The Great Chamber of Spires in the High Citadel of Crown-Reach was filled with eight hundred delegates representing every guild, borough, and rural parish of the realm. Outside, the early winter wind swept across the white limestone roofs, rattling the leaded high window row casements with the sharp, dry grit of incoming frost. Inside the hall, two hundred beeswax tapers in circular bronze chandeliers cast a warm, steady glow across the tiered dark wood benches, lighting up faces weathered by years of high taxes, impounded harvests, and office evasion. For the first time in two hundred years, the central floor of the chamber was not occupied by velvet-robed ministers presenting royal budget deficits or pleading for foreign emergency loans. It was occupied by sixteen heavy cedar chests arranged in two disciplined rows, containing the finalized master ledgers and checked vouchers of the Land-wide Payback.
At the head of the assembly, seated behind the high court bench on the dais, sat the Sovereign Council of Regency. Chief Justice Lord Ronald, Speaker Lord Henry Cole, Alderman Thorne of the Bakers’ Guild, Master Kael of the Stonework Union, and twelve country burgesses elected by the common councils. Below the dais stood Tomas Reed and Hester Quill. She was flanked by sixty apprentice scribes wearing plain gray woolen tunics. On the long frame stand table before them rested the Master Settlement Roll. A massive scroll built from ninety joined sheepskin folios bound in green rawhide, its margins ruled with double lines of scarlet red…
