Morning braided itself through shade ribs and stall cords, bright but not brash. The South Trade Gate still smelled faintly of night's cloth; the ground kept one-hand cool beneath the Market Shade Ribs. People came without hurry, the way water finds its level. Soluva walked from the Dawn Court carrying a narrow frame of brass and glass under one arm—a tool that wanted to be looked at more than admired.
She mounted it beside the Court where hands pass and eyes learn: the Fairness Board.
At first it showed nothing. Then three soft ribbons breathed across it for each staple that mattered this morning—grain, fruit, fabric, salt—and for each Volume Class—Hand, Arm, Cart, Wagon. The ribbons were Low, Median, High. No names. No faces. Only patterns reading themselves aloud.
"Fair is a light you can read, not a heat you can feel," Soluva said.
Under the Board, a thin slot warmed. It would accept a palm and print one line—Explain-Why—whenever an ask stepped outside the ribbon. Beside it, a hook for Offer Cards—pictograms with hand-signal sketches. Nearby sat the Substitute Tree, a plank carved with branches; each leaf was an option: if not salt → herb + dry heat stone; if not fresh fruit → dried + grain; if not fabric → patch set + thread. Solutions, not scolds.
Across the market, the Cycle Bells breathed twice—low tone for load, a quick double pip for clear—while the Bays A–C at the South Trade Gate inhaled and exhaled their 12/6 rhythm. Queue Braids painted In–In–Out with pass pockets every third post. At each stall mouth, a small Kind Pace Shield stepped forward: one extra arrow that stalls could not overwrite.
Soluva read the updated Trade Grammar v1.2 aloud just once—low, clean, and slow enough for the city to write it down in its knees. Pocket cards chimed Guide Tag and Count Ignore and went quiet. The Comprehension Glow warmed and cooled, and the Board's ribbons quivered the way a good tool does when it wants to prove you right.
"Let's see if the night's kindness lived to noon," Soluva said, and the market began to think.
Ribbons and reasons
At Bay A, grain's Median ribbon sat steady. Two Door Workers counted Load Seal knots by feel, not by face, and the Cycle Bells kept time gently enough to make even impatience dignified. The Flow Meter posted like weather. Count refused to be anything else.
The Share Table swelled politely. Voices knocked once on the hush cap and remembered the rule that had saved the night: Hands talk; voices rest. A Hushling lowered room tone one thumb anyway and wrote the reminder as a sentence along the table's lip where eyes read without thinking. People began to speak in the language the city had learned—fingers, palms, nods.
At a fruit stall, a seller raised two fingers toward the Fairness Board—band-check—and an elder beside her smiled at not being left behind. She was shown the ribbons as if they were a map, not a weapon. She nodded, offered Median, added a Care Knot to a basket for the Breath Hall spur, and the stall air cooled a degree. The Kind Pace Shield at her feet did not need to argue to be obeyed.
The Board took pattern-only logs every thirty-six breaths. The ribbons adjusted a breath at a time, like a good reader taking in a hard chapter. No names. The pencil at the Market Ledger whispered what/why and chose to believe that secrets did not make fairness truer.
"If the ask is hot, say the why," Soluva reminded the frame, and the slot warmed as if it had been complimented.
Shadow haggling
Heat tried anyway, indirect the way it likes to be. At the Share Table, a pair of sellers drew a buyer under a shade rib's shadow—not out of malice, but because that is where secrets feel shinier. Voices rose into the hush to tug grain's ribbon up and down like a sheet refusing a bed.
The Warm Whisper Lines scrolled across the rib:Hands talk; voices rest.The reminder did not blush. It had work, and language is a tool.
A Hushling set a thumb on room tone and made quiet kind instead of loud's opposite. Soluva walked without announcing herself. She pointed to the Board. The three looked, and the ribbons contradicted the whisper: their ask sat above High—not wrong, but hot. The seller put a palm to the Explain-Why Strip. It printed a single line, warm for one breath:
storm ruined half our crates.
The words folded into the Market Ledger without a name, and heat turned from push into reason. The buyer leaned on the Substitute Tree: dried fruit + grain. The ribbons quivered, then widened their Median a hair for fruit. The hush held. The children watching learned the trick you hide in your shoe: when price becomes story, panic has less mouth.
The Pagelet at the corner logged with the joyless pride of someone who understands that clarity is a gift.
Shadow haggling → Warm Whisper Lines + Band-Check + Explain-Why (storm loss). Trade pivoted via Substitute Tree. Scale 1 (Tidy).
"Options, not rush," Soluva said. The rib seemed to listen.
Bay hogging
At Bay B, a Wagon full of stone cloth and hinge kits missed Clear twice—once from optimism, once from habit. The Cycle Bells double-pipped and waited the way rain does when it knows you will learn eventually or be wet.
A Door Worker put two palms up and drew a small circle with one finger—two-step pull, then pass—and tugged open a Sleeve Bay pocket to receive the delay. The driver, realizing he had been using the world like his yard, threaded the wagon aside with a bump of humility and watched three Cart lines exhale through the pass pocket built for exactly this moment.
On the cloth, someone had carved Return Courtesy into the Load Seal script: knot reopened within one speak window if swap agreed. It wasn't new law; it was old kindness posted where eyes could remember it first.
The braid resumed. The Flow Meter flicked rain again. The Ledger got its two-line truth:
Bay hogging → Sleeve Bay + two-step pull + pass; Return Courtesy posted. Scale 1 (Tidy); why: bay time fair.
No one applauded. They were too busy enjoying not having to.
Price panic flicker
Rumor walked lightly: salt short. It tried to teach the Board to be dramatic. The Fairness Board did not, but it widened Median for salt a finger-width to carry the whisper without letting it whip. The Substitute Tree lit two leaves—herb and dry stone heat—and sent a soft radiance toward stalls that had both.
Warm Whisper Lines along the Share Table reminded without scolding:Options, not rush.
A Glowbud clipped a Lantern Hood on a showy lamp that wanted to sell panic like carnival. Leaflings rotated a shade rib leaf to keep the Kind Pace Shield in clean view. The rumor made one more lap and grew bored. A child got a leaf-stamped spice packet and did not cry for salt.
Gifts that don't clump
Kindness loves an audience. At the lane edge, gifts drifted toward stalls like petals toward a drain. The line of movement began to tug itself into a clump. A Door Worker gestured toward Gift Stands with two fingers and a circle; the stands warmed their placards—Gift without clump—and looked useful by not looking proud. The drift switched vectors.
Two baskets wore Care Knot ribbons and walked themselves (with help) to the Breath Hall spur. A Pagelet tied an extra blue thread to one and wrote why with a small, clean pencil. Nobody said thank you out loud because No thank tax lived on the Gift Rules board; relief was the currency.
"Care first," the Heart ring plaque said from far off. It didn't need to shout.
Children tune the edges
In the Play Yard, Child Guilds had signed in for a market lap. Glowbuds patrolled beaming stalls and trimmed over-glow down to pretty from pushy, grinning because it felt like catching a joke before it talked over someone. Leaflings adjusted a rib leaf so the Kind Pace Shield's arrow wouldn't fall into shadow; the arrow glowed, grateful to be seen. Line-Walkers refreshed faded stall arrows with chalk-light that only appears if you read the child sentence aloud. Elders waited, pointed, learned to read the hand line too. Pagelets stood beside them and traced the Board's ribbons in the air while explaining Low/Median/High with apples and stones. The Growth Rings above the Yard's gate blinked Small Fix twice and then minded their business.
"Hands talk; voices rest," a Hushling whispered to a vendor who hadn't noticed his story had gotten louder than his price. He smiled and spoke with fingers for a while. The line liked it better.
Explain-Why, three ways
The Explain-Why Strip earned its keep before noon. Three moments:
Fabric below band. An apprentice held up uneven weave, two coins below Low. She pressed the strip: apprentice practice. A buyer tapped gift on the Offer Card and left the price exactly where the apprentice had put it. The apprentice blushed in a way that made the stall taller.
Grain above band. A cart showed a price a knot above High. Band-check fingers pointed to the Board; the seller pressed the strip: caravan ox lame; repairs. The pass pocket opened, the first buyer took half at Median, the second buyer met the High inside the ribbon for the rest, and the Return Courtesy on the Load Seal got to be true. No one had to perform righteousness.
Spice hot ask. A buyer's eagerness outran the ribbon. Band-check; pause signal; both smiled, promised to return after one cycle. They did; the ask cooled inside High; the Board's ribbons didn't flinch; the market kept its manners.
The Ledger captured what/why and no more. Soluva kept the pen from telling stories it didn't own.
Tuning the noon swell
By noon, the Flow Meter tapped a little faster. The lane heat climbed—not anger, just energy. Soluva pointed to the braid. The In lanes widened one hand; the Kind Pace Shields at stall faces stepped forward a palm, asserting the right of pedestrians not to be turned into product. The Cycle Bells shaved Load down to 10 breaths for one hour; Clear stayed 6; the Board marked the temp change with a tiny dot so future readers would remember why today felt like this.
Shade held. Hush stayed kind. Count refused to become narrative.
An elder pressed her palm to the Fairness Board not to argue, but to feel the math. "It's warmer here," she said.
"It only looks that way," Soluva answered. "The Board widens under heat so reason can breathe."
The elder nodded as if she had known it since before the Sun was named.
Market mode dispute, small and kind
At the edge of Bay C, two carts tried to occupy the same Clear breath, all good intentions and terrible geometry. The Dispute Stone put on its market mode and pulsed once, a pip small enough to whisper kindness. Two options appeared:
Rest (step aside; explain once)Repair (two-step pull; pass pocket)
They chose Repair. One cart reversed two steps on the bell's double pip; the pocket opened; the braid learned to be polite again. The Explain-Why Strip printed hurry from habit; the carts both laughed as if they had just met themselves and liked the introduction.
Posting what lasts
By late day, the ribbons on the Fairness Board breathed with less effort, like a singer warmed properly. The Substitute Tree dimmed to habit. The Gift Stands kept from clumping without begging. The Cycle Bells returned Load to 12 on their own. The Queue Braid lanes settled back to default width without sulking. The Kind Pace Shields stayed forward.
The Handbook Press in the Script-House produced three slim strips and slid them onto the Board's shelf.
Trade Guide v1.2 (signals set; Price Band gestures; Explain-Why prompt; Return Courtesy reminder).
Gift Guide v1 (off-lane stands; Care Knot ribbon; no thank tax).
Bay Cycle Chart (12/6 default; noon temp 10/6; Cycle Bells tones).
Guide Tag and Count Ignore stamped and faded. Door Workers tucked copies in belts. Pagelets offered a strip to elders and to any child who asked with the seriousness of people who want to belong to rightness.
Soluva pinned a small plaque above the Board—nothing fancy, just truth where fingers would graze it often:
If fairness needs hiding, it isn't.
She said nothing else. The plaque said enough.
Evening, with markets as roads
Light softened until stalls looked like open books. Fairness Board ribbons rose and fell like sentences finishing themselves without help. The Flow Meter ticked back to ordinary weather. The Count stayed obedient to its job. Hush and Shade folded themselves like napkins at the end of a meal you'd eat again tomorrow. People walked with shoulders not braced, which is the first proof a city is keeping its promises.
Soluva stood in the middle of the Share Table aisle and looked both ways down a road that wasn't stone so much as intentions aligning. "Markets are roads—let them keep their promise," she said softly, and the stalls nodded by not arguing.
She turned toward the open, unpaved square just beyond the South Trade Gate where dust liked to dance and travelers liked to teach. It needed a shape that would not turn culture into clump.
"Tomorrow," she told the ribs and bells and bands and Board, "we build a square for travelers—shade and schedule, songs without surge—a Caravan Commons."
The market answered by putting its tools away without hiding them.
The pen did not vanish. It waited, patient as a promise.