A Peculiarity

Writers: Mirren, Suzee
Date Posted: 15th November 2015

Characters: Storben, Farind
Description: Archiving correspondence from the holds.
Location: Harper Hall
Date: month 2, day 9 of Turn 8

The senior apprentice assigned to the incoming packets and sorting
various correspondence into the archive came back from his lunch with
a whistle and sat back down to the huge inbox and began to sort
through the next batch of Turns end correspondence.

"Jade Harbor," he said. Storben was quite unaware that he talked to
himself when he was working. "Aww," he said when he lifted the bundle
of death notices. At least the resident Harper had been good enough to
bind the like items together. He nodded and pulled the strings loose.
After a few he came to one that pulled his brows together. "Mysterious
disappearance and likely death of Lord Ethris' daughter, hmmm." He
pushed it into the bin for the Journeyman to review. Declaring death
when there wasn't a body had to be reviewed at a higher level then
his. Especially when the notation next to the name said this person
was 'blood.'

He didn't think much more of it until later in the afternoon when he
began sorting the next batch. This one was very different but it had
the same name and notation.

He quickly dived into the Jade Harbor batch to retrieve the first
document and laid them on the desk in front of him. Side by side they
looked much the same until he came to the dates. He pinched the bridge
of his nose and blinked a few times before he tried again to process
the information.

"Sir?" He called as he carried both documents into the Journeyman's
office. "I have something here you should see."

Journeyman Farind looked up from his desk and scowled. He wasn't known
for his good humour or his enjoyment of being interrupted.

"What?" he snapped.

Storben was familiar with this behavior which is why he rarely
impinged on the Journeyman's afternoon. But he took a step into the
office and laid the documents on the desk. "We got these today from
Jade Harbor and Amber Hills sir." He simply pointed to the symbol for
'blood' next to the name. "She's Lord Ethris' daughter and Lord
Zathris' sister."

"So?" Farind squinted at the pages.

"So this," he pointed at the date of her death and the date of her
marriage. "How could she get married at Amber Hills a week after her
death near Jade Harbor?"

"Someone put the wrong date." That was obvious. Dead people didn't get married!

"I don't understand sir," he shook his head. "If they put the wrong
date then why were all the other marriages on Turn Over in the same
stack with the same signatures. We already have the ones from the
prior month filed away." How could Farind not know that lots of people
wanted to marry at Turn Over. It was lucky.

"Then clearly the other one is dated wrong. She got married and then
died. It happens. Like that healer's wife, what was her name-" Fairind
shook his head. "Wait. Wasn't she the women whose body they didn't
find?" Now maybe things would get interesting around here.

"Yes sir," he nodded. "I thought it was very strange. Do you want me
to write both Harpers for confirmation?"

"I think you had better." The journeyman scratched his balding head.
"Peculiar, very peculiar indeed."

"Of course sir," he said and walked out of the office to compose the
two letters.

Last updated on the November 16th 2015

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A Peculiarity