Treble clef on forearm in ink splash

The bell for matins has gone and I am writing this with ink still drying on my cuffs, so forgive the blots. You asked after Brother Anselm when you last wrote, and I have not answered properly because I did not know how. He is no longer in the scriptorium. The Abbot sent him to the infirmary after the business with the Easter antiphonary.

You will remember the big book we spent three winters copying for the choir at Ely. Anselm was given the final leaf, the one that opens the Easter responsory with its great clef. He ruled the staff lines first, as he always does, then drew the clef in red. On the Tuesday, Brother Edwin knocked the inkpot over the gathering, and the black ran across the vellum like a squall over the fens. Anselm did not curse. He sat staring at it for an hour while the candles guttered down.

Then he did something I would never have dared. He did not scrape the ink away. He painted the splash wider, ragged and heavy, dragging drips down towards the margin, and where the clef should have been, he left the bare parchment untouched. The clef now stood out pale inside the blackness, sharper than any red he had made.

The Abbot wept when he saw it, then ordered the leaf bound in exactly as it was. Anselm says the blot is a prayer that went astray and was forgiven. I think it is the finest thing in the book. Come and see it before the feast, and bring your good quill.

Yours in the work, Brother Matthew