Stormbringers (Order of Darkness) Read Online Free PDF

are all my brothers and sisters in the sight of God. We have come far, and we have further still to go.’
     
    ‘We would like to talk with you,’ Brother Peter said. ‘It is our mission to know what things you have seen. The Holy Father himself will want to know what you have seen. We have to judge if your visions are true.’
     
    The boy nodded his head as if he were indifferent to their opinion. ‘Perhaps later. You must forgive me. But many people want to know what I have seen and what I know. And I have no interest in the judgments of this world. I will preach later. I will stand on the steps of the church and preach to the village people. You can come and listen if you want.’
     
    ‘Have you taken Holy Orders? Are you a servant of the church?’ Brother Peter asked.
     
    The boy smiled and gestured to his poor clothes, his shepherd’s crook. ‘I am called by God, I have not been taught by His Church. I am a simple goatherd, I don’t claim to be more than that. He honoured me with His call as He honoured the fishermen and other poor men. He speaks to me Himself,’ the boy said simply. ‘I need no other teacher.’
     
    He turned and made the sign of the cross over some children who came through the gate singing a psalm and gathered around him to sit on the stone cobbles of the quay as comfortably as if they were in their own fields.
     
    ‘Wouldn’t you like to come into the inn and break your fast with us?’ Luca tempted him. ‘Then you can eat, and rest, and tell us of your journey.’
     
    The boy considered them both for a moment. ‘I will do that,’ he said. He turned and spoke a quick word with one of the children nearest to him and at once they settled down on the quayside and unpacked their knapsacks and started to eat what little they were carrying – a small bread roll and some cheese. The other children, who had nothing, sat dully where they were, as if they were too tired for hunger.
     
    ‘And your followers?’ Luca asked him.
     
    ‘God will provide for them,’ the youth said confidently.
     
    Luca glanced towards Brother Peter. ‘Actually, the priest is bringing food for them, the abbey is baking bread,’ Brother Peter told him, rather stiffly. ‘I see you are not fasting with them.’
     
    ‘Because I knew that God would provide,’ Johann confirmed. ‘And now you tell me He has done so. You invite me to breakfast and so God provides for me. Why should I not trust him and praise His holy name?’
     
    ‘Why not indeed?’ Brother Peter said glacially, and led the way to the dining room of the inn.
     
     
     
    Ishraq and Isolde did not join the men for breakfast. They peeped through the open door to see the boy Johann, and then carried their plates upstairs to their bedroom and ate, sitting at the window, watching the scene on the quayside as children continued to pour into the town, the smallest and the frailest coming last as if they could hardly keep up. Their ragged clothes showed that they were from many different areas. There were children from fishing villages further north up the coast who wore the rough smocks of the region, and there were children who had come from farms and wore the capes and leggings of shepherds and goatherds. There were many girls, some of them dressed as if they had been in service, in worsted gowns with goatskin aprons. Isolde nudged Ishraq as three girls in the robes of novices of a convent came through the gate of the town, their rosaries in their hands, their little veiled heads bowed, and passed under the overhanging window.
     
    ‘They must have run away from a nunnery,’ she said.
     
    ‘Like us,’ Ishraq agreed. ‘But where do they think they’re going?’
     
    In the dining room the youth prayed in silence over the food, blessed the bread, and then ate a substantial breakfast that Freize brought up from the kitchen. After the boy had finished, he gave thanks in a lengthy prayer to God and a short word of appreciation to Luca.