Chapter 6: questions not answered
The sun, when it rose, cast no comfort upon the town. Its light revealed bodies slumped against the stones, their garments soaked with sweat, their limbs twitching as though even in sleep they were not released. Some had danced themselves senseless, collapsing in heaps beside fountains and wells; others yet stood, swaying with vacant eyes, their lips mouthing words without sound. The streets bore the scars of their frenzy — dust churned into clouds, stalls overturned, the very air thick with the musk of fever and toil.
No bell tolled for morning prayer, for the priest lay among his flock, his body trembling in the same cruel rhythm. The altar, stripped of candles and vessels, was now a dais upon which the afflicted moved in grotesque procession, their steps striking against the stones with hollow echo.
A council gathered at the edge of the square: the burgomaster, pale and unsteady, flanked by weary physicians and frightened elders. None dared enter the press of dancers, though their cries rose like the wailing of a multitude.
“This malady spreadeth beyond reason,” muttered one elder, his beard trembling with each word. “I have seen plagues of pox and fire, yet none such as this. Their hearts are stout, their bodies strong, yet they fall as wheat before the scythe of frenzy.”
The burgomaster pressed a kerchief to his brow, his hands shaking. “We must needs seek counsel beyond our borders. If this be Strasbourg’s curse, it hath taken root here also. Send word unto the bishop. Let him dispatch exorcists, choirs, and relics holy, for naught else may withstand it.”
The physicians murmured in dissent. One, gaunt and hollow-eyed, raised his hand. “Nay, ’tis not spirit, but excess of humors. Their blood is corrupted, overheated by the summer sun. Music must be given them, that their frenzy may be tempered into measure. Better they dance to ordered tune than to the chaos within.”
At this, the burgomaster’s eyes flashed. “Wouldst thou make sport of misery? Shall fiddlers and pipers mend what holy prayer cannot?”
But already, from the edges of the crowd, musicians had been summoned by desperate kin. Pipes and drums sounded, timid at first, then swelling in desperate attempt to guide the afflicted. And lo, the dancers swayed unto the tune, their steps no longer wild, but bound to the beat as though the music itself were chain and fetter.
For a fleeting hour, hope rose. Mothers wept to see their children’s motions steadied, fathers clasped hands in thanks, and the council declared the remedy just. Yet as the day waned, the truth was revealed — the music lent not cure, but fuel. The ordered dance quickened their pace, fed their compulsion, and before long, the square resounded with stamping so fierce that the stones themselves seemed to quake.
Night fell, and still they danced. Torches burned low, shadows wheeled across walls, and from every street corner came the sound of feet, feet, feet — an endless percussion that mocked the silence of rest. Some cried out to Heaven, others fled into the fields, but the town itself seemed caught in a vast, unholy revel, a feast where no merriment dwelt.
And as the moon rose, pale and watchful, more joined the throng: villagers from outlying farms, strangers passing on the road, each drawn into the rhythm as moths unto flame. None could resist. The dance had become the breath of the town, and its song echoed far into the night.
ns216.73.216.253da2
and then Add to home screen.