AFTER telling the townsfolk about his vision of Mary, bishop Basil went back to the shrine of Mercurius, the martyr Mary had asked to be brought to her. As he prayed before the saint’s icon, still very much puzzled, Basil wondered idly why he had not noticed before that there was blood on the tip of his spear.

It was three tense days later that one of the Emperor’s officers, named Libanius, came to Caesarea and fell at Basil’s feet. The Emperor, he said, was dead. Three nights before, a man had appeared from nowhere, dodged seven guards, and run Julian through with a spear before vanishing again into the darkness.

And suddenly Basil remembered St Mercurius’s blood-tipped spear.

The townsfolk were so relieved and grateful that that they said the Virgin Mary could keep all their gold and gems. Basil had some difficulty persuading them to take a third of it back, before he relented and used the rest to found a monastery.