Father Aurel Selthane looks as if he was carved from weathered chapel stone and then left too long in sea spray. He is tall and long-limbed, with a monkish stillness that breaks only when he is listening, at which point his whole body seems to lean forward as though hearing a distant bell. His robes are immaculate at first glance, but the hem is salt-stained, smoke-darkened, and patched with careful stitching in three different hands. The strange contradiction is his left hand, which is always gloved in black velvet despite the summer heat, while the rest of him wears only practical wool and linen. He carries himself with the composure of a saint and the impatience of a dock foreman, leaving the impression of a man who has argued with heaven and won enough to be dangerous.