A Cloud of Outrageous Blue

by Vesper Stamper

  She slams the dormitory door shut.

  A sick pilgrim must have arrived, traveling all night in search of a remedy. This is nothing new. With Saint Christopher’s reputation for physic, and Saint Eustace’s chapel nearly complete, we’re always expecting visitors. But I think about that comet I saw tonight, and I’m uneasy.

  The community has breakfast in our usual silence, made even more hushed by the torrent of rain pelting the wooden roof. We head to the chapter house, the humid air heavy with our curiosity about who arrived last night in such a panic. Agnes is unusually quiet and distracted. The Dragon Nun is obviously happy to have replaced me at her side, though her loyalty to Agnes bewilders me.

  “I would like to ask our physician, Joan,” says Prioress Margaret, “to give us a report on the visitors who came to our infirmary last night.”

  “Thank you,” says Joan, coming to the center of the room. “A man and his son arrived late last night with fever. I’m sorry to report that the young boy has passed. He was only ten.”

  A sympathetic murmur goes through the room.

  Lord, have mercy.

  It’s never easy to lose a child, never.

  “The father, too, is affected,” she continues. “He said that his son’s illness began the same way, but he was not able to elaborate before he lost the ability to speak. I fear he is near death, also. I have asked Father Johannes to administer last rites, and for the chapel builders to begin digging a grave for them both. It is a sad situation. Let us all pray that the Lord ushers them into His gates quickly.”

  The prioress leads us in prayer and dismisses us to our work. Agnes throws a hard look my way, and Felisia wears a grin that chills me utterly.

  Before I go to the scriptorium, I run through the downpour to the churchyard and stand under the yew for shelter, watching Mason and the other builders dig the grave. His clothes are drenched and his hair is dripping. I approach him, but he doesn’t hear me over the sound of the shovels and the insistent rain. I’m just about to tap his shoulder when I see the bodies.

  The father and son have both been wrapped hastily in bedsheets from the infirmary, which now serve as shrouds. Their bodies are rain-soaked, but blood still hangs on their lips. Their skin is purplish black and covered with sores.

  But what stuns me more is who I’m looking at.

  I recognize the boy and his father. They were my companions from the journey here to Saint Christopher’s. It’s the boy who offered me apricots, and the father who helped old Brother Timothy from the cart.

  Suddenly Mason sees me. The fright on his face scares me.

  “Get away from here, Edyth,” he admonishes, looking over his shoulder. “Go!” And he turns back to his work, digging the muddy double grave.

  I’m fixed to the spot. My heart pounds out of my chest, a catch in my throat, a whine in my ears.

  Mason turns again quickly and our eyes meet again.

  “Please, Edyth, go,” he pleads. “Get away from this.”

  I bolt to the scriptorium tower, trying to shake the image of the diseased bodies from my mind. I work until the funeral bell rings. The priory mourns with a Mass that afternoon—

  et lux perpetua luceat eis

  —and the nuns all file out of the church. How sad, the sisters say. Death is part of life, after all.

  But I can’t move. Something lurches up from the recesses of my heart.

  I relive the day of Da’s murder again, his body looking too small to be real, lying on the muddy riverbank. The unbearable verity of putting my father into a hole in the ground. The hasty, no-top coffin made out of my drawing board. Brother Robert, pouring dirt over his death-distorted face. And Mam’s. And Henry’s—and all of a sudden, I can’t breathe. Can’t breathe through the smothering, swirling colors, the ringing vibration of the Sound.

  The other novices in the row have to squeeze past me. Alice looks back from the transept door and sees me alone and frozen in the empty church, gasping for breath, tears streaming down my neck. She leaves the others and comes to me. She knows what’s happening, that I’m being taken over again, and she smooths my face and gets me to focus through to her eyes.

  “You’re not going into a trance, Edyth. You’re staying right here with me.”

  She gets me to breathe in rhythm with her until it passes. We sit side by side in the quiet for a good while, staring at the cross above the altar.

  “You never get used to death, do you?” says Alice, her light hand on my back.

  I wait a long time to respond. “It’s not just that.”

  “What, then?”

  “I knew those two who died.”

  “Really?” she asks. “Were they from your town?”

  “No, from my journey here. But that’s not it, either.”

  “Tell me,” she insists.

  “Alice, last night, I saw a star fall—a huge ball of fire. It came so close, I could see the flames licking off it. But right at the moment when it looked like it would land on the town, it broke into pieces and they went in every direction.”

  I point up at the window of the stag and tree, and there the comet soars above them. “Do you see that picture? I’ve been dreaming of that image since before I came here, and now I see it everywhere. I need to figure out what it means.”

  “You’re thinking—”

  “That boy and his da—I think it’s bigger than them. Something’s coming—for all of us.”

  — 25 —

  The rain has passed, the air’s fresh, but I take my Monday-morning walk with tension. I drift among the gardens and orchards, and climb the yew in the churchyard, perching on a branch and staring at the fresh grave.

  Mason comes around the back of the infirmary and sees me. He sidles up and leans against the tree trunk, careful to make it seem like he’s not talking to anyone.

  “I’m sorry I shouted at you, Edyth,” he says into the air.

  “You did what you had to.”

  “I’ve missed you,” he says. “I barely slept last night. I wished…you were with me.”

  Our eyes meet. We reach for each other, touch fingertips.

  “Every time I fell asleep,” I tell him, “I dreamed of that father and son, rolling out of their shrouds and tangling me with them, tumbling down into the grave, only to have the bottom disappear from the pit. It’s the thought of all that weight and soil and rock on top of you. I can’t shake that image away.”

  “But the body isn’t the person,” says Mason. “We both know that. That’s just the shell. The hollow, empty shell.”

  “That’s what Da would say.”

  A group of sisters walk by the churchyard, and Mason pretends to busy himself with tidying the ground around the grave.

  Once they pass, “I heard you’re back at the scriptorium,” he changes the subject. “As an illuminator! It’s about time they realized what you can do.”

  “That’s right,” I chuckle. “No more fetching. And no more Agnes—at least not as close.”

  “But less chance of seeing you.” He looks up at me, a bit doleful.

  “I know, but I think we can exhale a little now. Let’s meet tonight.”

  “Only if you think you’ll be safe.”

  “Without Agnes breathing down my neck, I think I will be. And I don’t want to do this dance anymore. I want to make a plan with you. A real plan.”

  “I do, too, Edie,” he says, reaching up, grasping my ankle. “I hate not seeing you. I don’t want to be without you.”

  “Tonight, then?”

  “Tonight.”

  * * *

  —

  It’s hard to stay awake the next morning at chapter. I stayed up far too late with Mason, telling him about the comet, both of us speculating about what it all means.

  Prioress Margaret announc
es that Saint Christopher’s will be offering a meal for the poor this afternoon: a simple pottage, bread and ale for wanderers or peasants. She wants us to remember that the abundant life we live is not for ourselves only, but for others less fortunate.

  “Remember,” she says, “as those for whom God took on a suffering body, we must comfort others with the comfort we have received.”

  Agnes speaks up. “Venerable Mother, shouldn’t we protect our own first? We can send bread down to the parish churches and have them distribute it.”

  “Caring for our flock means getting our hands dirty, Sub-Prioress,” she challenges. The community shuffles with the discomfort of their two leaders at opposite poles.

  “Well, after all, we do pray for them every day…,” Agnes huffs.

  “Good, Sister Agnes. I’m glad to hear of your commitment to the welfare of the stranger. Thank you. You will be in charge of laying hands on any sick who come to us.”

  * * *

  —

  We set up trestle tables inside the gatehouse arch. Alice spreads the tables with clean white linen cloths. Cook and her assistants bring out the big pots full of pease pottage with salt pork and barley, as well as a week’s worth of bread. By the noon bell, people are lined up at the gatehouse all the way over the stone bridge crossing the river—the hungry, the sick, little babies as well as old men with crutches, but also young men simply having a tough year with this wet summer. Peasants come in a spectrum of fortune, but no one’s above a bad harvest.

  Joan and Cook serve pottage at one table; Muriel, Anne and Brother Timothy tear off hunks of bread at the next. Alice and I pour jugs of ale for the grateful guests, and Bridgit jokes it up with some of the regulars who come for Mass. The air is sweet and clean, and the warm summer sun feels good after all the damp of last week. Everyone spreads their cloaks on the great lawn and sets out their picnics. The builders gather with extra jugs of ale and sit around telling tall tales. Families laugh together, enjoying the weather and the company.

  But out of the corner of my eye, I see that something isn’t right.

  Over in the shady nook of the gatehouse wall, one of the carpenters is crouched alone, clutching himself and rocking back and forth.

  “I’m going to fill this pitcher,” I tell Alice.

  “Nice excuse.” She winks at me. With a roll of my eyes, I leave with an empty jug, pretending to go to the brewhouse, but passing close enough to the man at the wall to get a good look.

  He’s sweating—no, drenched—trying to hold in a cough but letting it out into his sleeve. And on the cuff, there’s blood. I veer away from him toward the group of builders. As I walk by Mason, I clear my throat. A minute later, he meets me at the entrance to the brewhouse.

  “What’s the matter?” he asks.

  “One of your crew,” I say. “By the wall.”

  “Oh, Gilbert. He wasn’t feeling well—thought it might be something he ate.”

  “Did you go over to see if he was all right?”

  “He said he needed some shade,” Mason says dismissively.

  “Mason. Someone needs to check on him. I saw blood.”

  No more needs to be said. He leaves immediately and pulls Joan aside. He takes her place serving the pottage while they bring Gilbert to the infirmary, and the rest of the day goes on with games and music and little babies crawling around, pulling up handfuls of fresh grass while their mothers let them wander.

  The next day, Gilbert Carpenter is dead.

  The day after that, one of Joan’s assistants is, too.

  * * *

  —

  The builders are at it again, digging two graves next to the father and son, this time for one of their own. The funeral bells ring and Mass is said for the carpenter and the healer. Father Johannes presses the round wafer into my grateful hand, this single item that grounds me in reality, in the here and now. This time, there isn’t simply pity, but confusion. The priest chants the prayers a bit faster than usual.

  Afterward, the custom of silent work is broken, as everyone wants to hash out their theories. Yes, Joan and Alice and Gilbert had all been near the sick father and son. But that was only a few days ago. And the carpenter died first, even though he wasn’t around them as long as the assistant. And what of the physician herself? She was treating them directly, and she’s fine. So is Alice.

  At Friday’s chapter meeting, nobody can keep order.

  Joan speaks up. “The best thing to do right now is to eat and drink moderately. I believe the entire community should refrain from any meat or fish, and eat simple vegetable pottage.”

  Unusually for Joan, she concludes with a bright smile. “I see no one sick here. Perhaps it ran its course with the last two.”

  So it seems. For a week, we eat simply, and drink hot water steeped with fennel. The ale is diluted, and the ration of bread is halved. It must be working. During the whole week and more, no one falls ill, not even with a sniffle.

  — 26 —

  This morning, the bell at the largest parish church in Thornchester rings at an odd time. An hour later, it rings again.

  Two more times, the bell tolls between offices.

  The funeral bell.

  * * *

  —

  During the Eucharist, Brother Timothy collapses to the floor. Joan fetches a stretcher, and it takes her, Agnes and two other robust women to carry Timothy to the infirmary. Mass continues until the end; it has to. Father Johannes can’t very well leave the Body and Blood on the altar. He continues the service, glancing through the rood screen at the fray. The rest of the congregants say their prayers shakily, some with tears, some with stoic focus. Immediately after the Amen, I hurry to the scriptorium to escape to my work, and to think. Whatever this fever is, it’s come close now, right through my own door.

  Brother Timothy’s got rather bad work habits. His desk is always cluttered. The quantities of paint he orders are never accurate; either he orders too little and Bridgit and I must hurriedly grind more, or he orders too much and it dries up and goes to waste. That’s what I find as I stare at his work area now. Several pots of paint are already evaporating, and I know he won’t be back to use them.

  But as disorganized as he seems, Brother Timothy’s work is masterfully precise. A lively illustration of Bryonia dioica is in progress, its vine snaking across the page and sprouting fuzzy flowers of the palest green. I recognize the steady verticals of Anne’s letters, the title in red, the text in black. But this page will never be finished.

  There’s still paint left over, so I take a piece of fresh parchment and begin to draw. I re-create the comet, its beams radiating out in curvy waves, its inner circle opening like a flower, and I ink and paint over the lines of the drawing. I sit back and look at my work, and decide to go see Brother Timothy.

  Flitting like an insect about the infirmary is Joan. She’s all energy, shouting one-word commands at Alice, who’s doing her best to keep up. Joan bounces from book to bowl, grinding powders, mixing them with liquid, pouring them on cloths and handing them to Alice to poultice Brother Timothy’s skin. Joan’s salt-and-pepper hair is bound up tightly but uncovered, her sleeves rolled up past her elbows.

  Behind the curtain, the sounds coming from Brother Timothy are unbearable, like five men howling from within his one body. All I can do is stand in the doorway holding my painting, watching Alice and the physician trying in vain to comfort the old man.

  “Give him this, and make him drink it down,” says Joan, handing Alice a glazed cup. “Make him!” She notices me standing here. “What do you need?” she grunts, not looking at me.

  “May I see him?” Hearing the question come out of my mouth makes me wish I had never asked it.

  Joan barely looks up from the heavy leather-covered manual she’s reading. “At your own risk,” she says. “Just don’t get in the w
ay. And cover your nose and mouth.”

  Brother Timothy is calming a bit, by the sound of things. Whatever Alice gave him is taking effect. As she pulls aside the curtain, I duck in.

  A single candle on the bedside table illuminates the tiny cell. The air is close in here, helped only by a small hinged window above. The stench is horrible. I know the smell of death; who doesn’t? But Timothy isn’t dead. He’s tranquilized, but still aware. He struggles to breathe. He looks at me and begins to weep. The monk tries to speak, but his words tumble out of his flabby lips in gibberish.

  Timothy’s neck is covered with purple splotches rising to white, as though his ink pot exploded under his skin. He begins to cough and covers his mouth with the rag he’s holding. Alice bursts in, almost pinning me to the wall. She lifts Timothy’s head to make him drink. When he puts down the rag, it’s covered with spots of blood. Alice holds out his bedside basin to collect the rag and gives him a clean one. She glares at me in alarm. Joan calls her and she leaves the cell.

  Timothy reaches out his hand to me, his eyes pleading, like he wants me to simply embrace him, but I’m too afraid to come close.

  “I made you something,” I say instead. I feel stupid—what difference does a painting make to a dying man? I slip the picture of the fireball into his outstretched hand, and he draws it close to his face. His eyes open wide, and he nods, as though he knows exactly what the painting means, even if I don’t. He parts his lips and mutters, the words barely intelligible—

  O vivens sol,

  Porta nos in humeris tuis.

  O living sun,

  Carry us on Your shoulders.

  —and a trickle of blood forms in the corner of his mouth.

  I back out of the cell and run from the infirmary as fast as I can, into the clean air of the night, as the heavens open again and begin to pour. I scramble to and fro, not knowing where to go, then race through the rain toward the chapel.