LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Would that it works,” the sister added. “Help is greatly needed here, and I have lost another sister today.”

      “Plague?”

      Sister Goodman snorted, a small noise which may once have passed for a laugh, but her face did not match it in expression.

      “No, she fled through the orchards and over the rear walls. I came in this morn and found she had taken the dress from one of the dead and had left her habit in torn strips on the floor beside the body. She is a fool as she will succumb for sure now that she has left God’s protection and will have no one to grieve for her as she is alone in the world – but she was young and listened to no argument anyway.” She breathed a deep and tired sigh.

      “It must be near your time to leave, sister. When do you depart to care for the hidden texts?”

      “In three days,” she said with relief. “The first are already in place. I and the remaining sisters will all arrive before the end of the month.”

      “You shall be sorely missed here.” He patted her sturdy arm.

      “No.” She shrugged his hand away. “There are others to care for these wretched souls. I have more than served the Lord here, and so it is time for a cleaner place. Are you finished, father? I must attend to my work before more die unnoticed.”

      “No, that is all, sister.” He walked back towards the door. “Do not forget about the boy – try to keep him alive through the fever; it will be one less to find grievers for.”

      “I shall do my best, but his fate is now the will of the Lord.”

      The monk made his way back across the courtyard and through the cloisters to the main building. Entering through the north door, he passed through the dark and silent chapel into the labyrinth of cells beyond. He knocked gently on Father Dominic’s door.

      “Enter,” a deep voice came from within.

      Father Dominic was a big man, large in height, and weight, with fingers so darkened by inks that they resembled blood sausages. Before he had been called to take up holy orders he had worked with metal and his broad forearms carried many red scars from molten splashes. He surprised those who knew him by producing the most delicate and beautiful illuminated manuscripts. The atmosphere in his room was heavy with the oily smell of paint and a few flecks of gold leaf always decorated his thick beard from each time he licked his gilding brush.

      “The hour is late, father. I was not expecting a visitor,” the big man said without looking up.

      “I shall not interrupt you for long,” the monk replied. “I have come to tell you of a boy who is in the huts. He has no family and will need three to pass him over should he die.”

      Father Dominic nodded slowly and rested his huge hands in his lap. They were speckled with deep cobalt blue from the document lying on the oak desk next to him.

      “I am busy.” He turned back to his work. “The sisters would have told me of this in due time. Is there something else you would ask of me?”

      The young monk looked at his feet nervously. “I am curious about your plan, father,” he mumbled. “Your plan to save us from the Dissolution, to save us from King Henry’s destructive designs for the monasteries.”

      Father Dominic laughed, a huge rolling chuckle that seemed to shake the room.

      “I cannot deflect a king from his will, and so my plan will not save us from the Dissolution. King Henry’s men will take this building just as they have taken so many others across the land; it is simply a matter of time. I can only do my best to prevent all our good work from being wasted.”

      “Our good work,” repeated the monk. “Will we be able to stay here?”

      Father Dominic’s face fell once more. “Our work to pass these poor lost souls over is the most important duty we perform. Has this slipped from your mind?” the big man said.

      “No, it is just . . . How shall we live if the abbey is taken from us?” the young monk stammered.

      “That is not my worry. My primary concern is to deal with how they shall die –” he gestured towards the small window and the huts outside “– and what happens after, not how you shall live. There are matters of greater importance than food and drink for two dozen monks. Now I have much to do, if you will excuse me.”

      Father Dominic reached across his work and picked up a small brown notebook before dismissing the young monk with a wave of his plate-sized hands.

      Disturbed by his encounter with Father Dominic, the monk walked out of the sleeping abbey and, instead of following the footpath back to the cloisters, he passed on through the garden gates into the orchard. The air there was sweet and heavy with the fermenting smell of windfall apples. Too many were busy with the sick to pick all of the fruit this year and they fell from the boughs to rest in the uncut grass and turn brown in the sun. The day had already rolled over into night, but still the air hummed with the lazy buzz of a thousand well-fed wasps.

      A sharp, silver half-moon lit his way through the trees as he followed a faint trail in the grass, crushed by the passing of the fleeing sister. Dew-soaked grass bled into his robe, making it swipe cold across his legs as he walked. Continuing all the way to the rear wall of the orchard, he stopped at a spot where he knew the latest runaway must have climbed over. The wall was not tall here, little more than shoulder-high to the monk; it had been built to keep out sheep, not keep people in.

      Sliding his feet into a gap in the lower stones, he lifted himself up enough to rest his folded arms in the scuffed and torn moss on the top of the wall. He could just make out the zigzag path in the distance that the fleeing girl, unsure of which direction to take, must have made. He closed his eyes and pressed his palms close to each other, lacing his fingers together, and prayed so hard for the runaway girl that the bones in his hands cracked in protest.

      Chapter Two – The Boy with No Name

       Central London – Now

      He woke in the ambulance; not that he realised where he was, just the cold white light and the noise, and all around him the terrible din of the sirens.

      “Why am I tied down?” he asked, or at least he tried to, but the words seemed to stumble and fail as they reached his lips.

      “It’s OK,” a loud voice boomed above the noise. “You’re on your way to hospital. Don’t pull at your safety belt, kid. You just lie still.”

      He tried to focus on the voice, but the colours and sounds smudged and blurred and a massive and crushing pain in his chest suddenly erased the world.

      Opening his eyes filled his head with an image he did not understand. Lights were flashing by over his head one by one. He was being pushed down a corridor, and remembered something about a hospital. People were talking all around, a cacophony of noise that crashed in around him.

      “What’s your name?” A voice was repeating the question over and over. “Can you hear me, son? What is your name? Can you tell me your name?”

      “No,” he mumbled. “No name.”

      There was no way he was going to tell these people his name. They had to take care of him – it was a hospital after all, he knew they had to take care of him – but there was no way he was going to tell them that. Telling people your name meant social services. Then it would all start over again. He slowly shook his head and closed his eyes.

      “It’s OK,” she said. “We’ll take care of you, but we still have to know your name.”

      “No,” he repeated. “No name.”

      “It’s no good,” the woman said. “Admit him – we can’t wait for permissions, we don’t have time. Take him down.”

      And again the darkness came . . .

      When he woke, the room was full of people and voices tumbled

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