Sentence
The Second
Dr Daphne
Dumbiedykes, Emeritus Professor of Late-Early Mediaevalism and
Romance Studies at St Sebastian's College, stood stock still for a
moment, deep in thought, while in her hand she held Sister Evadne
Eglantine's wimple which that dying nun had transformed into an
opisthograph by writing, on both sides, an ancient herbal remedy some
seven centuries ago, and her mind raced as her gaze swept across the
walls of Sister Evadne's last and fatal imprisonment, the victim of a
dastardly plot by the debauched Sir Parlane MacFarlane – seducer of
young virgins, the man who fathered seven children by as many
Duchesses and who boasted that the most virtuous of nuns could not
withstand his amorous advances – as part of a complex scheme
through which - carried away by his own brio, that fantastical
self-confidence and chutzpah that had earned him his devastating
reputation as lover, poet, statesman and King-maker – he thought to
make himself King of Scots, until her eyes alighted on a short
inscription, in a shaky hand, which caused a spasm to course through
her body and leave her feeling totally drained of blood, so
dehydrated as to experience utter desiccation, her parched brain
trying desperately to make some other sense of the words than that
writ plain before her sight – she closed her eyes and let out a
soft moan, before dropping to her knees on the filthy rock floor and
burying her face in Sister Evadne's last testament.
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