Chapter 6 The Ruling of the Rolls

The warden of the rolls came to Vail Street on the fourteenth of the eighth month, which was the day the roll was to be closed, and he came at the third hour, and he was not the warden of the rolls, which was the first thing Avelin noticed, because the warden of the rolls had been a man named Quist for eleven years and the man on her step was not named Quist. "Your name," said the man on the step. "Your rank." "Avelin Cindermill. Warden of the Hourhouse at Draymoor." "You have refused twice." "I have refused twice." "The roll is closed today." "I know." "I am here to record the third refusal, which is the refusal of the roll, and the record of the third refusal goes into the rolls and the rolls will read it for the next forty years, and the men of the foundry will read it, and the House will read it, and your standing will be recorded as 1174 until the exhaustion." "What is your name." "That is not the question." "Then I will not answer it." He sat down on the step without asking, which was either a kind of rudeness or a kind of respect, and he took the paper from his coat and he laid it on his knee and he opened it, and it was the ruling of the rolls, and it was written in the hand of a man who had been writing rulings for a very long time. "The House has ruled," the man said, "that a ward of the Hourhouse who has exhausted her standing is not entitled to the exercise of the attributes of rank beyond the standing, and that the exercise is a benefit, and that the benefit may be withheld." "The House has ruled many things." "The House has ruled this." "Then read the last line." "It is not mine to read." "Then I will read it." She took the paper from his knee. She read the last line, and the last line said that the ward would be measured at the next revision and that the measurement would be made by the man at the bench and that the man at the bench would be recorded in the rolls and that the ward could not refuse the measurement. "Sign here," said the man on the step. "I will sign the refusal." "You may sign the refusal. The refusal goes in the rolls. The refusal does not stop the measurement." "Then why are you here." "To record it." Avelin signed the refusal. She signed it with her left hand, because her right was the one with the band, and the man on the step took the paper and put it in his coat and he stood up and he looked at her for the first time. "You have a band," he said. "I have a band." "It reads 1174." "It reads 1174." "The House has ruled that it reads 1174." "The House has ruled that it reads 1174." "Then why does your arm read 1268." Avelin looked at her arm. She had the band bare, because she had been up at the fourth hour and the cuff had come down in the dark. "That is the metal," she said. "That is the second measure." "That is the second measure." "The House does not keep the second measure." "The House does not keep the second measure." "Then you are going to be measured by a man the House has sent, and the man will write a number, and the number will not be in the rolls, and the number will not be on your arm, and the number will be on a card, and the card will be shown to you once, and then the card will be put in the rolls, and the rolls will keep it, and no one will read it." "That is what happened last month." "That is what will happen next month, and next month there will be no Mabry at the Yard, and the man at the bench will be a man the House has sent, and the man the House has sent will not tell you what the number means." Avelin put her cuff back down. She put the brass under the cloth of the sleeve and she buttoned the sleeve and she buttoned the second sleeve too, because the cold had come up the long street and the cloth on the window was holding and the step was wet. "Who are you," she said. "My name is in the rolls." "Then I will read the rolls." "They will not read you back." She looked at him and she understood, in the way she understood things, that he was not a clerk and not a warden and not a man at the bench, and that he was a man who had been sent because the foundry had failed and the roll was closed and the House had decided that the thing to do was to send a man to Vail Street who would not be answered, and who would not be refused, and who would record the refusal and leave it there. "Will you stay for bread," she said. "I have recorded the refusal." "The roll is closed." "The roll is closed." "Then the foundry has no master, and two men have no place, and the House has a record of a refusal it will not read back, and you have a card with my name on it and you have a roll to close and you have a bench to send a man to, and you have been walking since the third hour, and you have bread in the rolls and the bread is on my table." He looked at her for a long time, and he did not move his face, and he did not say anything, and the long street went on behind him, and the Yard was striking its bell in the distance, and the bell was one bell, and he was a man who had been walking since the third hour. He did not stay for bread. He went to the Yard and he closed the roll, and the roll was closed on the fourteenth of the eighth month, and the foundry had no master, and two men had no place, and Avelin Cindermill sat at the table with her daughter and the cloth held on the window and the lamps went out in the rooms of the house in order, and the second measure went on, and Mabry had eleven days left at the Yard, and the card with the number on it was in a drawer at the Yard with his name on the drawer, and the drawer was locked, and the lock was the House's, and the House would open the drawer when Mabry was sent, and the card would go into the rolls, and the rolls would keep it, and no one would read it. "Eleven days," Trenn said. "Eleven days." "Then we will use them." "We will use them how." "We will ask everything we have not asked yet." Avelin looked at her daughter. She looked at the list on the table, which was turned face down, and she looked at the step where the paper had fallen, and she looked at the window with the cloth on it, and she looked at her arm under the sleeve, and she understood that the eleven days were the second measure and that the second measure was the only thing in Draymoor that was honest, and that honesty was a thing that had to be spent like any other, and that it could not be kept. "Ask," she said. ---