They arrived on the 7:42 PM express from Caldwell on Sunday evening, carrying briefcases and, one imagines, a great deal of arithmetic.

Cedric Haughton, the Continental Rating Agency’s senior municipal assessor, and his colleague Adelaide Lark have been installed in offices provided by the Municipal Treasury on the second floor of the Municipal Chamber since early this morning. Their task is to assess Bobington’s creditworthiness ahead of the phased tramway bond issuance — the largest single act of municipal borrowing in the city’s history.

The bond prospectus is due to be circulated by the thirty-first of March. The Agency’s assessment will determine whether Bobington’s current credit rating is maintained, upgraded, or — in the scenario that keeps Deputy Treasurer Annabel Whitford awake — downgraded.

The difference is not trivial. The city’s current rating allows it to borrow at yields of approximately 3.9 per cent, the level to which the bond market rallied after the council’s unanimous vote on the ninth of March. A one-notch downgrade would raise borrowing costs by 40 to 60 basis points — adding, over a twenty-year bond, between eight and twelve million florins to the city’s total debt service.

“It is not an audit,” said Mrs Whitford, who will meet the assessors formally this afternoon. “It is an assessment of our capacity to service new debt alongside existing obligations. They will want to see the revenue projections, the contingency reserves, the geological survey mandate, and the phased implementation timeline.”

Mr Haughton, who is fifty-eight and has assessed municipal debt instruments across the continent for twenty-three years, is known within the Agency for thoroughness and for an allergy to optimistic projections. He led the team that downgraded Edgeminster’s water utility bonds in 2023 after identifying a shortfall in maintenance reserves — a decision that proved prescient when the utility required emergency borrowing the following winter.

Miss Lark, who is twenty-four and on her first field assignment, was observed this morning taking detailed notes during a walking tour of the Municipal Chamber’s public corridors. She paused for some time beneath the silent clock.

The assessors are expected to review five areas: the city’s existing debt profile, revenue forecasts under the phased tramway timeline, the adequacy of the 142-million-florin contingency reserve, the sensitivity of copper procurement costs to Kaelmar resolution timing, and the geological survey mandate’s implications for Phase 2 financing.

“They will ask hard questions,” said Mrs Whitford. “That is their function. Our function is to have answers.”

The council’s vote on the ninth of March — eleven to nil for the phased approach, with the 14-million-florin transition fund and the geological survey mandate — was received favourably by the bond market. Yields fell by thirty basis points in the hour following the vote. But the Agency’s formal assessment carries more weight than a single day’s trading, and its verdict will set the terms under which Bobington borrows for a generation.

Councilwoman Ida Pryce, who co-chaired the Copper Review Commission and has championed the tramway for eight years, acknowledged the stakes. “We made our case to the council. Now we make it to the people who will lend us the money to build it.”

Councilman Aldric Voss, who voted for the phased approach and whose insistence on the geological survey mandate is expected to feature prominently in the Agency’s review, was characteristically measured. “A rating agency assesses risk. We have done everything in our power to reduce it. The rest is arithmetic.”

Mr Haughton and Miss Lark are expected to remain in Bobington through Friday. Their preliminary assessment will be communicated to the Municipal Treasury before the prospectus is circulated. The formal rating decision will follow within a fortnight.

The clock above their borrowed offices has not ticked since Wednesday. The silence, one suspects, is the least of their concerns.