So there we are, me and Brother Eusebius, who’s basically all right in my book. He’s seventy-six years old, joined the order as a novice when he was nine; as of compline today, he’s recited the mass for the dead 142,773 times. There’s a thing called muscle memory. It’s how archers and swordsmen and athletes train. You do something often enough, your body can do it perfectly, even when your mind is miles away. The muscles that control Brother Eusebius’s tongue and larynx run as smoothly and efficiently as the great mechanical clock in the Third Horn bell tower: word-perfect, unflappable,
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