Heyman stood up against the uneven wall, his legs still aching, his fingers groping for the edge of the window that illuminated the dark cavern, the monks glued the stones with guano and gum, they were strong, but as with any kind of building, the windows and doors were the most time-consuming parts. He pulled the stones one by one, and finally a small half of the swarthy stone was pried off by him, and the former heir of the living Jared lowered his head and brought the stone to his eyes, and found on it three quarters of the holy symbols - JHS, with a cross in the middle, JHS is the Latin "Jesus. Mankind. The first letter of the three words "Savior" - he raised his toes again to look at the other stones in the slope of the window opening, and he found the overlapping xp, symbolizing Christ, a and Ω, the first and last of the Greek letters, indicating that God is the root and destination of all things, and other book lovers are reading:.

There are also icons with simple lines, lambs and doves.

"Is it like that in every house?"

"Every single one." The old friar said: "Each new brother may live with someone or in a house that has been vacant after the departure of the previous one, but they will always build a new house for themselves and for the Lord." ”

Heyman remembered the simple, cavernous church, built of tens of millions of stones, which could have been a miracle on an island that seemed to have been detached from human society for thousands of years, if the stones, he said, were inscribed with the symbols, the words and the images he had just seen......

The new brothers of the Polluga Abbey were able to move around freely, and the months following the feast of the resurrection of Jesus were a rare period of life in the Polüga Island, with plenty of sunshine and rain only in the morning and evening. Strong Jacob went through every house—in other monasteries, the monks' doors were not allowed to be locked, and here the monks were even more simply undoord, and their dwellings had no doors at all. There was only a long strip of hole, and whenever they were welcome, the other brothers were welcome to visit, and was surprised to find. The monks who lived in seclusion here were not the madmen and jailers he had imagined, on the contrary, they were knowledgeable, open-minded, and funny, and when asked them about the rules and regulations of the monastery of the island of Polica, they happily patted him on the shoulder and told him that the Lord never minded such a trivial matter, and that the island of Porlyca, there had never been an abbot or a priest of the overseer.

"Then if there is a monk who cannot endure loneliness and hardship, and breaks his promise. What should you do if you want to escape? ”

The monk he was talking to blinked his bright eyes from between his unkempt hair and beard: "Why do you need to use the word run?" Sincerely, and bewildered, he asked, "We have come to this island because the Lord has said to us, 'Go to the island of Polyca, if that day comes.'" A voice said to one of us, "Leave the house of Poryu, that the Lord has other tasks to give you, and he should obey them—and no one else will try to stop him." ”

"How do you know it's not the voice of the devil?" replied without a voice.

"You have to believe that it will be the voice of the Lord that will reach your ears." The monk replied cheerfully.

"So, can I leave the Bolu family?" Hayman said, "I am not afraid of hardship, but my place is not here—I was sent here by my brother, and I have never heard the Lord ask me to come to the island of Polyca. ”

"Hmm......" the monk nodded, "at the Bolu house." No one is going to stop another person from coming, or leaving. Well, if the Lord really says that to you, of course you can leave, you just have to wait two years......"

"Two years?!"

"We have a boat here, once every three years. To welcome the pilgrims, you can follow them out. ”

pursed his lips tightly, feeling that he had been mocked and deceived.

"Where's the supply ship?"

"There are no supply ships, Brother," said the monk, "and we dry the salt ourselves." Growing wheat, beans, raising goats, fishing, prying oysters, the Lord has given us everything, and every three years, pilgrims bring oil and linen - we don't need anything more. ”

Before turned away, he said, "It is true that you may not have heard the Lord's call, but it is very likely that it was your brother who answered and carried out this will on his behalf." ”

***

Heyman's leg was restored to its original state half a month later, as a messenger of the earth who was favored and loved by God, no matter how serious, the wounds on his body had never lingered for so long, he once gouged out his eyeballs and offered them to the saint Jared, and refused the treatment of mortals, but overnight, he grew a new eye - but since he arrived at the Boryan house, his abilities have been ruthlessly stripped away, and he can no longer control other people's minds, bodies, and even lives, leaving him sleepless day and night, The prayer was read over and over again—his precious body, which was under the care of the Lord, and which was different from ordinary people, had become heavy and dirty, dirty, and rancid, and when he fell off the cliff where he jumped the goat, and watched his leg bones pierce the muscles and skin, and the white forest was exposed, he was unaware, and the monks carried him back to the house, and fixed his legs with fish bones and hay, Heyman. Strong Jacob was still thinking about tomorrow—the second day, the third day, the fourth day...... His legs did not improve, he suspected that the monks had concocted "ointments" with demonic curses, and wiped them off in the middle of the night, but his legs were hot, swollen, and leaking pus, and he fainted.

The monks didn't seem to care what young Strong James was thinking, and as always, they changed Heyman's dressings, bandaged them, and chanted various prayers into his legs.

Heyman, who had recovered from his work, had traveled all over the island, where there were about thirty-seven igloos, and he found that not all of them were of the same denomination, but that in addition to the three monks who had first arrived on the island, there were about fifty monks who had spent half or their entire lives on the island, including Jesuits, Retro Rites, Domintos, Benedictines, and two Franciscans.

There is no supervising denomination,. Strong Jacob went to inquire of the old friar, and he found himself an open space, on which he piled up rough polished black stones, and carved on them the symbols and brief prayers of the Lord, his attendant, the overseer, and the saint Jared—since he had been banished here and could not leave the island in two years—then at least he could serve his faith.

He had very little time, there was no electricity on the island, no candles, bushes and weeds provided only billowing black smoke, and the monks of the House of Pollus prayed according to the primitive canon, nine times a day, from 2:30 a.m. until bedtime. In between prayers, they toiled, and the only barren land on the island where wheat could be grown was located on the inner side of the island, far from the only source of fresh water, and the monks watered it once a day, and the water was carried in barrels on their backs, and the ropes on the barrels rubbed against Heyman's shoulders like two slender soldering irons, and if he had been given a chance to put down the buckets in the scorching sun, he might have drunk all the water in the barrels in one go—the monks had only half a bucket of water for drinking every day. Of course, if you love cleanliness, you can also jump into the sea water to take a bath, there are many of this, you are welcome; They sprinkled goat and seabird droppings in the ground, and the ratio of wheat to seed was about eight to one, and even if Heyman had not been able to go to school outside, he knew that it was probably a little better than the fields tended by the serfs in the seventh century, and the wheat was dried, the husks were removed, crushed, boiled in stone pots, or burned in the fire, thrown into their mouths and chewed, and the monks had their own hobbies and methods.

Sometimes, Hayman was assigned to pry oysters, because the amount of vitamin C available on the island was far less than what was necessary for humans, and every day, every monk had to eat two of these slimy little shells, and Hayman had eaten oysters before, squeezed with lemon juice and white wine, and the oysters he had eaten on Porlyca's Island were like snot or other disgusting secretions. The iron hammer that pry the oysters was the largest iron he had ever seen on the island, only one with a ring at the top, and the monks rolled the strips of cloth into a rope, and threaded it through the ring, and tied it to their hands and around their necks, and the first time they pry the oysters, did not do so, and the iron chisel fell into the sea, and for a whole week, they did not eat the oysters. Many people have swollen gums, bleeding, and body aches.

The iron drill was brought back by the old monk, and his hair was entangled with seaweed and seaweed, "and I prayed to the Lord," he said, "and then I looked down and saw it lying quietly in the sea." ”

He was lying, and Heyman knew it, for more than once after he had dropped the hammer, he had avoided the eyes and ears of others, and had dived into the dim or dark water to look for it, and he had seen the sleek old monk swimming not far in front of him, thin as a skeleton, and the old man with a white beard hanging down to his chest looked a little funny in the sea.

The monks clapped their palms happily and praised God, but there was no accusation, and in the days to come would still be sent to pry oysters.

He could only spare time between evening prayers (about five o'clock in the afternoon) and prayers before going to sleep, and accumulate his stones by the last rays of light reflected by the clouds and the sea, which he could only carve at first a day, and gradually became two, three, and more as time passed, and his fingers and soles became rough, calluses like gloves and soles, his face was haggard, his skin was dark, and there were no tools on the island to repair his beard and hair, and he soon had a large beard mixed with grains of salt and a messy hair.

(To be continued)

I'm coming back late, only one more, but don't worry, I'll make up for what I'm missing......

((One second to remember)