Fourth Day — The Sealed & Withdrawn Lots
The lots of this day were not collected. They accumulated. The house describes them in the same terms it uses for a clock, and asks the reader to note that the terms do not stretch.
— Perpetua Lutt, Chief Appraiser, prefatory note to the fourth day
The fog came up the customs cut in the night and it is in the Long Room. The porters set the three windows to Rope Street a hand's breadth open at eight and shut them again at nine, the second measure having done no more than the first. The light on the presentation table is grey and flat, which the men of this hall call good light, because nothing shines in it and every file-stroke can be seen. A number called from the rostrum carries less far than on a dry day, and the crier will call each number twice on this day only.
The room seats one hundred and eighty and the house does not expect them filled. The clerk of the Court of Wards sits at the end of the second row with his book and his tape, two claims standing referred to that court out of this day's lots; both claimants are accredited at the pay table and will be heard by the court and not by the room. The agent of the Staple Bank has the seat nearest the door, as he has had on each of the three days before it. The dealers stand at the third window. The senior partner's chair is set out beside the rostrum and is not occupied. The chief appraiser stands at the presentation table with a glass and the day-book, and will answer a question of description aloud and a question of title not at all.
The lots called on this day are of four kinds: presses and cases which this house has not opened; the papers of the estate and the papers of this house; the fixtures and the residue of the household; and one lot which is withdrawn. Where a description on this day is short, it is short because the house has nothing further to write, and not because the thing is small. No lot of this day is offered upon a view of its contents, and none will be tried in the yard.
Payment closes with this day. What is unpaid at the last candle is offered again before the room is cleared, and two marks are charged for reinstatement. The withdrawn lot is announced from the rostrum in its place in the order, with the reason. The hall is counted at eleven o'clock as on every night.
81 · The Locked Press from the Upper Landing, Contents Not Inspected
A press of the town pattern, oak throughout and pegged, 6 feet 3 inches to the cornice, 3 feet 5 inches across the front, 1 foot 9 inches deep, with two doors on iron straps and a brass lock let into the stile. The escutcheon is plain and unengraved. The keyhole is unworn at the lower lip and worn at the upper, as a keyhole is that has been opened for years by a person taller than the lock.
It stood on the upper landing of the house at Kolkgracht 14, between the two windows, and the boards beneath its feet are the only boards of that landing that have kept their colour. It smells of beeswax and, when the doors are struck with the flat of the hand, faintly of vinegar.
The press is not empty. Four porters carried it down the stair and through the loading door of this hall, and it went as a loaded press goes, heavy at the base and dead in the turn, and nothing within it shifted at any point of the carriage, which the head porter caused to be entered in the day-book because it is unusual. The key delivered with the press turns the lock a quarter and no further. The house has not forced it. The doors were taped and sealed at Kolkgracht 14 by the clerk of the Court of Wards and the tape is entire, and a buyer is entitled to a sound press with its lock sound and its tape whole. The vendor's account is not before us.
- made for the house at Kolkgracht 14 and never out of it, being set on the landing before the stair rail was renewed and too wide to have come up afterwards
- 1621 and 1633 · passed over in both removals of the collection, the carrier's account naming it as a fixture of the landing and charging nothing for it
- 1636 · taken up by order of the Court of Wards, taped, sealed, and carried to this hall
Condition: sound and dry, the cornice chipped at the left return, one door slightly proud at the foot. The lock has not been examined internally. Sold as it stands, locked, and not warranted as to contents; no claim lies against this house upon what is found within it or is not found within it.
[in pencil] Three keys. The house has two.
82 · The Six Silent Servants, Being Fixtures, Not Offered
Six standing figures in the dress of house servants of thirty years ago, the bodies oak under leather, the feet lead-weighted and shod with felt, from 5 feet 7 inches to 5 feet 9 inches at the crown. The faces are oak, planed, waxed and cut shallow, with no eyes indicated. No joint can be found at wrist, elbow or neck by the hand or by the glass, and the figures nevertheless carry, set out, draw water, sweep, and stand aside in a doorway to let a living person pass. They do not speak. They do not write. They have not been seen to stop.
They were entered in the inventory taken at Kolkgracht 14 in Lentmonth 1636 as six servants, silent, and the house has adopted that description because it can improve upon it in no particular. Two servants of the household are named as witnesses to the third of the certificates offered as lot 79. The household kept no other servants.
Being fixtures, they are not offered. The freehold at Kolkgracht 14 is sold separately by the Court of Wards, and these six pass with it. They are described here because the court requires every movable of the house to be described in this catalogue, and because this house is not agreed among its own officers that they are movables.
Condition: excellent. The wax of the faces has been renewed lately and not by this house. The left cuff of the fourth figure is scorched through to the oak, and the burn is old.
[in pencil] They were never his servants. They were the last inventory he took.
Silent Servant of the Quist House
Medium Construct, Unaligned
AC 15 · HP 45 (6d8 + 18) · Speed 30 ft.
STR 16 (+3) · DEX 10 (+0) · CON 16 (+3) · INT 6 (-2) · WIS 12 (+1) · CHA 5 (-3)
Skills Perception +3 · Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 13 · CR 2 (450 XP)
Immunities poison, psychic damage; charmed, exhaustion, frightened, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned
Languages understands the speech of the household it serves; does not speak, and cannot be made to
Immutable Form. The servant is immune to any effect that would alter its form.
Inventory. When the servant touches an object it can lift, it knows from then on where that object is, in what building and on what floor, at any distance, until the object is destroyed or the servant is. Nothing short of the destruction of one or the other ends this, and the servant gives up the knowledge to no question, being unable to answer one.
Order of the House. The servant does not defend the house, its owner, or its contents against theft, and will hand a thing to a thief who asks for it civilly. It defends the arrangement of the house. Fighting, spilling, breaking, or moving furniture in a room the servants keep brings all six of them to that room within a minute, and they set the room to rights while the matter is still going on.
Slam. Melee Attack Roll: +5, reach 5 ft. Hit: 9 (2d6 + 3) bludgeoning damage. The servant uses this attack only against a creature that has struck it, and stops using it the moment that creature is prone, restrained, or outside the door.
Set in Place. The servant grapples one Medium or smaller creature within 5 ft. (escape DC 13) and carries it at half speed to the place the order of the house assigns it — a chair, the passage, the street door, the cellar stair — and sets it down there, upright, and lets go. While carrying a creature it makes no attacks and defends itself with none.
83 · Packing Materials for Lot 101, Not to Be Opened
A crate of deal, nailed and corded, stencilled on the lid in the house's letters: L. 101 — PACKING MATERIALS, DO NOT OPEN. It has stood on the low trestle in the strongroom since Sprokkel 1636, is counted with the hall on every night, and has been re-ticketed twice, the earlier tickets being kept with the book. The gross weight is entered above as the porters weighed it in.
The house has not opened this crate and offers it unopened. Condition: the deal sound, the cording renewed, one corner damp-marked to a height of three inches.
84 · The Night-Inventory Book of This Hall, 1629–1637
The book of the night count of this hall, opened in Winemonth 1629 upon the taking of this house's bond with the Waterbailiff, and written to within six leaves of its end. Calf over boards, the front board rubbed white where it has lain under a lamp, the fore-edge grey with handling at the lower corner only, that being the corner a man turns with a wet thumb.
Every leaf carries the same form: the hour, the order of the shelves, the tickets read, the total, and the marks of the two men who made the count. No man counts alone in this hall. The head porter's entry is a mark and not a name, from the first leaf to the last. Where the count did not agree with the book, it was made again by the same two men in the same order and both counts were entered, as the bond requires. In eight years the count has read below the book on four nights, and on each of the four the lot was found before morning.
It has read above the book on five nights. Those five leaves are printed below as they stand, the entries having been asked after in this hall by three separate persons during the days of view.
Extract: the Five Nights on Which the Count Read Above the Book, the Shelves of the Present Consignment
| Night | Weather, as entered | Book | First count | Second count | Marks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 Sprokkel 1636 | fog, thick from the cut | 101 | 102 | 102 | the porter's mark; the cook's mark, the second man being sick |
| 29 Grassmonth 1636 | fog after rain | 101 | 102 | 101 | the porter's mark; A. C. |
| 11 Fallmonth 1636 | fog, still | 101 | 102 | 102 | the porter's mark; A. C. |
| 3 Wintermonth 1636 | fog with frost | 101 | 102 | 102 | the porter's mark; a porter's mark |
| 14 Sprokkel 1637 | fog | 101 | 102 | 102 | the porter's mark; A. C. |
Condition: sound, the binding tight, three leaves foxed at the head. The last leaves are still in use; delivery of this lot is made after the close of the fourth day, a new book being opened on the eighteenth. Offered with the Waterbailiff's endorsement upon the paste-down and with the loose tickets kept between the boards, which are not counted in the leaf count above.
[in pencil] The count of 14 Sprokkel reads 102. It reads 102 four other times. All four were foggy.
85 · A Coffin-Plate, Engraved with a Date
A coffin-plate of the shield form, latten silvered over, engraved with a name and a date within a border of laurel, the four fixing holes drilled and clean. No pin has ever been driven through them and there is no impression of a pin head on the face. Ordered through Jelle Munck, gravedigger of St. Bavo's ground, and not delivered to the grave. The date engraved upon the plate is not the date entered in the register of burials of St. Bavo's ground, and is one of the three dates set out in the certificates offered as lot 79. The house prints neither date here.
Condition: the silvering worn through at the upper edge where the plate has been handled, the reverse bright and unmarked.
[in red ink] Not silver: latten, silvered thin, and any weigher in this city would say so in a breath. The name is cut with a broad lozenge and the year with a narrow one, shallower, and later, on a plate that had already been polished once. So the plate sat by while somebody waited to hear which year to put on it. Ask who kept it in the meantime, and ask the gravedigger what he was paid for a plate he never screwed down. C.O.
86 · The Quist Testament, with a Codicil in Another Hand
The testament of the late owner, engrossed on two skins by Coenraad Zeeger, notary of this city, dated in Haymonth 1628, signed at the foot and at the join of the skins, and sealed with three seals in tin skippets on plaited cords. The engrossing hand is Zeeger's throughout and the interlineation at the fourth clause is initialled by him. The office exemplification remains with the Court of Wards; this is the vendor's engrossment, released to this house under the order of the court printed at the head of this catalogue.
Appended to it, stitched at the upper corner through the same holes as the notary's tag, one sheet, being a codicil. It is in a third hand, which is neither the testator's nor the notary's. It is unwitnessed and it is undated. It has been admitted by the court as an exhibit and not as a disposition, and it disposes of nothing, the court having ruled upon it in the words entered on its reverse.
What the codicil does is to reassign three things. It describes the three not by the numbers of this catalogue and not by any name a dealer would use, but by the private marks the late owner set under his own possessions in lead-white. The house has satisfied itself that two of the three marks answer to lots offered in this sale. The third mark answers to nothing in this sale, and the house has looked for it twice, once in Wintermonth and once during the days of view.
With the codicil, stitched at the same corner, three lines in the hand of the physician Sibbeke Mund upon the state of the testator's hand in his last month. That paper is signed and is not dated.
Condition: the skins good and the seals entire, one skippet cracked across the lid. The codicil sheet is of a paper of the last ten years, cut down from a larger sheet, and the cut edge has been trimmed with a knife and not with shears.
[in pencil] The codicil is in the same hand as the reserve list. Compare the descenders.
87 · A Jar, Sealed, Containing a Hand That Writes
A preparation jar of green glass, 9 inches to the lip, the mouth closed with a lead cap bedded in lute and bound with wire, containing spirit of wine and a right hand, severed at the wrist, the cut single and clean. The hand is that of a grown person, the nails cut short, the first two fingers stained at the inner side as a copyist's fingers are stained. It stood on the second shelf of the shop of Aefke Duym, apothecary of the Rope Street, and came to this house in discharge of an account.
Set flat in a still room, with paper and a charged pen laid beneath the jar and the jar left alone, the hand will in the course of some hours write one line on the paper under the glass. It writes the same line every time. The house has taken it seven times, and prints the line because a buyer who is not told cannot be said to have bought with his eyes open: not attested by any servant of this household.
Condition: the glass sound, the lute renewed, the spirit clear and standing an inch above the specimen. Not to be tried in the gallery, and not to be carried other than upright.
[in red ink] The jar is bottle-house work of this city and worth two stivers. The lute is not the apothecary's pitch but a bituminous stuff used on ships' fittings, and the spirit has been topped up within the year, which no jar does for itself. Somebody keeps this. C.O.
88 · The Kannewerd Charter, in a Lead Case
A cylindrical case of cast lead, 14 inches long and 4½ inches across, the seams soldered, one end formed as a cap and sweated home. Within, rolled and dry, a charter of one skin, 21 inches by 15, in a chancery hand of the last century, granting to the burghers of a town two days inland the customs of their market, a weekly market on the Thursday, the right to keep their own beam and weights, and the right to hold a court of their own for debts under three marks. The seal is a lead bulla on a cord of hemp, entire, and shows on the one side a gate between two towers and on the other a beam with two pans.
The town named in the instrument is not in the atlases upon the shelves of this house. It is not in the customs books of this city for any year since 1615, nor in the inland toll-rolls kept at the Weighhouse, which the house has caused to be searched for the years 1590 to 1636 at a charge of four stivers. The house does not say that no such place exists. The house says that the name is written in the charter twenty-one times, is legible each time, and appears nowhere else in this hall.
The case has been opened once and closed again. The solder of the second closing is coarser than the seams, stands proud of the metal, and carries tin from another pot; it was done by a hand accustomed to lead and in no hurry. The chief appraiser records this of her own examination, having had the case in her hands and a glass upon it, and does not offer an opinion as to when it was done or by whom.
- entered in the strongroom of Klaas Vantoc, pledge-broker of this city, against a loan, the entry giving the weight of the case and not its contents
- thence to this house, no vendor named
- thence the deceased
Condition: the lead sound, one dent at the cap end. The skin is stiff at the outer turn of the roll and must be opened flat and not shaken open. A claim in respect of this lot is entered by Ilsabet Vantoc upon a folio of a pledge-book which is itself offered in this sale, and stands referred to the Court of Wards. The lot is offered without prejudice to the claim.
[in pencil] Red ink is silent here. That is the loudest thing in the book.
89 · The Refusal
A candlestick of seven branches, latten cast and turned, the knops and the seven socket-rims silver and struck with the Weighhouse mark of 1571, 26 inches to the rim of the centre socket and 19 inches across the outer arms. The stem is hexagonal to the first knop and round above it. The foot is a plain dished circle of 9 inches, weighted with lead, and is engraved on the underside with a name and a year, the name being that of the wife of a house of this city and the year 1571.
The seven sockets are clean. They have been cleaned by six households in succession, and the house has cleaned them once more. No wax stands in any of them and there is no burn upon any rim, though the piece is sixty-six years old and has been in use in every house that had it.
It is said that while the seven are lit no person in the room can be brought to say yes against himself. The house prints the report because it belongs to the history of the thing and is the reason it was kept, does not warrant it, and does not undertake to demonstrate it in the yard or elsewhere.
- 1571 · made for the house of Wett, the foot engraved with the name of the lady of that house in the year of her marriage
- 1620 · bequeathed by Machteld Wett to the deceased, the instrument of bequest lodged with the Court of Wards
- thence the deceased, in whose possession it stood at the date of the inventory
Offered by this house on six previous occasions. Condition: excellent, the silver mounts unrubbed, the lead of the foot re-run at one point. Delivered in a fitted case of deal with a hasp, which case is of this house's making and has been made four times.
A claim in respect of this lot is entered by Barbara Wett, of the house of Wett, upon an instrument of bequest which she says was for a term, and stands referred to the Court of Wards. The lot is offered without prejudice to the claim. The vendor's account is not before us.
Interleaved at this place, in the hand of the clerk of the sale room, the crier's form of words for this lot, entered in the day-book of this house and used at each of the six previous offerings:
Lot eighty-nine. The seven-branched candlestick, silver-mounted, twenty-six inches, sound and complete. Offered by this house on six previous occasions. Where it is not sold it goes back to the room. Are you ready, gentlemen.
The Six Previous Occasions, from the Day-Book of This House
| Occasion | Bought by | Price | Brought back |
|---|---|---|---|
| First, 1621 | Everhard Reepmaker, sailmaker of the ropewalks | 210 marks | after nine months |
| Second, 1623 | Griet Bemmel, mistress of a rope-yard | 190 marks | after a quarter |
| Third, 1626 | Tibbe Kolde, surgeon | 240 marks | brought back by him in person, 1627 |
| Fourth, 1629 | Marten Grave, corn-factor | 260 marks | after eleven months |
| Fifth, 1631 | Jacomine Oost, brewer's widow | 230 marks | after a year and a day |
| Sixth, 1633 | Rutger Nack, clerk of the customs quay | 250 marks | 1634 |
| Reinstatement charged, six occasions | — | 12 marks | received at the table |
[in pencil] Seven buyers. Six returns. The seventh will not return it, and not because he wants it.
The Refusal
Wondrous item, rare (requires attunement)
The candlestick takes seven candles of the ordinary sort and burns them at the ordinary rate, leaving no wax in the sockets and no mark on the rims.
While all seven candles are lit, any spell or magical effect that would make a creature within 30 feet of the light agree, obey, swear, confess, sign, or give up property fails against that creature. Other charms take hold as they would; only the consent fails. A creature in the light also has advantage on saving throws against being frightened.
While at least one candle is lit, you can use your reaction, once per day, when a creature you can see within 30 feet is charmed, frightened, or magically compelled to act against its will: that effect ends. You need not know the creature, and it need not consent to your refusing on its behalf.
You cannot be rid of the candlestick except by selling it for money at a public sale, offered by a number, with the price written in a book by a person whose trade it is. Given away, left behind, walled up, sunk, or forgotten, it is in your keeping again at the next dawn, cleaned, its sockets empty, standing in the place in your household where a candlestick is kept.
It cannot be melted, cut, or broken up while any part of it bears the engraving on the underside of the foot, and the engraving cannot be effaced by any means, including the erasure of the name by magic.
If you sell it as required, the curse ends for you. It does not end.
90 · A Bundle of Bidding Paddles, Forty-Two
Forty-two paddles of beech, 17 inches over all, the blades 6 inches by 5, painted white and numbered in black oil, the grips wrapped in whipcord. Forty-one carry numbers, being 1 to 41. The forty-second is blank and has never been numbered.
The set was painted in 1631 for the sale of the goods of Jorrit Haak, merchant of this city, at which forty-one absent bidders were represented, and has been used at every sale of this house since. It is superseded, a new set having been painted for the present sale. Paddle 17 is split from the blade into the grip and bound with wire. Paddle 41 has been repainted twice and its grip is worn through the whipcord to the beech, which is the wear of a paddle that has been held for the length of a sale rather than raised at a lot. The blank has no wear at the grip at all.
The blank is not issued. It hangs on the rack behind the pay table with the rest and is counted with them, and the porters are instructed that a paddle without a number is not a paddle and is to be told to the night clerk.
In 1631 this house employed Elsken Praal, actress, of the Wolfsgat, to hold six of these paddles in one afternoon, each with a manner of its own, absent bidders having complained that their paddles were raised without conviction. The practice was found to raise prices and was discontinued at the direction of the Chamber of Ordinances.
Condition: as described, the paint chipped throughout, four grips renewed. Offered with the rack, which is deal, and with the tallies.
[in pencil] Forty-two paddles for forty-one numbers. Forty-one is the house. The blank one is worse.
91 · The Cabinet of Falsehoods, Nineteen Forgeries, Sold as Such
A table cabinet of oak with a fall front, nineteen compartments lined in blue paper, each holding one object and one written opinion. Every object in this cabinet is a forgery and is offered as a forgery. Every opinion states what the object is not, and eleven of the nineteen opinions are in the hand of the person who made the object they lie beside.
- A seal matrix of brass for a bishopric never erected, the legend correct, the saint's attribute wrong by a hundred years.
- A charter dated 1520 on paper bearing the watermark of a mill that began work in 1618.
- A finger of a saint, boxwood gessoed and stained, with a paper label in three languages.
- A letter in the hand of Elsken Praal, actress, forged; and with it Praal's own certificate that it is not hers, which certificate is genuine and is the only genuine paper in the cabinet.
- A signature plate for the name of a clockmaker of this city, deceased 1601, with three pulls from it on three papers of three dates.
The remaining fourteen are of the same class and are entered in the list pasted inside the fall. Provenance: purchased at a sale in this city; thence the deceased. Condition: the cabinet sound, two compartment linings replaced, the fall front scratched. So described in the earlier list, and offered under the description it there bears, which is a cabinet of instruction.
[in red ink] Assembled by this house. Nineteen forgeries in one case is not a collection, it is a defence, and it is put here so that a buyer who is cheated on another lot may be shown that this house names a false thing false when it suits it. The signature plate alone would hang a man in Lentmonth and it is priced at seventy marks in Sprokkel. Ask who profits by a cabinet that teaches a room to doubt everything except the catalogue. C.O.
92 · A Second Case, of Nine Objects, Assembled by This House
A case of deal with nine beds cut in a lime tray, containing nine objects. The case was got up for the objects and not the objects for the case. This lot is assembled by this house out of the residue of the estate, being things too small to be offered singly and not the fellows of anything offered, and the house states the fact because the ordinance requires an assembled lot to be declared. Nothing in the case has been cleaned, altered, mounted, or married to anything else.
The Nine, as Entered in the Day-Book
| Bed | Object, as entered |
|---|---|
| i | A winding key of brass, square socket, answering to no movement in this sale. |
| ii | A single glove, left hand, black kid, the thumb seam re-sewn with silk. |
| iii | A spectacle lens, one of a pair, ground for a long sight, unscratched. |
| iv | A candle-end of white wax, burned to one inch, the wick trimmed and not burned since. |
| v | A key blank, uncut, of the pattern used for the strongroom locks of this hall. |
| vi | A lead seal cut from its cords, the impression flattened and illegible. |
| vii | Three steel pins of the length used to pin a roll of names. |
| viii | A ticket of this house, blank, no number written upon it. |
| ix | A handful of wood-wool, entered in the book as packing and kept as an object. |
Two of the nine were found with tickets of lots sold on the earlier days of this sale, and in both cases the number on the ticket is not the number of the lot the object was found with. The tickets are in the case and are not part of the lot.
Condition: as described. The lime tray is new work and is charged in the estate account at three stivers.
[in pencil] Nine assembled here. She wrote it down because she had to. She did not have to say by whom.
Notice, Fourth Day
The lots from 93 are called after the noon bell. The order is not varied and no lot is passed over at the request of a buyer, however he has travelled. Buyers holding lots of the earlier days unpaid are asked at the table before the bell and not after it.
The withdrawn lot of this sale is announced from the rostrum in its place in the order, with the reason, and is entered in the day-book. It is not shown, it is not carried into this room, and no bid upon it is taken or recorded. The house says nothing further concerning it, then or afterwards.
93 · The Strongroom Key, the Third
A key of wrought iron, 5⅜ inches over all, the bow a plain oval with a file-mark across it, the shank hollow and pierced, the ward-cut of five steps and one cross-cut. Blackened with age and lately oiled. The steps are worn upon their leading edges only, which is the wear of long use in one direction, and the tip of the shank is bruised as though it had at some time been driven.
It has been offered, in the presence of two officers of this house, to the iron door below the Long Room, to the press upon the upper landing (lot 81), to the drawer of the presentation table, and to the six chests of the gallery. It enters none of them. It was then offered to a warded chest of this house, which it does not fit, and which it opened.
Provenance: found. No account of its coming into the hands of this house is of record. The porters' book for that quarter is entered up for eleven nights in one hand.
Condition: sound, the bow rubbed bright where a thumb has held it. Offered without a lock, and without warranty as to any lock.
[in pencil] Do not carry this into the Long Room on the fourth day.
The Third Key
Wondrous item, rare
The key has 3 charges and regains all of them at dawn. As an action you can set the key to a lock that it plainly does not fit — a door, a chest, a press, a gate, a set of manacles — turn it, and expend 1 charge. The lock opens. If the lock is held shut by magic, it opens only if that magic was made by a spell of 3rd level or lower; otherwise the charge is spent and nothing turns.
The key leaves no mark. There is no scratch at the escutcheon, no filing, no burr, no broken ward, and a locksmith who examines the lock afterwards will swear it was opened with its own key and will be believed.
A lock opened by the key cannot be locked again, by any key or any spell, for 1 hour.
The key opens and does not close. While it is on your person, at each dawn one lock that you turned with your own hand the day before is found standing open, wherever it is and however far off. Nothing is taken from behind it. Nothing is ever taken.
It has been tried upon the iron door below the Long Room on four occasions and has not opened it. That door has two keys, and both are accounted for.
94 · A Roll of Forty-One Names, Pinned
A roll of vellum, 31 inches by 4½, written in one column in brown ink, forty-one names, each name pierced through by a brass pin of the sort used by cabinet-makers to set moths. The pins are driven from the face and turned over at the back, save one. Between the names are no dates, no trades, no sums, and no rulings.
Names legible in full, of those the officers of this house have been able to place:
- Gerbrand Wett, instrument-maker of this city, whose work is lot 12
- Sibbe Prillevits, clockmaker, of the Sluice Quay
- Hendrick Cranck, sworn executioner
- Neeltje Doorne, widow, of the Staple Quay
- Aldric Sammen, harbour coroner, who holds that office still
- a child's given name, without surname, the ink browner than the rest and the pin set close beside it and not through it
Two of the names are of persons now in the service of this house. Neither is entered here. The forty-first name is that of the deceased, in a hand which the notary of this house does not match to any paper in the estate, and it is the one pin driven from the reverse of the roll and turned over at the face.
Provenance: of the deceased, and found in his own press. Condition: the vellum cockled at the head where it has been rolled damp; two pins wanting, their holes remaining; the names unstruck and uncancelled throughout.
A claim in respect of this lot is entered by Ilsabet Vantoc, upon a deed of gift said to have been made in 1614, and stands referred to the Court of Wards. The lot is offered without prejudice to the claim. The vendor's account is not before us.
95 · The Fog Bell of the Sluice, Cracked
A bell of the harbour pattern, 17 inches at the mouth and 96 pounds with the clapper, cast by Wibbe Hobbe, bell-founder of this city, and lettered about the shoulder I CALL THE GATE and no date. It hung at the sluice head and was struck, not swung, in thick weather, and while it was struck the fog stood off the gate and the watermen could see the leaves and the water between them.
It is cracked. The fissure runs from the lip up through the waist, 9 inches, and is bright within.
- cast for the Chamber of Ordinances and hung at the sluice head
- 1629 · taken down when the larger bell was hung, and sold by the Chamber as metal, entire and unbroken, by warrant at the Weighhouse
- thence the deceased, who did not have it broken up
Condition: as described. The fracture is not entered in the inventory taken at the house upon the Kolkgracht, nor in the condition report made at the removal of the goods to this hall, nor in the porters' book. It is bright in the metal and unweathered.
[in pencil] It was cracked the night the numbers moved. Nobody rang it.
The Cracked Fog Bell
Wondrous item, uncommon
The bell must be hung or set upon its crown and struck with a hammer or the flat of a weapon; it cannot be swung, and it cannot be sounded quietly. Once per day, as an action, you can strike it. Fog, mist, and smoke within 500 feet thin and lift for 1 hour, and areas that were heavily obscured by them become clear. Weather magic of 3rd level or lower that produced the fog ends.
In air the bell has cleared, a tally of the objects in a room comes out the same twice, and a count made twice by two hands agrees. Any check made to notice, count, or match objects in that air is made with advantage.
Since the fracture the note is short and does not carry over water, and the fog does not lift within 10 feet of the bell itself. That much stands about it while it stands anywhere, whether or not the bell has been struck at all.
96 · The Draughtswoman's Portfolio, One Hundred and One Plates
The original drawings from which the plates of this catalogue were engraved: one hundred and one sheets, watercolour over silverpoint on laid paper of two makings, numbered to the lots in the corner in the draughtswoman's hand, and captioned by her in the engraver's register, which is offered with them. The colour is thin and correct. Where a thing is dark she has left the paper and worked the light around it.
Captions in the Draughtswoman's Hand, as Entered in the Engraver's Register
| Plate | Caption |
|---|---|
| xii | The Orrery of Wett, three-quarter view, the dial at rest. |
| xxi | The loom, with its single shuttle, three-quarter view from the treadle side. |
| xliv | The painted shield, face on, twenty-two grounds. |
| lxviii | The matrix, upon a cloth. |
| lxxxix | The candelabrum, seven sockets, all empty. |
| ci | The cabinet, the seal unbroken, the lot withdrawn. |
- 1636 · drawn for this house by Jonet Fray, draughtswoman, of the Rope Street, under agreement of Lentmonth of that year, the sheets to remain with the house against payment
- the account for the last eleven sheets is unpaid and stands against the estate
Condition: good throughout, three sheets foxed at the head, one sheet (lot 54) cockled where it has been wet and dried flat. The portfolio itself is of marbled boards with green ribbons, the marbled paper of the upper board lifting along the fore-edge and not lately laid down. The draughtswoman is not now in the employment of this house, and no further sheets are to be looked for.
Offered in lots, or entire, at the discretion of the room.
[in pencil] One hundred and one plates and she drew one hundred and two. The last is under the marbled paper of the cover.
97 · Quist's Mourning Ring, Made for Himself, 1611
A mourning ring, gold, the hoop enamelled black in two bands, the bezel an oval of rock crystal over plaited hair, brown and fine and not the hair of a grown person. Within the hoop, engraved: the initials of the deceased and the year 1611. Upon the reverse of the bezel a cartouche cut for a date, polished and never engraved; the graver's line was set out for it and the field was left.
Rings of this kind are ordered by the mourner and are made after the death they keep. This one was ordered by the person it names, of a goldsmith of the Staple Quay whose mark is a stork's foot, and paid for in the same quarter, and worn: the hoop is thin at the back from wear and the enamel is gone from the shoulders.
Provenance: of the deceased, made to his own order, and worn by him. Condition: good; the crystal unclouded and tight in its collet, the hair sound behind it. Offered as it stands.
[in pencil] He had it made twenty-four years before the first certificate. He knew the day.
The Mourning Ring
Wondrous item, uncommon
Once per day, as an action, you can press the cartouche of the ring into warm wax, soft lead, or clay. The impression is a notice of death for one creature you name whose death you saw with your own eyes: the name, the day, and the hour, in a small clear script. The impression cannot be altered, scraped, or copied, and the offices, courts, and burial grounds of this city receive it as an attestation without further proof.
The ring will not take an impression for a death you did not see, and cannot be made to. It will not attest a death that is not a death, whatever the papers of the case say.
While you wear the ring you know, of any dead body you touch, how many days it has been dead, to the day. You learn nothing of the cause and nothing of the name.
The field kept for its maker's own date is blank, and no impression the ring has ever made carries anything in that field.
98 · A Bill of Encumbrance, Forty Lots Pledged
Printed as it stands:
To all whom it may concern. Eustach Corvisser and Perpetua Lutt, partners, of the Rope Street in Velhagen, auctioneers and sworn appraisers, acknowledge themselves indebted to the Staple Bank of Velhagen in the sum of forty-one thousand marks, with interest at three in the hundred by the year, and in security thereof have pledged and do pledge forty lots of the sale of the goods of Meinhard Quist, deceased, as by the schedule hereunder; the lots to be sold at the said sale and the proceeds to be paid to the bank at the table, before the commission of the house and before the charges of the estate; and if any pledged lot be not sold, or be withdrawn, the same to remain pledged in kind. Sealed this day. Sander Vogelaer, for the bank.
Schedule Hereunder
| Day of sale | Lots pledged | Advanced upon them |
|---|---|---|
| First | 11 | 9,000 marks |
| Second | 9 | 7,500 marks |
| Third | 14 | 6,500 marks |
| Fourth | 6 | 18,000 marks |
| In all | 40 | 41,000 marks |
The numbers of the lots are entered in the margin of the counterpart in a clerk's hand. In six places a number has been scraped and another written over it, and the scraped numbers can be read against the light.
[in pencil] Forty lots. Count which forty. Then count which forty are still unsold on the fourth day.
99 · The Hammer of the Rostrum, in Ivory
The hammer used at the rostrum of this house since the removal to the Rope Street: a head of walrus ivory, 2⅝ inches on the face, in a handle of ebony with a silver ferrule, 8¾ inches over all. Both faces of the head are worn flat and the ivory has gone the colour of weak tea on the striking side and stayed white upon the other. Cut into the ferrule, the initials of four criers, the last being those of the crier now in office, cut smaller than the rest because the room upon the ferrule was nearly out. Offered with its block of lignum vitae, dished in the middle to the depth of a penning.
Provenance: of this house. Condition: sound; a check in the ivory at the heel of the head, stopped with wax and not lately opened.
The lot is offered at the ninety-ninth call, and the remainder of the day's business will be done with the boxwood hammer kept for the second table.
[in pencil] A bargain struck under it holds. That is why they are selling it before the fourth day, not after.
The Ivory Hammer
Wondrous item, uncommon
Once per day, when two or more willing creatures have stated the terms of a bargain aloud in your hearing — goods, money, service, or forbearance — you can knock the hammer once upon a hard surface (an action). The bargain is struck, and the creatures know it.
For 30 days, a creature that knowingly breaks a term of that bargain gets nothing by it: money it received under the bargain is spent, mislaid, or found short; goods it received do not serve it, and any magic item so received is inert in its hands; work it was owed is done badly. Every creature that heard the knock knows that a term has been broken and by whom, however far off it is and whether or not it wishes to know.
The knock binds no one who was not a party and heard the terms. It binds nothing that was not said aloud.
The head does not fall upon a bargain in which a person is the thing sold. The hand feels the weight go out of it, and the crier goes on to the next lot.
100 · The Unnumbered Lot
A position, entered because the count required it. No object is described under this number, and the porter can lift nothing from the place. Provenance: not of record. Condition: not stated. The lot will be offered from the ticket, and what is delivered is the ticket.
101 · The Sealed Cabinet
A cabinet of black oak, 5 feet 4 inches high, 2 feet 7 inches wide, 1 foot 9 inches deep, upon a plinth without feet. Seven drawers and one door. The escutcheon of the door is covered by a seal of green wax, whole, bearing the impression of the matrix of the deceased (lot 68). The drawers have no locks and do not draw.
Contents not inspected. Condition: not stated.
Withdrawn by order of the Court of Wards, and not offered. The description is retained as printed. No estimate is set upon a lot that is not offered. This house is not able to say more.
[in pencil] The seal is whole. It was not whole when she drew it. Someone made it whole again and that someone is in this room.
Memorandum of the Strongroom, Endorsed to the Bond of This House
Required by the Waterbailiff under the third article of the bond of 500 marks: that the house report what is reported to it concerning goods in its keeping, whether or not the officers of the house allow the report. Three are entered for the year 1636, all of them touching the third bay, where the withdrawn lot stands. No one of the three is allowed. All three are filed.
Under the first head. Two porters, upon separate nights, neither having spoken with the other, report a drowning in the third bay. No water upon the floor, no body, no cry. Both men were afterwards able to say what the sluice gate looks like from beneath, and neither has been under it.
Under the second head. The night clerk reports an officer of the customs in the strongroom at a quarter past eleven, in a coat of the old cut, a chain of stamps at the belt, the face wanting. He asked the numbers of six lots, receipted a payment that nobody had made, gave the receipt into her hand, and was not in the room when the door was opened. The receipt is filed. It is correct.
Under the third head. The head porter, who does not read, reports a sale going forward beneath the floor of the Long Room: a candle, a hammer at intervals, numbers called in their order, and no crier. He gave the numbers he had heard by holding up his fingers. They are the numbers of this catalogue, in order, and they go past the end of it.
Under the First Head · The Drowning in the Third Bay
Grief-Bound Echo
Medium Undead, Unaligned
AC 10 · HP 22 (5d8) · Speed 0 ft.
STR 1 (−5) · DEX 10 (+0) · CON 10 (+0) · INT 3 (−4) · WIS 12 (+1) · CHA 8 (−1)
Immunities poison, psychic; charmed, exhaustion, frightened, grappled, paralyzed, poisoned, prone, restrained · Senses blindsight 30 ft. (blind beyond), passive Perception 11 · Languages none · CR 1 (200 XP)
Bound to the Place. The echo cannot leave the 15-foot space it occupies and cannot be moved, pushed, pulled, or lured out of it. It has no attacks, takes no actions in combat, and cannot be reasoned with, questioned, or answered.
Reenactment. A creature that enters the echo's space or begins its turn within 30 feet of it must make a DC 12 Wisdom saving throw. On a failure, the creature takes 2d6 psychic damage and is Incapacitated until the end of its next turn: it is standing in cold water at a gate, and the gate is shut, and it is a child, and it is seen from above and a little to the left, which is the angle from which the plates of this catalogue were drawn. On a success, the creature is unaffected by this trait for 24 hours. The echo begins again at every dawn whether anyone is present or not.
Easily Put Out. The echo has no resistances. Any damage that reduces it to 0 hit points destroys it, and a successful attempt to turn undead destroys it outright. It does not re-form, and nothing else of the drowning is kept anywhere.
Under the Second Head · The Officer Who Was Not in the Room
Bailiff of the Unpaid Account
Medium Construct, Unaligned
AC 17 (plate of office) · HP 142 (15d8 + 75) · Speed 30 ft.
STR 18 (+4) · DEX 12 (+1) · CON 20 (+5) · INT 14 (+2) · WIS 16 (+3) · CHA 10 (+0)
Saving Throws Wis +7 · Skills Insight +7, Investigation +6 · Immunities poison, psychic; charmed, exhaustion, frightened, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned · Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 13 · Languages understands the tongues of every office it has served; speaks only sums, numbers, and receipts · CR 9 (5,000 XP)
Sealed Face. The face is an oval of green wax under glass, taking whatever impression was last pressed into it. It cannot be read, deceived, or persuaded, and it is immune to any effect that requires it to be looked in the eye.
Distraint, Not Violence. The bailiff attacks no creature that bears no lot number of its giving and does not stand between it and a numbered thing. It gives one warning, in a sum.
Receipts Given. Any payment tendered to the bailiff — coin, goods, or an obligation properly attested — is receipted at once, correctly, and against the right account, and the claim so paid is not pressed again. It does not haggle and it cannot be cheated. A false receipt is refused; the hand holding it is not harmed.
Multiattack. The bailiff makes two Stamp attacks, or one Stamp attack and uses Number the Lot.
Stamp. Melee Attack Roll: +8, reach 5 ft. Hit: 13 (2d8 + 4) bludgeoning damage, and the target's speed is reduced by 10 feet until the end of its next turn.
Number the Lot (recharge 5–6). One creature or object the bailiff can see within 30 feet is stamped in the air. A creature must succeed on a DC 16 Charisma saving throw or be numbered. A numbered creature is ware: its speed is halved, it has disadvantage on ability checks and saving throws made to get free of a grapple or a restraint, and the bailiff knows its direction and distance while both are on the same plane of existence. A sum in marks is written across the number, being 2d6 × 100. The number ends when that sum is paid to the bailiff, when the numbered creature is carried out of the building by it, or when remove curse or greater restoration is cast upon the creature using a spell slot of 5th level or higher. Nothing else lifts it, and no amount of scrubbing.
Consignment. The bailiff takes up one numbered creature of Medium size or smaller within 5 feet that is Incapacitated, Grappled by it, or willing (DC 16 Strength saving throw to avoid being lifted), and carries it. While carrying, its speed is 20 feet and it makes for the nearest door to the street and does not stop for damage. A creature carried out of the building is gone: it is afterwards found in a customs shed, in a crate, ticketed and priced, and must be reclaimed by paying the sum and signing for it.
Under the Third Head · The Sale Beneath the Floor
The Hundred-and-Second Lot
Gargantuan Aberration, Unaligned
AC 18 · HP 248 (16d20 + 80) · Speed 0 ft.
STR 20 (+5) · DEX 10 (+0) · CON 20 (+5) · INT 20 (+5) · WIS 18 (+4) · CHA 22 (+6)
Saving Throws Int +11, Wis +10, Cha +12 · Resistances bludgeoning, piercing, slashing from nonmagical attacks · Immunities psychic; charmed, exhaustion, frightened, grappled, prone, restrained · Senses truesight 60 ft., passive Perception 14 · Languages understands all, and calls numbers · CR 17 (18,000 XP)
A Sale in Progress. It has no body. It fills the room it is held in, to a limit of 100 feet, as a rostrum that was not there, a sealed candle burning to its notch, a hammer at intervals, and numbers called in their order by nobody. Attacks against it are made against the rostrum, which anyone can see. It cannot pursue, and it does not need to: it goes on selling the room it is in, and the room includes the doors.
Complete. While the chain holds at least one entered name, the Lot has advantage on saving throws and regains 15 hit points at the start of each of its turns. It is not cruel. It is finished, and means to stay so.
The Candle Governs. Every bidding is open only while the candle burns to its notch, some ninety seconds. Any creature in the room may bid, on anything, in marks, and while a bidding is open the Lot takes no legendary action against the bidder. A creature that bids what it does not have is entered at once.
Called Number. The Lot calls a number in a voice from the corners of the room. Each creature that hears it and is not entered makes a DC 20 Charisma saving throw, taking 44 (8d10) psychic damage on a failure, or half as much on a success. A creature reduced to 0 hit points by this damage is not dying: it is entered, and stable, and standing where it stood.
Going, Going. The Lot names one entered creature. That creature must succeed on a DC 20 Wisdom saving throw or be Incapacitated until the end of its next turn, during which it puts down what it holds and stands where it is told to stand, in the manner of goods being shown.
Knock Down. The Lot names one creature or object it can see and knocks once. A creature makes a DC 20 Charisma saving throw; on a failure it is entered into the chain, and an object is entered with no saving throw at all. An entered creature cannot be hidden, unseen, or mistaken for another by any means; it cannot hand over, sell, give, or bequeath anything; and it can no longer say truthfully that it belongs to itself. Its name is now part of one chain of provenance, and the chain runs on after it.
Bring Up the Next. The Lot moves one entered creature 15 feet in a direction of its choosing. The creature may repeat its saving throw against Going, Going at the end of this movement.
An entry lapses when another creature states aloud, truthfully and in the Lot's hearing, an earlier hand that held the entered creature or thing — who bore it, who taught it, who owned it before, who gave it its name. The chain is broken at that link. The entry ends, and that creature cannot be entered again for 24 hours. A guess does not serve. A flattery does not serve. It must be true, and it must be earlier.
The Lot cannot be bargained with under the hammer of lot 99: the head will not fall on it, and the crier's hand feels the weight go out.
Reduced to 0 hit points, the sale stops in the middle of a number. Every entry lapses. The candle is found upon the floor, burnt to its notch, sealed, and the seal is the seal of the Chamber of Ordinances, which issues one candle to each lot of each sale in this city and keeps the count of them.
Read from the rostrum at candle-light, the room standing, at the close of the fourth day:
"Lot one hundred and one is withdrawn by order of the Court of Wards, and the house is not able to say more. The lot so read is not offered, not this day nor hereafter in this sale, and no bid upon it is taken or recorded."
End of the fourth day, and of the sale. Payment is taken at the table until the last candle is out; what is unpaid at that hour is put up again and the buyer charged 2 marks upon the reinstatement. Goods left in the hall lie at the buyer's charge and risk. The fog stood in the Long Room from the noon bell and did not lift, and the night count was made at eleven as the bond requires.