CANTERLOT — The Stewardship Supper kept its hour on Thursday in the Canterlot Royal Gardens. The High Elm table stood on the rise above the south lawn, twelve covers on a white cloth, the fountain at the left for the pictures. Minister Torren Vale of the Civic Purse, the evening's honoree, sat at the center in a new charcoal coat with blue facings, the cloth still stiff at the elbow. The walk behind him was closed. The Canterlot Economic Watchdog's finding came up the gardeners' planks in a plain folder: the ministers who ordered the walk were not to be spared the blame.
The Civic Purse had laid that walk three times since spring. A note on the first invoice, under Vale's initial, called the gravel too loud under carriages. A note on the second, under Pell's, called it grey in the pictures. The third order went out under the name Hushed Flint. The Watchdog's schedule of loads described it as the first specification at a new price, and put the season's three orders at 6.4 million bits. On Thursday the cordon was up. Guests crossed on planks the gardeners had set that afternoon. Monday's program diagrammed the planks and called them a spontaneous improvement.
Lavender Bloom wore last season's green velvet, the nap still up, at the table marked Near Elm. Near Elm faced the service hedge. Mareline Verdict, counsel to the Canterlot Regulatory Authority, was on the High Elm list in the morning copy. By dusk Lady Vesper Quill, who gives the supper, had scraped the name off. The card at the yew trestle read "M. Verdict — if needed." The chair was turned, seat toward the hedge, back against the cloth. A note in Vale's hoof, which the floor staff kept, asked for a clear line behind the honoree.
Minister Idris Pell left after the soup. He had initialed the second invoice, and the third beside Vale. His cloak stayed on the chair. His glass stayed. Between the soup and the fish, in the same type as the menu, the program had printed: "Minister Pell, if stirred, will take the air."
Ember Hearth had the High Elm covers and poured for the empty place at the fish, the meat, and the cheese. "The card said the cover stays live until the cheese," she said. "I poured it. Gate has him out before the fish." A copy of the third chit had come in clipped to the place cards. It named Hushed Flint, as per first specification, and it was already initialed. "I put it in the service book," Ember said. "It was going to go out with the scraps."
"I would have taken High Elm if they had set it for me," Lavender Bloom said. "They set it for his new coat. Pell left a glass, and they counted the glass."
An aide sent a saucer to the trestle asking the Regulatory Authority to hold the folder until after the cake. Mareline Verdict opened it while the almond cake was still in the kitchen. The first line said a minister is to be named wherever a clerk is named, and named first, when the bits are public and the work has been bought more than once. The three orders, she said, carried Vale and Pell. The program had set grounds clerk Rowan Hale under them after the signatures. "Vale signed. Pell signed. I can sit wherever this card puts me." Hale stood on the planks with a lantern and turned guests off the open edge. The seating chart stopped at the yew.
Lady Quill rose on the minute her program gave her. The cake came after, almond under one blue ribbon, and the first slices went to the center of High Elm. At the cutting, her secretary carried a plate to the end of the planks and asked Hale to step off them, so a picture could take the walk as open. Hale kept the lantern where he had it. The cordon stayed hooked. Vale faced the fountain for his own picture. The yew behind him was clear. Pell's glass was filled again. When the lanterns came in, the planks were still the crossing over the closed south walk. The third chit in Ember Hearth's service book carried Vale's initial and Pell's.
