Chapter 14The Abbot paced his chamber. Something was threatening. He could feel change coming. He sensed the onset of disorder, of the unexpected, of the untamed. If he had his way that rebel Collen would be driven away. He was a heretic, a troublemaker. Angrily he thought about how he had come into their infirmary and ‘laid on hands’ as though he were Christ himself. Who was he, a foul smelling degenerate from the woods, someone who had walked out on a calling, who had sneered and jeered at his colleagues and superiors, to call on the name of Christ? He himself had tried ‘laying on of hands’ on more than one occasion and had failed to bring about any kind of change in the wounded or sick person. He had put it down to the fact that the patient was sinful and unregenerate and that Christ di
