Legion

Legion - Chapter 6

"Let me help you there," a kindly voice greeted the children.
         Sophia blushed.
         Before them stood the most resplendent man they had ever seen. It was widely agreed that Michael was by far the most handsome man in the port town since his father's youth. This man, however, by comparison made Michael appear plain and unexceptional. Curiously, he was virtually the antithesis of Michael in appearance. Not tall by any stretch, he had about him a grand demeanor that made him appear larger than he in fact was, as though his nobility exceeded his size. His hair was of a pitch deeper than a starless winter's night. His eyes also were bottomless carbon pools, as dark as the still waters of a lake. His skin was pale and flawless, his clothing regal and studded with jewels. Every finger of both hands sported a magnificent gold ring. And yet in spite of the monumental opulence of his attire, his manner was kindly, his voice benevolent.
         Sophia willingly took his hand and allowed herself to be assisted to her feet. He delivered her a caring smile and she blushed once more, her gaze flickering to the ground.
         Neither Sophia nor Dairmid saw past the glamour that blinded their eyes to the deceit before them. Sophia felt only the soft, buffed suede of the young man's fitted black glove in her hand - not the gnarled, talonned grope of the demon's grotesquely elongated fingers. Dairmid saw only a courteous, immaculately garbed nobleman leaning forward to help his cousin to her feet - not a beastly abomination, its jaw slack, its maw slavering in anticipation, its towering frame looming over them like a viper poised to strike at a mouse.
         They saw only what the demon projected and had no reason to suspect otherwise. The glamour was devoid of imperfection.
         "Begging your pardon, sir," Sophia stammered, rushing a curtsy in her conviction that the man before her must most certainly be a prince.
         "Not at all, miss," he replied politely, his voice soothing, like the distant strumming of a lyre drifting across a vast expanse on warm winds. Dairmid picked himself up off the ground and brushed the leaves from his pants. His eyes drifted beyond the magnificently attired young man to his splendid carriage and no less than eight brilliant white steeds standing obediently in their harness. They wore white feather plumed head gear and bore standards about their necks of a decorative shield that he could only guess was the man's family crest.
         "Golly Moses!" he exclaimed unashamedly, bringing a smile of amusement to the young nobleman's face, "That's the finest carriage I've ever seen! It must be the most superb carriage in all England!" Sophia discreetly kicked his ankle, prompting a wail of protest.
         "Would you like to see it?" the congenial nobleman invited before bowing low, with the humility of a saint, "I am Viscount Edmund Colleridge, and it is my honor to make your acquaintance." His introduction exuded such grace and modesty that Sophia felt she might swoon at any moment. The girls at school would simply shriek with envy when she related her tale of the princely encounter.
         Again Sophia curtsied, this time with more poise than her first attempt.
         "My name is Sophia Devane. This is my cousin, Dairmid McSweeney," she replied, striving to commit to speech the same eloquence and charm as their new acquaintance, "If you don't mind my asking, sir, but what are you doing in the middle of the woods?" His smile was disarmingly warm.
         "I could ask the same of you," he replied graciously, "Come, would you like to take a closer look?" he inquired, indicating towards the lavish, glittering carriage. Dairmid's face lit up and for the time being, all thoughts of the monster vanished, "We've broken an axle," the Viscount added, "It came apart when the wheel hit a depression. It most likely would not have occurred had we not decided upon a shortcut through the forest to save time instead of holding fast to the main roads. My footman has gone on ahead to fetch a blacksmith to replace the ruined component."
         He offered Sophia his arm and she took it shyly, not a little overwhelmed to be the happy recipient of the handsome nobleman's attention. He escorted her over to his marvelous transport. Dairmid had raced ahead at the first hint of an invitation and currently manhandled the ornately carved and decorated carriage as though having discovered the Ark of the Covenant or Solomon's Gold.
         "You must excuse my cousin," Sophia apologized, shaking her head at the fickleness of boys, "We came this way to see a monster. Apparently it is going to have to wait while Dairmid ogles your elegant carriage," her voice was as much bewildered as bemused. She did not pretend to understand the fanciful imaginations of silly boys and she did not particularly care to give it another thought in the presence of so bewitchingly handsome an aristocrat. She could barely remove her gaze from him and found herself utterly besotted, even though he was more than twice her age and probably only catering to her instantaneous infatuation due to good breeding and polished manners. She did not care. If she only spent another moment in his company she would cherish it the rest of her life.
         "A monster, you say," the Viscount appeared mildly interested, "Come, you must tell me more about this creature. It sounds as though you have embarked on quite the adventure."

         The jewels and gold and enamel inlay embedded into the carriage that had so enchanted Dairmid were in fact the sulphur coated nodules and bas relief carvings of the demon's altar. The eight steeds he stroked with such admiration were nothing more than gutted rabbits the demon had resorted to ensnaring as a future meal in the event that its present prey had not so fortuitously stumbled upon its nest. Sophia believed herself to be courteously escorted into a clearing to view the courtier's glorious coach. She had no awareness of the trance-like state in which she walked as the demon maneuvered her, its terrible hand encircling her throat, towards a darkened cave fashioned from congealed vegetation and excrement where it intended to gut her and feast upon her flesh before gorging itself upon her cousin.

         They were miles from the village.
         They had told no one of their whereabouts.
         They would not be missed for hours.

         By then it would be too late.









Michael lay in a state of complete relaxation, teetering delicately on the rim of wakefulness, vaguely aware of his surroundings. Roma's skin against his radiated warmth, like a blanket of sweet succor amidst the chaotic tumult of his life. They had worked late into the night, discussing the dilemma of the demon, proposing and rejecting ideas, theories and strategies on how to proceed. Rejecting the established formulas due to the unprecedented nature of the preternatural intrusion, they had returned to basics, weighing their every proposition against Scripture. When they could source nothing to corroborate any of the methods they conceived, they were forced to scrap their ideas. In the pre-dawn hours of the morning they had collapsed into bed at the rectory, neither relishing the long trip back to their bramble covered cottage getaway.
Michael's vision clouded white, the welcome relief of his multilayered perspective of the world inducing a sigh, and the soft haze soon transformed into a luminous glow. His mind jolted from its dreamy torpor as he recognized the light. He sat up in bed. All around him the white light shone, obliterating all but the few feet surrounding him. He looked to Roma sleeping deeply beside him and smiled. The very sight of her brought him such contentment.
         He was not surprised to find his beloved mentor seated quietly upon a chair beside the bed.
         "Peace be with you, my son," he greeted him with the paternal warmth that the gulf of time prevented him from recalling his father ever extending, though he knew it to be true. It was his encounters with his mentor that acutely reminded him of the loss of his father, for the mighty saint emanated an affection and caring for his young charge of fatherly interest.
         "Peace be with you, dear Father," Michael replied fondly, his head bowed reverently as he greeted his older companion; he raised his head, "Father, in the past I have come to you. I have felt the compulsion to seek communion with you and I have sought you in the quiet places. Why have you come to me?" The old man's smile carried reassurance and understanding.
         "You called me," he replied simply.
         "But I did not," Michael avowed, confused.
         "Not all seeking is a beckoning of the voice. Your heart has been crying out to me," the old man explained gently, "What troubles you?"
         Michael took a deep breath and ran his hands through his hair as he collected his thoughts. They always invariably returned to the woman lying beside him and the thought of her brought elation and sorrow.
         "I love her, Father, and it disturbs me, this life we are leading. We live as man and wife and yet we are not," Michael gave voice to what had for so long plagued his peace of mind and stolen rest from his slumber.
         "It is a sin to have such full knowledge of one another outside the Sacrament of Marriage," the wizened man replied but in a factual rather than accusatory manner. He merely clarified what Michael had admitted.
         "What other way can there be?" he asked, the simplicity of his pleading both honest and plaintive. His mentor smiled; it was the smile of wisdom balanced perfectly with compassion.
         "Marry her," he replied with matching lucidity, "Stand before God and vow to one another imperishable love and fidelity in the name of Jesus who is the Christ." Michael's brow furrowed.
         "I cannot," he confessed sadly, his eyes finally meeting those of his benefactor, "I have nothing to offer her. No dowry. No security. Next to no belongings."
         "You know who this woman is?" the older man asked, his hands folded neatly in his lap, his manner unhurried and planted firmly in the presence as though he had all the time in the world for this discussion.
         "Yes, Father," he replied obediently.
         "Then you know that there is nothing of this world that you could possible possess that she herself has not the means to acquire on her own," he noted.
         "Yes, Father," Michael assented.
         "Nothing, that is, except your love. The one thing neither her influence, her resources nor her fortune can compel," he explained tenderly, "My son, is your advanced sight so blind to the truth that you cannot perceive that she would give away all she has for the simple blessing of your love in her life?"
         "I know that, Father," Michael anguished, "But it is not right. I would be coming to this union empty handed."
         "Empty handed, yes," the white robed older man acquiesced, "But with a heart filled with love, a promise of eternal fidelity and a shared devotion to the One God, the God of all Creation who esteems love - for one another and for his Son - above all things without exception. The things of this world were made from the dust of the earth and to the earth they shall return. Love of the heart is eternal and does not know decay. You will take your love alone to the Kingdom of Heaven, not her wealth nor your lack thereof. She values only those things that God has deemed worthy of value - love, faith, fidelity, compassion, mercy, kindness. These things you can give to her. Give them freely and without another thought for the things of this world - they are worth less to the Lord than the unsewn seed that falls upon the rock and perishes."
         Michael's heart leapt. It had been there all along, right in front of him, an answer so simple as to be virtually undetectable. If Roma had esteemed wealth, she would have dwelt in it. If so inclined, she could have used the resources immediately at her disposal to purchase a small country. The enormous stipends put aside for her by sage benefactors amounted to unimaginable cumulative wealth. Yet she had chosen to live in the service of the Lord and therefore in service to her fellow man, to hold to the Carmelite way - in poverty, in the provision of charity to all, and in prayerful repose - and that left no room for the love of money. She had only ever dipped a hand into her fathomless treasury to provide for others.
         Roma and Michael walked the same path. The gulf that he had imagined divided their realities was in fact insubstantial and of as little consequence to Roma as to God. Their material lives were poles apart but their spiritual journey was unified.
         Having resolved the most pressing of his dilemmas, Michael sought counsel on another matter.
         "Father, the demon," he began, shrugging, "or whatever it is. I have no experience in opposing much less defeating such an enemy. Roma and Roland, they are knowledgeable and skilled in conflicts of this ilk. I fear that my lack of exposure to such warfare and unfamiliarity with the protocols they so fluidly maneuver within may endanger us all," he confessed, his brow etched with anxiety. His mentor laid a reassuring hand upon his shoulder.
         "Which is precisely why you are the most important component in the fight against this foe," the older man replied ambiguously.
         "Please pardon my ignorance, I do not understand," Michael rejoined regretfully.
         "It is precisely your ignorance of these matters that makes you so vital in the fight against a malevolence utterly steeped in vileness," came the kindly reply, "Your instincts work in an almost unprecedented harmony with your faith. Whilst your companions are strong in faith, they are so deeply entrenched in conditioned modes of thinking, formulaic methods of strategy and protocol-dictated responses to such a menace that the very things that have served them so well in the past and saved their lives on more than one occasion now threaten to be their undoing. Nothing like this beast has ever stalked the earth before and so nothing they have ever relied upon in the past is of relevance to their defense strategy now. Their unyielding division on a method of procedure leaves you all weakened and vulnerable to annihilation before you have even begun to battle this abomination in earnest. Roland is wrong in his convictions but necessarily so that he may fulfill that which has been written for him in the Book of Life. From monumental failure he will go on to greatness. Roma has relied solely upon faith and trust in the Lord and her instincts are right but she flounders in directionlessness. It is your unschooled and unique perspective of your predicament that will prevail when you feel that all is hopelessly lost," he concluded but his explanation was unspecific and evasive.
         "I still do not know what it is I must do," Michael admitted with discomfiture.
         "As it is written," the old man replied in reference to the mighty Book of Life once more, "Your destiny is not yours to know before its time. Time enough for you to learn of it as it rolls out before you upon the carpet of Time," again he offered him a smile of reassurance, "Have faith, son, and turn to prayer for there alone lies the solution to all the evils of the world. You can-" the white robed old man stopped short, his gaze drifting to an unknowable distance, as though alerted by something unseen even to Michael's extended sight. His expression became graven and when he looked once more upon his young charge, his eyes were aflame with urgency.
         "Father?" Michael ventured, concerned by the sudden change of demeanor. The hand that lay so gently upon Michael's shoulder suddenly seized him with a vice like grip.
         "Go at once, my son," the older man urged, "Go now. Find the beast! For the eagle is about the devour the swallows!"
         In a flash of light he was gone.

         Michael awoke with a start and immediately experienced such acute dread that he sat upright, as though propelled by an immense spring. Roma stirred and was thrust into wakefulness when Michael launched himself out of the bed.
         "What's wrong?" she asked, his stricken expression alarming her. Before waiting for an answer she too was dressing as quickly as possible.
         "Something terrible is about to happen," he replied hastily.
         "What do you mean?" she probed, pulling her boots on. He shook his head, at an obvious loss for a cohesive explanation.
         "I had a...dream," he related elusively, "Someone has found the demon." Roma's complexion drained. For a moment she remained suspended in stillness.
         "You're sure of this," she confirmed rather than asked. Michael felt an unexpected surge of love for her. In spite of a total lack of supporting evidence or even a convincing explanation, she did not question his contention. She trusted him without exception. He nodded quickly as he pulled on his shirt.
         "Roland just returned from the Cabbott home," Michael related hurriedly, "His horse is still saddled. I'll take it. Go to the forge, Tom will give you his gig. Follow as fast as you can," he instructed, sweeping past her, his lips brushing her cheek. He was gone.
         Roma dressed swiftly and left the rectory in haste. It was mid morning. They had slept in. The village proper was thronging with activity. Barreling down High Street would only draw unwanted attention and, worse, pursuit. She stole into the back lanes and alleys threading through the township, encountering only the odd rat, the contents of a dumped chamber pot and a stray mongrel. She had not lived in the port town even a year but already knew its labyrinth streetscape to a brick.
         She reached the forge and exercised every ounce of her restraint to appear unrushed and inconspicuous to the busy dockworkers and shop patrons streaming by. Slipping into the blistering hot forge, she passed Tom Borland's apprentice without a second glance, leaving the boy agog with disbelief. Women never came into the forge. She took the bear-like man's sweaty, soot blackened arm.
         "Sweet Jehosephat, lass, you damn near made me jump right out of my skin!" he exclaimed, his surprise turning to concern at the dread registered upon her lovely features, "What is it, lass?" he asked gravely, his query clearly an offer of assistance.
         "We found something in the forest," she whispered, her eyes darting back to the curious apprentice smithy understandably inquisitive of their clandestine meeting, "I can't explain now. I need your horse and cart. Michael has gone in alone. Someone is in trouble," she pled her case simply and urgently. Her tone tightened a terrible knotting in his gut, one of which he had not been able to rid himself since the attack in his apartment. Tossing a glowing steel rod into a barrel of water, steam hissed furiously. He nimbly removed his apron.
         "Come lass," he directed her towards the fore of the forge, "Oliver, mind the forge until I return. And don't forget that well shaft cog. The Buckleys will be by early in the afternoon for it," he reminded his diligent apprentice, adding, "If anyone comes by asking for me, I'm at the Rhys-Huntington cottage on a delivery."
         Taking Roma's elbow, Tom Borland left the forge like a man determined to undo a terrible wrong. He and Roma embarked on their journey with nonchalance. Not a single eyebrow was raised at their passing. They moved through the town at a moderate pace, drawing no attention. Upon leaving the straying eyes of its inhabitants, Tom Borland gave his reliable steed its head and they bolted towards the eerily silent forest where they were swiftly swallowed by its dense growth, the thundering of shod hooves and clattering of the cart boards lost to the impenetrable screen of foliage.









His mount lathering, Michael spared the faithful animal no reprieve as he drove through the ever condensing forest. He had blindfolded the animal before penetrating the forest fringe. The very things he once again witnessed - the inert stream, the searching wind, the twisting trees, the upthrust force, the retreating insects - he could not allow the horse to perceive lest it panic. With each passing moment, his dread grew deeper.
         A fist of apprehension arrested his breath momentarily when he caught sight of the monumental edifice constructed by the demon through the trees. He drew up his mount, tethering it swiftly to a nearby tree several hundred yards away. Slipping into the undergrowth, he moved towards the monster's lair by stealth.

         "It hardly seems fair," the gentle nobleman remarked, "You have come all this way to see your monster, only to be waylaid by a reckless man who should know better than to take short cuts with which he is unfamiliar. Please, help yourself to my bounty. It is the very least I can do in return for your welcome company while I await the return of my footman," he opened the carriage door and within, spread out upon an ornately carved mahogany bench, lay a sumptuous feast. Honey plumped figs, succulent pastries, liqueur filled confectionaries, cream dumplings and syrup cakes defying description lay piled upon one another.
         Sophia exercised restraint, unwilling to appear unladylike in the company of her dashing escort. Dairmid, unhindered by such considerations, all but wet his trousers at the very sight of the buffet. His eyes very nearly launched themselves from their sockets in disbelief.
         "That is hardly necessary," Sophia declined on their behalf with gracious courtesy.
         "Speak for yourself, cousin," Dairmid exclaimed, already afoot towards the carriage door.
         He reached for a dumpling, cupping it in his hands and considering it with reverence as though beholding a holy relic.
         The kindly Viscount reached in and retrieved a plump fig, gingerly offering it to his reluctant guest.
         "Please, you would do much to assuage a man's guilt if you were to allow him to repay your kindness with this simple gesture," he pleaded, his night dark eyes melting her resistance. She blushed and smiled, utterly smitten by his charms, and delicately took the swollen fig twixt thumb and forefinger...

         Michael reach the last grove of trees that would grant him cover before he would have to reveal himself by entering the clearing created by the demon to house its nest.
         Peering out into the clearing, he found it to be empty. He was about to emerge from the scrub behind which he crouched when a flash of imagery washed briefly across his vision. He froze. It disappeared and once again the clearing was devoid of occupation.
         Another flash - this time he made out the forms of the demon and two stunted figures. They vanished almost as quickly as they had appeared. He shook his head in a futile attempt to clear his vision. Another brief flash. And then it came to him.
         His brow furrowed in concentration, he peered once again into the clearing. A faint outline came into being. Solidifying, it soon congealed. Two more figures took form. A moment later he looked upon a macabre scene of horror, one evidently engineered to be concealed from ordinary sight. But then, Michael's sight was anything but ordinary.
A searing pain speared his chest when he turned aside a thickly meshed branch to see Roland's niece and nephew in the heart of the lair. More terrifying still was their countenance. Completely unafraid, sweet of temperament, they appeared to be conversing with the creature as though it were no more malevolent than their school marm. Sophia appeared completely unperturbed by the demon's stranglehold upon her throat as she smiled demurely up at the aberration.
         To his horror, a pile of vile earthbound invertebrates lay heaped upon the altar before which they stood. Slugs, centipedes, spiders, leeches and wetas writhed in a living ball. The boy clutched a slimy weta, virtually salivating at the sight of it. The girl daintily accepted a large leech and opened her mouth, placing the vile swamp dweller within.
         Michael emerged from his cover. The surprise upon the demon's face shocked Michael, and he realized that it had not seen him coming. Extraordinarily, all six thousand of its selves were invested in fixed concentration upon their present prey - the children. Its severe slash of a mouth curled up in a sneer of hostility and its grip tightened ever so imperceptibly around the girl's neck.
         The children lapsed into a stupor. And then he saw it. A flash at first, artfully concealed. He concentrated and saw it again, this time for several seconds before it dissolved. A convoluted realization came to him. The flashes of the remarkable coach, the magnificent horses, the handsome nobleman - they were a glamour. A slight of the eye planted before the sight of the children to deceive them. He had initially seen only the demon and the children before the altar and the edifice, himself the subject of yet another glamour intended to blind him to the visibility of the first. Glamour upon glamour. A layered deception designed to prevent him or anyone else from discovering the truth.
         Pouring all of his attention into piercing the false realities before him, Michael addressed the predator.
         "Release them," he asserted quietly, the authority of his command carrying across the clearing in spite of the softness of his voice. The demon's sneer turned to a snarl and its grip tightened upon the girl's neck even as she gagged and delivered her captor a besotted smile.
         "Now they are ours," its multiple voices replied with equal conviction. Michael walked forward confidently. The demon's stance tensed, as though preparing to launch forth on its haunches at any moment.
         "Blessed is the Lord Most High by whose authority I compel thee," Michael lapsed back into Hebrew and the beast before him flinched at the mention of God before throwing its head back and releasing a marrow chilling scream, the sound of which was like a blow to the face. Michael's head swum as the unearthly throng of its many thousand voices rung in even the most quiet recesses of his mind.
         "Your faith serves you well, Harbinger, and will be rewarded, for you will return to the house of the Risen One sooner than you expect," the demon warned, its eyes aglow with a venomous wrath.
         In a blinding flash that took his breath away, Michael saw the demon in its entirety. In less than a heartbeat, every one of its six thousand identities flashed before his expanded sight, its innumerable forms as grotesque as they were horrifying. He swayed on his feet but quickly regained his balance when the visions disappeared as swiftly as they had assaulted him.
         "By the blood of the Lamb that was sacrificed, stay thy tongues and speak with but one or I will silence thee unto the Day of Reckoning," Michael cautioned, again moving forward. He studied the demon's reaction closely. It was both enraged and alarmed at his advancement. Its head dipped down below its boulder-large shoulder line like a cornered wolf, and it hissed with primal fury.
         "The words of the priest constrained us but a moment. Think you more invested in your faith than a man of God?" the demon challenged in a bid to undermine Michael's confidence, the singular voice addressing him the most dominant of its composite self.
         "The faith of Saint Paul gave Mankind the greatest missionary of all time. The faith of Saint Peter drove out devils and brought the dead back to life. The faith of Saint Stephen glorified the martyred," Michael replied, "The faith of a simple man is greater than the wrath of Satan himself."
         "And yet we are come," it countered derisively, "Where are your saints? Your martyrs? Your Exalted Ones? The time of the great prophets and the mighty disciples is passed. Man is a thing weakened and depraved in the twilight of a dying glory. Your arrogance and ignorance lend you false convictions. This vermin is ours," the demon rasped in reference to its victims, "Leave this place and pray I do not come upon thee as I did the priest last eventide."
         Michael did not falter. Instead he chose to take the one course of action the demon would not be expecting. Lunging forward into the colossal shadow of the towering demon, he dived for the children, grabbing each by an arm. Realizing the demon's astonishment would pass in less than a moment, he wrenched them free of its grasp and threw himself clear of its striking range. But not quickly enough.
         A flash of movement so rapid as to defy natural ability registered in his peripheral vision and instinctively he used his body to shield the stupefied youngsters.
         "Holy Father on High, shelter them," Michael whispered in supplication as a blistering pain assailed him. The vengeful demon raked the flesh of his arm with its hideously razor keen talons.
         A brilliant flash penetrated the blinding pain that followed and for a brief moment Michael glimpsed the unimaginable. A winged form, immense and unthinkably swift, descended upon the attacking demon from above, intercepting its assault. It was indescribable to the human consciousness. It was not human and yet entirely holy. From it shone an iridescence pervading every part of its form and radiating beyond itself to illuminate the darkened forest. A silence more pure and unspoiled than had ever been known in Time or Creation accompanied the mighty winged being.
         Its presence repelled the demon with such force that it was flung bodily against its own edifice before it fell to the ground, stunned.
         The winged being turned its face upon the fallen man but the luminescence that surrounded it proved too blinding even for Michael's powerful sight to penetrate. Before he could even make an attempt, it was gone.
         
         A powerful nausea overwhelmed Michael and he swooned in the onset of an intense pain roaring up his left arm. He slumped forward into the decaying leaf litter that blanketed the ground, his eyes fluttering and rolling back in his head moments before help arrived.









"Michael!" Roma cried, throwing herself from the gig even before it had drawn to a halt. Tom Borland's gaze fell upon a leviathan form lying on the ground beyond the injured man and for the first time in his life knew dread. Without taking his eyes from the rousing beast, he reached back into the gig and removed an iron bar the width of his wrist and the length of his arm. Slowly he climbed down the stationary cart and approached Roma as she tried frantically to revive the injured man.
         Michael's eyes fluttered and he moaned as he struggled weakly to regain consciousness.
         "Michael, please, try to stay with me," Roma's voice was jagged with fear. Tom Borland, the only witness to the beast's slow revival, acted coolly and with clear purpose. Roma had rolled Michael onto his back and off the torpid children, cradling his head in her lap, her hand covered in his blood as she attempted to stem the claret flow from his horribly lacerated arm. Swiftly she examined the children. Neither bore wounds and both were breathing, if catatonic.
         Tom Borland, his eyes affixed on the creature ahead, slung the tiny slip of a girl over his shoulder and tucked the boy beneath one enormous bear like arm, keeping one hand free to wield the iron stake should the need arise.
         "Hold tight, lass, I'll be back for the lad when I've slung these whippets over the saddle," he promised, the timbre of his tone conveying his preparedness to do what he must in the commission of saving their lives.
         Roma continued to revive Michael, who lapsed in and out of consciousness. He fought desperately to raise a hand to her face, to whisper a reassuring word but the veil of pain and hallucinations were veritably impenetrable.
         Tom Borland returned, still clutching the iron bar, and gently placed his giant paw of hand upon Roma's shoulder.
         "Move aside, lass, I need to collect the lad now," he instructed gently, his eyes never veering from the demon. It had begun to regain its senses and had managed to stagger to one knee, supporting its leviathan bulk with both hands, its head hanging heavily.
         Tom Borland had no sooner hefted Michael over his shoulder than the beast lurched unsteadily to its feet, shaking its head in an effort to dispel the disorientation it experienced. Shuddering once like a polar bear dislodging snow from its coat, it was again aware and alert. Resuming a predatory poise, its gaze shot to the large smithy and the unfinished business slung over his shoulder. Its eyes bore into the mighty blacksmith and there was something older than primordial there, something so dark and unforgiving as to chill him to his core.
         In one impossible bound, the demon leapt over the enormous altar and landed not five feet from the burly smithy who raised his iron bar and assumed a combat ready stance in spite of his burden. The demon snarled and moved to strike the blacksmith.
         "If God is with us, who can be against us?" a calm voice broke the unearthly silence within the clearing, "Stand down, defiler of the righteous. By the authority of the Resurrected Lamb, I bid thee leave this man be," Roland strode into the clearing and up to the demon as though it were merely a man.
         The demon recoiled and hissed, taking a reluctant step backwards.
         Tom Borland's eyes widened. Roma gasped. Roland stood before the monstrosity unafraid, his formerly dark hair a literal shock of white. For the first time since they had encountered the demon, he appeared completely devoid of fear, impervious to doubt.
         "Were I to call upon every Throne, every Principle, every Seraphim in all of Heaven, they would come," Roland warned in a tone so ominous, so filled with the conviction of irrefutable certainty, that the demon leapt back, landing upon its altar with an impact that thundered through the ground beneath them. It crouched like a primate, ever at the ready to flee or contest, "You will all depart, for I wish to speak to Abaddon," the priest commanded the many selves of the demon in a terrifyingly placid tone.
         The demon stood, seeming to experience an internal conflict, as though listening to voices within and without. It shook violently for but a heartbeat before it fell still. It stood to its full height, all traces of its physical bestiality disappearing. Its form remained unchanged but its stance took on a distinctly humanoid posture and deportment. It became frighteningly human in its bearing.
         "I am the One who swelled the seas that swallowed all Mankind and spared only the helmsman of the Ark," a voice rang out in so deep an octave that no human mouth could ever have emitted such a sound, "It was I that bid Nebuchadnezzar to bind and burn the Jewish princes. I caused the walls of the temple of Solomon to fall, never to be raised again. Think you equal to these great moments in humanity to challenge me, man of God?" the voice intoned as though only mildly curious, almost uninterested.
         "And yet upon my command you have come," Roland reminded the vile entity.
         "Upon my own authority I am come," the new entity corrected its adversary. Roma and Tom Borland stood rooted to the spot. They needed no familiarity with the name by which Roland addressed the entity to know that he had summoned the Father of Lies himself. Its voice, like a hollow ringing in the darkest vacuum, betrayed its identity as the Unholy Sovereign of the Fallen.
         "No one man can bid thee unless either bound to thee or calling thee to account in the name of Christ. I am not bound to thee. You have come at my behest in spite of your authority," Roland coolly clarified as a succinct reminder of its subservience to him.
         The entity did not sneer or snarl as its demon inhabitants were wont to do. It regarded the priest with a mixture of curiosity and animosity, both held superbly in check by an intellect of incalculable provision.
         Roland's hand flickered behind him in a gesture to Roma and Tom Borland to retreat. When he heard no movement, he glimpsed back at them. Their stoic expressions conveyed their refusal to leave him.
         "Are you a praying man?" Roma asked Tom Borland as the wind began to pick up in the clearing. It whipped and changed until it became cyclic, picking up fallen leaves and whipping them into a vortex. Overhead thunder rumbled in a cloud bunched sky. The ground beneath their feet heaved as the land split and clove in several places, creating bloodless wounds in the earth.
         A rank black fluid poured from sourceless gashes all over the face of the edifice and the altar erupted into flames.
         "Aye, lass, that I am," Tom Borland replied stalwartly. Roma sank to her knees, not a little surprised that she similarly experienced no fear in the face of the greatest scourge upon the human soul.
         "Pray with me," Roma murmured, bowing her head, joining her hands in prayer and exercising a faith so great that she closed her eyes to the monstrous creature before her. So strong was her belief in the power that protected her that she was able to turn aside from the entity utterly and commit her soul to prayerful and reverent supplication.
         Tom Borland dropped to his knees, gently laying the unconscious Michael upon a soft bed of leaves beside him. He placed his free hand upon Roma's shoulder to join with her in prayer.
         The creature pointed to the ground in front of Roland and flames soared high into the air from the scorched earth. The heat, the intensity of which was like that of a furnace, was searing to the skin and even reached Roma and Tom Borland, who knelt some distance beyond the priest.
         "Come, Witness of the Way," the entity beckoned Roland mockingly, "Come into the flames and testify to your faith in the Redeemer."
         Roma blanched. From boyhood, Roland's deepest and only earthly fear had been fire, or the prospect of dying engulfed in flames. He had been plagued by dreams of such a demise throughout his life.

         To her complete astonishment, Roland stepped forward and was swallowed by the leaping flames.









"Did you see it?" Michael murmured, all but overwhelmed with a sopoforic drowse. The intensity of the pain in his arm had escalated beyond endurance and he had begun to go into shock.
         "Michael, stay with me," Roma suppressed a whisper, wheeling on her knees to tend him once more. Blood flowed freely from his inflamed arm and soaked into the earth. She attempted to stem it once more, drawing a pained wince from him.
         "Did you see it, Roma?" he asked, his smile euphoric, his eyes glimmering with wonder, "It was...was...it was magnificent," he mumbled almost illegibly.
         "Let's get you into the gig," she attempted to heft him upright into a sitting position but he was a dead weight in her slender arms. She did not struggle for long. A moment later an enormous shadow fell over her and Tom Borland lifted the tall man over his shoulder in one fluid, effortless motion.
         "Lay him in the back," Roma instructed, leaping into the driver's seat and taking up the reins. Tom Borland tore the sleeve from his shirt and wrapped it around Michael's angry wound, "Take Roland's horse and get the children back to their parents. Find Dr Hannan. Bring him to us. Please hurry," she urged, quickly explaining the route to her no longer private sanctuary in the woods.
         "What about Father Roland?" the smithy replied, aghast, turning back to the clearing that was itself entirely ablaze now. Within the furnace Roland stood, engulfed in flames, his image rippled by grabbing, fiery tongues and yet he did not burn, though the heat from the conflagration had become an impenetrable wall.
         Roma made the sign of the cross.
         "Something tells me he's going to walk out of those flames and this forest the same way he walked in. In one piece," she replied stoutly.









Something in the priest's bearing, the absence of tension in his shoulders, the lightness of his gait, the stillness of his usually fidgeting hands, communicated to all who looked upon him that there stood a man utterly divested of fear, entirely entrusted body and soul to a greater power. The priest and the demon were engaged in a dialogue lost to the roar of the flames and yet somehow Roma perceived that aside from their voices, there was complete silence within the flames. They circled one another in a slow, coreless orbit. The priest walking in an unhurried, measured pace. The demon, still retaining an unerringly humanistic countenance, walked with a less convincing show of languid ease, its demeanor betraying an almost imperceptible agitation. It carried itself as though ensuring it remained three steps ahead of an unseen pursuant, nonetheless keeping its pace regulated as though unwilling to catch up to an invisible menace three feet ahead. In spite of the incalculable power it radiated, it moved like a thing trapped, sandwiched between two great forces, neither of which it wished to encounter.
         Tom Borland wasted no time spiriting the stupefied children from the site. Michael groaned. As the gig thundered from the clearing and Roland's heavily laden horse bolted from the flames, Roma sent one last prayer heavenward to beg for the priest's safe deliverance as the flames raced into the treetops.
         A fierce dread clamped over her heart like a thorny fist when her gaze dropped from the inferno to the ailing man lying behind her. The reins bit into the rump of her steed and long, flexible tree branches whipped at her face until her eyes stung and her lips were numb. The dash back to their cottage was lost to a blur of tears and panic.









When Roma reached their idyllic hideaway, she found the final ten yards from the gig to the cottage more laborious than the several miles she had traversed. Michael was not only tall but muscular, an impossible weight for Roma who was herself slight and light of frame. Sheer determination and more than one frustrated scream saw her eventually drag him inside and heave him onto the bed, a broad burgundy smear on the floor evidencing his path into the cabin. Roma collapsed onto the floor beside the bed, her scorched lungs desperately heaving in one ragged breath upon another. She allowed herself to rest less than a score of heartbeats before pulling herself up upon leaden limbs.
         With tears spilling to her porcelain cheeks, she fetched water, stripped the unconscious man of his perspiration and blood drenched clothing and meticulously cleaned his wound. The flesh around it was black and he twitched periodically as though invisible strings tugged at his skin.
         When she had done all she could for him, and rousing him to drink proved fruitless, she pulled a cotton sheet up to his waist, curled up on the bed beside him and wept as though the raven of sorrow itself had come to roost in her heart.
         The low rumble of carriage wheels coaxed her from her distress. She sprang from the bed and raced to the door, all but wrenching it from its hinges. The grave features of Ichabod Hannan met her stricken expression and relief swamped her. Another man accompanied him, carrying his medical kit, ostensibly his replacement now that his retirement was in full effect. When Ichabod Hannan had entered the premises, Roma cut off his companion's entry by standing in the doorway.
         "Wait here one moment," she instructed, her tone non negotiable, closing the door before even awaiting a response. She turned quickly to her trusted friend, "His wound is deteriorating rapidly. He was lacerated by a demon, by its own hand, I haven't been able to rouse him. He's perishing," her voice was a hoarse shudder, "I tell you this because we can speak no more of the cause of this attack when your successor enters this cabin."
         Ichabod Hannan laid a reassuring hand upon Roma's shoulder and simply nodded, delivering her a tight smile before hastening to his patient.
         Roma turned and unlatched the door once more, granting her perplexed visitor admission. She did not explain his momentary exclusion.
         "Well, my lad, you certainly have sustained an impressive injury here," the elderly physician remarked dispassionately, his professional objectivity and methodical analysis as keen in his twilight years as at the birth of his stellar career. Something in the authority of his tone comforted Roma greatly.
         "God in heaven!" Tiberius Rothschild exclaimed as he drew closer to examine the wound, "Whatever caused this injury cauterized the wound as it did so, but see here, an infection rages, swamping even the sterilizing effect of the cauterization," he looked up at Roma, agog, "What caused this? Was he hacked with a poisoned blade?" Roma met his gaze squarely and said nothing, compounding his confusion.
         "Swabs, boy," Ichabod Hannan interrupted, "I need alcohol swabs, fine pointed tweezers and ready the stitching twine." Immediately Tiberius Rothschild assisted his mentor and for more than an hour they cleaned, sterilized and treated the festering wound. As they neared the completion of their treatment, Michael stirred and though his eyes were closed, his hand found Roma's arm. He turned to her, his pale, glazed eyes glinting with sublime rapture.
         "I loved you before you even came into my life," he murmured in a distant voice, looking upon her with unmitigated devotion. His brow pinched and he winced in pain once again. Roma turned her desperate gaze towards Ichabod Hannan.
         "Do you have any opiates?" she asked. He nodded. She dashed quickly to a small, unadorned wooden box upon a sideboard nearby and withdrew five glinting ducats, "Take it and leave me with the dosage instructions," she urged and he pushed her coin filled hand away, shaking his head.
         "I would never take your coin, dear girl, for you are a daughter to me and I tend my own without thought for recompense," he said soberly, touching his palm to her cheek. She set the coins aside and returned her attention to Michael.
         "Don't leave me," she implored and he caressed her cheek as the swiftly administered opiates began to weave their pain dissolving magic through his tortured body. Finally he sighed as the agony that had gripped him subsided, leaving him merely weak and drowsy.
         "Don't be afraid. It takes more than the bile spat up from hell to drag me away from you," he assured her, his voice barely audible.
         Ichabod Hannan gestured to Roma. She left Michael's side after kissing his brow and joined her aged friend at the far end of the kitchen table.
         "I have applied a salve to his arm to slow the deterioration but something else is at work, corroding the flesh. I cannot stem it. Soon it will putrefy and if I don't remove his arm within the next few days, he will lose his life," the empathetic physician explained, taking Roma's arm to steady her as she momentarily swooned at the diagnosis.
         "The demon is toxic to life itself. It should not surprise me that its assault would infect and eventually kill," Roma whispered, still unable to reconcile herself to the hideous outcome of the morning's events.
         "I've left you with enough opiates to heavily sedate him. I must go at once to Sway to retrieve the necessary implements to perform the surgery. I will return in all haste," Ichabod Hannan continued, drawing her into a gentle embrace and stroking her hair as he would a child, "Take heart, my dear, you've sterner grit than you credit yourself for and take note of my words," he held her shoulders and forced her to engage his rigid stare, "I will not let that boy die. Do you understand? Encourage him to drink but give him no solids. As I know not the hour of my return, I will want to act immediately when I arrive and cannot wait for him to fast in preparation for the procedure." Roma nodded and the elderly physician kissed her brow gently before ushering a no less bewildered Tiberius Rothschild out the door.
         Roma was alone with Michael once more, only now there lurked a vile interloper whose presence hung about her neck oppressively like an unbearable yoke - the diagnosis. She was still attempting to coagulate the jumbled thoughts in her mind into a cohesive, softened explanation for Michael, whose lucidity was on the increase following the obliteration of his pain, when he spoke.
         "The hour of his return won't matter," he whispered. Roma quaked.
         "Don't say that," she replied, tenderly stroking his brow as she kissed his clasped hand.
         "No, I didn't mean it that way," Michael assured her softly, drawing her smooth knuckles to his lips to kiss them, "I meant that it won't be necessary for him to carry out the surgery," his eyes rolled back and fluttered momentarily and he appeared to lapse into an altered state, "Three times did he disown Christ before the cock crowed. Just as it was thus, in three days from now the cock will crow once more, the wound will be gone, and I shall be healed," his voice trailed off. He drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep. Roma sat statue still, astonished and perplexed by his baffling prediction.
         Roma sank back into the chair beside the bed, her mind coming to terms with the remarkable prophesy. She could not put it down to the opiates, for it was too specific, too detailed. An opiate induced hallucination would have been incoherent and rambling. She could fathom neither his reference to the Apostle Peter's triple denial of Christ before His Crucifixion nor the purported three day lapse before his own predicted recovery. The only factor linking them was the reference to the number three and the crowing of the cock. She determined to put it from her mind and concentrate on the task of ensuring he stayed alive long enough to see his prophesy fulfilled, even if its meaning lay beyond her comprehension.
         The next two days passed in a blur. Roma had obtained as little as three hours sleep prior to the incident and on the eve of the portentous third day she was exhausted to the point of stumbling, falling, lapsing in and out of consciousness on her feet, and finding herself mumbling constantly - mostly prayers, some gibberish and infrequently slipping back into her native Florentine tongue.
         Michael awoke, weak as the wings of a day old butterfly, flooded in perspiration and pale as alabaster. He reached up to touch her face as she knelt in prayer by the bed, his other hand fiercely clutched in her grip. She was leaning to one side, all but sliding off the bed were it not for her grasp of his hand.
         She lifted her boulder heavy head, her eyes dull, lids growing heavier with each passing moment. Somehow she managed a smile for his sake though her heart crumbled within her, certain that the vines of death had already begun to choke the last precious echoes of life from him.
         "Don't be afraid," he murmured, his voice softer than a drifting feather.
         "You must think me utterly faithless," she whispered, unable to fathom how his body could possibly return from so brutal a decimation. Each day she had tended the wound hourly as instructed and still it had worsened until it gave off a noxious reek. Long dark streaks shot up his arm. Blood poisoning. He had given over to convulsions several times and was soon coughing blood. The demon had managed only to lacerate his arm but it had been enough to trigger a chain reaction throughout the rest of his body. His toes were stained a greenish color. Gangrene. And he constantly hemorrhaged at his fingernails and toenails. His eyes were so pale they were almost devoid of color at all.
         "I think you are the most wondrous thing to have ever come into my life," he corrected, "I'm so tired. We'll talk more soon." Even as he spoke he drifted back into torpor.
         Roma could not have known it at the time, for so steeped was she in prayer and so brutalized by exhaustion, that something in her prayers caused a shift in the natural order on the opposite side of the world.






Since its thwarted attack on the woman in the bath chamber weeks before, it had fled. Fled as far from her as was physically within its capability. It had run day and night, stolen away on seaborne vessels, in the undercarriage of horse drawn land trains, even in shipping crates and containers. It had desperately fought to place as much distance between itself and the woman as though she were a pyroclastic cloud hurtling towards it.
         The source of its fear was potent, irrational, frantic. The source of its fear did not originate either with the demon to which it was bound or the Sovereign under whose dominion they all writhed, but rather something far worse.
         Love.
         For the first time it understood, truly comprehended, that the love that existed between the woman and her mate was capable of destroying it. It was a thing anathema to it, a thing that reached into the dark places, illuminating that which was never meant to see light, a thing that decimated all earthly perils of fear, hatred, prejudice, greed and avarice.
         And then there was the other toxin to which it had no defense.
         Prayer.
         In combination, love and prayer would have a cataclysmic effect upon all things rooted in wickedness. It felt the imminence of danger even as it ran heedlessly through a colorless forest on a cloud muted day at the opposite end of the globe. Terror seized it. Nowhere was far enough. Earthbound as it was, it could not slip into the realm of its origin where it stood a chance of survival if it could escape spatial proximity, to force both time and the gulf between worlds twixt them. It felt its link to her, inexorable, inescapable. Were she to pray powerfully enough, and were that prayer to be driven by her love, it would find itself consumed and obliterated from on High, by the very hand of the Messiah. Before the Appointed Time. It knew that all evil would be judged and consigned to the Lake of Fire when the Lamb That Was Sacrificed returned again. During the Christ's reign on earth, more than one of its forebears had begged not to be tortured until the Appointed Time, which begged the cavernous question - what became of those of its kind unfortunate enough to perish before that time? Where did they go? How far flung from all that was and was to come were they hurled? And what manner of punishment awaited them in this nameless, placeless place?
         These and other terrifying questions rushed through its consciousness even as its decaying skin began to smolder and steam. Fear punched into its rotting heart like a predator at its throat. A sickening sizzle could be heard as the grey dermis bubbled and blistered. Soon patches all over its physical self began to scorch until suddenly its arm ignited.
         It screamed. It was a primal, inhuman sound. It ran on, desperately hoping to distance itself from her, knowing fully it was doomed even as it fled. Flames began to lick up the mottled flesh of its legs. Its tattered rags caught fire and fell away in pieces as it raced past leafless trees beneath a basalt sky in an uninhabited, isolated part of the world.
         Soon it was a fiery mass of flailing limbs, its head thrashing wildly, its screams indescribable to the human condition - a failed phoenix that eventually fell. Within minutes, little more than steaming bones and ash remained of the once powerful tormentor in a dim forest in a part of the globe upon which no human tread would ever sound for all time to come.









Roma's head jerked up. She had not even realized that it had listed until her forehead rested on the linens.
         It was gone. Gone utterly.
         It had been with her for so long that unless the degree of intensity increased, she had desensitized her awareness of it that it might not drive her mad. But it had always been there, like a fine thread running through the very centre of her, the end of which lay firmly in the grasp of her tormentor, to be pulled upon to draw itself to her from whatever distant port she exiled herself to.
         She second guessed herself. She was fatigued beyond human endurance and numb within and without. Perhaps anesthetized by the grim horror of Ichabod Hannan's dire prognosis coupled with Michael's proximity to death, she pondered. She dismissed these notions. The very thought of it had always reawakened her awareness of the bind she felt. Factors like fatigue, illness and other distractions had never deadened her ability to perceive that bind.
         This was different. It simply was not there anymore. How that could be, she did not know. She had done nothing to break the tie. God Himself knew she had tried. Tried everything, consulted every holy man, subjected herself to every rite of detoxification known to the Church. The results had always been the same. Nothing. Nothing could break, divert or confuse the link that bound her to her sometime assailant. It was impermeable.
         And yet it was gone.
         The last thing Roma recalled before lurching forth into dazed awareness was praying as she never had. She had lain her soul bare in supplication, wept tears of blood in her anguish, and abandoned all earthly recourse in the fight for Michael's life, instead trusting only to a faith that could annihilate a mountain and a prayer that was powerful enough to silence every voice in humanity should she have wished it. It took only two things to slough her life of the blight her tormentor cast across her every sunrise - a love more powerful than fear and a faith so indomitably resolute, so fortified, that her connection in that moment of prayer with heaven transcended her yoke of subjugation.
         It would be some time before she was enlightened of her hand in the Smiling Man's demise.
         She had only just reconciled herself to her inexplicable liberty when she heard the distant din of voices and footsteps beyond her door.









"Heaven's to Betsy, child, what have you gone and done to yourself?" a familiar, if hazy, voice trilled in an unusually high alto for so characteristically deep a timbre. It was like hearing speech with two pillows clamped over the ears. Fuzzy and dull.
         Roma felt a strong pair of hands grip her upper arms and set her aright. She had slumped into a lean again without realizing. Her granite heavy eyelids fluttered and half opened but so weary were her dark cabochon orbs that everything appeared blurred by a blinding white vapor. She perceived movement, however, which was how she came to know that Mother was not alone.
         Lifting her head, she was surprised to find that it flopped awkwardly back and then to the side. She tried again. Strange. She no longer felt tired. She felt very little of anything, in fact. She had not slept. She wondered idly how it was she no longer experienced the anchor heavy fatigue that had beset her earlier.
         A familiar pair of strong arms hoisted her into the chair beside the bed. Again she became aware that her connection to the Smiling Man had been severed but instead of experiencing elation, she contemplated it with almost objective curiosity. Around her activity buzzed. Lamps were lit. The hearth was set ablaze. The clink of cutlery and crockery littered the silence. Shoes shuffling along the polished flagstones formed a soft rhythm.
         Roma drifted in and out of awareness until she felt a hot mug placed gently in her hands, another pair of hands holding it there lest she inadvertently drop it. This struck her as odd, for she was not in the habit of spilling beverages over her person.
         "Take a good, long lug, Honey, you look like you done seen a lick of nights without sleep or proper nourishment," Mother coaxed in a tone typically gentle but brokering no protest.
         Roma moved mechanically, as though her limbs had a consciousness of their own. She raised the steaming cup to her lips and took a large swallow of the coal black liquid within.
         Her eyes shot open and she all but gagged. Suddenly she was very, very alert and in an instant realized that she had been in a virtual stupor.
         "Sweet Saints be praised, Mother!" Roma exclaimed, "You must have made me nigh on a thousand cups of coffee these last months and only this time you forget the sugar!" She stared at the invitingly hot cup in horror before her gaze elevated to her good friend. Mother sat on the edge of Michael's bed, eyeing her with a mix of amusement, concern and relief.
         "Thought that might rouse you some," she chortled, placing her palm against Roma's deathly pale cheek before rising and stirring the hearth to provoke the blaze.
         Roma took another deep draught of the coffee, wincing at the bitter taste. She felt sensation begin to creep back into her body as though an internal sun slowly arose within her, thawing her numbness. She drank again. A movement caught her attention and her head shot to the opposite side of the bed where an older women in worn clothing with nothing short of a regal bearing sat holding Michael's hand and stroking his perspiration slick brow.
         "Who are you?" Roma demanded in a tone that sounded more suspicious than she had intended.
         "I am Camilla," the woman replied in an imperious tone before her gaze softened a little, along with her voice, "I am Michael's mother."
         The revelation hit Roma with the force of a flying mallet. For a moment she simply regarded the woman detachedly, her expression unreadable. She thought the older woman flinched almost imperceptibly, for when Roma did not return her incredulous, confrontational gaze with anticipated hostility, she sensed that
Camilla did not know how to respond. The absence of reciprocated antagonism seemed, peculiarly enough, to throw the woman off her game.
         "I'm Roma," she replied without elaboration.
         "How long has he been like this?" Camilla inquired, forcing civility into her tone. Amiability did not come naturally to Michael's mother, Roma deduced in a heartbeat.
         "Almost three days," Roma replied, taking another long draught of the coffee, her eyes never straying from the older woman. Her probing consideration caused Camilla to shift uncomfortably.
         "What caused this?" Camilla continued, curtly. She began to grow impatient with Roma's unembellished responses. Roma cocked an eyebrow and thought to give the woman a sound dressing down and then thought the better of it. Mercifully, another interruption stayed her tongue.
         "I think that explanation best come from me, lass, if you don't mind," Tom Borland addressed Roma, removing his hat upon entering the small lodge. He dipped his head respectfully towards Mother before making his way to Camilla's side.
         "He's been like this three days and you knew?" Camilla demanded indignantly.
         "When you hear what I've to say, love, you'll understand," the forge master replied apologetically, "Come to the table. You'll need to take a seat before I begin," he offered Camilla a strong hand, his eyes deeply troubled, his expression grave. She acquiesced without further contention, unable to drag her gaze from his, having never seen such trepidation in those glinting, roguish eyes before.
         Mother busied herself with supper preparations, chopping the vegetables and herbs she had brought with military precision, tossing them into a small, deep iron pot.
         Roma leant across the bed to touch Michael's face. He roused. Through bloodshot eyes he regarded her with the same intense adoration he demonstrated when whole and healthy.
         "You look beautiful," he whispered, smiling broadly, wearily. She half laughed.
         "It's the artificial lighting," Roma nodded towards the lamps, "The shadows, the highlights, the soft light - does wonders for the complexion," she jested softly. He chuckled, a painfully thin sound.
         Though he seemed inches from death, for the remainder of him seemed utterly without animation, Roma thought to share her wondrous discovery with him. To grant him peace of mind, just in case.
         "It's gone, Michael, the link, it's gone," she whispered to him , curling up onto the bed beside him. She propped her head up with one elbow that he might not have to strain to see her.
         "What's gone?" he asked.
         "The Smiling Man," she replied, her voice a-shudder, "Just this hour. One moment I could feel its yoke, the next it was severed. I can't explain it. It just disappeared. But there's no mistaking it. It's no longer there. It has no way of finding me," she seemed overwhelmed by the very telling of it. A swell of momentary joy seemed to stir him before he lapsed back into indolence. He was, however, changed for the knowledge of it. He seemed evidently relieved, settled. He said nothing. His ease conveyed his elation.
         Yet another commotion diverted her attention. Ichabod Hannan stood in the doorway of the small cabin doffing his coat and hat. At his feet sat a large carpet bag. The dimpled protuberances suggested many implements and confirmed the worst of Roma's suspicions. Quickly she kissed Michael's brow and came over the aged physician, embracing him warmly. She held him in the embrace as she whispered in his ear.
         "Give him until tomorrow. Don't perform the surgery tonight, I beg you," she implored, veritably clutching him like the father she had never known. She quickly divulged Michael's astonishing prediction.
         "I took an oath, child. I must do all that I can to save his life, and in all haste," he urged in a suppressed tone.
         "I know. Believe me, Ichabod, I fear with my life that his every breath will be his last," she concurred, "But he is the love of my life. I have to trust him," Roma begged, herself evidently conflicted. Ichabod Hannan considered this for some time, clearly at odds with the oath he had taken over fifty years earlier to preserve all life, "Please, Ichabod, tell no one of your intentions. Give him until morning as he foretold. I promise you, if it is not as he forecast, you may do as you must. I will assist you," she vowed with a solemnity as though she had laid her hand upon the very breast of Christ Himself to swear her oath.
         Sighing, heavy of heart, he finally nodded and Roma all but collapsed with relief.
         "Hello Ichabod," a warm, resonant voice intoned from the far end of the cosy cabin.
         "Hello, Mother," he replied warmly, setting his bulging bag to one side against the wall with his foot.
         "Come seat yourself by the fire, Ichabod," Mother invited warmly, "I've a hot cup of steaming midnight calling out your name." She brought him the piping hot coffee which he gratefully accepted and seated himself in the chair offered after imparting his greetings to Camilla and Tom Borland. Camilla, visibly stunned by the full account of how Michael had sustained his injuries, joined her old friend and they shared a companionable silence before the licking flames, each lost to their private conflicts.
         Roma took the opportunity to take Tom Borland aside.
         "I haven't had the chance to thank you for what you did," Roma apologized, "For what you were prepared to do," she added. He smiled warmly at her.
         "It's what any man of decency would do for the little ones," he dismissed his valiant actions offhand. Roma planted a kiss on his cheek.
         "In my life, in my line of work, I have met many men who fancy themselves noble, brave, even going so far as to advertise their merits to any who would listen. And I have seen them lose their bladders and collapse into a ball of blubbering hysteria when faced with an evil of virtual insignificance compared to what we saw," she elaborated, "You are one of the last great titans of our world, Tom Borland, and I sorely rue the day when we have seen the last of your kind on this earth."
         "On my word, lass, any man who can turn no-account, thieving, foul-mouthed little street urchins into trustworthy, reliable, skilled smithies is certain to find that a more trying task than facing off with some ruddy great beastie of a devil," he winked. Roma chuckled. She found herself utterly convinced of his sincerity for he knew well that he had almost been smote by the hand of Satan himself and yet, for all the concern he demonstrated, or more appropriately, lack thereof, he could have been discussing something as inconsequential as the quality of his evening meal. She admired that. Men of substance required neither accolade nor gratitude, for merely doing the right and proper thing was its own reward. Men of substance like Tom Borland lived in perpetual readiness to give up all they had, even their lives, in the commission of saving another, a quality Christ had once termed ‘the greatest gift' a man could impart in the small measure of his life.
         "It's been almost three days and I've seen no sign of Roland," Roma noted as Tom Borland's expression darkened, "What is it, Tom?"
         "For the past two days he has been in that godless blaze with the beastie," he shook his head in disbelief, "I returned there to check on the lad before coming here. They're still engaged in a bloody debate, if you can believe it!" he exclaimed, lowering his voice suddenly upon realizing the volume of his outburst, "Day and night they circle each other in that unholy fire and you need not the sharpest wit to identify a battle of wills when you see one. What in the blue blazes a man of God and the Devil Incarnate have to talk about, and at such length, is anyone's guess." He shook his head, bereft of a cogent explanation for the unearthly debate.
         "You'd be surprised," Roma alluded without elaboration.
         "And then as abruptly as it had begun, the lad simply turned his back on the beastie and walked out of the fire. Seems he bespake a few magical incantations that left the brute confined to its location and departed. It seemed to fall into something of a stupor for a moment or two and when it came to it was different somehow. It no longer moved like a man, more like an animal. Gone was its calm manner, and it snarled at the lad like a wild dog, though it dared not venture to follow," he relayed, baffled by the disorienting sequence of events he had witnessed, "Roland returned to the rectory. Seems some gentlemen of apparent import from the Mother Church in Rome have come a-calling, if you take my meaning."
         Roma's stomach turned, bringing the taste of bile to her mouth.
         The Cardinals had arrived. Soon Roland would face the corollary of his most catastrophic lapse in judgment, she mused, but far from feeling superior, she felt only anxiety for him, for he truly believed he had taken the best and truest course of action. She felt an almost intangible sense of inevitability, like an immense cog turning and setting into motion a series of events beyond any earthly control.
         "Thank you, Tom," she replied, patting his arm and returning to Michael. Camilla sat on the opposite side of the bed, holding her son's hand as he lay close to death. She looked upon him with open affection. Roma surmised that it was most likely reminiscent of how she might have regarded him as a babe in happier times. She did not disturb her thoughts but merely lay beside Michael. His hand instinctively curled about hers. Camilla sighed.
         "Even at the precipice of death, he reaches for you," she marveled in a confused, wistful whisper, "He will go to his death with only your name upon his lips and a vision of your face alone in his soul," she conceded sadly.
         "Think you so little of yourself in his esteem that you imagine him incapable of loving two women?" Roma replied, her gaze unfocussed, though her mind was clear.
         "I know my son loves me, but he is in love with you and that is the most powerful force in existence. I have been guilty of loathing you for engendering in him the kind of love and loyalty his father was never able to give to me and for that I must ask your forgiveness," she stammered, the very admission sitting awkwardly within her mouth, the words rolling out like oddly angled blocks, clunking and ineloquent.
         Roma smiled. Another oppressive weight lifted from her buckling spirit. She looked up and took the older woman's hand.
         "My name is Roma. I am an envoy of the Holy Church of Rome and I am here to rid your shire of a vile corruption. I love your son with all my heart. It is an honor to make your acquaintance, ma'am," Roma symbolically swept aside all past enmities with her gracious gesture and the stiffness in Camilla's shoulders dissolved. She took the hand offered her and held it for a long moment.
         "My name is Camilla," she replied warmly before her tone assumed an edge of maternal sternness, "And I am counting on your love for my son to save his life," she testified.
         Roma proceeded to outline to Camilla the prediction Michael had made before he had slipped into an impermeable slumber. She seemed perplexed by the revelation and not a little disturbed.
         "That's why I begged Dr Hannan to forestall the-" she cut herself short, inwardly shuddering at the thought of the surgery her trusted friend was proposing, "-procedure," she couched a little more sensitively. Camilla took a deep breath, patting the back of Roma's hand in thanks.
         "It would appear I owe my old friend an apology," she disclosed, her expression grave, "I just gave him a roasting worthy of a royal banquet for standing by idly while my son labors in the face of his illness," she sighed, "Oh well, it's not the first time tonight I have swallowed a goodly portion of humble pie. If I'm to eat my words much more during the course of this evening, I imagine I shall be quite sated by morning," she deliberated as she rose wearily to join her lifelong friend by the fire once more.
         Mother cocked an eyebrow in Roma's direction that made her smile. Obviously this was the first jest Camilla had ever uttered in the history of their association and to share it with the former object of her animosity seemed to both perplex and impress Mother.
         Not long after midnight Roland arrived. His new appearance did not cease to astonish those who had not yet witnessed his transformation and it left Mother, Tom Borland, Camilla and Ichabod Hannan agog. He took Roma aside and they exchanged accounts of their recent experiences. Roma was dismayed to learn that in less than three days the representatives of the Office of Exorcist would perform a ceremony in the presence of the demon that she knew was doomed to fail utterly. Roland did not invite a debate and she offered none. Instead he knelt beside the sickbed and submerged himself in prayer.
         The night wore on and, with each passing hour, the vigil keepers found themselves arrested by weariness. Ichabod Hannan drifted off to sleep in his chair by the fire. Roma laid out a simple pallet bed before the hearth for Mother while Tom Borland and Camilla slipped into an exhausted slumber on a comfortable settee. Roland had placed a kettle atop the iron stove to boil water for his coffee but fell asleep at the kitchen table whilst waiting.
         Roma remained awake. With less than three hours until dawn, she refused to waste a single moment of her time sleeping whilst the thread of life enduring beyond Michael's irrevocable injuries frayed a little more with each passing second. In spite of her best efforts, Roma slipped further and further towards unconsciousness, only dimly aware of everything around her when the first pre-dawn glimmer of light yawned over the horizon.









Barely cognitive, Roma realized that a light slowly began to filter into the room. Her mind a distant mechanism in the fog of fatigue, she pondered that it was an extraordinary thing, since direct daylight could not penetrate the bramble asphyxiated lodge.
         It grew brighter and more intense until she forced herself to sit up and had to shield her eyes. Even more remarkable was the origin of the light. It was sourceless. Certainly the hearth, which had deteriorated to mere smouldering embers, was incapable of producing much less throwing such luminescence. The light grew stronger until was entirely incandescent.
         Roma heard herself gasp when a silhouette suddenly took form within the light. It was recognizably human in shape but the light behind it rendered the figure within entirely obscured.
         Time slowed to near inertia and Roma turned her head in a soup thick daze to find that the light, which illuminated both her and Michael and was so bright it should have been streaming out into the cabin to banish every shadow, did not reach the slumbering party. Neither had it roused them from their sleep. Dust motes in the air were suspended in a gelled stasis. Even the steam from Roland's forgotten kettle hung in the air like a frozen cloud.
         Turning back to the concealed figure before her, Roma felt her every movement lag like an anchor dragging through kelp. She attempted to speak but the movement of her mouth was so slow that a thousand possibilities had hurtled through her mind in the time it took to articulate a single word.
         Bathed in white light, Michael looked like an angel - flawless, impossibly beautiful and ethereal. Roma's breath caught in her throat when the silhouette before her passed in front of Michael and blocked the light, casting a long shadow across him. Caught in time's lingering protraction, she did not blink and thus could not pass off as a trick of the eye the incredible transformation she witnessed.
         As the shadow of the figure passed over Michael, the bandages fell away from his arm and the festering inflammation that surrounded his lacerations waned, the discoloration and ruination of the flesh regenerating in a single heartbeat until the limb was once again whole. Tincture poured back into his translucent skin. Gone was the shallow, erratic breathing that rattled in his throat as his chest swelled with the intake of several long deep breaths. The hemorrhaging in his finger- and toenails ceased and the blood poisoning tracks that snaked across his body disappeared.
         Michael opened his eyes. They were bluer than a clear winter sky. The lifelessness in his body drained away as he turned his face towards the obscured figure beside him. Roma made out the indistinct form of a hand upon Michael's shoulder as the concealed form appeared to bend down to speak to him. Though Michael's lips moved, the exchange was lost to Roma who found herself excluded from their exchange. It was brief and when the figure stood once more, she noticed that tears were streaming down Michael's face. His expression embraced gratitude and sorrow.
         A fog descended upon Roma momentarily and from within it, from nowhere and everywhere, a voice came to her, not human for it was too beautiful. She felt a sharp intake of breath fill her lungs, for certainly this perfectly wondrous voice could only belong to a messenger of the Most High. It cited "As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter's shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by" and was gone, taking with it the enveloping fog. For several moments Roma contemplated the cited Scripture passage before a dawning sank into her. Her realization of the identity of the concealed figure before her struck Roma with even greater force than her previous awareness of her severed connection with the Smiling Man. She had to remind herself to breathe. She kept the revelation to herself. It was Michael's miracle, to divulge at his own discretion in his own time.
         The figure receded slowly into the light and was swallowed by it. The light retreated to the origin of its sourceless derivation so swiftly that Roma jumped. Her heart thundered in her chest as she looked back down upon Michael whose face had turned to her. He was aflush with health and vitality. And he was utterly unmarked.
         Roma barely stifled a cry when moments later a rooster crowed in the distance beyond the glen in which their cabin was located.









Almost an hour had passed when Michael and Roma's joyful reunion was interrupted. A gasp across the room alerted them to the slow rousing of their companions. Camilla's trembling hand reached for her mouth as she looked upon her son with tear-swollen eyes. Tom Borland awoke the instant Camilla reacted.
         "Sweet Mother of Mount Carmel!" he murmured, placing a supportive arm around Camilla as she pulled her shawl about her shoulders.
         Ichabod Hannan awoke and took in the scene before him almost without surprise, as though he had fully believed he would awaken to such a sight. Mother stirred and, seeing Michael seated and in the flush of youthful health, made the sign of the cross and whispered something in her native tongue. Roland also roused and walked over to the beaming couple, placing his hand upon his friend's shoulder.
         "If it were a couple of days bed rest you fancied, you need only have asked," he quipped jovially, "For sure there was no need to go hammer and tongs with the Lord of the Underworld and score yourself a wee nick on the arm as your excuse." Michael chuckled and the brittle tension of the moment relaxed, "It's good to see you hale and hearty again, my friend," Roland added with heartfelt sincerity. Michael smiled his thanks.
         Camilla tore across the room and embraced her son in a flood of tears. It took several minutes of reassurance before her weeping abated. As she clung to her miraculously restored son, Ichabod Hannan conducted a physical examination that concluded with a white glove clean bill of health. Tom Borland sorely reproached him for frightening his mother terribly, before drawing him into a bear hug the likes of which might very well have killed him with the same certainty as his prior injuries. Mother set about putting the kettle to boil once more before grubbing up some oats, dried figs and honey with which to provide the party a revitalizing breakfast.
         Michael examined his arm. The skin was unmarked, as though it had never been scored. The pounds that had melted from him due to the ravages of illness and inability to eat had returned. His skin was ruddy and his eyes sparkled.
         "How can this be?" Camilla asked, astonishment welling in her voice. Tom Borland led the shaken woman to the kitchen table, once she was able to tear herself away from her son, where she sat and gripped a hot cup of tea like it was her very lifeline.
         "Because the very thing that healed him is greater than that which slew him," Roma replied with quiet confidence. It was statements such as these and a demonstrated calmness of conviction that always struck Ichabod Hannan dumb with awe. Though tender in years and experience, Roma shone boldly like a torch of enlightenment and wisdom in a world of mute, blind ignorance.
         "You mean the Lord Jesus Christ?" she whispered, overcome with awe at the thought that Christ Himself had laid healing hands upon her stricken son. Roma smiled.
         "Our Savior can heal all wounds, cure all illnesses and smite every wickedness but it was not merely His ability to do so that healed Michael," she explained, "It was his faith that restored him. Nothing is beyond the scope of the Father's abilities, but only faith can open the door to welcome His aid," she claimed simply.
         "Amen to that!" Mother affirmed emphatically.
         In spite of Michael's insistence that not only was he healed but he felt fully rested also, Ichabod Hannan insisted he remain abed a few hours longer. He rose briefly to dress and was about to return to his enforced bed rest only to discover that Roma had collapsed into a deep and exhausted sleep on top of the bed. She could be neither roused nor moved and so Michael placed a plush coverlet over her and kissed her brow before arching his back and stretching his legs. Though he felt vigorous and renewed, his circulation was poorer for his previous immobility and it felt good to walk about the small cabin to work out the knots and kinks that had burrowed into his joints.
         He joined Mother at the cook fire as she stirred a large pot of simmering oats pungent with the aroma of honey and fruit. He planted a small kiss on her cheek in silent thanks for her vigil at his bedside.
         "Keep that up, child, and my Zachary may have to take you to hand," she chortled before her tone dipped into solemnity, "She wouldn't sleep while you were in peril," she disclosed.
         "How long has it been? What day is this?" he asked, his recollection still a little foggy.
         "Thursday," Mother replied, "You were attacked on Monday. When we arrived last night she was all but delirious with fatigue. Dr Hannan thinks it a miracle she didn't slip and split that pretty head of hers open in her stumblings, she was so bereft of sleep. And yet in spite of her probable inability to coherently write her own name due to exhaustion, he calculated that she measured out your dosages with exactitude and found bloodied bandages to suggested she cleaned and treated your wound hourly and with regimental thoroughness since his departure," she elaborated, "The Lord Hisself may have cured what ailed you, boy, but that young woman kept you in this world until He came good on the bonds of your faith."
Michael turned to look upon his sleeping angel and was filled with an emotion even more powerful than love. It was a oneness, a wholeness unlike any he had every known. Every part of him - body, mind, heart, soul - was entirely fused in unity with every part of her. There was neither beginning nor end to either of them and at their core was their faith in a love and a fidelity greater even than their own. Faith itself in the Christ, His mission, His Passion, His Resurrection and the Eternity of Salvation rooted their love in a purpose greater than themselves, greater than the collective purpose of all humanity. He knew with surety that nothing would ever drive them apart.
         Through eyes that beheld the world like looking through a faceted jewel, its many dimensions juxtaposed, Michael gazed upon Roma and saw only the woman he loved enveloped in light, at peace, her sleeping form luminescent and marvelous.
         One by one, the small party dispersed as it became plaintively clear that Michael was restored to full health. Roland was the first to leave, excusing himself to meet with the Vatican envoy that had arrived the previous day to plan a course of action against the demon. Mother escorted a still shaken Camilla back to their cottage dwelling, whilst Tom Borland returned to his forge, bemoaning the sore state he feared it would be in with his apprentice in charge.
         Ichabod Hannan was the last to go. Michael saw him to the door.
         "I've been married twice in my life and spent at least some of it wishing I were not," he confessed without guilt, "But not until I witnessed that young lady's dedication to you had I ever wished I were a young man again, and blessed enough to own the affections of so remarkable a woman. I must confess to you to having something of a love affair with her mind and her spirit, but last night I observed a more powerful force than even the acuity of her wit and that was her adoration and devotion to you. Her smile is like a spring dawn to me and I harbor a genuine fear of withering and perishing utterly if she were to walk out of my life," he clapped a hand upon Michael's shoulder, "Make her happy. Make her smile often. And tell her every day that you love her."
         "I will, Sir," Michael avowed. Ichabod Hannan nodded and smiled, satisfied that he had imparted upon his young friend the enormity of the blessing that had been bestowed upon his life.
         Michael returned to the cabin, which now glowed in the flickering light of a steady fire and retained the appetizing aroma of breakfast, to curl up on the bed with Roma. Pulling her into his arms he wept tears of sweet sorrow for he had come to realize the second chance at life he had been given whilst lost to him was a friend who had been with him since infancy. The departure of his mentor cut him to the quick but he had known the time would come when the First would leave, for there were others to come, as had been revealed to him in their parting words. He had then blessed him and promised him they would meet again and walk together in the Eternal Paradise to once more talk of things great and simple as they had always done.
         When he had awoken, he had seen her and known his friend had not left him, for in her face he glimpsed the Heaven of which he was promised.
         Eventually he fell asleep. He could not have known that it would be his last truly peaceful repose before a great unrest shook them all unto its shocking and unexpected conclusion.
         It took several moments for the pounding upon the door to rouse the weary couple from their slumber. Michael rose, rubbing a hand over his face before sluggishly making his way to the cabin door.
         Opening it, he discovered that night had fallen. Tom Borland stood in the door frame, his weight nervously shifting from one foot to the other. His face was etched with concern.
         "Tom?" Michael inquired, dragging his fingers through his hair and attempting to shake the cobwebs from his mind.
         "There's a town meeting in progress, son," Tom informed him quickly, "You and the lass best be getting in there," he added concisely.
         Michael's fatigue melted as the asceticism of the smithy's tone struck home like a hammer to the chest.
         "What is it, Tom?" Michael probed, abruptly alert.
         "Come quickly," he urged and was gone.









Roma was already dressing for the chill night air when Michael closed the door. She swiftly pulled on her boots before making for her duffel bag.
         "What are you doing?" Michael asked as he watched her take a small knife and deftly slit the base of the bag. Beneath the false bottom lay dozens of sealed documents. Rifling through them in haste, she quickly retrieved the largest and most impressive of them.
         "I think I know what this is about," she admitted, her tone serious but hardly surprised. Michael noted the elaborate Vatican seal upon the fine quality parchment. He asked no more questions.
         They were ready in minutes and left without delay.

         "...consorting with whores, practicing iniquity whilst preaching piety, inciting terror in this town's citizens, not to mention petty theft," Christabel Hannan trilled from amongst the tiered seating of the spacious village hall.
         "You'd best have a convincing argument to put forth with evidence before you make those kinds of allegations, Mrs Hannan," a sweaty Luther Ellesmere retorted, his cagey stance reminiscent of a small beetle caught between the hammer and the anvil. His eyes darted hither and yon and the buttons of his waist coat strained against a bulbous stomach all the more bloated for the ulcer that the role of town Mayor had imparted upon him.
         "How about this?" she stormed to the fore of the chamber and slammed down a dozen gold ducats onto the mayoral podium. The clanking of the metal silenced the room, "She tossed this into my carriage to pay for the reprieve of my former coachman," she hissed, casting an acidic glance at the new arrivals, "on the night of the Spring Ball, making him no less a whore than those she carouses with." Michael and Roma quietly took a seat at the rear of the chamber, prudently gaining their bearings before either was prepared to launch a defense.
         "How know you that she is not a person of means?" the Mayor retorted, driven less by a desire to defend the foreigner than the necessity to appear in control of the proceedings.
         "She is unmarried, works for the Church as a transcriber, relies on parish accommodation - or at least did so until recently," her statement dripped with derision, "and bears no title or papers of entitlement. Suppose you tell me, Mister Mayor, how she might come into such coin when Bishop Archer himself reliably informs me that this very amount before you exceeds three times the annual income of a scribe in the employment of the Church?" she shot back.
         The Mayor looked past a hostile Christabel Hannan towards the Bishop who sat among the Lymington elite. He returned a slight nod to confirm the society woman's claim.
         "She paid as much for opiates for her lover when he sustained injuries of an unknown origin," Tiberius Rothschild added, aghast, "Where is all this coin coming from?" Ichabod Hannan cast a leveling glare at his successor, one the soon quaking doctor was to learn would end his career, for he had broken a sacred oath of confidentiality. He sat down quickly, instantly regretting his outburst, and reached for the hand of his sweetheart, Harriet Deckart, but she brushed it aside and turned away from him, disgusted at his spineless descent into mob hysteria.
         "I'll tell you!" Wilhemina Drixon stood, all eyes redirected to her, "Theft," a gasp could be heard to shudder through the crowd, "That's right, you heard me, theft," she boldly reasserted, "The good Lord knows she's been seen slipping into the forest more and more of late. Most likely where she keeps a concealed trove. So very many of the ‘hauntings' this town has experienced have occurred at night. She has oft been identified returning to the rectory late in the evening with a satchel under her arm. Are we to suppose this is coincidence? She has been using our terror as a cover for her pilferings. The situation has gone from bad to worse since she arrived and she conducts herself in the most clandestine of manner under the protective cloak of the Church," she snorted.
         "Are you forgetting that this all began long before she arrived?" Daniel Milsop stood, removing his hat to address the congregated mass.
         "Tobin Abernathy's disappearance and the slaughter on the Drixon property, along with a good dozen other ‘hauntings' occurred months before she came to town," Llewyn Cabbott rejoined angrily, "Perhaps it's your self-indulgent gluttony, the miserable pittance you pay your hired help, the many indiscretions you commit behind closed doors, not to mention the under-the-table deals you broker and the pitiful regard you esteem your ‘lessers' that brought this nightmare on all of us," he railed, throwing down his hat. A roar of support rallied the crowd as those who have and those who have not faced off.
         Suddenly the meeting deteriorated into a cacophony of shaken fists, pointed fingers and terrible shouting. Still Roma remained unmoved and unreadable.
         "How dare you!" Joseph Wiltshire exploded after his wife swooned rather a little too dramatically to convince anyone, "She is the reason we have been afflicted so! She has brought this evil upon us and I for one demand that she is removed from office and that an immediate inquiry into her real activities here is conducted!".
         "Here! Here!" shouted another formless voice from within the ranks of the privileged.
         The gavel began to pound heavily upon its mahogany stop as the Mayor struggled to regain order in the chamber. Soon all voices were hushed once again and he urged the participants to take their seats.
         When Molly Abernathy stood, a pin could have been heard to drop in the tomb silence that prevailed.
         "When my Tobin disappeared and then my little Molly died, the good doctor here gave me blankets for the winter and sent his own woodsmith to repair my home," she delivered the aged physician a meek smile, "The next day I received word from Father Roland that Miss Ruffalo had purchased a large plot of land next to my small parcel, along with seed, a gelded oxen and a yoked plough to till the soil. It will be enough to provide me with more than the one meal a day I live upon with some to spare for Market Day so that I can begin to make my farm turn a small profit in the years to come. I've lived here all my life and I can count on one hand the number of times I've been shown charity by my fellow townsfolk. Miss Ruffalo gave me something that all the money of the estate district couldn't grant a soul - hope," she testified simply, wringing her hands anxiously, her discomfiture with public speaking evident, "That's all I have to say," she concluded and sat down.
         More than one constrictive collar was tugged upon by the privileged men seated far to her left. And not a few fans snapped open to conceal the blushed embarrassment of their wives.
         Camilla Rhys-Huntington stood and once again a hush fell upon the assembled meeting. She bore herself with noble countenance. The local townsfolk regarded her with a mixture of fear and awe whilst her former peers looked upon her with open scorn.
         "When this young woman landed on our shores many months ago I greeted her arrival with enmity and I made sure I painted her with the blackest brush in all Creation so that those around me would despise her as much as I did," she confessed, clearing her throat, "When she won my son's heart, I waged a slanderous campaign against her name the likes of which might even have rivaled the venomous tongue of our esteemed Mrs Hannan," she continued, her disdain for the society dragon drawing more than one smirk of satisfaction from onlookers, much to the horror of the afore mentioned, "And then when his duty compelled him to leave my home, an angel of mercy came to me and cared for me and through her I learned of a young woman who provides meals to orphaned children, prays with harlots, exercises charity towards the poor and homeless, gives hope to the downtrodden and demonstrates kindness and compassion to those we forget and allow to slip into invisibility. I saw what I wanted to see when she came among us. Now I see what is. I challenge each and every one of you to bring forth even a shred of evidence to contradict my words," she concluded through clenched teeth before sitting down.
         "I for one have something to say," Christabel Hannan surged to her feet. Roma rose casually.
         "Oh I imagine you do," Roma made her way to the isle and proceeded to the fore of the chamber, her steely gaze fracturing the confidence of her greatest detractor, "but you will sit down and you will listen to your precious bishop read this declaration I possess so that you may save yourself the embarrassment of having to slink away like a mongrel dog with your tail between your legs after you learn what this paper contains," she spoke with an even, perfectly cool tone, but the probity and gravity of her words stifled any retort the society icon might have readied.
         When she reached the mayoral podium, Roma turned a cold gaze upon the Bishop who sat beside Christabel Hannan.
         "If you please, Bishop Archer," she stated dryly, "This document contains a papal seal and its contents can only be read aloud by a clergyman of your...standing," she fought to conceal the contempt in her voice. The bishop's expression paled. It was obvious to all that Roma had allowed her critics to dig for themselves a cavernous hole before providing the critical shove that would send them all toppling headlong into it.
         Again a deathly silence settled upon the crowd as a brief and hushed exchange of words between the bishop and his ‘patron' was terminated with a red faced Christabel Hannan watching in horror as the summoned clergyman answered the call.
         Clearing his throat, he took the parchment from Roma, laid it upon the podium from which the Mayor had retreated and broke the seal. All eyes were fixed upon him as he blanched at the papal seal. It was Pope Hadrian VI's personal seal. The contents themselves came from him.
         A resonant crack broke the brittle silence as the wax seal was snapped in two and he opened the elaborate document. Minutes passed as he perused the contents of the Bull and his reactions became increasingly transparent. His expression changed from one of acrimony towards Roma to brief, fearful glances at her, his features knotted with trepidation, as though coming into an awareness of a powerful truth. Then he relied upon a hand to steady himself against the podium as his weight shifted repeatedly from one foot to the other. Finally he closed the document and exhaled loudly, swallowing hard.
         "I have in my hand an official Papal Bull, the authenticity of which is in no doubt," he began, perspiration beading upon his brow, "It is written in His Supreme Holiness' own hand," a gasp rippled out through the crowd, "in which he identifies the young woman before you as operating under the sanctioned pseudonym of Roma Ruffullo. Her name, for reasons that will become abundantly clear, has until now been concealed by the Church in order to protect the work she undertakes. Her name," he cleared his throat once more, almost unable to articulate it for choking on the myriad consequences he perceived it had for those who had shown themselves her enemies, "is Roma Sophia Raffaella de Medici," he announced.
         The room plummeted into utter stillness. The Medici name was the most widely known, feared and awed in all of present day Europe and beyond. Christabel Hannan waxed ashen, her expression that of one wishing the earth would open up and mercifully swallow her whole. Realizing the entire room peered at her with both pity and contempt, she glowered directly ahead, refusing to engage any gaze.
         "As for the matter of the money in her possession, it would appear she receives a," he swallowed hard, "generous personal allowance from a family trust. The Bull outlines her role as a primary investigator and representative of the Pontiff himself in matters of ‘otherworldly interference'. The Bull goes on to state that those who obstruct her investigation or exercise willful antagonistic interference towards her work risk excommunication," he summarized, at which point Christabel Hannan fainted. The resounding thud heard upon the chamber floor testified to the lack of supporters that had rushed to her aid when she collapsed. Ichabod Hannan helped her to her chair and placed her fan in her hand. Beyond that, he refused to aid a woman who had demonstrated her spite and malice once too often. He resolved that once he had removed his successor from his newly appointed posting, he would also move his wife to their Milford on Sound summer estate indefinitely, having entirely lost his appetite for marital proximity of any kind.
         The Bishop shifted uncomfortably in his skin, painfully aware that his carefully picked alliances were proving to be his undoing.
         "Furthermore, when Miss Ruf...Medici...concludes her investigation and makes her recommendation to the Holy See, those she has named as having impeded her investigation will themselves answer to the Office of Inquisition. The Bull states that she is to be given full cooperation in the discharge of her duties, that her inquiries are to be addressed as though carrying the full weight of both holy and secular law, and that no one, under threat of imprisonment, may question her motives, methods or actions in the act of carrying out her duties," he concluded, fine beads of sweat glinting on his blotchy skin.
         The Bishop folded up the Bull with trembling hands, took a deep breath and returned to his place among the crowd, ineloquently opting to take his repose several seats from the disgraced Christabel Hannan. His transparent attempts to distance himself from Roma's declared enemies served only to illuminate his facile, duplicitous hypocrisy.
         Roma and Michael stood quietly, Roma retrieved the Bull from the podium and made for the chamber exit. Roma turned briefly to address the crowd.
         "For those of you who have accepted me without foreknowledge of my name and family history, have aided me in my efforts to help you, and who have defended me here today - I thank you and I will remember you, by name and by deed, when I next meet with His Supreme Holiness," she stated simply and was gone.
         It was, however, what she did not say that terrified those who had made a point of seeking to incite acrimony against her. Many were left wondering if they could be expecting to receive an envoy from Rome to condemn or, worse, excommunicate them for their unwitting treachery.
         In the minutes that followed Roma's departure, hushed mutterings began to weave and wind through the assembly. The Medici name was synonymous, chiefly, with unthinkable wealth. Having formed the first and most geographically expansive banking institution in present day Europe, Medici affluence and influence had found a foothold in almost every major city in the civilized world. The Medici system of providing clients with notarized papers in one capital, detailing the particulars of their accounts, to be presented and honored by a sister branch in another capital, revolutionized the financial industry. Travelers no longer feared raids and attacks by bandits seeking to relieve them of the wealth that, until the advent of the Medici system, they have previously been forced to carry on them.
They did not even have to fear that stolen or forfeited papers could be used to siphon their funds dry, for along with the presentation of the papers themselves, the presenter was obliged to prove their identity by way of code completion. Upon opening an account they would be asked to provide a question to which no other than they themselves knew the answer. This answer would be disclosed to their lender who would then provide every other Medici branch with this secret personal identification code. In the event that papers were stolen and presented at any of the Medici branches, no funds would be transferred until the client's precautionary question was answered.
However, the Medici banking empire was irrefutably successful for even more radical steps, the first of which was to make accounts available to anyone, whether in possession of a pittance or a fortune. Secondly, the interest charged upon loans was both negotiable and flexible.
         In a very short span of time the Medici banking empire had monopolized and reformed the modern day system of financial transactions, elevating the Medici oligarchy to the highest echelons of political and religious ascendance in Renaissance Europe. There were whisperings that their influence reached as high as the Throne of Saint Peter. A Medici even held the lofty office of Cardinal.
         As much as their financial prowess was awed and admired, their reputation for ruthlessness and often bloodthirsty conflict with the equally powerful Albizzi family was legendary, making them also one of the most feared powers in all of Europe.
         No one noticed the dramatically transformed priest's arrival until he took to the podium to address the crowd. A ripple of shock undulated throughout those gathered as their collective gaze fell upon his white hair.
         "By now you are all well aware of Roma's lineage and her purpose here," he began, his voice calm and dispassionate, "There are those among you who have sought both to disparage her name and obstruct her work here. I am going to take it on faith that this campaign ends tonight or you will find that not only will you be prosecuted to the fullest extent of Church and secular law, but you will risk losing your titles, your land, your estates, your holdings and your assets. I will say no more on the matter. Those of you found in breach of the Papal Bull will find your next visit from a Church official most conclusively your last," he clarified, exercising his formidable restraint by refraining from eyeballing those to whom he spoke, "Last night an envoy from Rome arrived here to deal with the troubling events that have proven a scourge upon our shire. Until further notification, no one is to enter any of the woodlands in the shire, all town dwellers are to adhere to a sun-down curfew," he instructed at which point the crowd began to stir, "Those of you whose trades rely heavily upon patronage after dark, most namely the inn and tavern owners, will find yourselves handsomely compensated by the Church for your losses. To those of you tending farms and livestock in the valley district, the curfew does not apply but I would strongly urge you to ensure that you endeavor to adhere to it. To those of you in the estate district, risking the lives of your servants by sending them out after dark for any reason will be punishable by law. Even the slightest infraction of this governance will exempt you from any leniency whatsoever. I will not now nor shall I in the future entertain any questions regarding Roma, her work or the work of the papal envoy here, nor will I tolerate any requests to intercede with her on your behalf to appeal for clemency if you have injured her in any way or think to submit a proposal for the purpose of securing a loan, donation or any kind of financial supplement. She is not here as a representative of the Medici family but as a representative of the Holy See. Any failure to respect this will likewise be met with severe consequences," he stated plainly, "Those who can be counted amongst her friends are free to come to me should you find yourselves plagued with questions or requests for intercession. This matter reaches the highest platform of Church authority. No one is immune from prosecution should you be found in breach of these mandates. Thank you for your time and patience this evening," he concluded concisely before stepping down from the podium and departing. Judging by the horror that had registered on the bloodless complexions of almost every estate district dweller, Roland rightly assumed that Roma would encounter no further interference from her critics.
         By the time he had finished addressing the assembled crowd, Roland was keenly aware that his dramatically modified appearance was the very least of the things they would remember from that night. He returned to his residence to resume talks with the envoy. They had found comfortable lodging in the rectory and were preparing to set into motion their proposed course of action the following day. He desired also a period of solitude in which to pray and rest in order to bring the full complement of his wit and acumen to the proceedings.
         The following day was to prove both revelatory and apocalyptic but years later, all would agree that it could not have transpired any other way, for from calamity there would arise awakening, enlightenment and insight even if the purpose of such was not immediately evident to any but the Almighty.









It came again but this time a pervading element of finality accompanied the dream.
         He witnessed the field of misguided believers.
         He beheld the grotto, the girl and the fabricated visitation.
         He once again faced the lost city, the mountain and the angel.
         All too familiar was the immense building in which his centuries long preserved arm lay encased in glass within a roped off sector of the edifice, unending lines of pilgrims filing past to glimpse the miracle of the hand that had clasped the angel.
         This time, however, he found himself devoid of the desperation to will open the hand. Gone was the acute anxiety, the anguish, the desolation of despair.  Instead he found himself able to exercise focus and authority of will previously elusive to him. He found his awareness closing in on his own dismembered arm and he took several moments to prepare himself for the revelation that had for so long evaded him.
         A single thought took voice in his mind.
         Open.
         In a single, fluid motion, the fingers unfurled to reveal the full parchment within.
         Upon it was inscribed four words. Upon reading them, Roland was filled with a swell of joy such as he had never known. Spiritual ecstasy suffused his very core and an unthought, unspoken prayer of praise winged its way from his illuminated heart to the highest vault of Heaven to the One from whom the message originated. He experienced a holy unity with his Creator the likes of which would mark him the rest of his days.
         Four small words.

         Know that I am.