He pushed the sleeve of his silver robe from his wrist and glanced at his watch, a thin gold Patek Philippe. Six thirty in the evening. The wait was the worst part. He tugged at the collar around his neck. He should be used to it by now, but his neck felt swollen and hot. The collar was restricting his air, and the scent of incense that he usually found pleasant threatened to overwhelm him. The candelabras along the right wall danced shadows against the sand-like texture of the Venetian plaster; their gray smoke stained the barrel-vaulted ceiling. He wondered whether the candle flames were sucking too much oxygen out of the air. He thought of the difficulty he’d gone through to build this monastery. He glanced to his right again. Every fifteen feet, spaced between the candelabras, were heavy oak doors set within stone arches—twenty in all in this cloister, and two other cloisters extended off the central core ahead of him, like spokes from a hub. The Monastery could house sixty monks, and that didn’t count the separate living quarters for his staff of priests and assistants.
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