“Lady’s blessing on her head,” intoned Jerrol. “That room will be a goldmine.”
“Truly?” One of the lads, his damp clothes steaming gently, perked up at his words.
“Truly,” Jerrol grinned. “I never felt so good.”
“Good for business then?” another put in intently.
“Oh yes, once word gets round, you’ll have people flocking here,” Jerrol replied.
The men all grinned at each other and relaxed. Talk moved on to a general review of the service. The Father preened as the men complimented him on his sermon. An aroma of unwashed bodies and drying clothes mingled with the wood smoke. The ale kept flowing in memory of Mac and talk veered off to broodmares and the local bloodstock scene, till a slight altercation off to the side began to draw an audience.
“Yes, it is,” reiterated a dark-headed, solid man, with very thick arms which were resting on the table in front of him.
“No, it isn’t, that’s just story-telling,” a smaller man said, his blond hair sticking up in all directions as it dried.
“Father,” appealed the stocky man, “isn’t it true the Lady climbed them sentinal trees to reach the moon?”
The Father sat up and straightened his robes.
“Now you’ve done it,” someone muttered into his beer. “Here we go again!”
“The Sentinals,” the Father said grandly. “Today, you find them tall and proud, leading the way to the Lady’s heart. They have guarded the people since the end of the Bloodstone and the descent of the Veil, but they were guarding long before that.” He glanced around the taproom and inclined his head importantly. “The Sentinals were the Lady’s guard. She chose them herself, and they all pledged personal allegiance to her. All the Guardians had their protectors, but the Lady’s were the most famous.” He paused as he shuffled his thoughts into order.
“Why were they the most famous?” the pot boy asked.
“Why?” repeated the Father. “Because they were the most dedicated. No one, but no one, got past her Sentinals.”
“Then why did she have to leave? They couldn’t have been that good,” scoffed one of the men from the shadows.
Jerrol gripped Birlerion’s arm as he jerked.
The Father glared at the man. “I am telling this story.” He gathered himself and began again in a rhythmic tone of voice.
“In the time before the Veil descended, there were three Guardians of the realm. The Guardians lived in a beautiful palace. The walls were made of the whitest marble, threaded by veins of crystal which glistened in the golden sunshine. It towered over the city, which sprawled down the hillsides below it, and the golden spires reached for the sky.”
His audience sat listening wide-eyed; they were ensnared in his word pictures, enspelled by the magical world and the splendour he was describing. The fire flared unnoticed, casting shadows against the walls.
“When the Lady newly ascended to her Guardianship, she was advised to recruit a personal bodyguard for her safety. And with that, she stood and commanded, and fully two hundred and forty men and women stood forward and pledged their allegiance to her. And as each one pledged she accepted and blessed them, and as they straightened up before her their tabards shimmered a silver-green and their eyes took on a silvery hue.”
Birlerion ducked his head, keeping his eyes shielded. Jennery stared at him wide-eyed.
“They were hers for life. They protected her against all threats, but in the end, they were unable to protect themselves from her.” The listening men stirred in expectation. Jerrol’s brow creased, and he glanced at the barkeep. The ’keep raised his eyebrows and shrugged.
“As time passed, a group of educated men calling themselves the Ascendants began to share their idea for an alternative way of life. To challenge the grip the Guardians held over the world.”
Jerrol shifted sharply at the blatant twisting of the story, staring in amazement as the men in the bar drank in his every word. His grip on Birlerion tightened; the Sentinal was rigid.
“But the Guardians would not release their hold,” the Father proclaimed, his voice ringing across the bar, “and the Ascendants challenged the rule of the Guardians. In desperation, the Lady destroyed her family’s power by shattering the Bloodstone. For when she cracked the Bloodstone, she caused the Veil to descend, forcing her family and the Ascendants out of this world and into exile. But her Sentinals could not follow where she led. She had placed a curse on them, tying them to the land, forcing them to stand in front of her altar and set down roots and never move again. They became the sentinal trees you see today scattered across Vespiri.”
There was a short silence after the Father finished, just the sound of the wood crackling in the hearth. A few hands surreptitiously made the obeisance rather sheepishly to the Lady. Not many though, Jerrol noted as he watched the Father.
“Well told, Father.” Jerrol lifted his mug in salute. “May I ask where that version originates from?”
“Version?” the Father spluttered. “That is the true story as validated by the Council itself.”
“It must be recent.” Jerrol reached out to put another log on the fire, shielding Birlerion, whose eyes were glittering with anger. “I haven’t had the pleasure of hearing it before.”
“Then you have been told lies, my son,” the Father said, thrusting his chest out, “for this was the true story of the Sentinals.”
Jennery grasped Jerrol’s sleeve as he was about to probe further and shook his head. Jerrol leaned back and took refuge in his mug; he was right. He was drawing attention to himself. Men peered towards him.
Fortunately, their attention was diverted. “You don’t see nobody from them towers up past Velmouth anymore,” reminisced the man with the muscular arms, pausing to sip his ale. “Used to have a thriving trade back in my granddaddy’s day, all sorts of knickknacks and trinkets the ladies delighted in, he used to say. Them Watchers used to travel off to distant lands and return with saddlebags full of stuff you never saw before.
