KEELWICK — On Thursday the residency on the hill set supper for sixty while the avenue from White Dock filled with ponies who had already done this walk. Corporal Danel Quill of the Halderin Landing Guard had been taken at the barracks that morning for the murder of Pettie Ash, a clerk in the rope-walk ward. The placards read "Not again," the same wording as the last time. Minister Orlan Pike left the cake order standing.
The occasion was the Concord Ribbon for Captain Harl Merrick, treaty commander at White Dock, cited for steady neighborliness. Invitations had gone Monday. The arrest came Thursday. Pike, whose ministry signs the Landing Accord and then spends the year describing it, kept the supper where it was. He added one italic line and had the boards reprinted by four.
Lady Ilen Pike wore last winter's apricot gauze with a Halderin naval cuff sewn on after lunch. She keeps the seating chart. Every program listed the cuff under decorations, between the ribbon and the cake.
Table Twelve stood under the service arch, the linen a hand short of the floor on the kitchen side. The rope-walk was seated there. Delegate Lisse Carr, who sits for the ward where Pettie Ash kept the books, found her card at the end place. It read "L. Carr — ornament." Merrick's card gave his rank, his company, and the Concord Ribbon. He had come up from the dock already wearing it. A footman moved Carr's chair six inches toward the service door so the portrait of the first Halderin landing would hang true over the minister, and told her the high table was closed for the partnership. She sat in the navy wool she wears to winter hearings, salt still in the hem.
The chair at the minister's left stayed empty. The card said House of Ash. Pettie Ash's mother had received no invitation. No ministry pony took the place to square the count. At the second course Nessa Pell, second server, lifted the spare glass off the cloth.
Between the soup and the meat, at the far end of the high table, they took up the Accord. Article 12 lets a Halderin guard held for a killing on the isle remain in Halderin custody pending harmony. The magistrate had asked in a morning note to see Quill before dark. The compliments slip that returned wished the residency a successful presentation. The high table settled the hour of the stockade wagon. Cake was the portion the other tables were invited to watch.
Pike spoke from the second sheet long enough for the soup at Table Twelve to die.
Item six was set in italic. Captain, if pressed, expresses personal and unprompted sorrow. At the printed minute Merrick's aide inclined and pressed him. The captain said he was sorry for the difficulty. The clerk's name did not appear. His hoof rested on the ribbon he had worn up the hill. Table Three applauded, which the line beneath the italic had marked as suitable.
Councilor Bram Esten has spent three seasons working the dock lease off Pike's hands. Table Three put him where the empty chair was easy to see and the wagon talk was not.
"They printed a silence, then a sorrow, then a place to clap," Esten said. "The family chair was empty because the family was never asked. I have watched this with a different rank on the card. The italic stays."
Nessa Pell kept a tray on her shoulder at the arch.
"Good cider for the ribbon, cooking cider for Table Twelve," she said. "Twelve is the ward. I poured what they handed me. Lady Ilen looked at the spare glass on the empty chair. I cleared it. She didn't have to ask."
Carr left during the fish. The program stayed open on her chair at the italic. A page started after her with a wrapped slice and was turned back at the arch. She reached the avenue in the navy wool. The placards had come up to the steps and stopped. The guard on the door had orders that the supper still had a course.
The stockade wagon took the garden stairs while the meat was served. Quill was on the Halderin hull before the cake came through. The icing carried both flags and the words Still Neighbors, piped that morning and brought up unchanged. Lady Ilen cut the garrison half first. The residency's piece was the end of the cake, dark along the rim, and Table Twelve was already empty.
The House of Ash chair stayed through the cutting, the portrait kept its gap, and Table Twelve's cooking cider was still on the cloth when the boards came down.
