Windows were spaced every few feet to the monk’s right, the eastern view, while the left-hand wall was dotted sporadically by wooden doors layered with carvings of intricate detail. Each door told a separate story, one of the fables that formed the basis of the Abellican Church, and usually Jojonah, who had only fully examined a score of the fifty doors in all his decades at St.-Mere-Abelle, would pause and look at a portion of yet another. After an hour of perusal, he might have fully scrutinized a six-inch-square block, reflecting on all of the hidden meanings. This day, though, feeling particularly foul, and in no mood for reflections on his strayed Order, the master just put his head down and rambled on, chewing his lips to keep from mumbling aloud. He was taken by complete surprise, then, when a man blocked his path. He jumped back, startled, then looked up into the smiling face of Brother Braumin Herde. “Brother Dellman is doing well,”
