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𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐒𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐇𝐄𝐍𝐑𝐘 𝐁𝐑𝐎𝐖𝐍'𝐒 forty year service as a shepherd of the flock of the Christ, last six months of which have been spent here at St. Andrew's church in Bordsley, had made him develop a monotonous daily routine he thoroughly enjoyed.
Like any day before, he finished his midday meal with appetising delight and washed it down with some fine wine from the church cellar, halfway dreaming about the comfortable solitude of his quarters where he would rest until the evening mass.
Prop my feet up, and a good book, mused the priest, keys on his belt jingling in rhythm with the sagging jowls of his face.
Light filtered into the humble room, steadily illuminating the crooked bookshelf lined with century old manuscripts of religious texts, some of which he brought all the way from Coventry. Above a small cot hung a delicate golden crucifix, an olive branch stuck between the wood of the cross and the wall.
A hand with several rings could be seen first - a simple band of gold and a signet, and one richly encrusted with rubies - gripping the arm of his chair. Olive skin peaked from beneath the billowing darkness of the coat. Two amber, cat-like eyes lazily followed his movements. Henry Brown felt like a cornered church mice faced with a hungry feline.
"Good evening, padre."
Hollow and sharp would be the way he described the voice coming from beneath the fedora, tactfully tilted over the interlocutors face. He sees her every Saturday, lighting the candles with Polly Gray at the shrine made for the boys that lost their lives in the war. Two fierce sinners finding solace in the holiest of the places.
The former vicar informed him that the church he was now in charge of was a neutral ground of sorts, and equally belonged to two dominant gangs of the city, the Blinders and the Italians. At first it confused him, for how could a city be owned by those people?
Things will happen, bad things, dear Henry. Keep your head down and don't get in their way. Father Moore told him, and rightfully so.
It took him only a couple of titles in the papers, of violent affairs and mutilated bodies washing up on the banks of the canal, to come to the understanding of where he truly came.
And now, Father Henry was slapped with a terrifying realisation - he was going to die.
With a lump in his throat, he shut the door gently as if not to disturb the phantom like creature in his armchair. Several seconds passed, none of them making a move. Henry tightly grasped the rosary in his pocket before speaking.
"Miss Cardinale," his eyes warily observed the revolver sitting like an obedient pet on her lap, voice wavering. "It is forbidden to enter the house of God with such weaponry."
