‘Two pints of Barbells and packet of Barkskins please, Mes! Are you enjoying being home from college?’
With a flick of her wrist, two large tankards flew under two Barbells taps and began to fill themselves, Mesmerelda’s Unseen Servant helping out, just as Mesmerelda was. It was tradition for the youngest Phantagone child to serve the bar on Harvest Close. Mes had been doing it for over thirty years and before her, Rab had done it for 74 years, taking over from Meldrew, the eldest when he had gone off to Namburg to join the Realtor’s guild 214 years ago. She looked over at her brothers, sitting with their friends, all home for the holidays and smiled at her new little niece, Honey, Rab’s youngest. The Bar was packed as it was every Harvest with villagers popping in to celebrate the last reap or check if the first keg of Harvest Ale was ready to be tapped. Mes took the now full pints, prestidigitized the clove and vanilla into the foamy head of the porter and handed them over with the dried barkskins.
‘1 silver 6, please Mr Darnton. College is great, thanks’ she waited patiently as the old gnome fumbled in his coin purse.
‘Have they taught you one to restore sight to old blind pumpkin farmers yet?’ he asked, holding up a gold piece and squinting at it. ‘What is that one now, at all? They keep changing the coins on me.’
‘That’d be more Abjuration now, Mr Darnton. I’m doing Transmutation with a minor in Conjuration. Here, do you want a hand?’ She fished the coins out of his purse and smiled.
‘It’s all Merspeak to me, love. Tell your father I’m looking forward to the keg, there’s a few of my pumpkins gone in, he was saying’.
Just then there was a loud bang on the door and four crownsguard walked in, followed by a short, fat human dressed in robes. He look around and headed straight for Mesmerelda.
‘Are you the landlord, ma’am?’
Although not completely silenced, the atmosphere dipped noticeably and her brothers were up on their feet and looking over at the guards. An unusual sight in the village, especially at this time of year.
‘Has there been some problem, sir?’ asked Mesmerelda, her mind racing.
‘Are you the landlord?’ His voice was quiet, constrained. The voice of a man who never had cause to raise it.
‘No, I am’ said Gari Phantagone, stamping the mud from his boots as he came into the lounge from the kettle sheds. ‘I noticed the rest of your men out there, will you not invite them in for a toddy?’
Mesmerelda’s father was a quiet, patient man, slow to worry. But she sensed a tension in his voice she had never heard before.
Mr Phantagone, my name is Arlow Calloway, I’m sorry to interrupt your revelries but as I’m sure you’re aware from my letters, you are two days overdue from leaving the premises and these bailiffs are here with me tonight to make sure you and your patrons will leave peacefully so the new owners can begin work.
Mesmerelda looked at her father and over to her brothers who seemed as shocked as she was. Her father looked crestfallen.
Mesmerelda looked at the man and the soldiers and for a second considered reaching for her pouch, where her bit of fur and her glass rod were waiting, ready to be turned into a bolt of lighting that would char these intruders. Her brothers had similar ideas from the looks on their faces.
‘No need for trouble’, her father’s voice unusually faint, ‘I just thought we could close out the Harvest’.
‘I’m afraid not, Mr. Phantagone, I’ll give you half an hour to get your things and then I need you out on the road. As for the rest of you,’ he raised his voice, addressing the shocked patrons, ‘this Tavern is closed, by order of Judge Konstantine’.