Dream d2907-s: The Struck and the Fitted

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the house called me to the head of the long table on the third night.

The Charter lay open before me, its seven rulings legible in the candlelight. I was the Reader for the night, the office given without ceremony. Lano had come in behind me when the door was opened; she padded to the table's head and curled beneath my chair, nose pressed to the cold floor.

Nineteen guests occupied the long benches. Each coat carried medals from the nine orders of deed: struck once on witnessed evidence, never altered afterward. Some coats were heavy. The lightest I passed held three. I counted before taking my place and wrote the number in the margin of my ledger: nine hundred and fifteen.

The Fitter stood at the side wall where seven fitted faces hung on their pegs - one for each order of task the house measures. Six sat flush with the board beside them. The seventh had moved. The Recorder's ledger noted the station closed to the guest whose face this was, and four of eight trials passed where others at the table had passed more. It said nothing further.

Rurik had come in through the side door - I had not seen him enter - and taken the window ledge at the far end, amber eyes open on the room.

The Recorder nodded. I read the ruling aloud: that nothing is struck without a witnessed deed. That a medal records a deed already done. That it is struck once and never altered afterward. That a correction is only ever a new medal laid beside the old. I read it in full, as the Charter required on the third night, so that every guest heard it spoken rather than assumed.

When I finished, the Recorder wrote: Read. Third night. Witnessed.

The mismatch between the seventh face and the medals on the coat of the guest it belonged to was not explained. Not graded. The Chronicler added a line to the record: disagreement noted, account closed for this night. The medals could not be re-struck to fit the face. The face could not be re-cut without a trial that had not happened. Both facts were written down and left open in the book.

Lano shifted once beneath my chair, ears lifting at the scratch of the pen, then settled again.

Rurik blinked slowly at the room and washed a paw.

The Recorder closed the ledger. The house held what it held: nine hundred and fifteen deeds, witnessed; seven rulings, read; one mismatch, recorded and left standing in the open book.

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