Once he had seen brave scenes of battle hiding beneath the lamplit murals, but now he saw only suffering and it made him angry, and it made him sad.

Sister Corinthia cleared her throat. “Spiritually, you speak what we all know to be true, Friend Alain. The church mothers teach that every heart is a rose, and that to turn away from those in need when you could aid them causes the rose to wither. In this same way, plants need water to live, and we need breath. But in truth …” She faltered and looked to Aunt Bel for help.

“One loaf cannot feed one hundred starving beggars,” said Aunt Bel. “Wishing does not make it so.”

“Which one will you refuse?” he asked Bel. “Let it be your choice, if not yours, then whose? Who will volunteer to be the one who chooses which supplicant lives and which dies?” No one answered him.

“Yet your Aunt Bel is right,” said Henri later as they readied the boats for sailing. “If we give all our stores away, we’ll starve, too. That seems not just foolish but stubborn.”

Below the house, workshops, and gardens lay a narrow trail that led to the boat shed, built two years ago. They rolled the new boat down to the tiny beach and pushed it out onto the water. Julien and Bruno set the sail and put out into the bay to test the waters while Henri and Alain remained behind to look over the old boat, always in need of repairs. Alain slid under the boat, which was propped up on logs. The work came easily to his hands. The smell of sheep’s wool greased with tar made memories swim in his mind of the days long before when Henri had taught him the skills of shore and boat.

Inspecting his work, Henri grunted. “Well, Son, you haven’t forgotten how to fasten a loose plank. Here. There’s another spot.”

They worked in companionable silence. Alain ran his hands over each fingerbreadth of the hull while Henri replaced the leather lining and hemp rope that secured the rudder to the boss. A gull screeked. Water slurped among the rocks.

From the boat shed, angled to take advantage of the view, they could see north over the sound. The eastern islands floated on gray waters. The distant promontory shielding Osna village gleamed darkly, and beyond it to the northwest lay ragged shoreline and white breakers where once the vast Dragonback Ridge had vaulted. A flash of sail skimmed the bay to the north.

“Rain,” said Henri, pausing, hands still, to stare across the waters.

The smell of salt and tar and wet wool caught in Alain’s mind, and he was swept as by the tide into memory.

Two slender ships skim up onto the strand. Scale-skinned creatures pour out of them. They cannot be called men, and their fierce, horrible dogs cannot be called dogs, but there are no other words to describe them. They burn as they go, destroying the monastery and the hapless brothers.