The Scribe (11 page)

“So, you’re rich?”

“Good Lord, no. I wish!” he laughed. “The tenant farmers are humble folks. As payment for their use of the land, they give me part of the harvest, plus certain weekly corvées: you know, clearing paths, repairing fences and such. Sometimes they help me plough the lands that I keep for my own use, but as I was saying, it’s not much compensation. My wealth is not even close to that of a king’s
antrustion
.”

“Tell me, Hoos, is Aquis-Granum as beautiful as they say?”

“It certainly is! As beautiful as a great bazaar to anyone with enough denarii. I can tell you that on just one street in Aquis-Granum there are more people crowded together than in all Würzburg. So many people that you will lose yourself among them. At each step there are traders selling meat or harnessing buckles or stews. Beside them stalls are filled with fabrics and silk, and pressed between these—where there is barely space for a rug—you’ll find merchants offering everything from jars of honey to a still-bloody swords.”

He told her how the streets wind their way round like a tangle of old threads woven by trembling hands, intertwining a mesh of hovels, taverns, and brothels; how crowds would gather in small squares with countless nooks and crannies, where pickpockets and cripples competed with drunks, outsiders, and animals—all looking for the best place to do their business; and about how all the alleys finally converge upon a boulevard that a mounted regiment could ride along. At the end of this avenue, beside the great basilica, an imposing black brick building stands majestically: King Charlemagne’s palace.

Theresa was spellbound. For a moment she thought she was seeing far-off Constantinople.

“And are there games, a forum, a circus?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like in Byzantium: buildings of marble, paved avenues, gardens and fountains, theatres, libraries…”

Hoos raised an eyebrow. He thought Theresa was joking. He told her places like that only existed in fables.

“You’re wrong,” she answered, slightly put out and stood up, turning away. She did not care whether Aquis-Granum had gardens with fountains, but it hurt that Hoos should doubt her word.

“You should see Constantinople,” she added. “I remember the Hagia Sofia, a cathedral like you couldn’t imagine. So tall and wide you could fit a mountain inside it. Or Constantine’s hippodrome, two stadia in length, where games and chariot racing took place every month. I remember walking along Theodosius’s walls.” Her eyes lit up. “Stone defenses that could withstand the onslaught of any army. The illuminated fountains, making water sprout from the ground. The magnificent imperial parades with endless legions of troops led by columns of exquisitely festooned elephants… yes, you should see Constantinople. Then you will know what paradise is like.”

Hoos’s mouth gaped. Though it was nothing but fantasy, he admired the girl’s prodigious imagination. “Naturally I would like to see paradise,” he said to her mockingly, “but I don’t wish to die so soon. By the way… what are chariots?”

“They’re carriages pulled by several horses. But not like the ones to which oxen are yoked. They’re smaller and lighter and fast as the wind.”

“Aha! Like wind, eh? And elephants?”

“Oh, elephants! You should see them,” she laughed. “They’re animals as huge as houses, with skin so hard it stops arrows. They have legs as thick as tree trunks and two giant tusks thrust out from their mouths that they wield like lances when they charge. Under their eyes sways a nose like a great snake.” She smiled at Hoos’s disbelief. “And yet, despite their fierce appearance, they
obey their masters—and mounted by six riders they become as docile as a pony.”

Hoos tried to contain his mirth, but before long he burst out laughing. “Well, that’s enough for today. We should get some rest. Tomorrow we have a trek to Würzburg,” he said.

“So what’s the reason for your visit?” Theresa asked, choosing to ignore him.

“Go to sleep.”

“It’s just that I don’t want to go back to Würzburg.”

“You don’t? So what do you intend to do? Wait here for more Saxons to arrive?”

“No, of course not.” Her expression darkened.

“So stop talking nonsense and get some sleep. I don’t want to have to pull you along tomorrow.”

“You haven’t answered me yet,” she insisted.

Hoos, who had already settled down by the fire, sat up annoyed.

“Two ships loaded with food are soon to leave Frankfurt for Würzburg. Two important people will travel on them. The king wishes them to be received in accord with their rank, which is why he sent me as an emissary.”

“But will they come even now, with the storms?”

“Look, it’s business that doesn’t concern you,” he snapped. “It doesn’t even concern me, so lie down and sleep until morning.”

Theresa lay quietly, but she could not get to sleep. The young man had helped her, yes, but he was no different than the laborers, and no doubt the fact that he had saved her was merely due to Providence. It also seemed odd that someone in his position should cross the mountains unarmed and unaccompanied. Almost instinctively, she clutched her knife she had hidden under her clothes and half closed her eyes. Then, after some time imagining her beloved Constantinople, she began to drift to sleep.

In the morning she woke before Hoos. The young man was fast asleep, so she rose carefully. Tiptoeing to the door, she pushed her
face against a crack and was greeted by the chill of the morning. Disregarding any danger, she slowly opened the door and went out onto the blanket of fresh snow that covered the path. It smelled peaceful, and there was no threat of rain.

Hoos was still sleeping when she returned. Without knowing why, she lay down next to him, pressed against his back, and felt comforted by the warmth of his body. For a moment she surprised herself by imagining a life with him in some distant city—a warm and bright place where nobody would give her grief for her interest in writing; a place where she would converse with this young man with his honest face—so far from the problems that had unexpectedly entered her life. But in the next moment she remembered her father, and she scolded herself for being so selfish and cowardly. She asked herself what kind of daughter she was to be fantasizing about a happy world while her father bore the dishonor of her sins. She did not want to be such a daughter and swore to herself that one day she would return to Würzburg to confess her sins and give her father back the dignity that she should never have taken from him.

Then she turned her gaze to Hoos. She thought for a moment about waking him and asking him to take her to Aquis-Granum, but she resisted the temptation, knowing that, no matter how hard she pleaded with him, he would not approve of such a plan.

With trembling fingers she stroked his hair, before whispering a farewell wrought with guilt. Taking care not to wake him, she stood up and looked around. By the window rested the belongings that Hoos had taken off the bodies: hunting equipment mostly, and a disorderly pile of clothes. Although the young man had already scoured their contents for anything useful, she decided to examine them herself.

Among the folds of a cloak, she found a little wooden box containing a sharpened piece of steel, a small piece of flint, and some tinder. She also found several amber beads on a thread and
a portion of dried roe, which she quickly put in her bag along with the box. She threw aside a half-rotten belt but kept a small skin of water and a couple of enormous boots, which she pulled over her own shoes. Then she turned to the weapons that Hoos himself had cleaned and sorted according to type. As he had done so, he told her about the Saxons’ skill with the scramasax, a broad dagger sometimes used as a short sword, and their ineptitude with the francisca, the throwing axe used by the Frankish armies. She looked over the assortment, passing over the yew bows and stopping in front of the deadly scramasax. As she took it in her hand, a tremor ran down her spine. Weapons frightened her, but if she intended to make it through the passes, she would have to carry something. Finally she decided on a shorter and lighter sheath knife, but as she picked it up, she noticed a dagger that Hoos had set slightly aside.

Unlike the crude Saxon knives, this dagger had intricate carvings running down both sides of the blade, interweaving into a silver handle crowned with an emerald. It was light and cold. Its delicate edge glistened in the glow of the embers. It looked priceless.

Glancing at Hoos sleeping peacefully, her heart filled with shame. He had saved her life and in return she was stealing from him. She hesitated, but then discarded the knife’s sheath and secured the ornate dagger to her belt. Whispering an imperceptible apology to Hoos, she wrapped herself in her new furs, picked up her bag, and went out into the biting cold of the early morning.

At dawn Hoos was taken by surprise, with Theresa already far from the cabin. He searched for her around the quarry and the adjoining woods, and even followed the river upstream, before giving up the hunt. As he returned to the house he was saddened at the fate that awaited the girl, but even more grieved by the fact that she had stolen his emerald-studded dagger.

6

Gorgias woke up in terror, shivering from the sweat that soaked him. He was still unable to accept that he had buried his only daughter a few days ago. He saw Rutgarda by his side and put his arms around her. Then he pictured Theresa when she was alive, smiling, wearing her new dress, ready to take the test that would make her a master parchment-maker. He remembered the attack, and how she had saved him. Then the terrible fire, his desperate search for her, all the wounded and the dead… He cried as he relived the moment when he looked upon Theresa’s body. All that was left of his daughter were the tatters of that blue dress she so adored.

Curled up beside Rutgarda, he sobbed until he had no tears left. After a while he asked himself how long they could live crammed into his sister-in-law’s home like salt herrings, with no straw to lie on, sleeping instead on the wooden boards that Reinold arranged each night on the dirt floor.

He thought how his sister-in-law and her husband made a wonderful family. Despite the inconvenience of his and Rutgarda’s presence, both had welcomed them into their house with affection, and each of them did their best to ensure that neither he nor Rutgarda missed the comforts of their old home. Gorgias was gladdened by Reinold’s good fortune. His work as a carpenter did
not depend on the weather—so even in difficult times, repairing a rotten roof or fixing a broken wheel kept hunger at bay for his family.

For a moment he felt overcome with jealousy, envying Reinold’s simple life. His only concern was to find enough bread to feed his offspring, and every evening he slept with the warmth of his wife beside him. Reinold always said that happiness did not depend on the size of one’s estate, but on who awaits your return home—and judging by his family, his assertion could not have been more true.

Since their arrival at Reinold’s home, Rutgarda had looked after the couple’s children, taken charge of the cleaning and the sewing—and even of the cooking when there was enough food to make a meal. This had enabled Lotharia to concentrate on her work as a servant of Arno, one of the wealthy men of the region. Gorgias tried to help Reinold in his wood workshop when his injured arm prevented him from working in the scriptorium. However, despite his brother-in-law’s hospitality, he knew that they would have to soon find elsewhere to stay, for their presence might cause Reinold or his family to become the victims of some wicked act.

The whimpering of the littlest one made both Lotharia and Rutgarda jump up, just as the child broke into a full wail. Between the two of them they tended to the infant and also the other little ones, who were shivering as though they had fallen into a river. They washed their eyes with a little water and dressed them in robes of clean wool. Then they lit the fire and heated some dried-out porridge, which in better times would have been thrown to the pigs.

Gorgias rose. Still half-asleep, he grunted a good morning and rummaged through a rickety chest for his scribe’s apron. As he did so, he swore at the pain radiating from his wounded arm.

“You should watch your language,” Rutgarda said reproachfully, pointing at the children.

Gorgias murmured something and yawned as he went over to the fire, picking his way through the odds and ends scattered all over the room. He washed his face and moved closer to the smell of porridge.

“Another foul day,” Gorgias complained.

“At least it’s not so cold in the scriptorium,” Rutgarda said.

“I’m not sure I will go there today.”

“You won’t? So where will you go?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.

Gorgias did not answer straightaway. He had intended to investigate the attack on him before the fire had happened, as he still intended, but he didn’t want to worry Rutgarda.

“I’ve run out of ink at the scriptorium, so I’ll go by the walnut grove and gather some nuts.”

“So early?”

“If I go any later, there won’t be a single walnut left after the kids have at them.”

“Wrap up warm,” Rutgarda ordered.

Gorgias looked at his wife affectionately. She was a good woman. He held her in his arms and kissed her on the lips. Then he picked up his bag of writing equipment and set off toward the cathedral buildings.

As he climbed the narrow, still-quiet streets, Gorgias’s mind turned to the assailant who a few days earlier had stolen an incomplete draft of the valuable parchment, remembering the event as if he were reliving it: The crouching shadow pouncing on him. The icy eyes peering through the scarf that hid his face. Then the sharp pain running through his arm. And finally, nothing but darkness.

“Eyes of ice,” he said to himself bitterly. If he had a handful of wheat for every pair of blue eyes he saw in Würzburg, he could fill a granary in a week.

For a moment he hoped that the mugging might merely have been some random, unfortunate twist of fate. The desperate actions of a starving man looking for a crust to eat. If that were the case, the draft would have been dumped somewhere, ruined by the rain or gnawed at by rodents. However, it was foolish to think such a thing. In all certainty, the thief already knew its incalculable value. So Gorgias began ruminating on who might have coveted that parchment.