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A clap of thunder burst across the Cyprian town of Kato Zaksos, shaking walls and rattling windows. Lothar de Thaon woke with a start, his breathing short and fast, muscles tensed and alert for danger.
On the other side of the barren room, a flickering candle in a brass holder grudgingly gave off a dim, feeble light. The sight of something so common, something so taken for granted, reminded him that he no longer slept under the stars of some nameless beach along the African coast, but in a monastery run by a handful of Sick and Elderly Brothers who had once served with pride in the Templar Order.
Lothar laid rock still, staring at the ceiling. Slowly, after his breathing steadied, he eased back the coarse wool blanket. Dressed only in gray flannel undershorts, he sat up and slipped his feet into a pair of leather sandals. He glanced at the small wooden crucifix above the door, crossed himself, and then pulled on the brown habit lying at the foot of his bed.
In the empty vestibule, rows of torches threw flickering shadows onto stone walls. To his left stood the sleeping rooms where his contingent of Templar Knights -- sergeants, knights, men-at-arms and squires -- slept in small, one-man chambers just large enough for a bed and a small desk. To his right, high, rectangular-shaped windows, no more than a foot wide, faced a small garden of shrubs enclosed by thick, coarse stone walls separating the monastery from the town and its citizens.
The snores of his men filtered out into the hallway. When their noise fell into a recognizable pattern, he strained his ears against the night to capture anything out of the ordinary.
Something did not feel right. But then, he realized, at this early hour nothing ever does.
Mayhaps the impending storm made his skin tingle. Or maybe, he thought, this uneasiness came from the unexpected arrival of Father Colisée, the Provincial Master of Crete.
He walked down the corridor, rapped his knuckles on the closed door at the end, and then entered the anteroom where an ancient, wrinkled monk, with a hole in the left side of his head where an ear use to be, sat behind a desk lit by candles burning in a brass tripod.
Ignacio, a Sick and Elderly Brother permanently residing at the monastery cum way-station, looked up from the pile of religious icons and small wooden crucifixes stacked in front of him. The monk, boasting over seventy years in age, was master of the night. When everyone else slept, he gladly watched over them, content to let his mind wander in senile fantasies of a life coming to an end.
“I see you are up early, again,” the man said, his French still heavy with the Italian accent of the homeland he left forty years past.
Lothar shrugged. “I come for my sword.”
Ignacio’s face lit up. A playful smile exposed teeth brown and dull from years of a bland diet. “Your sword? At this time of night? Does this approaching storm frighten you?”
“Ignacio, I am in no mood for idle chatter.”
Slighted, Ignacio picked up one of the crucifixes, studied it, and then picked at a blemish with his carving knife before meeting Lothar’s gaze.
“It is not the storm you should worry about, but the aftermath,” Ignacio finally said, refusing to become sidetracked. “Storms come and go. But it is what they leave in their wake that changes our lives.”
“Words of wisdom,” Lothar said sarcastically. If he wanted to hear philosophy he would pay attention at the next Mass.