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of the Host.
    The play ended shortly afterward, to the surprise of many, for there were no punishments dispensed to the sinners, nor blessings awarded the virgins. Nonetheless, the applause that greeted this non-ending was tumultuous, and the Count’s satisfaction with the performance became widely known.
    For a time, such entertainments were held daily, even on Sundays, when the whole of the city crowded itself into the amphitheater. All went to the theater, and all spoke of little else—all save for myself and my brothers in Christ, who were forbidden to attend. But from Anna we learned of its many excesses and depravities, the old crone dispensing gossip each morning as she waited for bread, and it was from Anna that we learned of the competition.
    It was to be held on the Feast of Midsummer and could be expected to last through the day. Until then, all performances of morality plays were suspended on pain of death. Though modeled on the agon of old, we learned that the Count was desirous not of tragic drama but of ballads old and new. All singers and musicians, man and woman alike, were invited to participate, and some, we learned, made the journey from places like Florence and Vienna.
    Excitement was general. As Midsummer approached, a strange fever came over the city, and an atmosphere of riotous jubilation prevailed. One evening, late in May, a crowd gathered in the cathedral square, several hundred strong, to demand access to the Bishop’s store of wine. His Grace petitioned the Count, requesting the intervention of the City Watch, but to no avail. When the gates were breached, and the marauding crowd poured into the palace, the Bishop took flight before them, finding shelter in the sanctuary of his church into which they dared not enter.
    Fires erupted from within the palace and gutted the building’s interior. Later, when the smoke had cleared, hundreds were found dead inside, charred and melted together in attitudes of orgiastic frenzy. The Bishop, with typical gravity, declared it an act of Judgment from the Lord.
    The riots continued throughout the early days of summer, incited by drunkenness and sustained by the Count’s general insouciance. The Jewish quarter was demolished, the gypsies driven from the Square of Saint Mark. At no point did the Watch interfere.
    Throughout this time the rhythms of life within our four walls continued to change and adapt, despite the Prior’s attempts to maintain a comforting consistency with all that had come before. He tried first tolerance; but when our numbers continued to dwindle, he was moved to enforce a strict discipline, ruling over us with a rod of iron—or a rusted ladle, as the case was, with beatings administered to any found lacking in their devotions. This had no better effect, and it shortly became clear to us that something had changed, irretrievably so, and that neither faith nor kindness nor rigor could restore to us our lost brotherhood in Christ.
    The first tragedy befell us in June, a fortnight before the Feast of Midsummer. The unrest was then at its peak, and sleep came not for fear of the chaos that lived—and bred—beyond the Abbey walls. Sometime after midnight, Brother Thomas ran screaming down the hall, so mad with fright that it took four of us to restrain him, and calm him, and coax from him the story.
    The Abbott was dead. Thomas had found him in the Scriptorium amidst a mess of tattered vellum. His wrists had been opened by his own hand, his eyes reduced to black ash inside his skull. Nearby lay the bloodied knife and candle with which he had performed the deed.
    We buried him in the garden, consigning him to the earth at the southeast corner in view of the skeletal oak. It was a lovely morning, as I remember, but I found no consolation in the clear skies overhead, nor in the temperate winds that sighed through the alder bushes.
    With the Abbot dead, my dear friend departed, and my own faith in ruins, I saw no reason to keep my Vows; and