Sacrifice

There's music in the air, wafting bye from the village green. Minstrels produce fine music for the crowds and all the youngsters dance and play. Their cares and worries are forgotten and they enjoy the mid summer festivities. I sit in my cell rotting away forgotten, only listen to the follies playing out.

The cell is comfortable, the cold stones keeping the chill where the summer sun can not find it. The simple desk and the light from the window, the wooden cot and a tiny locker furnish my room in the monastery. Hearing Gretchen's laughter from somewhere nearby I force myself to ignore the distractions. Blocking the noises from outside I look at the scroll in front of me. The manuscript has to be prepared. With the friar so weak in ill health I must tend to his scribing.

I dab my quill in the pot beside me and continue to transcribe the scribbles penned by Friar Thomas. My ears betray me even in my concentration on the task before me, I still feel the beat of the tune outside. My penmanship is not as fine as the other members of the clergy and I must focus. The tip of the quill hovers over the page as I read over the last sentence again.

The village elders are to sign this document this evening, it forms a settlement for the damages caused by the fire after last years harvest sacrifice. The accident cost one of the farmers dearly and he's been negotiating a payment from the village through winter and spring. Now as we approach the next sacrifice his plea has been heard and retribution is being made. Friar Thomas had promised the document for the end of last month but in his current condition he only recalled the promise this morning and now it falls to me to finish his work.

I press on, the letters coming together one at a time, forming words, that themselves collect into sentences. I puzzle over a clumsy scrawl on the parchment I am copying off. Is that ten or two measures? It looks like ten. Yes I'm sure of it, ten measures of something called composite feed. In exchange for a higher percentage tithe for the next three harvests. The majority of the clauses are of this form, the village provides assistance to the farmer but to redress the balance his share of the levy is increased until the patchwork moon returns over the harvest fields. It's been two and a score years since the last sighting of that blue and green sphere, and the monks are all sure that it is due again in three years time.

The farmer wasn't so certain but couldn't call the church out for lying. Still it is written into the contract that in three years or under the Patchwork moon the debt shall be repaid and the village will no longer hold an interest in his produce.

There is wisdom here, as much as in any of the scriptures and holy books, a kind of common sense yet applied in more general terms, I'm still learning at the feet of the monks and clergy but I feel I understand that while there was a debt to be paid to a man who was wronged the village as a whole should not go without. This way the investment of resources is returned and all can prosper.

These matters of governance intrigue me. The music and chatter no longer entice me to leave this work. I will finish here then study some of the older records, maybe there are more insights to gain in the archives.

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610 Words