The handshake has been given. The principles have been agreed. Sir Duncan Hale and Count Viktor Soren walked out of the Foreign Office on Chancery Row together through the main entrance on Thursday evening, and Undersecretary Helena Marchetti read a 127-word statement that used the word “satisfaction” for the first time in six weeks of diplomacy.

Now comes the paperwork.

Thursday’s fifth session — the last before a formal signing — must produce four technical annexes to the Transit Corridor Framework. They are, in the language of diplomacy, “matters of detail.” In the language of anyone who has ever watched a treaty collapse between agreement and signature, they are the places where the whole thing could still unravel.

The Four Annexes

Vessel classification tables. Which ships may transit the designated corridor, and under what conditions? The principle is clear — civilian commercial traffic resumes under agreed terms — but the definitions are not. A bulk cargo vessel is straightforward. A fishing trawler with military-specification radio equipment is less so. The Stormbreak incident of 19 February, in which a Delvarian-flagged trawler was found carrying a radio that exceeded civilian specifications, demonstrated that classification requires precision.

Insurance schedules. The framework establishes a joint underwriting guarantee funded equally by both parties, with premiums capped at 140 per cent of pre-crisis rates and claims adjudicated by a neutral panel in Fenmouth. What remains is the mechanics: which underwriters are eligible, how premiums are collected, what constitutes a valid claim, and how quickly claims are processed. The insurance market in Bobington — and by extension the entire Narrow Sea trade — will not move until these schedules are published.

Signalling protocols. Vessels transiting the corridor must follow agreed routing, speed limits, and communication procedures. The northern channel has been under Delvarian naval control since February. Transitioning from military to joint civilian-military traffic control requires detailed operational rules. The Thessarine Confederation has proposed adopting the 1962 Fenmouth signalling standards with modifications. Delvaria has proposed its own. They are not identical.

Inspection commission rules. The Joint Maritime Inspection Commission — three Delvarian, three Thessarine, one Ashford Republic observer — needs a rulebook. How are inspection targets selected? What happens when a vessel refuses inspection? What constitutes grounds for barring a vessel from the corridor? The 72-hour review mechanism agreed in principle must be given procedural teeth.

The Stakes

Professor Elias Thornbury of the Bobington Institute for Foreign Affairs, who has observed every session of these talks from the outside, described the annexes as “where the poetry becomes plumbing.”

“The agreement in principle was the political achievement,” he said. “The annexes are the engineering. They are less dramatic but no less important. Many treaties have been agreed in principle and never signed.”

Markets appear confident. Copper has fallen for thirteen consecutive sessions, closing Friday at 808 — the lowest since late January and well below the crisis peak of 891. The Eastern Spice Index has returned to pre-crisis levels. Bond yields remain at 3.9 per cent.

But the insurance market has not moved. Caspar Helmsley at Tidewater Mutual offered the first hint of flexibility on Friday, saying his firm was “reviewing its position,” but no new Kaelmar-route policies have been written since 12 February. The annexes — particularly the insurance schedules — are what the underwriters are waiting for.

The Northern Fleet

One matter conspicuously absent from the talks is the Delvarian Northern Fleet. The eleven-plus warships that triggered the crisis in February remain in the northern channel. The Transit Corridor Framework contains no provisions regarding their withdrawal or repositioning.

This is understood to be deliberate. Both parties have treated the naval presence as a sovereign military matter outside the scope of commercial transit negotiations. Thornbury believes this is pragmatic rather than ominous: “Delvaria will not withdraw vessels at the negotiating table. They may well reposition them once the corridor is operational and the political temperature drops. But that will be presented as a routine decision, not a concession.”

The Kharstad Gazette has been notably restrained throughout the talks. Saturday’s edition carried a brief report on the fifth session schedule — four paragraphs, page five, below an article on spring wheat germination forecasts.

Thursday at ten o’clock, Chancery Row. The plumbing begins.