The envelope arrived at the Municipal Treasury at 9:47 on Tuesday morning. It was blue, sealed with the Continental Rating Agency’s embossed crest, and addressed to the Deputy Treasurer by name. Annabel Whitford opened it at her desk with a letter knife she has owned for eleven years. She read the first paragraph twice. Then she picked up the telephone.

The formal rating is “Satisfactory, Conditional” — the middle tier of the Agency’s five-level municipal scale. It is not “Satisfactory, Unconditional,” which would have been cause for champagne. It is not “Adequate,” which would have added perhaps 30 basis points to the coupon and made the entire exercise considerably more painful. It is, in the language of bond markets, enough.

Page 214 of the preliminary prospectus — the page that went out blank to six financial institutions on 25 March, the page that Cedric Haughton’s pen would fill or leave empty — now contains four paragraphs, two footnotes, and a rating that will determine the cost of public transport in Bobington for the next twenty years.

The conditions are three.

First: completion of the comprehensive geological and geothermal survey of the Greymoor Highlands by 31 December 2026. The Agency’s report notes that “domestic copper supply assumptions remain contingent upon geological findings not yet available.” In plainer language: the bond assumes Greymoor copper. The earth has not yet confirmed it.

Second: a formal copper hedging strategy, to be filed with the Agency within 60 days of the bond offering. The prospectus projects copper at 740 florins per tonne for procurement purposes. Copper closed Tuesday at 712 — the 24th consecutive decline, and comfortably below the projection. But the Agency wants protection against reversal. Haughton, one suspects, remembers the spike.

Third: Phase 2 of the tramway remains formally contingent upon “sustained copper price stability below 800 florins per tonne for a minimum of six consecutive months.” Phase 1 is cleared. Phase 2 is held in reserve.

The market reaction was swift and, by the standards of municipal finance, enthusiastic. Bond yields held at 3.85 per cent — precisely the indicative coupon in the prospectus. Had the rating been one tier lower, that coupon would have risen to 4.2 per cent or higher, adding an estimated 8 to 10 million florins per year in debt service over the 20-year maturity. That is the distance between “Satisfactory, Conditional” and “Adequate.” In florins, it is roughly the annual budget of the Fire Brigade.

Copper fell to 712 on the news — or perhaps on the continued momentum of a market that has been falling since 12 February. The Eastern Spice Index, that quieter barometer, eased to 248. The Bramblegate Exchange floor, by multiple accounts, was busy but calm. There was no cheering. Municipal bond traders are not, as a class, given to exuberance.

Whitford, reached by telephone, said only: “We have our page.”

Councilwoman Pryce, who has campaigned for the tramway for eight years, was seen in the Municipal Chamber corridors shortly after the announcement. She did not speak to the press, but was observed reading the rating letter for the third time while standing near the window overlooking the river.

Councilman Voss — the tramway’s most prominent sceptic, who voted for the phased approach in March — released a three-sentence statement through his office: “The geological survey condition is appropriate and prudent. The hedging requirement reflects sound financial discipline. I will review the full report before commenting further.”

The formal bond offering is now expected in the second week of May. Three of the six institutions that received the preliminary prospectus have already submitted expressions of interest — two from Bobington and one from Caldwell. The remaining three have until 14 April.

Haughton and Lark, the Agency’s assessors who spent five days in Bobington in March, are understood to have submitted their recommendation to the Agency’s board on 26 March — the day their preliminary assessment was described as “constructive but conditional.” The board convened Monday. The blue envelope was dispatched by overnight post.

The prospectus will now be reprinted with page 214 filled. Printers at Canford & Sons have been notified. Douglas Canford, the proprietor, was told to expect a revised page Tuesday afternoon.

“Most expensive page I’ve ever set,” he said. “Didn’t even need a full paragraph to change the city.”

He is not wrong. Phase 1 of the Veridan Corridor — seven stations, 8.2 miles, Docklands to Caldecott Square — can now proceed to formal financing. Groundbreaking remains targeted for late September, contingent upon the geological survey. The 6,000 workers that Patrick Seldon has spent months advocating for are one step closer to employment.

One step. Not there yet. The geological survey begins when the monitoring station is installed. The monitoring station arrives when the road is built. The road requires Works Committee approval on 9 April. Bobington does not build quickly. It builds in sequence.

But it builds. Page 214 says so.