9 A Child Enthroned The Apennines run along the peninsula of Italy like a spine, carved and turned by volcanic action beneath the earth. So it is that abrupt cliffs of fire-founded rock rise up, smoothed a little by the long ages, pitted with grottoes, covered on their gentler western slopes with rich soil for farming, and crowned, often enough, by the walls and tile roofs and spires of a medieval town. And here, in one such grotto, beyond the walls of one such town, a little man in brown rough cloth is working quietly. You wouldn’t know it to look at him, but he has been in himself something of a volcano, if that word can properly apply to one who, by all appearances, hardly ever raises his voice. He is leading a great lumbering ox and a donkey over to the grotto, to tether them there, in front of a very large trough filled with hay so they won’t grow restless, and a cistern full of water. The animals seem unusually tame, or maybe he just has a way with them. The church of the earth Two other men in brown are watching him. “Brother Rufino, what is the master doing now?” It’s never been easy for the followers to catch
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