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we’d visit, we could only see her face through a grille. I remember being frightened of that when I was small, even though she was of course very sweet and kind and made a big fuss over me. It was the situation that worried me: it isn’t natural for an aunt not to be able to hold her own nephew.”
    Max thought how like his father she had seemed. That same ascetic quality as his father’s, given full range. The same reserve and stoicism. An otherworldly cast that he suspected would not have thrived outside the gray walls behind which she continued to live out her days.
    He had been negligent in not having visited her for months, an oversight he vowed to correct soon.
    Bishop St. Stephen studied the priest before him. He hoped he was doing the right thing in taking Max away from his expected duties in Nether Monkslip and sending him off on a mission to, essentially, spy on a religious order. But was there anyone he could think of more readymade for the task? Not a soul. Being MI5 called for a man with chameleon qualities: he not only could tell no one what he did for a living, but he had to make certain what he said he did for a living sounded as boring and ordinary as possible. Even the bishop wasn’t sure what Max had really got up to during those MI5 years. It was undoubtedly better not to know the details. What mattered was the man before him now, whose integrity he never doubted.
    Max prompted conversationally, never dreaming it all would have anything to do with him: “You say there are thirty-one of the sisters? That is a sizable group these days. What do you know of their backgrounds before they came to Monkbury Abbey?” He added, “Please don’t tell me one of them was an accountant.”
    â€œActually, one was, but they all share jobs routinely and the nun with a background in accounting doesn’t seem to have been solely in charge of the funds. The job-sharing scheme is meant to keep them both humble and cross-trained, you see. There are a few key positions that remain stationary—the abbess, for one; the cellaress, for another. They mostly came to the religious life after a full exploration of the outside world. When we think of nuns we think of a convent full of virgins singing in the choir and scrubbing stone floors. Even those of us who have been called to religion ourselves—those who should know better. The Order of the Handmaids of St. Lucy admits widows and always has, and today it boasts a few of those—several with children living. There are women from the business world, from academia, from all walks of life, really. Abbess Justina, to name one, was quite a London presence in her day.”
    The best leaders of establishments such as Monkbury Abbey, Max knew, combined a generosity of spirit with a steely practicality and a gift for diplomacy. “I would think some experience of the outside world would be a bonus to the nunnery,” he said.
    â€œAbsolutely, it is. And they are not interested in recruiting naïfs who see the nunnery as a place to hide. It is a life to be embraced with joy and in full knowledge of what the postulant is leaving behind.”
    Stopping to adjust the collar at his neck, which looked too tight for such a warm day, the bishop went on: “They lean toward the Anglo-Catholic tradition, but they seem to be more interested in preserving the monastic traditions and rituals of the Middle Ages than in modern religious debate. They emphasize a return to the devotions of old and a wish to abandon the distractions of modern life. Who can blame them? Their main argument is that the earliest members of the C of E had no quarrel with their practices, so why should we?”
    â€œSo I gather there has been some discussion about … let’s say, policy  … with the abbess?”
    â€œOh, on many occasions. The situation bears watching, but they seem to me to be earnest and devout, avoiding the excesses of the