The Benedictines’ murmured prayers mingled with the recitation. Scharley, meanwhile, straightened the stole around his neck, stood over the motionless Brother Deodatus and spread his arms wide.

“Vile Devil!” he yelled so loudly it made Reynevan stammer and the abbot start. “I command you immediately to depart this body, O unclean power! Get out of this Christian, you filthy, obese, lewd hog, O beast among all the beasts and most bestial, O scum of Tartarus, O abomination of She’ol! I cast you out, you bristly Jewish swine, to the infernal pigsty, where I hope you will drown in shit!”

“Sancta Virgo virginem,” whispered the abbot, “ora pro nobis…”

“Ab insidiis diaboli,” the monks echoed, “libera nos…”

“You ravaged old crocodile!” Scharley roared, flushing red. “You dying basilisk, you shit-covered mandrill! You tarantula, tangled up in your own web! You filthy dromedary! Hear me as I call you by your true name: scrofa stercorata et pedicosa, filthy and louse-ridden swine, foulest of the foul, most foolish of the fools, stultus stultorum rex!”

Brother Deodatus, lying on the bier, didn’t even twitch. Although Reynevan sprinkled him profusely with holy water, the drops trickled impotently down the old man’s hardened features. Scharley’s jaw muscles were twitching powerfully. The climax is approaching, thought Reynevan. He wasn’t wrong.

“Begone from this body!” bellowed Scharley. “You catamite fucked in the arse!”

One of the younger Benedictines fled, covering his ears, taking the Lord’s name in vain. The others were either very pale or very red-faced.

The shaven-headed giant grunted and moaned, trying to thrust his whole hand into the honey pot, which was impossible since his hand was twice as large as the pot. The giant lifted the vessel up high, tipped his head back and opened his mouth wide, but the honey didn’t drip as there was simply too little of it left.

“And what about Brother Deodatus, Master?” the abbot found the courage to stammer out. “What about the evil spirit? Has it departed?”

Scharley stooped over the possessed man and almost touched Brother Deodatus’s lips with his ear.

“It is nearly at the surface,” he stated. “We’ll soon cast him out. We must simply shock him with a foul odour. The Devil is sensitive to foul odours. Come on, Fratres, bring a bucket of dung, a frying pan and a cresset. We will fry fresh dung under the possessed man’s nose.”

Several brothers ran off to carry out his instructions. The hulk sitting by the wall picked his nose, looked at his finger and rubbed it on a trouser leg. Then he resumed removing the rest of the honey from the pot. With the same finger. Reynevan felt the beavers’ tails he’d eaten rising up his throat on a swelling wave of horseradish sauce.

“Master Reinmar.” Scharley’s stern voice brought him back to the world. “Let us not cease our efforts. The Gospel of Mark, please, a suitable passage. Pray, Brothers.”