From the distance came the shouts of men and the monotonous pounding of feet. Raw recruits were at drill; men engaged on a scatter of worlds and transported here to Ilyard where their contracts were sold at a profit. Those who had already been bloodied, who had been flung into combat and who had managed to survive, fetched a higher price than the rest. Others, like Kars Gartok, long freed of contractual restraint, sold their skills to any who would be willing to pay. Their skill and loyalty for what it was worth, going out to fight, to kill, to bleed, to die if they must to live if they could even at the cost of all they owned.

One day, thought the monk, he might be able to understand what drove men to act in such a manner, but for now it was cold, the field was empty and work still waited to be done.

The shadows were lengthening as he reached the first of a litter of shacks and huts which sprawled away from the town to the side of the field. Lowtowns were all the same no matter on which world they were found. The refuge of the desperate, those stricken with illness, those cursed with poverty. The stench of it rose like a miasma from the ramshackle dwellings; constructions of scrap and discarded plastic, of fabrics salvaged from the garbage of the more fortunate, doing little but to keep out the rain and giving a scrap of privacy.

The church was little better, but from intent rather than need. A building of brick or stone with solid walls and barred windows, of thick doors and heated air would have been an affront to those it had been designed to serve. As a monk wearing silk and gems would have insulted the wretch to whom he preached the virtue of poverty. To gain the confidence of those in need they had to be met at their own level.

Yet, even so, the church was bigger and better than others he had known. They had been the flimsy shacks of portable churches: fabric and poles which could be carried on a back together with the benediction light which was the heart of the structure.