Lune laid the survey rod across the Ostrane roll to keep the page flat, since the paper had been folded so many times that it wanted to curl back into its creases like a dog into its basket, and a page that would not lie still could not be measured.
The rod was ash, iron-bound at both ends, and it weighed almost nothing in the hand. Lune set it across the top of the sheet, from the margin on the left to the margin on the right, and pressed each end down with a finger until the brown paper gave up its curl and lay still beneath the wood. Then, with the rod as a guide, Lune began to read.
It was a census. That was the first thing, and it was the most important, since a census was a thing that could be counted and a count could be checked. The heading ran across the top of the page in a fine upright hand: Sovereignty of Ostrane. Census of the City of Tallowmere, the Lake Quarter and the Ferry Quarter, year of the Articles, the last count before the water. Below it the columns were ruled in faint ink, with the names of the wards down the left and the numbers of the households across the top, and under each ward the figures were set in neat groups of five, with a stroke through every fifth figure so that a clerk could count a long row at a glance.
