In margins
Short Story
Loude sing cuckou! Brother John heard in their head the leaps of the bells as people saw the lines of the lyric. He looked out on the granite stones that made up the Pryor but he did not think that the stones would save anyone from the plague which rampaged.
The night was coming, and he leaned over his desk filled as it was with neat hand-copied folios which needed to be ordered. The brother took pride in his work, full in the Latin script and with the small postscripts which he had inserted in various places. Nothing should go out without having a sign that someone has been there. After all, if Christ and his deeds occupied the main subject then counter-subjects should be there. After all, what good is a God as a man without the people to worship in their way? It was better than Brother Francis who drew flies in the margins as a kind of commentary: he believed that the offal that pervaded the world also inflicted the holy.
This is why he wrote down a lyric and the tune that it came with, he wanted to show that ordinary living sang and did all of the other things to which happy people had a right. Then he looked out the Western window and saw the sunset and he had to let that while there were happy things there was few enough of them. This is because in the year 1348, a plague had been rampaging through all of Christendom. And he felt sure that it was, here to Lincoln. While the abbeys that were packed in the center were almost certainly doomed. The calendar may celebrate the deeds of Jesus, and the conversation may have dipped into the laughter of Ovid, but the outside world saying to the dance macabre and the Tarantella.
Then he heard from below the grating voice of Brother Francis.
“Brother John it is time for dinner.”
Slowly Brother John came down from the stool. ‘s eyes were still sharp but his body was not so in this 53rd year on the planet. He waddled down the stairs and at the bottom saw that Brother Francis had already snarfed a bottle of ale and was liberally drinking it.
“You know that drinking before dinner is not the best way of importing oneself.”
“If I were drinking before dinner that would be true, but I’m drinking after lunch so it’s all right.”
Rolling his eyes Brother John slipped behind Brother Francis. Brother Francis then finished the bottle and heated it in some of the stacks that needed to be copied. And then Brother John moved the bottle down to the floor so as not to get beer on the manuscripts.
Brother Francis started to babble: “You think it is true that because you are an alien house in this monastery I will be spared?”
“Where did you hear that?”
“The last message from France made mention that the alien houses here in England had somewhat less dire consequences than the priories of the King.”
“I think that you are dreaming.”
“When there is no hope at all one lays down and dies, so I will take my hope from whatever source it comes.”
Brother John merely nodded. “ I take it that your request to move yourself farther north did not happen?”
“They can’t understand what value I do would be lost.”
“Even at the Meadows and the fields do not move the wishes of the order or the Pope.”
“Pope sits in his shelter surrounded by rings of fire.”
“Rank has its privileges.”
“And the rankest is to live longer while brothers die.”
“You knew from the outset that your life had been committed to others’ care.”
“Neither you nor I counted on the plague.”
“We take the good with the bad. And singing cuckoo when it is good.”
“I fart in your general direction.”
“You seem frightfully sour.”
“I just don’t see how you can be so calm when the end of the world is at your doorstep.”
“That means that we shall be in heaven all that much sooner.”
“If you have been good that is.”
“It is not hard to be good when chaos drives the rest of the world.”
“Even the holy are afflicted with flies.”
“The holy need to show that they rise above such things as flies.”
“Why do you not draw them?”
“Your talent for the miniature is unbounded, I just merely question whether the subject is where your talent is.”
“I would be willing to bet that your body will see flies before your soul gets to Heaven.”
At this point, the two arrive in the dining room with their very spare cables and benches. The father begins the customary grace and then all of the brothers immediately wolf down the bean stew and chunks of bread.
Afterwards, another brother comes to Brother John.
“The father would like to speak to you.”
Brother John followed him and waited outside the door where the Father had gone to.
He knocked on the door.
Behind the door, he heard the barest scratching: “Come in.”
Upon opening the door Brother John saw that the father of the priory had aged greatly in the last year. And he was old before the news of the great plague had started.
“ I want you to go Preston Capes Priory. Take only those things which you need. In nominee patris.”
Of course, Brother John was shocked, because he had a dozen manuscripts to work on here. But if that was the will of the father, then he would not want to disappoint his superior.
The news that Brother John was being sent to a northerly Pryor had already been whispered before he went. Brother Francis nearly scowled at him for the luck he had had
And in the morning, he went on a donkey.
He never made it. On the road, his body was found with sores and pustules. In his satchel was found a manuscript with the lyric “Sumer is icumen in.” which has the first found reference to “fart” in the English corpus.