Even Kenrick, who had spent years surrounded by monks, felt the small hairs rise and the skin of his forearms form goosebumps. The brothers had gathered on the building site as dawn was just a hint in the eastern night sky. Kneeling in a wide circle, cowls over their heads, they chanted prayers in unison for the perfect construction of their sacred temple. There was nothing Kenrick desired more but, while he stood succumbing to the eerie atmosphere heightened by the rosy hue cast on the dismembered Saxon cathedral and the stones lying on the ground like extracted teeth, he felt inadequate. Why, he wondered did he find faith so difficult to achieve? Would his life not be more successful and buoyant if he could but emulate the kneeling figures?
His eyes passed over their heads to two men ap
