“Jesus Christ didn’t have to perform this many miracles a day,” Gilles muttered to himself as he put one foot in front of the other and walked toward the men, wondering how he was going to “handle it” as Ste Germaine had ordered.

She didn’t like the uneasy feeling that came over her now and the discomfort of these thoughts was too much for her to tolerate, even for a few moments. Elsje decided then and there that the horrible beaded thing that she held in her hand no longer had anything to do with Gilles; it was simply some old family memento or keepsake belonging to the distant past, an antique of the same genre as the rusted old sword of his grandfather’s that Hendrick kept under his bed, a relic from some distant ancestor that had escaped its own time and traveled into the future like an unwanted old relative that was going to outlive everyone, a missive from the days and times when men were uncivilized, when there had been hand to hand fighting in the bloodstained streets of old Amsterdam. As such, this small religious relic, as welcome in her house as the grisly old bones or ancient gray hair of a long-deceased saint, most certainly was no longer needed.

Gilles stood outside, looking up at the magnificent exterior of the cathedral. He had seen nothing like this in a very long time and he stayed fixed to the spot, taking in every detail of the stone exterior that had been brought into being at the hands of some long ago and long dead craftsmen. Their creation had carried their work, and in a sense, a part of themselves, forward into the future. They may have started out as very young apprentices to the original stone masons, perhaps clumsy children of not even sixteen years of age when they began to work on it several centuries earlier, but at some point while building this great cathedral, they must have passed through a strong and vigorous youth, a precise and efficient maturity, grown old and then feeble, eyes dimming and joints beginning to ache as they took on apprentices and journeymen of their own. They must have realized eventually that they would not be there to see it themselves, but that their work would be around for future generations, as their children and the descendants of the people they had known would pass by these same walls each and every day on their way to the market or their work.
Feeling a little foolish because he just stood there with his mouth open, probably looking like a complete country bumpkin to the passing residents who had already relegated the architectural masterpiece to a mere backdrop of their everyday lives, Gilles decided that he needed to either keep walking or go inside.