30

Confluence.

The word had been rattling around his mind, and

when he was alone it would occasionally roll off his lips and

make him tremble.

He had been preoccupied by the confluence, as had his

brethren, but he was convinced he was more affected than

the others, a wholly imagined position since one did not

openly discuss such matters.

Of course, there had long been an awareness that this sev-

enth day would come, but the feelings of portent had dra-

matically escalated when in the month of Maius a comet

appeared, and now, two months later, its fiery tail persisted

in the night sky.

Prior Josephus was awake before the bell rang for Lauds.

He threw off his rough coverlet, stood and relieved himself

in his chamber pot, then splashed his face with a handful

of cool water from a basin. One chair, one table, and a cot

with a straw pallet on a hard earthen floor. This was his win-

dowless cell; his white tunic of undyed wool and his leather

sandals were his only earthly possessions.

And he w