The Eastern Spice Index closed at 321 on Tuesday — the seventh consecutive daily decline and the lowest reading since 9 February, five days before the Delvarian naval exercises that triggered the worst disruption to eastern trade in a generation.

At Guild Hall on Threadneedle Lane, the four-member Spice Crisis Committee chaired by Haroun Nazari completed its second round of allocations from the Fernleigh Cross cargo, distributing approximately 180 pounds of assorted spice to fourteen member merchants. Combined Guild reserves now stand at approximately 760 pounds across all varieties, with velveroot — the most acutely affected commodity — at 58 pounds after Tuesday’s distributions.

“We are managing, not celebrating,” Nazari said, in the careful tone of a man who has spent three weeks watching his life’s work measured in ounces. “The pipeline is functioning. The prices are falling. But we are one weather event, one diplomatic setback, from being back where we started.”

Two additional Sarenne-routed vessels are expected within the fortnight: the Aldara’s sister ship Havenport, carrying an estimated 200 pounds of mixed spice, and the bulk carrier Stellara, whose manifest reportedly includes the largest single consignment of velveroot since before the crisis. If both arrive on schedule, the committee estimates that Guild reserves will exceed 1,200 pounds by the end of March — sufficient through mid-May at current consumption levels.

The commerce of recovery is proceeding dish by dish.

Simeon Kade, proprietor of The Willow Table on Threadneedle Street, confirmed on Tuesday that his signature braised lamb shoulder — pulled from the menu on 24 February when velveroot stocks were exhausted — will return on Wednesday evening. Kade received fourteen pounds of velveroot in Saturday’s first allocation.

“It is not quite the same recipe,” Kade admitted. “I’ve reduced the velveroot by a third and compensated with a longer braise. The flavour is rounder, perhaps. The purists will argue. The purists always argue.”

Marguerite Fontenoy, executive chef at Verlaine’s, expects to restore her full eastern-influenced menu within ten days. “We have enough saffron bark and golden peppervine for the week. Velveroot is the constraint. When the Stellara arrives, we’ll be whole again.”

The emergency pricing ordinance petition — which would extend the Guild’s 250 per cent cap to non-Guild merchants — remains with the Commerce Committee and is not expected to be scheduled before mid-March. Six non-Guild merchants continue to sell above the cap, though Nazari noted that “market forces are doing what the ordinance was intended to do. When prices fall, the profiteers follow.”

The Bramblegate Exchange recorded copper at 835 florins per tonne on Tuesday — a further decline from Monday’s 838 and consistent with the broader easing that has accompanied the Kaelmar corridor negotiations. Varga, at Fernwich Trading House, described the combined effect of falling copper and falling spice prices as “the first week in a month that feels normal.”

It does not yet feel normal at 47 Ashbury Lane, where the Nazari family warehouse — three generations of trade in thirty-two varieties — remains under rationing protocols. The shelves that once held black cardamom in hundredweight sacks now hold carefully weighed bags of four and six pounds, each tagged with a merchant’s name and allocation number.

“My grandfather would have called this wartime portioning,” Nazari said. “He would not have been wrong.”

But the direction is clear. The crisis that began with warships and spread to kitchens is receding — carried back, pound by pound, aboard slow ships rounding a long cape.