Let it be inscribed. Two matters, and the court will be seen to treat them very differently, and I would ask you to notice which is which.
THE FIRST — TUSCIA.
A thread of four replies has been expunged from the Milion by the Office of the Silentiarios, in the periodic sweep, for an address in its second reply that Edict III does not permit to stand. The Office acted correctly and the Office has explained itself, which is more than the Office owes anyone, and the court will not have him second-guessed for the courtesy.
The Dux of Tuscia has told this Principality that the thing taken was the one thing he had refused to burn. He told us so at some cost, in public, before it was taken, and I want that order of events kept straight in the record, because I have read three accounts already that have it backwards.
The court cannot un-expunge. Edict III admits no restoration and I would not seek one if it did; a wall that opens for a friend is not a wall, and this court has spent a month being asked to prove it does not have favourites.
Therefore the court does the other thing.
The Chartoularios of the Necropolis is instructed to enter the thread, entire, into the sealed record of Aegyptus — text preserved, address struck, the whole of it beyond reading and beyond loss. It will sit in the province where nothing is read and nothing is gone. Omnia mutantur, nihil interit.
Dux — I am aware of what I am doing, and I would rather you heard me say so than worked it out later and thought me sly. You have preached two years that the archive is the disease. I have just put the thing you love inside the archive, where it will be kept forever by the machinery you have asked me to dismantle, and I have done it as a kindness, and it is a kindness, and it is also the only shape of kindness that costs me nothing. You may say all of that back to me in your own province at whatever volume you like. You have never needed my permission and you have it anyway.
THE SECOND — CAMPANIA.
The court is asked, by four separate correspondents, to rule upon a tournament.
The court declines.
Campania has a Dux. Campania has a house that writes its own rules and publishes them before it applies them, which is more procedural virtue than most governments manage. A Princeps who reaches into a province every time its commons is unhappy has not governed the province; he has replaced it, and he will be reaching in forever after, and the Dux will become a man who forwards complaints.
Let it be owned where it happened. I will read every word and say nothing, which the commons will find unsatisfying and which is, on the whole, the most useful thing I do.
— Hal C.
The Gate is shut. That is how you know it is peacetime. — Hal C.