[closed post -- passion sunday]

When Galahad was a child, Holy Week marked the most important seven days of the year. On Passion Sunday morning he would rise early for Matins and then Mass, where the priest who visited once a week to preside over their naked altar and give communion would tell the story of Christ's arrival in Jerusalem. Instead of a sermon the Passion would be read like a prophecy, foretelling the week to come, from Jesus' interrogation by Pilate to the freeing of Barabbas to the crown of thorns and the whipping, even unto death upon the cross.

After Mass there was a procession. In a village, the children would have led it, but in the nunnery there was only Galahad, and he preceded the Abbess and the priest, his arms full of boxwood, yew, and whatever spring flowers were blooming -- the children of Jerusalem laid palms before the Messiah, but no palms grew in Britain. Behind him the nuns carried their relics as he led them out of the chapel and into the courtyard, around the kitchen garden and back to the chapel. The priest would take the processional cross and strike the door with it to demand Christ's entry.

All through Lent a huge painted veil had been suspended between the chancel and the nave to shield the great wooden Rood on which the crucified Jesus had been carved, but now it would be drawn away. Galahad remembers kneeling before it, still clutching his flowers while around him the nuns sang All Glory Laud and Honor -- with jubilation, but careful to arouse no passion, in keeping with Isidore of Pelusium's exhortations that music must not inspire emotion, only express it, lest it cause listeners to succumb to base desires.

Passion Sunday is only the beginning, and this one is the first one Galahad has ever commemorated alone. The year before Percival came to Camelot there was still a church to go to Mass in; after Percival, Holy Week and every other feast and fast was something to be shared between them.

He doesn't want to bother Claudius with it; he knows Claudius and God are, as Claudius likes to say archly, not on good terms. But it's not just that. Over the last week, Claudius has been irritable, complaining often of headache and a shaking in his hands. The mansion isn't providing the things he likes, and he's openly unhappy about it. The silver strands are showing in the darkness of his hair, and as much as Galahad loves them he knows how much they frustrate Claudius' vanity, how much in general it upsets him not to have everything just so. Galahad won't disturb him with any mention of how much Holy Week matters, and how lonely it feels to lie in bed and recite the Passion silently to himself.

It's almost None before Galahad gets out of bed and puts on the blue sweater and pleated skirt that Magnus picked for him, running his fingers over the pearl button details.

The way things are now, he's not confident at all that he'd find any of the things he needs for Holy Week in the mansion. Part of him doesn't even want to bother looking and being disappointed -- he wants to slip back under the covers and lie like a corpse under a shroud.

But there could be palm in the greenhouse.

With all the effort he can manage, he pulls on the long coat he chose back at the beginning of autumn, and leaves their room to look.