The Father’s sweeping robes swished as he stepped behind the lectern, and he nodded in greeting to those who still remained as he spoke the start of the second service,

“The Lord’s light be with you.”

A chorus of voices broke out in response, and having each begun from a different point of origin: they made less of a unison than a reverberation, and I answered him from among that tumulting wave,

“And also with you.”

Father Nico closed his eyes as he patiently waited for the last of us to fall quiet, and he raised his arms as if to affirm that we had been heard, and guided us to speak again,

“Let your hearts go to Him.”

Our congregation came again to speak, and with one worshipping soul between us: we lifted our voices up to Heaven, though the resulting cadence still unevenly resounded throughout the monastery,

“We pledge to Him our love eternal.”

A solemnity took over the whole of Father Nico’s body, and he folded his fingers over his heart as we vowed our love to the Lord on high. He deeply bowed his head, and he brought our minds to return another truth,

“This is the day that the Lord has made.”

Gladness wrapped all around the words we spoke, and they matched with one another so evenly that they nearly rose up like one mighty voice, and they rang with our appreciation as we together rejoiced,

“Through Him our lives are right and just!”

A rush of power arrived that announced the Lord’s presence among us, bringing me to shiver from His nearness. Father Nico reached with both of his arms spread toward Heaven, and he declared in the language of Roma, “Glory to God in the highest!”

And we as one exclaimed this chant, “Gloria! Gloria!”

“Amen.” He said, and upon our repetition of this holy phrase the Lord’s overwhelming power released us, and vanished from the sanctuary. There was silence all around me for a while, but eventually the door to the sacristy came swinging slowly open, and from within two figures clad in hooded robes proceeded forth; a woman in robes of white, and a man in black.

These individuals were surely Natalie and Nestor Orlov, and they each carried with them the Relics of the Eucharist; Natalie in her left hand the bread and her right the pitcher of wine, and Nestor held in his right the golden and jeweled thurible from which spread around the prayers of the Saints, and he carried in his left a simple wooden chalice.

Natalie led as Nestor followed behind her like a shadow, and Father Nico addressed his holy message to us as they approached him in a strong and steady manner,

“On this Holy and Sanctified night, a man comes before us seeking salvation in the Lord’s light. From the day that Adam first brought sin into the world of man: we have been laden from birth with the weight of our wickedness. But the Son of God heard our mournful cries as we came each into catastrophe and ruin, and He could not forsake us forever to such a fate!”

The aetherlamps all at once went out, aside from the one above the Father, which became like a candle in the darkness, and hid from sight the small procession of the Orlovs as he continued,

“He came down from Heaven to Earth to show us the path to redemption. The Son laid upon Himself all the sins of man, and as our sacrificial Lamb: He redeemed us all from the burden of Satan’s power through His death! The Creator mourned for His Son, who had so loved the world that He brought Himself to death for man’s salvation, and the Lord so wept that His ears were closed to man’s cries that mercy be granted to their Savior!”

Natalie appeared now in the light, with the wine and the bread, although Nestor stayed still in the shadow, and Father Nico took from her the pitcher into his own hands, and there signified a cross as he spoke,

“The Shepherd heard the bleating cries of His flock, and though He too wept for our Savior: He guided all the voices of man to cry out together with one voice, so that the Lord might come to hear them. Two days passed as the flock went unheard, but on the morning of the third day he came to know that His Son had not been loved by Him alone! Our Lamb was resurrected whole and complete, and untainted by sin; made blessedly alive again by the Lord’s power and the love of the men he had saved!”

The lights returned to their former brightness, revealing that the white smoke that Nestor had held had blown so thickly throughout the nave that I could hardly even make out Arianna from next to me, and I felt her right hand sneak itself around the fingers of my left as Father Nico finished his short sermon while hidden in the fog of frankincense and myrrh,

“As the Lamb had desired with his sacrifice, our Creator came to forgive our first transgression, and no longer were Adam’s descendants born doomed to die burdened with the weight of the First Sin! The Lord declared to the Shepherd that had guided the flock’s hearts to Him, that the faithful may repent of their sins and be reborn anew and sinless! The Lamb of God returned to Heaven to sit beside the Lord, and with this ascension the Lord spoke through the Shepherd, that all believers who came to love his Son would be granted an everlasting life in Heaven, in service to our Savior!”

The smoke at once cleared up from the nave as it was pulled toward the altar, and the bread was in Father Nico’s hands now as he signed its blessing. The procession and the censer were nowhere in sight now, but a white cross of smoke soon formed in the air above the altar where lay the pitcher and chalice, and Father Nico spoke again,

“I invite this young man, who wishes to be reborn as righteous among the Lord’s flock, who seeks to demonstrate his faith in witness of the Lamb’s servants, and who requests the protection and guidance of the Shepherd as a part of His watch, to step forward now.”

A man who had just left his teens rose from the other frontmost pew in a stainless white robe, and with an unfaltering gait he strode toward where the Father had indicated. He was Yuri, the eldest son and apprentice to Mikhail, the town’s tanner and preeminent leatherworker, and although I had not spoken often with either of them I could recognize that Mikhail was seated upon the same pew that Yuri had just departed from.

Mikhail’s face was unreadable, as he was a stoic man that rarely spoke at all, or at least he had never uttered a word in my presence. I had never heard that he was mute, but it would not have been particularly surprising to learn that he was, as the only people who normally came to me to share gossip were orphaned children and Arianna. The former could not be trusted to tell the truth, and the latter could not be any less interested in ‘such plebeian matters that were of obviously no consequence to ‘anyone’’, this last moniker belonging only to the few people she had come to know personally.

Father Nico spoke to Yuri, who had come to the designated position before him, “Yuri, do you recognize yourself as a sinner, unable to achieve salvation through your own works?”

“Yes, Father.” Yuri answered steadily and without strain as he nodded.

Father Nico inclined his head in approval of Yuri’s answer, and asked, “Yuri, do you repent of your wickedness, and recognize your need for salvation?”

“Yes, Father.” Yuri plainly replied again.

Father Nico’s eyes closed as if he relished to know of Yuri’s truly repentant soul as he said, “Yuri, with all the love that beats in your heart, do you recognize the Lamb as your Savior?”

“I do, Father.” came the response from Yuri, and Father Nico smiled and spoke the words that granted Yuri’s wish for salvation,

“Then I baptise you, Yuri, in the name of the Lord, the Lamb, and the Holy Shepherd. Let the sinful and wicked person you once were die, and be reborn as righteous among us!”

The wine was poured over Yuri’s curly brown hair, wetting it and matting it as it was turned to blood through the invocation. The red ichor flowed lazily down Yuri’s face; it fell richly upon his white robes, and there sank so deeply into them that it should never come out! It pooled around his neck, and it marked every portion of him from head to toe with its deep and vibrant colour as it came to drip onto the stony ground before the altar!

I felt Arianna shudder through the connection she had made with my hand, so I brought my other hand around hers to quell her shaking, and to comfort her. She had never liked this ‘gory ritual’, and she had long protested it before I had pressed her for whether it was better to die and be resurrected in flesh or in spirit.

She had never given me an answer for that, but she had stopped so vocally objecting to my attendance. I knew that she still hated this, and all the more so since I did not myself recognize the absolute necessity of these rites. Arianna had never understood when I would say that all such well-intentioned expressions toward God were fundamentally good at their root and were worthy of my witness, but she was nonetheless here with me now; though she had stayed only as a result of her love for me.

The Father spoke, “Rejoice and be glad in your rebirth, Yuri, for you were redeemed through the Lamb’s blood, and are reborn anew in the Shepherd’s instruction, and you have been granted the grace of Heaven by the Lord’s will! Join us now in communion, and confirm your faith in these blessings.”

Arianna drew closer to me, and I saw her eyes avert away from what was to come. She would surely not have been here with me this night if she had not performed earlier, and I dearly wished that she had not stayed for the sake of being at my side, for it was unnecessary for her to suffer this ceremony — although I was quite glad for her company — so I whispered that she might escape further distress,

“It is not unacceptable for you to leave, Rianna; you were not expected to remain from the start. That you have stayed for Yuri’s baptism was lovely, but I believe that you should depart for home and rest.”

Arianna listened to me in silence for a moment before she firmly shook her head, and as Father Nico began the prayer for the Eucharist: she whispered back into my ear, so low and close that I was surely the only person who could have heard her,

“I’ll be okay. Really, I’d rather stay with you, Mira, and I won’t go running away just because this is a little ‘icky’… well okay, it’s pretty much completely disgusting but… I think I can handle it if you’ll just keep holding me like this?”

With a small nod I answered her slight invitation, and I held no illusions that it could be anything else, as although she was squeamish at times: she was hardly the sort to quail overmuch before so prevalent a form of ceremonial bloodshed, and she simply wished to lay her hands upon me. I could accept this much, so I said, “I will,” and I brought the both of her warm hands into each of mine, and there I held them tightly; though I thought not uncomfortably.

As my ears were again unfettered by further words exchanged between my beloved and I: I heard the Father speaking as he broke the sanctified bread in his hands and gave half of it to Yuri,

“... said, ‘take this and eat, for this is my body, which I have broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’”

Yuri brought the bread to his mouth as the line was spoken, and from when he bit into it: I saw blood rush forth and dribble down his chin. It spilled all down his front, where the blood that had previously flowed over him in baptism had begun to congeal and dry.

Likewise, Father Nico bit into his bread, and the crunch of the crust was like a snapped bone that entered in through my ears and brought them to twitch, and I heard Arianna beside me shudder as the sound reached her as well.

The newly baptised young man gagged upon the bread, and he briefly pulled it away from his mouth to reveal that inside the crust was now as sinew and flesh, and that the edges where he had bitten through had turned into flaking scraps of skin, which fell off like crumbs down his robes and to the floor.

He shut tight his eyes in his effort to keep chewing on his first bite, and he grimaced as he wrestled with his natural instincts to control himself, until he at last swallowed down a piece of the Lamb’s broken body with a palpable effort on his part.

Father Nico calmly and cleanly took his second bite as Yuri spasmed bodily and struggled to keep down his first, and in this manner the Father had soon finished his half with a third bite. After Yuri had finally fought the spasms to near a standstill, he realised that the Father was serenely waiting for him to finish, and so he all in a rush took the remaining bread into his mouth and his face soured as he there chewed it, sending blood and small bits spilling out.

I heard Arianna heave once from beside me, so it would seem that she had either inadvertently looked on at the proceedings or she had better ears than I usually gave her credit for, so I ran my left hand up along her arm to reassure her as I tightly clasped her right with my own.

Yuri hurriedly tried to swallow down his ambitiously large bite in several overlarge chunks, and I put my posture forward, as I might soon need to save him from choking. Thankfully, he did not succumb to coughing, even as I was quite sure that a few pieces of flesh had come back up in his visible instinct to disgorge them, but he boldly continued to masticate them down to size.

He shuddered each and every time he gulped, and the strength in his shaking knees very nearly seemed to leave him, but he remained standing to the end despite this trial, and he looked to his father with beseeching eyes.

I followed his gaze curiously, and I saw that Mikhail was wearing a proud smile on his normally stoic face, and he gave Yuri the signal of strength with his arm and his fist. Yuri took in the encouragement of his father, and he swallowed down the last of the bread. He stood taller and prouder for having overcome the harder half of a person’s communion, and I relaxed back into my seat.

The same could not have been said of myself, and I had not been given nearly so much bread to eat at the time. Just a thumb-sized crumb for my childish self had been enough to leave me heaving for hours, though perhaps it was rather that I had been made sick by the fetid waters that ran in the Tiber. Regardless, I had not shown such grace as this in mine, and I felt the need to restrain myself from applauding the young man for his steadfast bravery, for such personal congratulations were to be reserved until the end.

Father Nico moved on to the next part of The Last Supper, this time with the pitcher of wine lifted in his hands as he poured it into the chalice, and he spoke again,

“After they had eaten, He took the cup in His hands, and said, ‘Take this and drink, for this my blood, which I have spilled for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’”

The Father lifted the chalice into his hands, and he took a long and deep sip of it, and tears flowed from his eyes as he was brought to remember the Lamb’s sacrifice for the sake of man. It was then offered to Yuri, who obediently brought his lips to the edge, and although he quaked with every swallow of the red ichor: he quickly drained the cup.

The chalice was taken away from him, and with a final shudder Yuri allowed himself to fall upon one knee, as the time for confirmation had finally arrived. Father Nico gently set the chalice back upon the altar, and he moved the white cross of smoke to rest over the top of Yuri’s bloodied and bowed head.

“Yuri, child of God,” the Father spoke softly as he cupped Yuri’s cheek in his hand, “Will you stand to defend the faith against its enemies?”

The new convert stood slowly with Father Nico’s hand still resting upon his cheek, and he spoke, 

“Always and forever, Father.”

Father Nico tilted his head, and asked with more strength as his hand gripped tighter against Yuri’s face, “Yuri, child of the faith, will you still fearlessly declare your love for the Lamb when your enemies are many and mighty?”

“Yes, Father, I will give praise unto His name.” Yuri choked out, as he was afflicted with a momentary heaving.

At once, the Father struck Yuri’s cheek with his open palm, and I had to wince as I heard the strike echoing around the nave, but I knew the necessity of this step and I listened well as Father Nico spoke the last question,

“Yuri, blessed child of Heaven, whose name will you take when you are bruised and lay battered from the persecution of evil?”

Yuri’s fists had clenched for the pain, so I imagined that the slap had been terribly painful, but the young man announced the patron he had chosen without a shake left in his voice,

“Bartholomew, Father.”

Father Nico nodded with a smile. He cradled both of Yuri’s cheeks in his hands, and he pressed his forehead to Yuri’s as he prayed for the new servant of God,

“Let us pray, Yuri Bartholomew. That you shall be forever guided in the footsteps of the Shepherd; that you shall be forever graced with the mercy of the Lord; that you shall be forever held dear in the embrace of the Lamb. In their names, may you be granted absolution and entrance into His kingdom! Amen.”

The confirmation was over, and Father Nico let go of Yuri, only to present him with his handshake and a more personal congratulations and intimate greeting. Cheers broke out from behind me, and Mikhail in particular joyfully thumped the pew he sat upon with his fist, and I took my hands away from Arianna as I applauded for Yuri’s success as well.

The newly informal tone to the monastery’s atmosphere brought relief to Yuri, who now smiled toothily with joy, showing off the few bits of flesh and skin that were still caught in his teeth. He was shortly back with his own father for his silent congratulations, and he then went to travel about the congregation to receive alms for himself and the church.

He came to a stop by my pew, and this was such a shockingly unusual choice that it led me to raise a doubtful eyebrow, but he showed me incredible grace as he bowed and requested for my blessing first as a member of the flock,

“Sister, may I have your blessing?”

I was shaken for a moment by this strange turn, for my blessing was usually the one that was sought after the very least, and more often not at all; if not by my reputation, then by the theological differences inherent to my unorthodox faith. Despite my intention to forever avoid telling of it to most anyone: theological arguments had previously arisen between myself and a few other members of the flock, and these must have indicated at least that my beliefs differed from their own, as I had overheard such suspicions regarding the subject before.

For this reason, I was somewhat apprehensive as Yuri came first to ask for my blessing, but such propriety as he had shown me deserved answer in equal measure, and I pulled open my pursestrings and began to count out the coins I had prepared for this unlikely eventuality.

I had given it out a scant few times in the past, and for this I was very thankful, as the total over the years might have been rather steep were I made to give it more regularly — not an impossibly and unreachably large amount given the bargaining power my profession held, but such a circumstance would regardless have brought a significant impact upon my philanthropic intentions toward children and the irreparably sickened — but I spoke my endorsement to him as I deposited into his almscup thirty silver denarii,

“Brother Bartholomew, I give you my blessing. May you never fear the path you tread, for you carry God in your feet.”

Yuri Bartholomew blinked back his shock, whether due to the great sum that he had received from me, or because I had neglected to name my patron even as I wore his sign as a noose embossed upon a silver coin around my neck. I could not know the reason for his reaction, but he surprised me a second time, for even after receiving my unusual blessing and tithe: he followed up with a profound poise that left me truly touched,

“Thank you for your blessing, Sister. I will keep it in my heart.”

His bow deepened still further, and he shortly went to seek the blessing and alms of those in the row behind us, while I sat uncertain for a moment as I sorted through this unfamiliar circumstance. This was how social exchanges were supposed to play out, but having experienced it so unexpectedly as this was rather overwhelming.

Not that it was unpleasant at all, but it was at the least surprising: a person whom I had never never interacted with had regarded me respectfully. I wondered why it was, for I could not recall an instance where I healed either Mikhail or Yuri, and I did not know so much as the name of his deceased mother; only that she was gone from this Earth well before I arrived in this town.

I sat pondering upon these matters when I felt a warm tug upon my left hand, so it seemed that both of Arianna’s hands had found purchase upon it. I immediately turned to face her smile, and the warmth she wore in her eyes spoke of her gladness that the ceremony was well and truly at its end.

She had borne with it well, and she looked to be so excited to speak with me that she was at a loss for where to start. A smile pulled upon my lips as I gave her some direction, though I was certain that she would explain all of that and more in short order,

“Rianna, how did you manage to so completely quiet Anastasia’s outburst?”