Write your abstract
here.
1348. The Black Plague sweeps Europe. People
are
dying
who
have never died before---the wealthy,
privileged
and
powerful. (They have died before of course, but
generally
managed it with discretion: in private bedrooms
from
which
they were whisked to private ornate cenotaphs.
Now
a
promiscuity of sudden death means that a Lord's
as
likely
as a labourer or a trademsan to suddenly keel
over
dead
in
the street.)
Scarron of the Black Ravens wants to extend the
reach
of
this new death-democracy. He greases the
doorknobs
of
mansions and castles with pus from buboes of
the dead to rid the
world
of
a plague he hates and fears even more:
arbitrary
power.
Grez of the Flagellants believes that by
absorbing
punishment and suffering, his order can appease
the
just
wrath of God and win pity. Then the plague will
not
sweep
away all human life as the flood, anciently,
very
nearly
did.
Father Flote establishes an order of Holy Fools
who
don
Red
Noses, caper and clown to transcend horror and
despair
with
cleansing laughter---a scheme the Flagellants
and
Ravens,
who differ on most other points, agree in
despising:
the
Ravens because laughter dissipates horror and
despair,
which are useful corrosives that eat away at
the
poor
and
downtrodden and might drive them to fruitful
resistance;
the Flagellants because those capable of
laughing
in
the
face of death have no need of the solace
obtainable
by
unimaginable self-inflicted pain. They agree to
join
forces
and grease Father Flote and his Floties dead.
When they meet Father Flote he's a changed man.
He's
danced
with a leper whose despair put her almost
beyond
human
reach: discovered the deep wellspring of pain
in
comedy
and
so embraces Grez as brother. He's been stirred
and
troubled
by the horrible inequities he's met everywhere,
and
so
embraces the revolutionary Scarron as a
brother.
Together,
he says, they have a force none of them has
when
apart:
one
that might shake the foundation of things as
they
are.
Together it is.
Nothing opposes them but the military might of
Europe
as
typified by the ruthless, cynical Pope Clement.
Can
Scarron's anarchic forces oppose the fused
might of
Clement's armies? no. Can Grez and his
Flagellants?
no,
but
they can be scarred and punished which affirms
their
place
in the world. Can Flote, whose only weapons are
laughter
rippling heartily through the belly and active
engaged
love, shake and move the stone heart of
Clement? He
can, in
fact Clement is moved and shaken by needless
pain
and
by
the cry of revolt arising from the poor and
tread-
upon.
But
he tries to picture what might come of opening
those
floodgates of love, pain and revolt, and gauges
its
possibilities based on the world of horror he
strides.
Better the devil you know: archers' arrows
then, if
they
will not be obedient, for Flote and his Floties.