“Saint Terentius, Bishop of Port, where the mouth of the Tiber empties into the sea, requested that on his tomb might be engraved the sign which was placed on the graves of parricides, in the hope that passersby would spit on his tomb. This was done. The dead must be obeyed.”
“So be it.”
“The body of Bernard Guidonis, born in France near Roche-Abeille, was, as he had ordered, and in spite of the king of Castile, borne to the church of the Dominicans in Limoges, although Bernard Guidonis was Bishop of Tuy in Spain. Can the contrary be affirmed?”
“For that matter, no, reverend Mother.”
“The fact is attested by Plantavit de la Fosse.”
Several beads of the chaplet were told off, still in silence. The prioress resumed:—
“Father Fauvent, Mother Crucifixion will be interred in the coffin in which she has slept for the last twenty years.”
“That is just.”
“It is a continuation of her slumber.”
“So I shall have to nail up that coffin?”
“Yes.”
“And we are to reject the undertaker’s coffin?”
“Precisely.”
“I am at the orders of the very reverend community.”
“The four Mother Precentors will assist you.”