The Templar Magician

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The monk lifted his head and listened to the peal of bells roll through the abbey buildings. A funeral was being prepared. The dirige psalms were being sung, the plainchant drifting on the evening breeze. Soon the solemn peal of bells would begin again. If it was a woman being buried, two peals; for a man, three; for a cleric, as many as the minor orders he had received.

‘Have you even been shown the Gates of Death? Or met the Janitors of the Shadowlands?’

Brother Benedict turned swiftly. He stared at the old woman. She was dressed in the blackest widow’s weeds and sat on the high-backed chair close to his cot bed with its plaid-patterned drape.

‘Mistress.’ The young Benedictine monk smiled apologetically. ‘I was distracted. I really did not expect you until tomorrow, Lammas Eve …’

‘But I came today.’ The old woman gripped her walking cane by its carved handle. ‘I have studied the manuscripts.’ She sighed, and rose to her feet, eyes no longer on the Benedictine but on the arrow-loop window behind him. The day was darkening, the weak sunlight fading. Next to the window hung a Little Mary, a wooden carving of the Virgin Mother and her Divine Child.

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