The Icon of St. Sofia, Chapter 3

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The Continuation of The Adventures of Sigegard Ainsworth, a pastiche of Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot.

Chapter Three: In which the sacrilege of the desecration of Sofia’s grave is committed by a graverobber, a deacon standing secret guard rescues the pendant, and then is murdered in the abbey that very night.

An excerpt:

When it was reported to Simon that Ivan had set a watch, he nodded, but his ministers witnessed a twitch in his eyebrow, that they rose a bit in evidence of some minor alarm. He called for Pyotr, the chief minister, the man overseeing the guard. “Pyotr, my son,” Simon said, “The tsar has confirmed with the thieves of his realm that something valuable is buried with Sofia.”

“Indeed, your Eminence,” Pyotr replied. “Ivan, my most trusted eye and arm, is resting even this afternoon that he might rise at dusk to take his station outside the convent.”

“Ah, yes, Ivan,” said Simon, and he leaned back into his chair. “He has the mind and heart of a tsar himself, along with the name, if only he had the family. At compline I will pray for him.”

Thus it was in the very darkest hour of the night, shaded darker by the turmoil of the heavens, as cloud fought cloud for supremacy over the land, sending their winds in blasts, like the volleys of warfare, bending trees and shrubbery, who rustled loudly in every kind of protest against this disturbance in what should have been the quiet hours of rest. The many watchers of the convent strained to discern one movement of shadow from another, to distinguish one sound of nature from a human footstep.

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