Caldris brought the order to the bench herself.
She came down the cold stair at the twenty-second hour, by the ladder as she always did now, with paper in her hand rather than her slate: a single sheet of the Compact’s heavy stock, the kind orders were written on, with the Compact’s seal printed at its head. She had written it by hand. Mara could see the lines of her even, upright script from across the chamber.
She laid it on the bench beside the governor’s drawing.
Then she stood back from it, on her feet, her slate under her arm and her hands kept off the bench. She stood at the bench’s end with her hands folded and waited for Mara to read it, the way a smith waited while another smith looked at their joint.
“An order,” she said. “From my office. Which I will sign, if you agree to it.”
Mara drew it toward her.
It was written in full sentences. Numbered. The way Caldris wrote everything.
Order of the Compact’s auditor for Meridian, under her remaining authority.
