The message clerk asked me to sign for the letter before she let me read it.
I put my satchel on the floor and tried to make the name look like the one on my identity paper. The clerk compared them, turned the receipt around and passed me two sheets clipped together.
The top sheet carried a drawing of the Valdrake seal. I knew the broken point on the inner border. The handwriting beneath it belonged to the academy clerk.
"A transcript?"
"Authenticated by the sending station. Your household address is registered against yesterday's assessment dispatch." She pointed to the receipt times. "That seal impression is our record of the authentication. The original letter stays at their end."
On the lower sheet, Veylan's account of the examination ended with the same result I had signed yesterday. This was an academy copy, made here and attached here. Somewhere on an ordinary dispatch route, another certified copy was still going toward the Duke. He had not needed to wait for it.
