Jennery shucked his clothes off as quick as he could. He sluiced off the worst of the dirt under the shower, shuddering as the cold water rinsed him down, and soon he was groaning in pleasure as he slid under the warm water. “Bliss,” he said as he submerged up to his neck. “Whoever came up with this idea has to be raking it in,” he said as he relaxed bonelessly in the warm embrace.
Jerrol opened an eye when a young lad bobbed into the room. “Sir, I’m here for the washing.”
Jerrol waved a lazy arm over towards the bench. “Take it,” he said and closed his eyes again.
Time passed peacefully. The water steamed, making the air hazy until Jerrol stirred. “Time for food,” he said as his tummy grumbled. He ducked his head under the water one last time. Lady, when was the last time he had felt this clean? He reached for his towel and levered himself out of the tub. He rubbed himself down, grinning at Jennery, who had relaxed even further into the water, supine, drifting. It wasn’t often Jennery let his guard down. They both needed a recharge.
Jerrol dressed, and on leaving the shelter, he quartered the yard, alert once more as he rubbed his hair dry. He needed to get it cut. “Thank you, my Lady, for this moment,” he murmured as he caught sight of the nearly full moon beginning its ascent. His hand automatically spread over his heart and touched the smooth green stone hanging around his neck. He felt the weight of her presence; she was almost at full strength. Time was passing, and things were not going well.
He glanced back at Jennery still supine in the tub and wondered where Birlerion had got to. “Bet I finish the first ale before you,” he teased.
Jennery opened one eye. “Yeah?” he drawled. “Then you better have one on the bar for me when you do.”
Jerrol waved an airy hand and left.
The sentinals trees had been standing tall and proud since the cracking of the Bloodstone nearly three thousand years ago. So now he knew the myth was true! The Sentinals were the Lady’s personal guard, unable to follow her across the Veil which had descended around Remargaren. There were men and women inside the sentinals who stood guard over the Lady’s sacred groves, preserving her people’s place of worship. He knew where he would find Birlerion, and the question he would ask.
Chapter 7
The Grove, Greenswatch
Jerrol walked along the avenue of beech trees that led up to the Lady’s temple. The towering sentinals dwarfed them, and Jerrol’s blood stirred as he approached. He reached out to touch one, and his stomach fluttered.
The sentinals guarded her altar – a stone table on which burnt-out candles sat in each of the four corners. Here families lived under the watchful gaze of the Lady, celebrating life and the passing of the seasons, marking the passage of time in rituals handed down from mother to daughter.
Jerrol leant against the tallest sentinal and breathed in the fresh greenness of the bark. As he inhaled deeply, the clean scent zinged through his body, vibrating through his bones and settling as a gentle hum at the back of his mind. If he flung his arms around the tree, he would not embrace even a quarter of the girth. These trees were immense.
How could people not believe when all they had to do was reach out and touch. Yet that was what was happening: people turning away from the Lady, challenging age-old beliefs. The stories and rumours were gathering strength and beginning to spread, taking root and growing like weeds. Jerrol wondered sourly who was sponsoring such an effective spread of blasphemy and how he was supposed to stop it.
He mused for a moment. The Ascendants had been banished when the Lady had cracked the Bloodstone. The destruction of the stone had been her last defence against the wild magic of the Ascendants. She had pulled down a veil through which magic couldn’t penetrate and so protected her people from the world destruction the Ascendants threatened. Since then, there had been no sign of magic in the Four Kingdoms. The Lady, her guards and the Ascendants had all disappeared, leaving the world in peace and without magic.
And yet, the sentinals were magical. How could people doubt, when the trees stood as proof before them, the tall silvery trunks smooth and silky to the touch, unviolated. No child could scamper up these trunks.
Jerrol peered up into the canopy high overhead where the branches sprouted, festooned with large pointy leaves that blocked the setting sun. A deep, deep green filtered the sunlight into a cool silvery-green glow. A broad canopy that protected from storms and brutal sun alike, the colour of the Lady’s eyes, so the storytellers said, and to which Jerrol could now attest.
As he embraced the sentinal, breathing in the green life, breathing out doubt, he felt comforted, invigorated, revitalised. The presence of the Lady resonated within him, binding his belief, rooted in his core and unshakeable. He heard the echo of a voice; a question lingered on the air.
Reluctantly, he broke the link with the tree and took a deep breath as the thrum hummed through his veins. Turning, he walked through the grove. The evening sun pierced the canopy with shafts of brilliant light illuminating the trail that led to the circle. The path was straight, edged by sparse clumps of grass and shade-loving fronds of feathering ferns, mimicking the pointy leaves above.
The blaze of the evening sun made him blink, orange skies bleeding to a deeper red nearer the horizon. His eyes teared against the brilliant glare, and
