Book of Souls

When he retrieved his cell phone from his pants pocket, the little red light was flashing. He opened it and read a text message. Not mad at you anymore. Miss U. Philly misses U 2. I read the poem. Amazing. Call me soon.

He realized he’d been holding his breath for an uncomfortably long time, and his audible exhale sounded like a low woof. There was something unspeakable about texting her back while naked and wet from another woman. He thought about it for a while, then tossed the phone on the bed and took another hit from the bottle instead.

Outside, the tail end of the cold front was sending chilly, rolling winds through the back garden. A night-vision monocular scope was poking through the dripping branches of a lush stand of rhododendrons. Through the scope, Will’s window glowed uncomfortably bright.

When Will rose to go to the bathroom, DeCorso saw his naked torso pass by. It was the first time he’d made him in hours; he was certain he was in the house, but still it reassured him to confirm his man was present and accounted for. A minute earlier, when the room was dark, he’d gotten a fleeting look of a woman’s bare ass, goddess green in the scope’s optics. Piper was having a better night than he.

It was going to be a long, cold stretch of time until morning, but he was steadfastly resigned to doing what watchers do.

1334 ISLE OF WIGHT

FELIX LED THE congregation in the Prime prayers. Mercifully, it was the shortest office of the day because he was desperately fatigued, and his head was pounding again. The cathedral was filled with his brothers and sisters, dutifully responding, lifting their voices in prayer song that was surely as sweet as the songbirds perched on the rooftops of the church calling to their number in the nearby oaks. It was the rarest time of year, when the atmosphere within the cathedral was, in a word, heavenly-neither too cold nor too warm. It would be a shame, he thought, to depart this earth in the glory of summertime.

Through his good eye, he saw the monks sneaking furtive glances from the pews. He was their father, and they were worried about him and, indeed, worried about themselves. The death of an abbot was always a time of worldly concern. A new abbot inevitably changed things and altered the rhythms of abbey life. After all these years, they were used to him. Perhaps, he thought, they even loved him. Adding to the uncertainty, the chain of succession was cloudy. His prior, Paul, was far too young for the bishop to elevate, and there was no other candidate within their walls. That meant an outsider. For their sakes, he would try to live as long as he could, but he knew better than most that God’s plan was set and inalterable.

From the high, carved pulpit, he searched the length of the cathedral for his visitor, but Luke was not to be found. He was not terribly surprised.

As Psalm 116, a Prime standard, was drawing to a close, he was suffused with a sudden joyful realization: that at the moment he had completed his confessional letter, Luke had arrived. Surely, this was providential. The Lord had heard his prayers and was providing an answer. In praise, he decided to insert one of his favorite old Prime hymns into the service, the ancient Iam Lucis Orto Sidere

, Star of Light Now Having Risen, a poem dating back centuries, as far back as the lifetime of the blessed spiritual founder of their Order, Benedict of Nursia.

Iam lucis orto sidere,Deum precemur supplices,ut in diurnis actibusnos servet a nocentibus.Now in the sun’s new dawning ray,

lowly of heart, our God we praythat He from harm may keep us freein all the deeds this day shall see.

The congregation seemed uplifted by the hymn. The high, soprano voices of the young nuns sounded lovely within the hollow, echo chamber of the great cathedral.

Ut cum dies abscesserit,noctemque sors reduxerit,

mundi per abstinentiamipsi canamus gloriam.That when the light of day is gone,and night in course shall follow on,we, free from cares the world affords,may chant the praises that is our Lord’s.

At the conclusion of the service, Felix felt rejuvenated, and if his vision was doubled and his eye was painful, he hardly noticed it. As he left the church, he motioned to Brother Victor and asked the hostillar to bring the night visitor to his rooms.