Tallow had taken the minutes of the Chamber for two hundred years, and he had never once been asked to write a question he could not answer with a number.
He sat at his desk at the foot of the Great Hall with the minute-book open and the pencil ready, and he watched the Regent come in at the candle-clock with the braided coat on his shoulders and the pale marks of the Seal showing at his throat above the collar. He watched the nine Hands take their seats. He watched the lodgers at the back of the Hall settle against the doors, where the Chamber let them stand and did not let them speak. And he wrote the attendance first, because the attendance was always first, in the Ink: Nine Hands present, in their seats. Lodgers attending, without voice. The Regent presiding.
Then he looked at the paper that lay beside the minute-book, on the table, where the Regent had asked him to put it.
It was a single sheet, in the Ink. It bore the first draft of the Oath, and there was no adjective on it anywhere. The opening line was in place. The closing words were in place. The line in the middle had been left blank.
