Faint and overwrought? That was very diplomatic. Izzy snorted. “A more honest way of putting it might be to say I totally lost my shit.”
Images of yesterday filled her head. Getting lost amongst the abattoirs. The blood. The stench. The flies. The carrion crows. And then... and then the image of Magnus beating that blacksmith. The power in him as he’d committed such savage violence...
“I’m fine now,” she lied. “Just fine.”
Abbot Oswin peered at her as if not believing a word. “It is hard being bereft from yer home and kin as ye are, my dear. There is no shame in ‘losing yer shit’ from time to time.”
The words sounded so strange coming from a monk that she couldn’t help the laugh that escaped her. She also wondered what Magnus had told them about where she came from. “Well, I’m grateful for your help.”
“And we are honored to give it,” he replied. “And pleased to see our lost novice again.”
Lost novice? Her brain took a moment to put this together.
“Wait. You mean this is the monastery where Magnus used to live? He was a monk here?”
Abbot Oswin laughed warmly. “Aye. Magnus once resided at Saint Bartholomew’s with us. Although he was never a monk. Nor even really a novice. He was a stray thatfound his way to us and although we hoped he would find his way to the cloth, the Lord had other plans for him.”
No matter how she tried, Izzy just couldn’t picture a young Magnus running around this place. Had he dressed like Abbot Oswin? Had he attended Prime and Matins and Vespers and all those other strangely named services?
“What was Magnus like when he was younger?” she asked.
Abbot Oswin’s eyes sparkled and he leaned back, his fingers steepled as he began to paint the portrait of a young Magnus. “Oh, my dear. He was an imp, I tell ye. A walking contradiction—a boy with a heart as wide as the ocean and a temper as fierce as a summer storm.”
Contradictions? Izzy thought. That sounded about right. She couldn’t square the man who had stood and taken a beating from an irate villager, making no effort to defend himself, with the man who’d shown such savaged violence to that blacksmith. She shuddered. Who was Magnus Kerr really? The gentle man or the violent one?
Abbot Oswin watched the other monks working diligently in the garden, his hands resting on his knees. They were gnarled and weathered from years of hard work, yet held a gentle grace about them much like the man himself. He seemed lost in memories, allowing them to sweep him up.
“Saint Bartholomew’s has always been a haven for lost souls,” Abbot Oswin continued slowly. His gaze remained distant, as though his thoughts were with the young Magnus he remembered. “And Magnus was as lost as any when hearrived on our doorstep. He’d lost everything, and I could see it in him—the sorrow that lived deep within his eyes.”
Izzy’s food lay forgotten as she listened to the monk. What must it have been like for Magnus back then? To have lost his family like that...She couldn’t even begin to imagine.
“He was a firebrand, even then,” Oswin said. “His spirit was unquenchable—a beacon in our quiet sanctuary. But he never took to the solitude well. His heart yearned for more than we could offer him here. And then someone came who could give him what we couldnae.”
“Eamon?” Izzy asked.
The monk’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “He’s told ye about Eamon?”
“Not really,” Izzy replied with a shrug. “Just that he left the monastery to go live with him.”
“Aye,” Oswin replied. His expression grew troubled. “And we let him go, fools that we were. If we hadnae, if we’d fought harder to keep him here, perhaps things wouldnae have turned out the way they did.”
What did that mean?
“I don’t understand, Abbot Oswin. What happened?”
Oswin sighed, his hands clasped tightly together. “A story for another day, my dear,” he said. “Let us suffice it to say that the paths we choose are not always the easiest, nor the most righteous.”
A sudden clang of the monastery bells cut through their conversation. Izzy jumped, startled at the loud noise breaking through the quiet of the room and Snaffles let out a mournful howl. Abbot Oswin rose from his chair andwalked toward a small wooden stand where he picked up a worn-out book with a leather-bound cover.
“Time for Terce,” he said. “Would ye care to join us in prayer?”
Izzy gave a sheepish smile. “Um...religion, prayer, that’s never really been my kind of thing.”
“No need to worry, my dear,” Oswin chuckled, his eyes twinkling. “One doesnae have to be a believer to join in unity of spirit.”
Izzy was never particularly religious back home, and the monastery was about as far out of her realm of experience as it was possible to get, but the kindness of Abbot Oswin and the tranquility of this place drew her in.
And besides, Magnus might be there.
