packed away; including a detailed description of which tiles were cracked or damaged 
before they were packed, which had been mislaid by the original tilers (there were a 
hundred and sixteen such tiles; most turned ninety or a hundred and eighty degrees by an 
artisan too tired, too bewildered or perhaps too drunk to realize his error); all so that 
when the tiles were unpacked at the house in Coldheart Canyon there would be no 
difficulty reordering them into the original design.
  	It was a long process; a total of eleven weeks were to pass before the crated 
tiles were finally transported from the Fortress.
  	All the work had drawn much attention of course; from the brothers themselves, 
who knew what was going on because Father Sandru had told them, and from the villagers, 
who had only the vaguest of ideas of what all this was about. There were rumors flying 
around that the removal was being undertaken because the tiles had put the souls of the 
Fathers in spiritual jeopardy, but precise details of this jeopardy changed from account 
to account.
  	The vast sum of money that was now in the possession of the Order did very little 
to transform the lives of the priests, apart from inspiring some of the most embittered 
exchanges in the history of the brotherhood. Several of the priests were of the opinion 
that the tiles should not have been sold (not because of their merit, but because it was 
not wise to loose such unholy images on the secular world). To this, Father Sandru-who 
was more often, and more publicly, drunk by the day-offered only a sneering dismissal.
  	What does it matter?, he said to the complainers: they are only tiles, for God's 
sake.
  	There were a good number of shaken heads by the way of response, and a very 
eloquent riposte from one of the older Fathers, who said that God had put the tiles into 
their protection, and it was cynical and careless of him to let them go. What damage 
might they not do, out there in the world, he said; what hurt to innocent souls?
  	Sandru was unmoved by all this. There were no innocent souls in Hollywood, he had 
learned; nor was there any sin or excess painted in the tiles that the people of that 
city were not intimately familiar with. He spoke with an authority which he didn't in 
truth possess, but it sufficiently impressed the brothers-or at least a greater number of 
them-so that the nay-sayers were finally silenced.
  	There was much debate about what should happen to the money. One faction, led by 
the older men, believed it had been acquired by dubious means, and the only uncorrupted 
way to dispose of it was to distribute it amongst the poor. Surprisingly, very few voices 
supported this solution; some part of the money might be given to the needy in the 
village, the priests agreed, but there were other causes that should be attended to. 
There was some lobbying for a complete removal of the Order to some other place than the 
Fortress; a more comfortable place, where they could find their way to God without the 
Devil's shadow falling across their path. It was Sandru who was the most eloquent 
advocate of their staying in the Fortress. His tongue well lubricated with wine, he 
explained that he felt no sense of regret that he'd sold the tiles; it was a 
once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and he was glad he'd taken it. Now, he said, they should 
use the money to rejuvenate the place. Get the hospital up and running, as had always 
been the plan; see what they could do about refertilizing the land, so that the vineyard 
would prosper as they had in the old days.
  	"Our path is perfectly dear!" he said to the brothers. "Whether our faith in the 
Lord is secure or not, we can heal here, and we can grow the grape, and pass our lives 
with purpose."
  	He smiled as he spoke. That word-purpose-had not been on his lips for many years, 
and it gave him pleasure to speak it. But even as he spoke the smile started to die away, 
and the color shrank from his ruddy face.
  	"I beg you to excuse me," he said, putting his hand to his belly, "I am sickened 
by too much brandy."
  	With that he pulled out of his robes the bottle from which he had been drinking 
since early morning, and set it clumsily down on the table in front of him. Then he 
turned and stumbled out to get a breath of fresh air. Nobody went after him; he had no 
friends left in the Fortress. His old allies were too embarrassed by his excesses to 
publicly share his opinions; fearful that his behavior might reflect poorly on them, and 
keep them from advancement. So he was alone as he wandered giddily through the ruins of 
the dead vines. It was evening, and now that the summer was past, the air was beginning 
to get chilly. But the sky overhead was a perfect blue, and there was a new moon, its 
pallid crescent just clearing the mountains.
  	Sandru tried to let the sight of the sky and moon calm him; have them placate the 
pain of his heart, give life back to his numbed fingers. But the trick was beyond them. 
He realized suddenly that this was not a spasm brought on by too much brandy. He was 
dying.
  	The Brothers had medicines for weakness of the heart, he knew; it would not be 
the end of him if he got back to them quickly enough. He turned on his heel, attempting 
to voice a shout of alarm. But his panicked chest would provide no breath for him to cry 
for help. His legs began to fail him, and down he went, face first, into the dirt. He 
tasted the soil in his mouth, bitter and unappetizing. He spat it out; and with the last 
of his strength he pushed himself up out of the filth and let gravity roll him over. He 
could not move, but it didn't matter. The darkening sky overhead was spectacle enough. He 
lay there for six or seven shortening gasps, while a star, lonely in its solitude, 
brightened at his zenith. Then he let life go.
  
  	The Brothers did not find him until the middle of the night, by which time a 
frost had settled on the old vineyard, the first frost of that autumn. It glittered on 
the bulk of the dead Father; on his bulbous nose and in the knots of his beard. It had 
even inscribed its filigrees on his unblinking eyes.
  
  
  FOUR
  	There was no hospital established at the Fortress; then or ever. Nor was there 
any attempt to replant the vineyard, or make the grounds around the Fortress in any way 
flourish. With Father Sandru's passing (at the relatively tender age of sixty-two), what 
little enthusiasm there had been for change withered. The younger men decided to leave 
the Fortress; three of them left the Order entirely and became members of the secular 
community. Of the three, one-a young man by the name of Jan Valek took his own life less 
than a year later, leaving a long suicide note, a kind of epistle to his sometime 
brothers, in which he wrote of how he'd had a dream after the death of Father Sandru, in 
which "I met the Father in the vineyards, which were all burning. It was a terrible place 
to be. Black smoke was filling the sky, blotting out the sun. He said to me that this was 
Hell, this world, and there was only one way to escape it, and that was to die. His face 
was bright, even in the darkness. He said he wished he'd died earlier, instead of going 
on suffering in the world."
  	"I asked him if they allowed him to drink brandy wherever he was now. He said he 
had no need of brandy; his existence was happy; there was no need to conceal the pain 
with drinking.
  	"Then I told him I still had a life to live in the world, whereas he had been an