The Scribe (2 page)

Even so, when it was time to rise Friday morning, she could not stop a shiver from running down her spine. Quietly, she sat up and unhooked the worn blanket that separated her old bed from her parents’. Wrapping the blanket around her body and tying it in place with a piece of cord, she left the room, doing her best not to make any noise. After relieving herself in the animal pen, she washed with some ice-cold water and ran back into the house. She lit a little oil lamp and sat down on a chest. The flame dimly lit the only room in the house, a small rectangular space that could barely accommodate a family. In the center of the room, the fire smoldered in its pit dug into the soft, damp earth. The cold was biting and the embers were beginning to weaken, so she added a little peat and stoked the fire with a stick. Then she took a scorched pot and scraped leftover porridge from it—until she heard a voice behind her.

“What on earth are you doing? Come on! Back to bed.”

Theresa turned around and looked at her father. She wished she hadn’t woken him.

“It’s the test. I can’t sleep,” she explained.

Gorgias stretched and moved closer to the fire with a begrudging grumble. Its glow lit up a bony face under a tangle of white hair. He sat next to Theresa and squeezed her against him.

“It’s not that, my child. It is this cold, which will end up killing us all,” he whispered as he rubbed his hands. “And forget that porridge. Not even the rats would eat it. Your mother will find you something for breakfast. Right now what you have to do is stop being bashful and use the blanket to keep warm at night instead of using it as a curtain.”

“Father, I don’t do it out of shyness,” she lied. “I put it there so I don’t bother you while I read.”

“I don’t care why you do it. One day we will find you stiff as an icicle, and there will be nothing to agree or disagree about.”

Theresa smiled and went back to scraping the porridge. She served some for her father, who devoured it as he listened to her.

“I can’t sleep because of the examination. Yesterday, when Korne agreed to test me, there was a strange look in his eyes. I don’t know… something that worried me.”

Gorgias smiled and ruffled her hair. He promised her that all would be well. “You know more about parchments than Korne himself. What vexes that old man is that his sons, after ten years in the trade, can’t tell a donkey’s hide from one of Saint Augustine’s codices. He’ll give you some documents to bind, you will do it perfectly, and you will become Würzburg’s first official female parchment-maker. Whether Korne likes it or not.”

“I don’t know, Father… he won’t permit a newcomer to…”

“So what if he’s not willing? Korne might be a master parchment-maker, but the owner of the workshop is Wilfred, and don’t forget that he will be present, too.”

“Let’s hope so!” said Theresa as she rose.

The sun was starting to rise. Gorgias stood up and stretched out like a cat. “Well, wait for me to dry the styluses and I’ll come with you to the workshop. At this hour, a pretty young girl should not be wandering about the citadel alone.”

While Gorgias prepared his tools, Theresa amused herself admiring the beautiful snowy maze of rooftops. Sunlight was starting to pour into the alleyways, tingeing the buildings with a soft amber glow. In the part of the poor quarter sheltered by city walls, the timber hovels were cramped together as if they were competing for the one piece of land they could cling to—unlike in the high area, where fortified structures proudly festooned the streets and squares. Theresa was perplexed at how such a beautiful city could be transformed so quickly into a place of death and misery.

“By the Archangel Gabriel!” exclaimed Gorgias. “Your new dress makes an appearance at last!”

Theresa smiled. Several months before, her father had given her a lovely dress, blue like the summer sky. It was for her nineteenth birthday, but she had been saving it for the right occasion. Before leaving, she approached the straw mattress where her stepmother still slept and kissed her on the cheek.

“Wish me luck,” Theresa whispered into her ear.

Rutgarda grumbled and nodded, but as her family left the house, she prayed that Theresa would fail the test.

Father and daughter climbed the blacksmith’s road in double time, with Gorgias occupying the center of the street to avoid the nooks and crannies where all manner of undesirable might be lurking. In his right hand he clutched a torch and with his other arm he held Theresa to him, his cape wrapped around her. As they reached the watchtower, they passed a group of guards who were heading down toward the city walls. Then they came to the top of the hill and turned down the knights’ street toward the central square. There they skirted around the church until they could make out the workshop building, a squat but ample timber structure situated behind the baptistery.

They were a few steps from the entrance when a shadow swooped down on them from out of the darkness. Gorgias tried to react, but he barely had time to push Theresa to one side. A knife flashed, and Gorgias’s torch rolled down the street and off the edge.

Theresa screamed as the two men rolled around on the ground. Desperate, she ran to find help, pounding on the door to the workshop with all her strength. She felt the skin on her knuckles tearing, but she kept screaming and hitting the door. Behind her she heard the two men struggling, fighting for their lives. She kicked the accursed door again, but nobody answered. Had she been able, she would have knocked it down and dragged out the workshop’s
occupants herself. Exasperated, she turned and ran, calling for help. Then she heard her father’s voice telling her to stay away.

Theresa stopped, not knowing what to do. The two men suddenly disappeared down an embankment. The young woman remembered the soldiers they had passed a few moments earlier, and she shot off down the street to find them. But as she approached the watchtower, she stopped again, uncertain she could reach them in time and even less sure she would be able to persuade them to help. She quickly retraced her steps to the workshop, where she found two men doing their best to help a blood-soaked figure. She recognized Korne and one of his sons, trying to lift her father’s limp and bloody body.

“For God’s sake!” cried Korne to Theresa. “Run inside and tell my wife to prepare a cauldron of hot water. Your father is badly wounded.”

Theresa did not stop to think. Calling out for help as she went, she rushed up to the attic where the parchment-maker lived. The space had been used as a storeroom until the previous year when Korne turned it into a home by adding some solid scaffolding.

Bertharda, the parchment-maker’s wife and a rather stout woman, peered out half-dressed with a sleepy face and a candle in her hands. “For heaven’s sake! What’s all this racket about?” she exclaimed, crossing herself.

“It’s my father. Quick, for the love of God!” Theresa implored.

The woman bounded down the stairs, trying to cover her intimate parts. As she reached the bottom, Korne and his son were coming in through the door.

“The water, woman—have you not prepared it yet?” Korne bellowed. “And light. We need more light.”

Theresa ran to the workshop and fumbled through the tools scattered over the workbenches. She found some oil lamps, but they were empty. Finally, she found a couple of candles under a pile of oddments, but one of them rolled under the table and
disappeared into the darkness. Theresa picked up the other, hastening to light it. Meanwhile, Korne and his son had moved the skins off one of the tables and placed Gorgias on it. The parchment-maker ordered Theresa to clean the wounds while he went to find some knives, but the girl did not listen to him. In a daze, she held the candle closer and looked in horror at the awful gash on her father’s wrist. She had never seen such a terrible wound. The blood was gushing out, soaking clothes, skins, and codices—and Theresa did not know how to stop it.

One of Korne’s dogs came over and started lapping up the blood dripping onto the floor, but then Korne returned and kicked the dog aside.

“Light, here,” he blurted.

Theresa moved the flame where he indicated. Then the parchment-maker tore a skin from a nearby frame and spread it out on the ground. Using a knife and a piece of wood, he cut the skin into strips and tied the ends together to make a long cord.

“Get his clothes off,” he ordered Theresa. “And you, woman, bring that bloody water.”

“Good God! What has happened?” asked his frightened wife. “Are you all right?”

“Stop your chitchat and bring the damned pot,” Korne cursed, slamming his fist on the table.

Theresa started to undress her father, but Korne’s wife unceremoniously shoved her aside to take over. Once Gorgias was unclothed, Bertharda washed him carefully using a scrap of leather and warm water. Korne examined the wounds at length, noticing several cuts on the back and one or two more on the shoulders. The one that worried him most was on the right arm.

“Hold this here,” Korne said, lifting Gorgias’s arm.

Theresa obeyed, ignoring the trickle of blood soaking her own dress.

“Boy,” the parchment-maker said to his son, “run to the fort and alert the physician. Tell him it’s urgent.”

The young lad ran off, and Korne turned to Theresa.

“Now, when I tell you, I want you to bend his arm at the elbow and press it against his chest. Got it?”

With tears streaming down her cheeks, Theresa nodded without looking away from her father.

The parchment-maker fastened the leather cord above the wound and wrapped it round several times before tightening it. Gorgias seemed to regain consciousness, but it was merely a spasm. Soon, however, he did stop bleeding. Korne gestured to Theresa, and she folded her father’s arm as she had been told.

“Well, the worst is over,” Korne said. “The other cuts seem less serious, but we will have to wait for the physician to give us his opinion. He also has bruising, but the bones all seem to be in place. Let’s cover him to keep him warm.”

At that moment, Gorgias coughed violently and started to heave as he winced with pain. Through his half-opened eyes, he saw Theresa sobbing.

“Thank the heavens,” he said, his voice choked with emotion. “Are you all right, my child?”

“Yes, Father,” she sobbed. “I thought I could get help from the soldiers and I ran off to find them, but I couldn’t reach them, and then when I turned back…”

Theresa was unable to finish the sentence, choked up by her own weeping. Gorgias took her hand in his and pulled it toward him approvingly. He tried to say something but instead coughed again and fell unconscious.

“He should rest now,” said the woman, delicately leading Theresa away. “And stop crying—those tears won’t solve anything.”

Theresa nodded. For a moment she thought about returning to her house to let her stepmother know, but she quickly ruled out the idea. She would tidy the workshop while they waited for
the physician. When she knew the extent of the injuries, then she would tell Rutgarda.

With a bowl of oil, Korne set about filling the lamps. “If you only knew the number of times I’ve almost dipped some old bread in this oil,” the parchment-maker grumbled.

When he finished lighting the lamps, the room looked like a torch-lit cavern. Theresa started clearing up the morass of needles, knives, lunella mallets, parchments, and jars of glue strewn between the tables and frames. As usual, she divided the tools according to their purpose, and after carefully cleaning them, she placed them on their corresponding shelves. Then she went to her workbench to check her pounce box, polish levels, and to ensure all surfaces were clean. Having finished her tasks, she returned to her father’s side.

She did not know how long it was before the surgeon Zeno arrived. He was a grubby and disheveled man whose potent body odor was matched only by the fumes of cheap wine emanating from his breath. On his back, he carried a sack. And he appeared to be in a half stupor as he walked into the room without a greeting. With a quick look around, he went over to where Gorgias lay unconscious. Opening his bag, he pulled out a small metal saw, several knives, and a tiny box from which he took some needles and a roll of string. The surgeon placed the instruments on Gorgias’s stomach and asked for more light. He spat on his hands several times, paying particular attention to the blood dried to his fingernails, and then he grasped the saw firmly.

Theresa went pale as the little man positioned his instrument over Gorgias’s elbow, but mercifully he only used it to cut the tourniquet Korne had made. The blood started flowing again, but Zeno didn’t seem alarmed.

“Good job, though it was too tight,” said the surgeon. “Do you have any more strips of leather?”

Korne brought him a long one, which the physician grabbed without looking away from Gorgias. He knotted it expertly and began working on the wounded arm with the indifference of someone stuffing a pheasant.

“It’s the same every day,” he said without lifting his eyes from the wound. “Yesterday someone found old Marta on the low road with her guts cut open. And two days ago they found Siderico, the cooper, at the gate to his animal pen with his head bashed in. And for what? To steal God knows what from him? The poor wretch couldn’t even feed his children.”

Zeno seemed to know his trade well. He stitched flesh and sutured veins with the dexterity of a seamstress, spitting on the knife to keep it clean. He finished with the arm and moved on to the rest of the wounds, to which he applied a dark ointment that he took from a wooden bowl. Finally, he bandaged the limb in some linen rags that he declared to be newly washed, despite the visible stains.

“Well,” he said, wiping his hands on his chest, “all done. Take care of him, and in a couple of days—”

“Will he recover?” Theresa butted in.

“He might. Though, of course, he might not.”

The man roared with laughter, then rummaged in his sack until he found a vial containing a dark liquid. Theresa thought it might be some kind of tonic, but the physician uncorked it and took a long draft.

“By Saint Pancras! This liquor could revive a corpse. Would you like some?” the little man offered, waving the flask under Theresa’s nose.