WHO...?

Totally puzzled as to what he might find, Alistair entered Maximus' home. "He is in here, on the couch," Maximus said, leading Alistair toward the small room.

Alistair saw a man fully reclined, his head resting against the padded arm of the couch, his eyes closed. He took in the man's attire, especially the dirty white collar. "My goodness!" he murmured, turning to look at Maximus. "And you found him lying in one of your fields? Did he say how he got there, how long he'd been there?"

"Always," Maximus replied. "He said he had always been in the field."

"How strange."  Alistair knelt beside the man, who seemed profoundly asleep. "This is definitely the attire of some sort of clergy," he nodded. "I don't know that I've ever seen quite the like of it, though, unless in some book."

"What do you mean, Alistair?" Joimus asked.

"No one, not in any denomination I know, wears this kind of clothing any more."

Joimus lifted the man's left hand, which hung partially off the couch. "And this...what do you make of this?"

"I can answer that," Maximus spoke up. "He has been in irons."

"Manacles?" Alistair's eyebrows shot up. "He's been...chained?"

"I believe so," Maximus nodded. "I know of such things."

Alistair did not ask the General how. His attention turned back to the man, whose frock coat was unbuttoned. Beneath it he wore a matching vest and a dirty white shirt. Alistair rested his hand on the frock coat, feeling something hard just over the man's left chest. There had to be a pocket there with something inside. He looked back up at Maximus. "Would it be all right?" he asked, indicating the pocket.

"In these circumstances, I should think so."

Alistair pulled out a very worn, very small New Testament, his lips curving into a smile when he saw what it was. He opened the cover and there on the title page was written "To Reverend Cortland Wells from Pedro. Thank you for all you have done for me and my three sisters."

Alistair read the inscription aloud, then let his gaze rest on the man's quiet face. He shook his head wonderingly. What had this man been through that he would end up here and in such a condition? There were, in addition to the wide, raw marks of the manacles, a number of scrapes and bruises on the man as though he had been hit, had been dragged.

Just then the sleeping man turned his head and moaned, mumbling something. "No," he said, his voice unutterably weary, "no, not the mission. Please, not the mission. Don't...don't burn it...please...don't."

Alistair's lips clamped together as he listened to the quiet litany. Over and over came the entreaties not to burn the mission, to leave some place for the children  Then suddenly the man's eyes flew open and he sat up, his lips parted in a last entreaty.

Shocked at the sight of the faces around him, he hissed in a sharp breath. "What? Who?" He let his shoulders settle back on the pillow, putting a forearm over his eyes.

"The mission?" Alistair said gently. "What happened to the mission?"

The man lowered his arm, inch by inch. "Mission?"

"You were asking that the mission not be burned. Was it your mission?"

The man shook his head. "I...I...what mission?"

"That is what we should like to discover," Maximus said. "Are you clergy?"

The man blinked his eyes several times, looking up at Maximus. "I...I've seen you...before."

"In my field. It was I who found you in the grass."

"Grass? Yes, grass." He remembered grass. "Your grass?"

"My grass," Maximus affirmed. "How did you get there? Where is this mission?"

The muscles in the man's jawline twitched. "Just grass," he whispered.

"What do you mean 'just grass'?" Alistair asked.

"All there is," the man sighed. "All there ever was. Grass."

Joimus touched his arm lightly. "Your name? Who are you? Are you Cortland Wells, Reverend Cortland Wells?"

He looked at her blankly. "I...I...don't know."