His eyes were closed and the upper half of his face covered by a length of gauze. Eyes wide open, sleepless, Father Sebastian stared up at the wall and the picture of the Messiah above his bed. Dawn was an ocean away. He turned his eyes to the window and the night sky. Judging by the position of the stars, Aidan and the others would be filing into the chapel for Matins – prayers at two in the morning – and it was there, at the door of the chapel, that Sebastian was going to address the leader of the community. He closed the door of his room and walked through darkness. Even at the height of summer, the corridors of St Mark’s were cold, and in March there was a bitterness seemingly designed to turn a man against his own body, creating enough discomfort to make him yearn to cast off his skin, so that the death and decay of flesh and bone would be a thing to look forward to. There was a window seat, cut into the wall, and it was here that Sebastian waited, unnoticed by the thin trail of men who fled past him into the chapel.
