The Great Banking Hall of the Silver Weft Trade ring had been stripped of its high-born peace and converted into a massive clearing exchange of working-class accountability. Forty long oak tables had been dragged from the office archives and set up in four parallel avenues beneath the towering Corinthian pilasters. On each table sat an iron-rimmed balance scale, a box of powdered blotting chalk, a horn inkpot filled with approved dark oak-ink. A stack of standardized forty-four-character ruling boards.
Behind each table sat an apprentice scribe from Bellwether. It was flanked by an independent dock porter from the River Wards. Outside on the broad steps, the freezing morning fog had begun to thin, replaced by a pale, watery sun that lit up five thousand waiting citizens. The queue moved forward with the solemn, steady pace of a congregation entering a cathedral, their boot soles squeaking against the polished black-and-white marble tiles.
Tomas Reed stood at the center of the dais beneath the grand pediment, his left wrist strapped in its buckled calfskin brace, his ash-wood pack-frame resting against the marble stone railing. Beside him, Hester Quill sat with her ivory folio-knife. Her dual-lens glasses reflected the white light of the high window row windows as she finalized the Forced payout Priority Schedule.
