A Bard Among Ashes

1588-02-14
Abbey near Maraisbourg

The road brought me to a quiet monastery that had once hosted noisy tournaments.
Now the halls were hushed. Monks bent over psalters by candlelight, quills ticking like beetles. Wax and old paper filled the air instead of steel and sweat.

The abbot saw the sword at my side and led me to the scriptorium.
He opened a chest and showed me confiscated books bound in leather and wrapped in cloth. Lychenar. Merryen. Maros. He touched the spines as if they were relics and asked if these men were heretics.

“No,” I said, tracing the familiar lines. “They were musicians who used iron instead of strings.”
He smiled and left me with the chest.

For three nights I copied by hand.
I took guards and verses as a sower takes seed. The eight pointed star. The straight thrust that walks a single ray. The stremaçone that falls like a bell stroke. The molinero that turns like a waterwheel. Coda Lunga Distesa that invites a hand and charges a price.
Ink pooled in the crook of my thumb. The pen whispered measure after measure. I wrote for those I had not yet met.

At dawn on the fourth day I sealed what I had copied and set the pages back in the chest.
I asked the abbot to hide them deep in the archives, behind shelves where soldiers would not look. He crossed himself and agreed.

When I stepped into the yard the bells tolled a steady hymn.
I walked out into the ash scented wind with empty hands and a lighter heart, knowing the seeds were safe in another keeper’s care.