A Cloud of Outrageous Blue

by Vesper Stamper

  No one can stay quiet. The budding preacher? The promising scholar? The girl who’d rather live on gossip than food? Why would she shut herself away?

  “Alice has had an epiphany,” says Agnes, ignoring the prioress. “Her life’s calling is to pray for our community and for an end to this pestilence.”

  “Where is she?” says the prioress.

  “She is even now keeping vigil in prayer. We are grateful for such a sacrifice. Someone of her talents, my, my.”

  Joan approaches Agnes and whispers against the din. “Sub-Prioress, you must be mistaken. My apprentice would have told me about—”

  “Come to order, please,” Agnes interrupts her, putting an arm around Joan. “Our most learned physician is only beginning to understand why this sickness has come to us. She does not have the deeper insight given to those of us who attend exclusively to prayer; she can only consider the heavens, as the psalmist says.”

  Joan sets her jaw and shrugs off Agnes’s arm. “I’ve taken holy orders, same as you,” says Joan. “Committed my path to the service of the Great Physician Himself, and studied in Salerno. Spare me your sermon, Sub-Prioress.” She walks back to her bench, staring intently at Agnes as she sits.

  “That is good enough in its way,” Agnes continues, “but Alice will be doing the greater part by devoting her life to solitary prayer. You wouldn’t deter your apprentice from her true calling, would you, Sister Joan?

  “And let us look more closely at this illness, sisters, at how violent its end. The afflicted do not die peacefully in their beds, nor can they in any way be comforted, but are in wide-eyed horror to the last. Sin and compromise are in our midst. Remember—a bad end is a judgment!”

  Several of the eldest sisters murmur—their ends are near, no matter what the cause.

  “Sub-Prioress,” Joan protests, “our priory has always been a place for the sick. That is who we are. We don’t judge whether the patient is a sinner or saint—we treat them, like we would God Himself.”

  “What do you propose, Sister Joan?” asks the prioress, bracing herself, at that moment, against some unbearable pain. Instead of answering, Joan and I run to her side and help her to stand. Agnes nods permission for us to leave.

  I hear Agnes’s volume rise as we go: “This crisis demands a strong hand. God has ordained this for our benefit. We must deny ourselves every comfort—give no sleep to our eyes, no slumber to our eyelids. Submit ourselves to penance, night and day, until the pestilence is vanquished. If anyone is truly committed to a cure, she will be at prayer!”

  “I’m bringing you to the infirmary, Mother,” Joan whispers to the prioress. We help her take a few halting steps, but pain shudders through her body.

  “No. It will arouse panic. The pallet is already laid in my study. I will be fine; it’s merely a spasm.”

  Joan looks at me dubiously. “Go,” she acquiesces. “Bring Mother there. I’ll get my things and come examine her.”

  As we make our way across the cloister to her study, the prioress grabs me tightly. “Edyth,” she whispers, “find Alice.”

  * * *

  —

  I search in the infirmary, the medicine garden, even the chapel. In the priory church, I light a candle at the feet of the Virgin and pray for help, and as I kneel, I see, behind my eyes, silvery curls melting into the statue—a wailing cry.

  “Amen.” I cross myself hastily and follow the sound coming from the ambulatory. Past the altar, down the passage—I cannot believe the sight.

  Where the chapel of Saint Christopher had been now stands a hastily erected wall. It doesn’t reach the ceiling but is too high to climb. The kneeler and candle lean against the hodgepodge of architectural salvage. The bell tolls five minutes until terce.

  The enclosure of Alice Palmer has already taken place.

  “Alice?” I call, horrified. “Are you in there?”

  I hear only whimpering.

  There’s a small opening in the wall, right at the floor. I lie on the ground and peer in: Alice sits in the corner of the empty niche with her knees pulled up. Her long, ash-blond hair is disheveled and knotted. She’s in her linen shift with a blanket around her shoulders. Her mouth is swollen and bruised. The only thing with her in the enclosure is a chamber pot.

  Her words are barely intelligible: “Edyth…she drugged me…the whole bottle…”

  “Agnes did this to you?”

  “And the Dragon,” she mumbles.

  The bell rings again as nuns enter the church from the large front doors, chanting—

  Peccantem me quotidie, et non poenitentem

  Timor mortis conturbat me.

  Daily sinning, and not repenting

  The fear of death terrifies me.

  I recognize that prayer. It’s the office for the dead.

  People say this office for anchorites. They’re saying it for Alice.

  Agnes carries a tall candle of expensive beeswax as she leads two lines of sisters up the nave. Strangely, each of the sisters carries a bedroll. They really are planning to stay here, night and day, day and night.

  Father Johannes begins the Mass. I scramble into the niche next to Alice’s enclosure and stare out at the ceremony, tears falling from anger and frustration. The whole scene is surrounded and shot through with vermillion sparks.

  Joan pulls Agnes toward the ambulatory, trying to contain her fury. I can barely make out the words she whispers to the sub-prioress:

  “Don’t do this. Don’t do this, you wicked woman. This isn’t how we do things.”

  Agnes ignores her. The priest administers the rites and serves communion.

  “I’m going to get you out of there, Alice,” I whisper into the window once the ceremony is under way. “I’ll sort it, I promise you—I’m not leaving you.”

  No gate, no door; only that small window near the floor officially connects Alice to the world of the living.

  * * *

  —

  So that’s why the Anti-Pri needed Mason to bring the stone. The length to which Agnes went to silence Alice—she and Felisia must have thrown that wall up themselves, between night offices, when no one would have noticed the side chapel in the dim light. Mason was right—I’m safer in the chapel, with a door I can bar against her. But tonight, I don’t want Alice to be alone.

  I sneak to my cell, grab only a blanket to avoid arousing suspicion and tuck myself back into the niche next to Alice’s enclosure, passing in and out of anxious sleep. I dream of being sealed in stone walls. I dream of drowning, of being buried alive. I’m woken at daybreak, sweating and startled, by the loudness of the Sound, that thin green vibration that’s always in the corner of my vision. Nothing else crowds it out or suppresses it—there’s no red ping of hammers, nor shimmering gray silk of birdsong. What’s missing?

  That’s it—no bells have rung. I’ve woken with the sun, and not with the sound of a bell. There could only be two possibilities.

  Either no one else is dying…

  Or everyone is.

  And the churches have given up ringing the bells.

  Days pass, and there are no bells of any kind now. No funeral bells, no prayer bells. No weddings, or town meetings, or Masses. All becomes howling prayer, punctuated by the prophesying of the Dragon, the disgusting cooing of the Anti-Pri, and the hopeless wailing of Alice Palmer.

  — 31 —

  Never have I seen so much rain, and this is England.

  Instead of walking in their usual twos or threes, half of the sisters circle the cloister perimeter alone, like spiritless husks, between refectory, dormitory and church.

  The other half are dead.

  If it’s possible, Alice’s enclosure last week has made my world even smaller. I no longer have free rein of the whole grounds, but I’m limited to a tiny circuit: scriptorium-infir
mary-chapel-church. The stream of sick pilgrims hasn’t slowed, despite the arduous task of a fevered person getting up the hill on impassable, muddy roads.

  I know they need help in the infirmary, but I hide away in the scriptorium. There’s solace up here, above the misery only a few yards from this tower. It’s quieter and more somber without Brother Timothy to lift the atmosphere, but Muriel, Anne, Bridgit and I have a harmonious rhythm that works.

  Joan finds me up here at my desk, painting drop capitals in red and azurite.

  “The rain’s abating,” she says, taking off her wet linen veil, the dark rings around her eyes showing her exhaustion. I feel guilty that I’ve avoided going to help her. “Edyth, I need you to go to town. Here’s a list. Go see the druggist for the herbs and oils, and the jeweler for these stones—if they’re still there. One of my patients told me the stores are being abandoned, and I can not run out of these things. I don’t care if you have to steal them—God will forgive you for my sake.”

  “I’ll go,” I consent. “And, Joan—I know you’re stretched, tending to the sick. I want you to know that I’m looking in on Alice. She’s going to be all right.”

  “Thank you, Edyth,” she says. “That means a lot.” The physician puts her veil back on, but not before I see her eyes well with tears.

  * * *

  —

  With the rain finally over, it’s blazing hot. On my way down to the gatehouse, I stand at the north wall and peer down at the town encircling the priory hill. As far as I can tell, nothing moves but stray animals. Except for the trickle of pilgrims coming in through the gatehouse, the once-bustling town is eerily quiet.

  Thornchester has a permanence that half-timbered, one-story Hartley Cross never did. Its bustling, dirty, colorful streets, its hundreds of stone buildings anchored in the land, give you the feeling that nothing was different before you, and nothing will change when you’re gone.

  What I see once I’m through the gates is completely different.

  It is a cesspool. The ditches run over with filth, and I have to hop between one shit puddle and the next. Bodies are everywhere—cast outside of front doors, lying in the street, facedown in the rain-sodden alleys, piled in the churchyard. Doors swing open on their hinges. No one, alive at least, is out in the marketplace. Dogs bark or sniff at the dead and generally trot up and down the streets, loyal to no master.

  The only sounds of human activity are muffled wails inside houses, muffled cries to God or the Virgin, gibberish like Brother Timothy’s—like a patchwork quilt of old, fraying linens.

  Joan’s right: the shops are abandoned, somewhat looted, but not too badly—death comes so fast with this sickness that few people would care about grabbing baubles on the way out of life. I leave a couple of coins anyway, for honesty’s sake.

  I take shade from the heat at the closest of the two parish churches, Saint Mary’s, under the stone archway into the churchyard. Voluminous sprays of white roses on the vine erupt their perfume, but it’s mixed with another smell, the toxically sweet aroma of death. I round a holly bush toward the church door and stumble on three corpses, two women and a man, flies buzzing at their eyes. I gag and cover my nose and mouth, thanking God for the burst of white stars that at least gives me something else to see.

  The side door of the church is open, and I walk right into the nave. It’s intimate and cool, like Saint Andrew’s back home. There’s movement toward the front—a priest waddles out from the sacristy carrying the holy elements, a small glass pitcher of wine with a round glass stopper, a silver box containing the bread. I begin to walk toward the priest, startling him.

  “Don’t come any closer!” He puts out his hands to stop me, holding the box and pitcher out to me like an offering.

  “Where is everyone?” I ask. “Why haven’t you rung the bell for nones?”

  “Rung the bell? For whom?” the priest scoffs as he begins laying his things on the altar.

  Slowly I advance toward him. “But you’re putting out the Eucharist,” I protest.

  “That’s my duty,” he says, nervous as a rat. “If anyone dares come, they can get it right from here. Come and take it if you want. It’s consecrated. But I won’t be here.”

  “Wait, where are you going?”

  “Away. Away! Now get out!”

  I know this priest. I’ve seen him before on feast days, eating and drinking with the prioress herself. Once or twice he served at the altar in the priory church when Father Johannes was traveling or ill. He always had a friendly piety—nothing like the sharp hostility coming from him now.

  The whole way back to the priory, I’m dodging mud and muck in my stupid sandals. I can’t believe how much Thornchester has broken down since I was there in spring, and I yearn for the safety of the priory confines.

  Now I have a true sense of things. The state of the fields fills me with a sick churn. Barley lies broken and sodden. A wandering cow grazes on the stubble. A chicken shrieks from somewhere in the hayfield. The scent of baking grass is barely enough to push down the smell of decay rising from the churchyard, from the town, from everywhere.

  I’ve seen crops fail a few times; probably one year out of every three is a bad year for someone. You find other ways to bolster the losses, stored goods to pull from, wool to weave and sell. There’s the motivation to not starve, to push through the lean winter until another chance comes. And your neighbors recognize that their own bad year could be next—someone always steps in with mercy to get a struggling family through the winter.

  But this? This is entirely different. In a normal year, at least people fought against hunger.

  In a normal year, every other person was not dropping dead.

  Thank God, it’s cooler in the refectory. At least there’s still food, and someone’s cooking it. But a brazen mouse lugs a chunk of bread right across a shaft of sunlight, and no one flinches. Everything is filthy.

  There are only a few people in the hall. A smattering of sisters huddle over bowls of thin gruel and hunks of bread. None of them sit together. On a table near the dais is a pot, a stack of wooden bowls and several large loaves. No one is here to serve or to clean up the piles of dirty dishes. Apparently Cook has taken the same approach as the priest.

  I slip two loaves into my basket, one for Alice, one for me and Mason to share. Just then, the prioress comes in, with Agnes at her arm, and my back stings with memory, dashes of purple darting in the corners of my eyes. I’m glad to see the Pri walking, but she looks more tired than a body should be. She sits at the dais, and Agnes goes to the kitchen, bringing up the prioress’s meal, more substantial than the common gruel.

  It’s strange to sit in this hall chewing bread while the world is ending all around me, not knowing what I’m supposed to do about it. I ladle some soup, tear off a piece of bread, pour some ale and watch.

  Around the room, no one raises their head to acknowledge me, not even the prioress or Agnes. We all eat prayerlessly, clear our places to the dirty dish table and leave in haste, as though trying to occupy as little space as possible, breathe as little as possible, fearing to make one misstep and enter into a pocket of the bad air.

  — 32 —

  The only thing to do is throw myself into work. As I make my way down the cloister corridor toward the scriptorium, I see Bridgit walking ahead of me about twenty paces, staggering like a dancing drunkard, her skirts swaying. I’ve almost caught up with her when she falls hard to the stone pavement.

  “Bridgit!” I call out. “Help! Somebody!” But my voice echoes off the stone vaults. I bend over her—she’s unconscious, with a sheen of sweat over her face and neck. I’m about to shake her, to try to wake her up, but I stop myself. Something tells me not to touch her.

  That’s silly, though, isn’t it? What’s the harm? I reach out a finger and poke Bridgit in the shoulder. Her head lolls to the side, and o
n her outstretched neck, right near her collarbone, is a purple blotch with a white lump in the middle, like a ripe open plum and pit.

  She stirs, and I startle.

  “Edyth.” Bridgit raises a weary hand. “Help me up. Help me to the infirmary.”

  Don’t touch. Don’t touch.

  “I’ll go get help,” I fumble. “Stay there.”

  I know it’s stupid. What kind of friend am I? I wonder as I stumble through the chilled calefactory and out the back door. I couldn’t at least help her to her feet? I run with a pheasant’s gait to the infirmary, throw open the iron latch and push in the door.

  The first thing that hits me is the putrid smell, same as Brother Timothy, but multiplied by a dozen. So this is where everyone is. Every stall is filled, every curtain drawn open. Some cells have two people each, one in the bed, one on a pallet on the floor. Joan darts back and forth like a flummoxed sparrow. A cup of water here. A fresh rag there. Mopping up bloody spit. A poultice on a lump, or five lumps. It’s impossible. The physician doesn’t even notice me. And if she did, would she be able to help me? To leave these two dozen sickbeds to help one woman collapsed out in the cloister?

  I have to find help somewhere else. I burst outside, and there’s Bridgit, on all fours. In the absence of a friend, she’s crawled here herself.

  “Someone has to stop this,” says Joan, laying Bridgit down on a pallet. “We’re too full. I don’t want to turn anyone away, but we’re using every bit of space, and we’ll have to start laying them on the table next. Do you have my supplies?”

  “Here.” I take out the bread and hand her the basket as the door opens, and Agnes comes into the infirmary with the prioress.

  “Sister Joan,” says Agnes, dripping with false sympathy, “our Venerable Mother is still unwell. I believe she needs to stay here. It must be the heat. Or something she ate.”