The lintel was carved in the plain capitals of an Ostrane census, and Tallow knew the letters before he had properly read the words. They were the same letters as the spine of the book he had carried up from the census hall, the same square shapes with the same sharp terminals, cut deep into the grey stone by someone who had been trained to make a figure that could be read across a crowded room. He stood at the foot of the last step with his lamp raised and his head tipped back, and he let the letters settle into their places in his mind, one by one, the way a column of sums settles when the last figure has been carried.
The first word was a number. It was 1,147, with the comma set precisely after the one.
The second was COUNTED.
The third was ENTERED.
Beneath these three, cut smaller and set on a separate line with a clean space between, was a sentence. It had been carved with more care than the words above it, and the strokes had been made slowly, so that every serif was complete. Tallow read it once to himself and then again, and his lips moved, because he did not trust his eyes to hold a clause the first time.
