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| - "Áve María, grátia pléna, Dóminus técum. Benedícta tu in muliéribus, et benedíctus frúctus véntris túi, Iésus..." The prayer, spoken through a throat choked with sorrow, echoes off the walls and off the shelves and shelves of mildewed books and scrolls. The air is thick with the smell of dust and age. The room is alight with the glow of a hundred candles, dancing their slow flickering dance. "...Sáncta María, Máter Déi, óra pro nóbis peccatóribus, nunc et in hóra mórtis nóstrae..." "Áve María, grátia pléna, Dóminus técum. Benedícta tu in muliéribus, et benedíctus frúctus véntris túi, Iésus..."
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abstract
| - "Áve María, grátia pléna, Dóminus técum. Benedícta tu in muliéribus, et benedíctus frúctus véntris túi, Iésus..." The prayer, spoken through a throat choked with sorrow, echoes off the walls and off the shelves and shelves of mildewed books and scrolls. The air is thick with the smell of dust and age. The room is alight with the glow of a hundred candles, dancing their slow flickering dance. "...Sáncta María, Máter Déi, óra pro nóbis peccatóribus, nunc et in hóra mórtis nóstrae..." The weeping man kneels, bare-chested, at the foot of a silver chalice, a holy relic. He recites his prayer of penance over and over, his voice shrinking to a hoarsely rasping whisper. His chest is marred with the long crooked lines of a vicious scar, running from neck to abdomen and shoulder to shoulder, the form of a cross. "Áve María, grátia pléna, Dóminus técum. Benedícta tu in muliéribus, et benedíctus frúctus véntris túi, Iésus..." He is haunted by her memory, by the sin of his childhood. His life he gives over in service of the Holy Christ, a payment for his sin... It is not enough, not nearly enough, but it is all he has to give. "...Sáncta María, Máter Déi, óra pro nóbis peccatóribus, nunc et in hóra mórtis nóstrae. Amen." Standing, the warrior slips his arms through his undershirt and pulls a suit of chain-mail on over his head. Over the mail, he dons a bright white tabard marked with a scarlet cross, the symbol of the Knights Templar. Carefully he takes up the relic and exits the small room through its only entryway. He stands squinting for a moment, giving his eyes time to adjust to the bright sunlight, and then begins to wade through the vast pile of bodies strewn about the courtyard. The bodies are those of the warriors slain at his hands and the hands of his knights, warriors who stood between him and the Chalice of Fortitude, unworthy heathens. "Hail, Sir Dupuis! You have the chalice?" Dupuis holds the chalice up, letting the sun glint of its polished surface and then tucks it away as he mounts up on his steed and rides off. His faithful Knights follow after him.
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