I’m looking across at the infirmary, thinking of Flannan in there reading that manuscript. Maybe finding the answers to the puzzle right now. If I was a different man I’d go and knock on the door, ask to have a look, ask to hear the news right away so I could run back and tell Blackthorn. If I was a different man I’d be sitting in the refectory enjoying a hot brew instead of shivering out here. Wind’s howling now, odd sound, like voices. Loud enough to drown out the monster. If I was a different man I’d maybe have a corner of my own here.

It comes crowding back, catching me by surprise. The blood, the screams, the suddenness of it, no time to make a plan, nothing. Heart beating like a big drum. Men coming from everywhere, men with axes and clubs and knives. Yelling, shouting, can’t understand the words but no need for that; they’re saying, Death! Monks running, trying to get away, trying to protect each other, falling. Can’t be everywhere. Mochta falls, Padraic falls, Ronchu’s head goes flying, blood spurts from what’s left of him. A weapon, need a weapon—Ah! The iron bar from the scriptorium door. Wrench it off. Want to rush out and fight all of them at once. My brothers are screaming, praying, dying. Go out there and I’m dead too, in an instant. Here, I can do some good.

Stand in the doorway, both hands gripping the iron bar, smashing one way, the other way. I fell one man, two men, three, more, more, and all the time, out in the courtyard, the brothers are falling, falling in their blood. Behind me the scriptorium door. In there the scholars, Brother Galen, the books, the precious books. Someone praying like his chest’s on fire, like sobbing, the words over and over, hear them in my head now, Deus, Deus meus, respice in me: quare me dereliquisti? But God’s not answering. Nobody is. The words break up and fall apart. The sound of men dying. Me shouting in time with the blows, No! No! No! Swing the iron bar, break an arm, break a head, put out a fellow’s eye, and then I’m hit and I’m down and it all goes to black.

“Brother Conall?”

Christ! I whirl around, thatching knife in my hand, knees bent, ready to strike. There’s a heartbeat in it. In front of me, a stride away, two monks with faces the color of fresh cheese and their hands up, palms toward me. One’s Brother Fergal. The other one’s Brother Ríordán, the head archivist.

I suck in a breath. It hurts. Can’t seem to move.

“Grim,” says Fergal in a voice like sun on an herb patch. “For the love of God, put the knife away.”

I fumble it back into my belt. Can’t find words.

“You’re safe here,” Fergal says. “You’re among friends.”

“Can’t . . .” I gasp. “Tried . . . They wouldn’t stop . . .” Take another breath. Make myself straighten up. Aching all over. Then it sinks in; what Brother Ríordán just called me. “Sorry,” I mumble. “I’ll go now. Take myself off. Sorry the job isn’t finished.” I turn my back and head for the gate, walking first, then jogging, then running so fast I slip and skid in the puddles, and the rain’s all over me, soaking my clothes, dribbling down my face, only that’s tears too, tears for what I didn’t do, tears for what I lost, tears of guilt for keeping quiet about who I really am, tears because it looks as if these fellows know anyway and that makes me an outcast all over again. Tears for the creatures I was going to put on the roof, dove, salmon, raven, cat, that now won’t get made anymore. Means the job’s not properly done, and I like it properly done . . .