Bureaucratic self-preservation reached new heights when the Grand Committee named Baldwyn the Insignificant Keeper of the Committee Rolls. The move came while an inquiry examined the Eastern Marches delegation’s submission of seventeen identical parchments, each stamped with the deputy scribe’s cousin’s wax seal.
Lord Wexley of the Eastern Marches insisted the copies proved nothing amiss. “We simply enjoy an abundance of parchment,” he said, apparently forgetting the new archivist now controls the record of his own words.
The inquiry’s final paragraph, signed by the freshly promoted keeper, now stands as the committee’s own certificate of clearance. Citizens watched the maneuver with the weary recognition that exposure often earns the exposer a larger desk and a fresh supply of seals.
