Make it halfway to the gate, more or less. Someone calling behind me, “Grim! Stop!” I slip and fall, sprawl flat in the mud, rain falling, can’t make myself get up. Head on my arms, lying there like a fool, big lump of a man all tears. Sobbing, sobbing, can’t seem to stop. Why won’t it all go away? Why can’t someone take it away?

The two brothers are here, crouching down in the rain, one on each side. Feel a hand on my shoulder. Under the roar of the rain, Brother Fergal’s voice. “We’ve known who you were since early on, Grim. We sent a bird south to confirm it. Come inside; let’s get you to shelter.”

But I can’t move, can’t stop crying, like that thing in the tower. Sorrow’s rolled on top of me, won’t let me up, won’t let me out. I try to say something, comes out as just noise.

Then the archivist speaks, Brother Ríordán, the fellow with the cold face. “The lost hero of St. Erc’s,” he says. “That’s what they call you. Nobody knew where you went.”

“Until now,” puts in Brother Fergal. “Help me here, Grim. You’re on the big side to tuck under my arm and carry. The vegetables love this weather. I am not quite so enthusiastic. We have a pot of soup on the boil inside, and dry clothes. Please, come out of the wet.”

I’m mumbling about vegetables and compost and when I get up on all fours I try to crawl to the gate in the mud. When Fergal helps me stand up I pull away from him. But I don’t run. Feeling wobbly, not right in the head. Don’t think I can get far without fainting. Big fellow like me. All I can think now is that I just waved a thatching knife at them, and they stayed with me and helped me. Doing what that fellow in the story did, the Good Samaritan. Doing what Jesus would have done. If he was real.

“Come,” says Fergal again. Now I’ve got one holding my left arm and one holding my right, not like guards, like friends. Leading me toward the refectory.

“Can’t.” I stop in my tracks like a stubborn donkey. “Can’t go in.” The blood. The brains. The broken men.

“Then we will sit on the doorstep.” Brother Ríordán’s got the sort of voice that’s good for giving orders. The kind you can’t help listening to.

“You’ll be wanting me to go,” I say, but I’m walking again, between the two of them. Through the rain, the sound of bells. “You’ll be wanting to sing Sext.” Then something he said sinks in. The lost hero of St. Erc’s. “Hero,” I say. “Someone else. Not me. Didn’t save anyone. Not one. Even the cat was dead. Even the pigeons. Nothing left. Like a battlefield. Only not warriors. Men of peace. After that, couldn’t believe in God. If God was real, he’d have been there.” And we’re at the refectory. Covered area outside, benches set along the wall. Nice for the brothers to sit out on sunny days. Today, cold, wet and not where you’d want to be.