The chronicler will give, in this chapter, three rooms. The chronicler will give them on three nights. He will be brief in each.
The first room is the small careful audit-chamber of Doge Rilarion, on the third evening after the morning of the wall at Darklume. The Doge sits at the small careful table at the western wall. The two Counted Houses named in Krypton-letters on the cathedral's wall — Hroste and Vellinar — have been, on his instruction, summoned to the audit-chamber at the seventh hour. They have not come. The chair he has set for the Hroste deputy is empty. The chair he has set for the Vellinar deputy is empty.
He had not, on his summoning, expected them to come.
His clerk — Falien, who had been with him through three terms — stands at the small inner door with the small leather book of the city's standing edicts under his arm.
"Excellency."
"They will not come."
"No, Excellency."
"Did the riders find the houses lit."
"The Hroste house is dark, Excellency. The Vellinar house has a single lamp at the upper floor. The deputy is, by the rider's report, not in residence. The lamp is the housekeeper's lamp."
"Has the harbour been told."
"The harbour has not been told, Excellency. I have given no instruction."
"Then the harbour will be told tonight. Bring me the book of standing edicts. The page is marked."
"I have it, Excellency."
The clerk steps to the small writing-desk at the eastern wall. He sets the book on the desk. The Doge does not, on the setting, rise from his chair. He turns the chair a small fraction, so that the lamp on the desk's edge falls on the small grey ribbon. He reads the page once. He nods. He picks up the pen.
"Falien. The phrase is the formal phrase for an unhousing."
"Yes, Excellency."
"It will be written for both houses tonight. The harbour will receive it at the eighth hour. The eastern gate's posting will be made by the ninth."
"Yes, Excellency."
"Two clerks of the harbour will be required to witness. Choose the two who have, in the last two years, refused to take small entries from the Counted Houses. I have a list. It is in the second drawer of the inner chamber's chest."
"I will fetch it, Excellency."
"Falien."
"Excellency."
"The two on the list are Karela and the older Tovaro. Bring them by name. They will be paid double tonight's standing wage. They will not, after tonight, be asked to clerk the Counted Houses again."
"Yes, Excellency."
The clerk goes. The Doge writes. He writes, at the head of the next blank page, the small careful date of the evening. He writes, on the second line, the formal name of the first Counted House. He writes, on the third line, the formal phrase that the small careful book of edicts permits a Doge of Marrowport to use, in the small careful exceptional case the book has reserved for a House that has, by the city's audit, voided its standing.
He writes the same on the fourth, fifth, and sixth lines for the second House.
The clerk returns at the eighth hour with the two witnesses. They sign. The Doge signs. The page is sealed. It goes, by the small steady hand of the clerk, to the small careful office at the eastern gate of Marrowport, where the city's standing edicts are, by long careful tradition, posted. The clerk goes. The clerk returns within the hour with the small clean signed copy of the posting. The Doge takes the copy. He puts it into the small careful red book at his desk that he has, in his three terms, used for the small careful exceptional cases of the city's edicts.
He does not, on the evening, write to Krypton. He does not, on the evening, write to Caedrin. He does not, on the evening, write to Avarath. The writing has been done. The Counted Houses of Hroste and Vellinar have, by the small careful posting at the eastern gate, been unhoused. The houses no longer exist, in the city's careful arithmetic, as Counted. They have been, by the Doge's hand, removed from the count.
He sits, after the writing. He looks for some time at the small table at the western wall and at the two empty chairs. He drinks, in his careful slow way, a small cup of wine. The clerk, at the inner door, lingers a count.
"Excellency."
"Yes, Falien."
"Will there be a third."
"Tonight, no. In the morning, perhaps. The deputy of the third House — the one the wall did not name — will, by my reading, present herself at the audit-chamber at the eighth hour of tomorrow."
"Will she be heard."
"She will be heard. The hearing will not, by any of the standing edicts, be a hearing she will leave with her House standing. But she will be heard."
"Yes, Excellency."
"Go to bed, Falien."
"Excellency."
The clerk goes. The Doge goes, at the ninth hour, to bed.
The second room is the small careful audience-hall of Prince-Regent Tovalen, on the fourth evening after the morning of the wall. The hall is empty of attendants except the spymaster. Kira Morrow stands at the small careful eastern wall of the hall, with the small careful folder of the past three weeks' intelligence under her left arm. The Prince-Regent stands at the small careful western wall, in the long careful black coat his court has given him for council mornings, with his hands folded behind his back.
He has been standing for some time. The chronicler does not record how long.
He turns, at last, to the spymaster. He does not, on turning, ask her any of the small questions of the previous month. The questions are, on this evening, behind the two of them. He asks, instead, in the small dry voice he uses for the one decision of his own moon:
"Sign me what we agreed."
"The full instruments, your highness."
"The full instruments. The three of them."
"The court will not, by the morning, be able to be told the signing was conditional."
"The signing is not conditional. I have decided."
"Yes, your highness."
She inclines her head. She comes forward, by the small careful pace, to the small careful writing-desk at the centre of the hall, where she has, on his small careful instruction at the second hour of the afternoon, laid out the small careful prepared documents. The documents are three. They are the small careful formal instruments of Caedrin's open alignment with the kingdom of Krypton — an instrument no Caedrin Prince-Regent has signed in the thirty-two years since the Schism of Vextar.
The Prince-Regent walks, slowly, to the desk. He stops at it. He does not, in the stopping, look at her. He looks at the first instrument. He reads it through. He looks at the second. He reads it through. He looks at the third. He reads it through. He picks up the pen.
"Kira."
"Your highness."
"Did my mother ever sign one of these."
"No, your highness. Your mother kept the Schism in form. She did not, in any year of her reign, sign an open instrument of alignment with Krypton. She did not consider the question."
"Did she ever ask you what she would have done if the question had been asked."
"She asked me once, your highness. In the year before her death."
"And what did you answer."
"I answered that I did not know, your highness. That the question had not, in her reign, been asked, and that I did not have the apparatus to answer the question on her behalf."
He nodded.
"And on my behalf."
She did not, on the question, immediately answer. She looked, briefly, at the three instruments laid on the desk.
"I have, your highness, the apparatus to answer it on yours."
"Do you."
"I do, your highness. I am not speaking it. You have not asked me to speak it. I am only saying that the apparatus is, on this evening, in my possession."
He looked at her. He did not, on the looking, smile.
"Then keep it in your possession, Kira. I have decided what I have decided. The instruments will stand or fall on my hand."
"Yes, your highness."
He signs the first instrument. He signs the second. He signs the third. He does not, on the signing, hesitate. He has, on the past three weeks of small careful private reading at his desk, decided. He sets the pen down.
The spymaster takes up the documents. She seals the small careful seal of the Prince-Regent's office onto each. She does not, on the sealing, speak. She does not, on the sealing, look at his face. She has, in twenty-two years of service in this court, learned that the small careful moments of decision are not to be marred by the small careful courtesies of the court.
"Kira."
"Your highness."
"Take it by Krypton's mother-seal, not by ours."
"Your highness — that is the private seal of the Krypton heir, not the Prince-Regent's standing channel."
"I know what it is. Take it by hers. I have written to her in her mother's wax. Let the response be carried in the same wax."
"Yes, your highness."
She bows. She leaves the audience-hall with the documents. The documents will, by the small careful secure relay she has prepared, be at Vextar by the eighth day after the morning of the wall.
The Prince-Regent, alone in the audience-hall, does not, on her leaving, sit down. He stands at the small careful western wall for some time. He thinks, the chronicler observes, about his mother. His mother had, on her deathbed, told him that the small careful work of a Prince-Regent of Caedrin was the work of a man who had been given a Schism and was required, by the giving, never to undo it. He has, on this evening, by the small careful three signatures, not undone the Schism. He has, instead, done the small careful first thing the Schism had been founded to make possible: the public recognition, by Caedrin, that the celestial concern the Schism had insisted on had returned to the country in a form the country could no longer pretend was theological.
He goes, at the tenth hour, to bed.
The third room is the small careful private chamber of Queen Ysmara the Patient, on the seventh evening after the morning of the wall. The chamber is not large. It has on its eastern wall a small careful glass window, behind which, on this evening, the snow is falling in the small careful constant way snow falls in Avarath in the deep weeks of winter. The Queen sits in the small careful chair at the desk. Her astronomer royal, Vesper, sits in the small careful chair at the side of the desk. They have been sitting for the past two hours, in the small careful patient way the two of them sit in the small careful private hours of Avarath's deep weeks.
The deputy returned from Darklume on the fifth evening with the small careful slip he had written at the audience. He had given the slip to Vesper at the third hour of the evening of his return.
"It is in the script of the disc, but the first letters resolved into our letters for the count of the wall. I have the name."
"Read it."
He had read it. Vesper had not, at the reading, spoken. She had taken the slip. She had folded it. She had set it on her desk under the heavy brass weight she used for letters whose weight she had not yet been able to quantify.
"He will be removed from the staff tonight."
"The Queen will, by my reading, want to see the slip first."
"Yes. Tonight is too early. Tomorrow."
She had brought the slip to the Queen at the fourth hour of the following evening.
The Queen had read it once. She had not, on the reading, reacted. She had, in the small careful long discipline of forty-one years on the throne, not reacted to the names of compromised members of her own staff before. She had, on this name, however, done a small thing she had not done in her career: she had asked her astronomer royal to come, on the seventh evening, to the small careful private chamber, and to bring the small careful master ledger of the past three years' charts.
Vesper has brought the ledger. Vesper has, in the past two hours, walked the Queen through the small careful charts of the past three years' charts. The two of them have not, in the two hours, spoken in any of the small careful court phrases that mark the Queen's audiences. They have spoken in the small careful astronomers' phrases that the Queen has been reading, in the small careful private hours, for the past three years. They have read, between them, the small careful four hesitations the master ledger has logged. They have read the deputy's small careful additional registration of a fifth, the previous winter, that had come into the deputy's small careful chart after Vesper had brought the master ledger to the heir of Krypton at the close of S7.
"Five," says the Queen.
"Five, your majesty."
"Each in the same direction."
"Each in the same direction."
"And the fifth came after you had given the master ledger to the heir."
"It did, your majesty."
The Queen looks, for some time, at the ledger. She looks at the small careful arc the five hesitations have drawn across the eastern field. She looks at the snow at the small careful glass window.
"Vesper."
"Your majesty."
"If a sixth comes."
"It will come, your majesty. The discipline does not, by my reading, give five and stop."
"Then we will not, in our chancery, be the kingdom that does not, by its long discipline, name what the discipline names."
"Your majesty."
The Queen sets the ledger down.
She goes, at the close of the two hours, to the small careful desk's western drawer. She takes from it the small careful sheet of court paper she has, in the past forty-one years, taken from this drawer on perhaps eleven occasions. She writes on the sheet, in her own hand, in the small careful precise letters of Avarath's long careful court, a single careful sentence — the sentence the chronicler will name, only, as a measurement. She does not, by any of the small careful court courtesies, sign it. The sheet does not need her signature. The sheet, on the small careful long discipline of Avarath's chancery, will be sealed by Vesper at the door of the chamber and forwarded, by the small careful relay, to the seven kingdoms of Celesterra that have, in the past four hundred years, received this kind of measurement from Avarath. Two of the seven are extinct. Three of the remaining five have stopped responding to Avarath's measurements at all. One has, in the past year, responded only when asked. The last is Krypton. The last will, on the receiving, not fail to respond.
The Queen sets the pen down. She looks once at the sheet. She slides it across the desk to Vesper.
"Read it."
Vesper reads it. The chronicler will not, in the close of the chapter, transcribe the sentence, but the chronicler will set down that the sentence is — by the small careful long discipline of Avarath's chancery — the sentence that the long careful long discipline reserves for a year in which the kingdom has measured a war.
Vesper sets the sheet down. She does not, on the setting, speak.
"It is correct."
"It is correct, your majesty. I would not, in my forty-three years, have written it differently."
"Then seal it."
"Yes, your majesty."
Vesper takes up the sheet. She goes, at the small careful pace of a forty-one-year astronomer royal, to the small careful door of the chamber. She seals the sheet at the door. She goes out.
The chronicler will note, for the close of the chapter, that the small careful sentence on the sheet is not the sentence of a queen declaring war. It is a sentence the small careful astronomers' use of the language of Avarath's court has, in the past four hundred years, used for the measurement of a war. The two are, in Avarath's small careful long discipline, not the same. The first is a decision a queen makes. The second is a reading a queen records. The chronicler observes that, on the seventh evening after the morning of the wall at Darklume, the queen of Avarath has, for the first time in her forty-one years on the throne, recorded a reading the small careful long discipline reserves for years the kingdom has measured a war.
The reading is, by the small careful long discipline, only that. The kingdom does not yet, by the reading, march. The kingdom does, by the reading, begin. The chronicler is content, at the close of the chapter, to observe that an alliance is signed only when the cost of not signing exceeds the cost of signing, and that the cost — by the small careful three rooms — has crossed.