Starved Beast. Part 27

The door opened slowly to reveal the outlines of two men, commoners, one tall, the other squat; one with a sword, the other with a pike. They were bathed in brilliant white sunlight and my eyes were stung instantly by its intensity and strangeness and I couldn't endure it. It was like someone was pricking at my eyes with sharp needles.

I couldn't bear it, couldn't face it, and suddenly, in one easy stroke my slipshod planning was undone.

What good is it if you can see the future but not see the light?

I was instantly wrong footed and afraid, hurting. Blinded. Disabled. I howled in despair and fled from those inquisitors to the sanctuary of the rooms at the back of my cave.

"No!!" Christine shrieked, clinging to me, clutching frantically with her small tender hands and sensing my betrayal. With no other point of reference, she'd learned to trust me, to hope in me, to have faith.

"I have faith," she'd said.

Foi de la Vierge!

I remember her sag