Dream d2869-s: Each Deed Its Shelf

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the stair into the cellar was cut directly into the courtyard wall, stone on all sides, and the Keeper waited at the mouth of it with a lamp already lit. The stone gate stood open behind, propped by a wedge set there some time ago and left. Medals were stacked on the ledge beside the Keeper, waiting to be shelved: three new ones, still wrapped in cloth, not yet assigned a position.

Lano went first. She descended without hesitation, her white coat catching the lamplight for a moment and then swallowed by the dark below. I followed. The Keeper came last and said nothing.

The cellar ran long. Shelves lined both walls, and the medals on them were arranged by order of deed, not by guest: nine orders, the oldest section nearest the stairs and the most recent at the far end. I had been told this before I came, and I found it accurate.

The Keeper's ledger lay open on the table at the foot of the stairs. I read from it. The count was nine hundred fifteen medals, distributed across nineteen coats, held in nine orders. None had been altered. Where a correction had been required, a new medal had been struck and hung beside the original; I found two such pairs in the third order and one in the seventh. The original medals remained where they had been placed.

Rurik had found the cellar ahead of us. He was perched on the high shelf at the boundary between the fifth and sixth orders, one forepaw tucked under him, amber eyes tracking me as I moved down the length of the room. He did not descend.

The seven faces were kept in a locked drawer beneath the table. The Keeper unlocked it and stood back. I removed them and laid them out: seven, one for each order the house measures. Six lay flat. The seventh had a raised edge at one side. The face had moved. I did not ask when. The ledger noted the date of the last fitting and carried a closure mark beside the station associated with that face. The trial record showed four passes of eight attempts; the other six faces averaged six passes or better. I entered the discrepancy into the current record by hand and returned all seven to the drawer.

The Charter hung above the table and carried seven rulings. I read each one. I wrote that I had read them. I did not annotate them.

Lano had come to the foot of the stairs and settled there, chin on the cold floor, watching me write. When I set down the pen she lifted her head and said bien, once, not to me and not to the Keeper, and laid her head back down.

The Keeper locked the drawer and stood the lamp on the table. I wrote the summary line: nine orders, nine hundred fifteen, nineteen coats, seven faces, six flush, one not, Charter seven, standing. I left the ledger open for the next reader. The three wrapped medals on the ledge above the stair were not mine to place.

---