soul. In the most ancient legends, it was said your kind had no souls to be converted, no souls to be saved. That you could hover invisible in the darkness forever, between heaven and earth, because heaven was closed to you, so your only hope was to return in a likely form.”
I was awestruck, but not only for myself that someone could believe such a thing of me, but for the sheer possibility that such creatures could exist! Soulless. In darkness, with heaven closed to them! I started to weep.
I cleared my vision, and looked at this man, who’d given words to such a ghastly thought. His words were like sparks inside of me. Like the snapping and popping of damp wood. The more I stared at him, I sensed that he had to be evil, he was from the Devil, he was from some dark army that would carry my soul to hell.
“And you say that I have no soul? That I have no soul to be saved? How dare you say this to me! How dare you tell me that I am without a soul?”
In a fury I did strike him, knocking him with one fine blow all the way to the ground. I was stupefied by my own strength and as alarmed by this sin as I had been by my others.
I ran out of the field and home.
This man followed me, but he didn’t come close. He seemed in a great state of alarm when I entered the monastery, but he hung back, and I wondered if he was afraid of the Cross, the church, the sanctified ground.
That night I resolved what I must do. I went down beneath the church and slept on the stones before the tomb of Francis. I prayed to him. “Francis, how can I not have a soul? Give me guidance, Father. Help me. Mother of God, this is your child. I am bereft and alone.”
I fell into a deep sleep and I saw angels, and I saw the face of the Virgin, and I shrank down into a tiny child in her arms. I lay against her breasts, one with the Christ Child. And Francis said to me that that was my way; not to be one with the crucified Christ, leave that to others, but to be one with that innocent babe. I must go back to Scotland, go back to where it had begun.
I dreaded to leave Assisi so soon before Christmas—not to be here for the great Procession and to help make the crèche with the shepherds and the Holy Family—but I knew that as soon as I obtained permission, I would go.
Travel north and find Donnelaith. See for yourself what is there.
I went to talk to the Guardian, our Father Superior, a wise and kindly man who had served all his life in the place of Francis’s birth. He heard me out calmly and then spoke:
“Ashlar, if you go it will be to a martyr’s death. Word has just reached Italy. The daughter of the witch Boleyn has been crowned Queen of England. This is Elizabeth, and the burnings of Catholics have once again begun.”
The witch Boleyn. It took me a moment to remember who this was, ah, the mistress of King Henry, the one who had enchanted him and turned him against the Church. Yes, Elizabeth, the daughter. And so Good Queen Mary, who had tried to bring the land back to the faith, was now dead.
“I cannot let this stop me, Father,” I said. “I cannot.” And then in a rush I told him the whole tale.
I walked back and forth in the chamber. I talked and talked. I told all the words that had been said to me, trying not to fall into a cadence. I told about the strange man from Holland. I told about the old Laird, and my father, and St. Ashlar in his window, and the priest who had said to me, “You are St. Ashlar come again. You can be a saint.”
I thought surely he would laugh as had my confessor at the mere statement that I had brought the women death.
He was thunderstruck. He remained quiet for a long time, and then he rang for his assistant. The monk came in. “You can tell the Scotsman that he might come in now,” he said.
“The Scotsman?” I said. “Who is this man?”
“This is the man who has come from Scotland to take you away. We have been keeping