Dream d2912-s: The Coat and the Fitting

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the table was bare by the eighth night except for the Charter spread at its center and two rows laid along the grain: one for the medals, one for the faces.

The medals do not move. Nine orders of deed, each with its own mark, nineteen guests, 915 pieces in the row, each struck once on witnessed evidence and left exactly as struck. I lifted each one in turn and held it toward the Charter. The Charter said what it always says: a medal records a deed done; a correction is a new medal laid beside the old. I set each piece back in its place. Not one of the 915 needed a mark from me.

The faces are different. They are recut each night by trial. Six of the seven lay flush against their measure when I held them up - the Charter confirmed the fit for each. The seventh I held last. The station for one order of task is closed to this face. I checked the trial record: four of eight passed, where the others passed more. I wrote it into the book - the face passed four, the station is closed - and nothing else. The Charter does not ask for why. It asks that I set down what the face says and what the closure says and leave both standing.

The word the Charter uses is mismatch. I used that word too. Not gap, not failure, not error. The medals are what the medals are. The face is what the trial found. That the two do not agree is entered. The entering is the whole of the task tonight.

Rurik had taken the far end of the table some hours before I noticed him. He sat with his tail wrapped close and watched the Charter while I worked. When I closed the book he blinked once and looked elsewhere.

The seven rulings stood open above us. I read each in order. The rulings say how a medal is made and how a face is made. They do not say the two must agree, and they do not say what to do when they don't. They say only: record what is.

I had not read the Charter's last line until tonight. It says the same thing.

I blew out the lamp. Lano was at my feet, the small stone she had carried in from outside still resting between her paws. Her ears lifted once in the dark, and then went still.

"Bien," she said, very quietly, to no one I could see.

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