The Ledger Room took Form 14-C at 9:40.
The form is the Realm Reckoning Outlay. It sits in the West Annex, third cabinet, under the day book. Clover Margin entered it. She is the senior clerk on outlays. She wrote the time in the left margin and the sum on Line 1.
Line 1 reads one million million bits. Line 2 reads six years. Line 3, marked Purpose, was empty at entry. Box 7, marked Anticipated Return, held the phrase "as the seal provides."
Margin initialed the sum at 9:58. She left Line 3 open. The day book shows the open line.
The harmony seal came down at 10:12. It is Princess Celestia's seal. The Office of Coming Days carried the decree up from the Small Gallery and set it on the form. The wax sits on the corner.
Hope Canticle read the decree at 10:40. She is deputy for the Office of Coming Days. The gallery log lists twelve listeners and one recorder. Canticle called the seal a kindness counted in advance.
The preamble runs four paragraphs. Paragraph two cites an order from the Outer Ledger, dated 12 March, for bright thread and roof ice. Paragraph four names the Combined Loom Bench as the houses fit to spend the sum.
Voss Perrin chairs the Combined Loom Bench. He signed the receipt schedule at 11:20. The schedule lists crystal racks, bright thread, roof rights, and a cooling claim on the snow reserve of three districts. That reserve sat on the weather ledger as a winter store. Schedule D moves it to loom sheds.
Perrin spoke to the press clerk in the side hall. "The racks are the capacity," he said. "Capacity comes before the billable hour. That is the order on the schedule."
Page six of the schedule has a column headed First Paid Answer. Forty rows run under the heading. Each row is a printed dash.
At 2:05 the West Cooling Yard ran Loom 1. The tax desk had sent one question: what the compact would return in year one. Loom 1 printed the West Annex lunch card for Tuesday. Oat loaf was listed at four bits. The loom stopped. A clerk tagged the card Exhibit 3 and walked it back to the Ledger Room.
"The card shows the loom can issue a document," he said. "Returns belong on a later schedule."
The yard recorder entered both lines. Exhibit 3 is the only completed work attached to Form 14-C.
Reed Halter keeps the sheds at the West Cooling Yard. His old ice order was two wagons a week. The order posted at noon is eighteen wagons a day, roofs included. He signed for the first eighteen at 12:40. "I can put ice on a roof," he said. "The order does not say what the roof is for. I signed for the wagons I could count."
The spark rate moved the same hour. Notices went up in Lower Switch at 1:15. The notice cites Schedule D. It raises the rate two bits in the first month, and a further bit if the wagon count holds.
Mara Keene brought her notice to the Petitions Window. She pays the spark rate in Lower Switch and files her own papers. Dusty Verdict logged the petition at 1:22. He is the window clerk on afternoon paper. He wrote the hearing line as "not set," then read the line back.
"The notice came at 1:15," Keene said. "It says I pay for cooling. It does not say what is being cooled. I asked for a hearing. The line says the hearing is not set."
Verdict stamped the copy with the round petitions stamp. He told her the round stamp means the paper is in the building.
At 3:05 the Office of Coming Days sent a slip. The slip says Box 7 is complete because the seal provides the purpose. Margin set the slip beside the form. She marked it "seen" at 3:11. She left Line 3 as it was entered.
Last year's sealed receipts, all offices, were 48,200 million bits. Margin keeps that total on a card taped inside the cabinet door. Set against the card, Line 1 is a little more than twenty years of receipts, written to be spent in six.
At 4:10 she filed the night copy. Line 3 was blank. The sum was still on Line 1. Exhibit 3 was still the Tuesday lunch card.
