The great bronze clock above the council dais struck ten bells of the morning, its heavy chimes echoing through the sun-drenched marble tiers of the High Chamber. The hall was even more crowded than it had been during Sorell’s trial. Every bench was packed with guild aldermen, river wardens, academy teachers in their reformed gray robes, and dozens of Lowbank residents who had climbed the hill in their work aprons to see the final settlement of their neighborhood’s fate.
At the clerk’s table in the well of the chamber, Councilor Elna Vesk stood beside Pella Rook. In Vesk’s hands lay the finished Courtesy Workshop Charter. Six sheets of heavy Dutch rag paper, bound with red linen ribbon and bearing the signed names of Pella, Eren, Merrow, Korr, and Nenn.
Chief Magistrate Vane, an elderly jurist with a face like weathered slate, adjusted his court collar and struck the stone block with his iron gavel.
“The Senate comes to the special order of the day,” Chief Magistrate Vane announced. His voice carried the dry, formal power of forty years on the bench. “The presentation of the proposed permanent charter for the Courtesy Workshop of Lowbank, submitted under the Twelfth Civic Emergency City law by Councilor Elna Vesk and Candidate Pella Rook. The Councilman has the floor.”
