LITMIR.BIZ

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of the nave. The sturdy form of Father Dominic walked into the light. Dogging his footsteps was a thin servant boy with an unruly mop of black hair. He stumbled as he attempted to keep up, trying not to drop the large bundle of papers and books in his arms. The congregation growled with dissent, but remained seated as the father walked into their midst and took his place in front of them. He waited a moment for the rumble to die down before he spoke.

      “You are aware of my workings and of the Dissolution that comes upon us.” His soft voice made everyone lean forward to listen. “It is my solemn belief that we must take action to prevent the world of the living from becoming overrun.” He looked around, waiting for a response; none came and so he continued. “These papers,” he grabbed a large parchment scroll from his servant and held it aloft, “list hundreds of reports from around the country. Spirits are not resting and the nation is in danger of being overrun with the dead. In the Augustinian priory of Lanercost in the north there is the bare start of a new Brotherhood, a Brotherhood that can cope with the demands laid upon us by the coming Dissolution.”

      The abbey filled with sharp intakes of breath and more murmurs.

      “This new Brotherhood will, with your agreement, remain a clandestine order. They must never be identified and must never be attached to one of our great houses as they must be able to act independently. This is why we have chosen the small priory at Lanercost to gather the necessary texts; these will be moved to a safe place should the Dissolution reach that far north. If necessary, we will continue to move them to keep them protected.”

      “But how can this new order be any different?” a thin man with grey hair and long white robes called out from the midst of the crowd. “What is the purpose of this? This new order will surely be broken apart, just as our orders will.”

      “No, that will not happen,” Father Dominic responded. “It will not be broken apart because it will not move within the world that we know. This will be an order of spirits – a Brotherhood of Shades.”

      With that, the congregation stood and many shouted and even hurled prayer books across the floor to land inches from where Father Dominic stood. He gave a small bow to the angry crowd and spoke over them. His words were almost lost to the chaos of noise.

      “Fools!” a shrill voice came from the back of the congregation.

      Everyone turned as a hooded figure stepped out of the shadows and walked on into the aisle. In one swift moment the hood was thrown back to reveal a thin, scruffy-looking girl with long and knotted brown hair. Outrage once more rippled through the gathered men.

      “I said you are all fools!” she shouted. “And, as sure as day follows night, you will all perish in your ignorance. This man,” she pointed at Father Dominic, “brings you a way of preventing the inevitable creep of the dead into the world of the living and you shout him down. What vexes you here? Are you too afraid that he is right and that you will all be overcome?”

      “Who let this girl child in here?” the white-robed monk bellowed. “Servants, take her from here; this is a closed assembly.”

      “I know of her!” another monk shouted. “She is from a village close to my abbey. Seize her quickly; this meeting must not become common knowledge.” He spun on his heels and pointed at her, his face purple with rage.

      “Her interest lies in our destruction,” he spat. “She is a witch. She must not be allowed to live and tell of what she has seen.”

      Several servants ran up the aisle, armed with swords, and surrounded the girl before one of them grabbed her arms and held her tight; another pointed a sword at her stomach.

      “You will see,” the girl cried out. “You fear my kind, but I will last longer than any of you. One day superstition and ignorance will be overcome and on that day you will all need the help of such as I.”

      The guards grabbed her hard and bundled her from the nave. Chaos ensued as some of the monks used the interruption to leave while others shouted to Father Dominic to explain. The father thrust the scroll back into his servant’s hands and, ignoring everyone’s pleas, he turned away from the gathering.

      “I will take my leave!” Father Dominic shouted. “I will not be party to such murderous deeds.” At the door he turned back and bellowed once more.

      “Think on!” he shouted. “You will come to me before the year is out and ask for the help of the Brotherhood – that much I can promise you.”

      Turning, he walked back into the shadows and was gone through the transept doors.

      Adam looked around at the scarlet and angry faces of the men as, one by one, they began to filter out of the building into the night. He suddenly became aware that D’Scover was standing by his side in the empty abbey.

      “What happened next?” Adam asked him.

      “Father Dominic was correct. Within one year, the heads of the great houses sent representatives to talk to him and let him explain how his new Brotherhood would function. The good father had discovered a text that could manifest a spirit indefinitely. These spirits could then maintain the Brotherhood and continue to assist those passing ungrieved-for long after the monasteries had been forgotten. The father had also had visions, visions that he described as images of angels, including the Archangel Uriel, who explained the Ritual of Sustainment to him. This he recorded and adapted to suit the needs of his new Brotherhood.

      “He believed that if the Brotherhood was formed entirely of spirits – Shades – then King Henry and his Dissolution of the Monasteries could not affect them. The plans were put into motion and five monks were chosen from five different holy orders to assist with the new Brotherhood. Franciscan, Benedictine, Carthusian, Augustinian and Dominican monks all represented the views of their houses and brought ancient texts to form a central library. They arrived with their servants to meet in one of the last abbeys to resist the Dissolution, a Norman-built Benedictine abbey in Hertfordshire.”

      The walls around Adam changed again and flaking-plaster pillars painted with vivid depictions of the crucifixion replaced the creamy stone of the previous abbey. He stood in a nave once more, but this one seemed much longer, and the wooden roof rose higher above him. The building was busy with the movement of monks in black habits bustling around, filling crates with everything that was not nailed down. Pews were pushed back and stacked one upon another in a messy heap of wood that cleared the aisle, allowing the men to rush backwards and forwards in their work.

      Ahead of Adam, right at the end of the nave, stood four monks, two in robes of brown, one in white and one in black. The man in black was Father Dominic and he clutched a small, cream-coloured book close to his body. The other men stood by a long table draped in burgundy velvet that rested in front of the high altar. They pored over the many books that lay scattered across its surface. Overlooking them, the high altar screen rose almost to the roof. This simple wooden panelling bore no decoration save for a plain shelf carrying a large crystal crucifix that caught occasional beams of light and cast them in prismatic colours on to the illuminated texts.

      “We shall never complete this,” one of the men complained. “This is a fool’s errand. We will all die in this task. Even as we speak, the king’s men grow ever closer. They were expected in Wycombe only this morning. It is not a day’s ride from here. It will be our legacy that we threw our final moments away on such a waste of time.”

      “No,” Father Dominic insisted in his soft but forceful tone, “it shall be done. We are closer than we have ever been. We just need a little more time, a few hours, and a suitable candidate. I have kept the Sisters of Southwark informed of our progress and all is in readiness for the first full trial of our methods. We must be patient as we do not know how much time . . .”

      A deafening pounding interrupted them as the great west door was hammered on. The men all looked to the monk who had rushed to the small spyhole in the door.

      He called out to them. “The king’s men!”

      “Our time is lost,” the white-robed monk said in an urgent tone, grabbing the books from the table. “We must hasten from

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