Knight in Real Life: Part Three, Crossings

Knight in Real Life:

Part Three, Crossings

         Right after seminar Bethany opened her email and discovered yes, the professor would meet with her, but only for a couple minutes after twelve. It was twelve-ten now. Bethany shoved what she could into her bag and bolted down the hall to the stairs and the fourth floor.
           The door was cracked slightly open, and a murmuring spilled into the hallway. Bethany paced back and forth as some boy of a man demanded to know why his grade was only a B.
          “You can come in now.” The professor’s voice floated out the door. Bethany let the guy through before dashing in.
          “You look flushed. This has something to do with ‘The Dyed Robe’?” Professor Rycliffe leaned forward as she put the points of her white nails together. “Your email sounded very unlike you – so rushed and confused.”

         “Well –” Bethany struggled with how much to tell Professor Rycliffe. She stared at the pencils lined up smartly, and the pens in the Canterbury Tales mug. “I was reading the manuscript last night and I came across a passage which lead me to believe that the author isn’t who I had been taught … was the author.”

         “I see. What makes you think that?”

          Bethany waited for the rest of the question or a preamble or dictation. Professor Rycliffe only looked at her, to her, to continue the hypothesis.

         “It wasn’t just one thing. It was the way the passages were written – unlike the writings we have from the monk’s residency, the story has the perspective of a noble class lifestyle, not that of a cleric class. I know you or someone will say that the clerics were entrenched in noble class traditions and tastes, as the nobles were their economic livelihood, but this did not often extend to their private perceptions of war, of dress, even of love.”

Professor Rycliffe said nothing, but nodded.

         “I have reason to believe that due to the manuscript’s intimacy with noble class nuances that the monk is not the primary author, but that someone he knew quite well wrote it. I was wondering: is there anything missing from the genealogical records of his village after he left the Dominican order?”

         The professor smiled. “I will ask for those records to be sent to the university office post-haste. But Bethany –”

          Bethany found herself standing, about to leave. She sat down.

          Professor Rycliffe said, “I don’t believe anyone except the monk had the craft or style, not to mention the advanced literacy skills, to create the work in a small village on homemade vellum.”

          Bethany glanced toward the pacing in the hallway outside. “I’m sorry for taking up your time.”

         “Don’t be sorry. Prove me wrong.” Professor Rycliffe tilted back in her chair and smiled. “Convince me that what you’re saying is true, and that what scholars have been saying for a decade since the manuscript emerged is incomplete. Go back to where you were, and find me the time and place where the manuscript fits.”

          Bethany didn’t know what to do with her hands, so she tugged on the strap of her bag. “I will,” she said. “When will those records come in?”

         “I’ll email you as soon as they are on my desk. Right now, it seems I have another student complaining about their grade. You can come in now.”

         The girl brushed by Bethany on the way in. Bethany barely felt the floor beneath her as she went down the hall. Professor Rycliffe didn’t believe her – yet. She had arrived at something impossible, and she didn’t know if she would prove it, but it was exciting.

         She had to sit down and write somewhere. She hurried past the herds of gangling underclassmen , toward the nook most undisturbed in humanities.
          The concrete bench continued up the wall, as part of the structure holding the building. Every day of the year it faced full afternoon sun and morning chill. Here was her sacred space, the sanctuary where she usually went to in the rare moments she could catch up with the latest bestselling paperback.
          Bethany threw the empty gauntlet to the far end of the bench. She opened her spiral notebook and spilled all that she remembered of the last minutes of seminar, before she rushed to Professor Rycliffe’s office. Pen flew over page in a trance-like state, reflecting briefly, as in transience, its knowledge of fate which seemed material, manufactured in a factory in Michigan or wherever America made pens these days.
          Her pen halted. She blinked dry eyes as she tried to bring the words into focus. In all her rushing around she had forgotten her reading glasses. It did not matter. The bold strokes cut deep through the pages, spelling out perturbing implications. Professor’s words.          All at once Bethany rose and tossed her journal between the zipped slits of her book bag, muttering syllables in her hand, as she dared not speak them aloud, grabbed the gauntlet and bolted toward the library. 

⟴⟴⟴