I fell in step behind them, and Kalibane followed, carrying the luggage. We took a dirt path up through the jungle, which rose sharply and eventually became stepped. Sunlight flickered spears of light through the canopy above and the steaming air was full of exotic birdsong and the fidget of insects.

At a turn in the path, the Hospice of Saint Bastian Apostate suddenly stood before me. A great, stone-built edifice typical of the early Imperial naïve, its ancient flying buttresses and lower walls were clogged with vines and creepers. I could discern a main building of five storeys, an adjacent chapel, which looked the oldest part of the place, as well as outbuildings, kitchens and a walled garden. Above the wrought iron lych-gate stood a weathered statue of our beloved God-Emperor smiting the Archenemy. Inside the rusty gate, a well-tended path led through a trimmed lawn, punctured by tombstones and crypts. Stone angels and graven images of the Adeptus Astartes regarded me as I followed the sisters to the main door of the hospice.

I noticed then, fleetingly, that the windows of the two uppermost storeys were rigidly barred with iron grilles.

I left Kalibane outside with my possessions and crossed the threshold behind the sisters. The main atrium of the hospice was a dark and deliciously cool oasis of marble, with limestone pillars that rose up into the dim spaces of the high vault. My eyes lighted on the most marvellous triptych at the altar end, beneath a stained-glass oriole window, which I made observance to at once. In breadth, it was wider than a man’s spread arms, and showed three aspects of the saint. On the left, he roamed the wilderness, in apostasy, renouncing the daemons of the air and fire; on the right, he performed the miracle of the maimed souls. In the centre panel, his martyred body, draped in blue cloth, the nine bolter wounds clearly countable on his pallid flesh, he lay in the arms of a luminous and suitably mournful Emperor.

I looked up from my devotions to find the sisters gone. I could feel the subliminal chorus of a psychic choir mind-singing nearby. The cool air pulsed.

A figure stood behind me. Tall, sculptural, his starched robes as white as his smooth skin was black, he seemed to regard me with the same amusement that the sisters had shown.

I realised I was still wearing my straw hat. I removed it quickly, dropping it onto a pew, and took out the pict-slate of introduction Senior Malter had given me before I left Lorches.

‘I am Baptrice,’ he said, his voice low and genial. ‘Welcome to the saint’s hospice.’

‘Higher Administrator Medica Lemual Sark,’ I replied. ‘My dedicated function is as a recollector, posted lately to Lorches, Genovingia general group four-five-seven-seven decimal, as part of the campaign auxiliary clerical archive.’

‘Welcome, Lemual,’ he said. ‘A recollector. Indeed. We haven’t had one of your breed here before.’