the seal.
The aides collected the packets at 15:11. They left the tin. North closed the lid. The frost-month stamp was still the top mark. Nopony from the president's office had signed the forms out.
