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Brother Rousseau remains at your side as the procession trammels through the threshold of the Chapter House, you find a reassuring presence as always. But for some reason that you cannot precisely pinpoint, the man now does not seem to be his usual silent self following the Chapter Master’s address. This sounds odd to say, but he is… quieter than usual. Withdrawn, somehow. You resolve to speak with him at some point before commencing your vigil, which is typically commence on a Sandag some days from now.
You set out from Aubrey with some two dozen souls on the pilgrim’s road, not including yourself and other knights in escort. Several of that number only journeyed as far as the Motte-Fallavon festival, as they had intended, but your numbers were again boosted in the days leading up to your departure from Port Bounty. Why exactly is not immediately clear to you, the cynic may believe that the arrangement of free passage secured through your favour from House Wavell played a part, but perhaps word of your visions factored in as well.
It is somewhat humbling to think that while you were on your own pilgrimage, there were several others of the same mind and fortitude. Some ahead, some behind, some taking more circuitous routes and some more direct. Yours is the largest party of pilgrims to arrive this month, but certainly not the only one. Most others travelled in parties of a dozen or so from across the continent with a Comitas knight or two in escorts, many fared worse than you and you discover at least one party did not arrive at all. One such procession included a dozen of those are men sitting cross-legged in the gardens of the Church that you would not recognise as Cantôn folk, dark skinned men in silken robes and speaking in a strange tongue. To your surprise, they came not from the north to pay homage to this holy site but from the south.
<span class="mu-i">“Did you think that the light of the Almighty shone only upon the shores of our homeland?”</span> The admonishing smile of Chapter Master Callahan sticks with you for some time after you say it. Cantôn has always been the Kingdom of Heaven, by your understanding. But why would the Almighty’s realm pay heed to the borders set by fallible man?
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