The Scribe (62 page)

“We’ll have to take him to the physician,” he said, realizing too late what effect this statement might have on Theresa. “I’m sure this time he’ll make him better.”

His addendum did not prevent Theresa from being alarmed, so to distract her he spoke about the twins. “Someone must have left them in the mine,” he remarked.

Theresa did not answer, for it was obvious to her that her father could not have kidnapped a chicken.

They were halfway back when suddenly, upon reaching the top of a slope, they saw a mob of peasants heading toward them brandishing hay forks and scythes. The mob was led by a group of soldiers who told them to halt. Izam assumed they sought Wilfred’s
reward. What he didn’t understand was how they had found them so quickly.

Fortunately Izam spotted Gratz, one of his trusted men. When Gratz recognized Izam, he shouted for the archers to lower their weapons. But several peasants, blinded by greed, were already running toward them. Izam quickly put down the children and drew his sword, but before he could use it, an arrow knocked down the first peasant. Izam looked at Gratz, who was still holding the bow. The other peasants stopped dead in their tracks. One of the townspeople dropped his weapon on the ground and the rest copied him. Then a few of the solders overtook them, shoving aside the group of hotheads and offering their horses to Izam and the twins.

On the way back to Würzburg, Gratz revealed to Izam that someone had anonymously revealed the girls’ whereabouts.

“Apparently a hooded man confessed it to a priest, who in turn informed Wilfred. This morning they ordered us to organize a search party.”

Izam was surprised to hear that the informer had known where they were—and that he had blamed Gorgias for abducting the twins. He thanked Gratz for his intervention and they rode on to the citadel gates, where another angry crowd had gathered.

As soon as the gates were opened, they saw Wilfred on his wooden carriage. The count cracked his whip and the dogs pulled the contraption, which moved clumsily down the road, leaving behind Alcuin, Zeno, and Rutgarda, who were standing behind him watching the events. When the cripple reached the walls, Izam met him with the two little girls. As Wilfred embraced them, the whole town celebrated the end of their nightmare.

Back in the fortress, Theresa bit her nails as she waited for Zeno and a midwife to examine the twins. When they had finished, both the physician and the midwife declared there had been no physical violence. They would soon be back to normal. But when Zeno went to tend to Gorgias, Wilfred stopped him. He ordered that Gorgias be taken to the dungeons.

Theresa begged him again and again not to condemn her father, but Wilfred would not budge. He warned that if she continued to insist, he would imprison her as well. The young woman told him she didn’t care, but Izam dragged her to another room by force.

“Let go of me!” she screamed, sobbing.

Izam held her and tried to calm her down. “Don’t you see that you won’t achieve anything like this? I’ll get them to tend to him later, I promise.”

Theresa gave in, her nerves on edge. On the way back to the chapter house, she saw Hoos talking to Alcuin. Instinctively she pressed herself against Izam as they walked toward Hoos, but the young man simply turned around and left the room.

Izam and Theresa ate together in one of the stables, surrounded by hay and straw. While they shared a stew, Izam confessed to her. He told her that apart from two or three of his subordinates, he didn’t know who to trust.

“Not even that Alcuin. I know him from court, yes. He is a wise and highly regarded man, but I don’t know. With all that you’ve told me…”

Theresa nodded, not paying too much attention, for at that moment all she cared about was that her father received help as soon as possible. When she reminded Izam, he promised to look for Zeno after they had eaten. He said he had already made inquiries and it was just a matter of paying the man enough.

“If I say that I need to interrogate your father,” Izam thought out loud, “I don’t think they will get in my way.”

Theresa begged to go with him, but Izam told her it would raise suspicion.

“Then bribe the guards—or say I need to be present when you talk to him.”

“Sure! You, me, Zeno… anyone else? It’s not a welcome banquet.”

Theresa looked at him, dumfounded. Suddenly she dropped her plate and ran toward the exit. Izam realized he had been too brusque, so he caught up to her and apologized for his stupidity. He admitted he was nervous because he didn’t know who or what they were up against.

“Did you not see Wilfred? If looks could kill, your father would be dead,” he said.

“If it’s a question of money, for the love of God, tell me. In Fulda I have lands.” She had forgotten that Izam already knew that.

“It’s not a matter of… damn it, Theresa! Whoever they are, they’ve already killed two people—three, including the parchment-maker. And the two little girls were sick with God knows what. If we’re not careful, next it will be us.”

Theresa bit her lip but still insisted on seeing her father. Izam knew she would not give up, so he made her promise that she would stay by his side until everything became clear.

“And the scriptorium? I promised Alcuin I’d help him.”

“Jesus Christ! Forget the scriptorium! Forget Hoos and forget that accursed Alcuin! Now let’s find that physician before he drains all the wine in the cellars.”

They located Zeno in a hovel, tending to a townsman who had lost three teeth in a fight. While the physician finished with him, he asked what they wanted, but Izam pretended they were concerned about the twins. Only after the wounded man left did Izam reveal his true intentions.

“I’m sorry, but Wilfred has prohibited me from tending to him,” said Zeno apologetically as he wiped blood from his hands. “I still don’t understand why: That scribe is going to kick the bucket any moment either way.”

Hearing his prognosis, Izam was glad that Theresa was waiting outside.

“If he’s going to die anyway, what difference will it make if you see him?” He made his coin pouch jingle.

In the end, he managed to convince him by promising that he would replace Wilfred’s guard with one of his own men who could be trusted not to open his mouth. Zeno asked for payment in advance, but Izam offered him just a couple of coins. When Zeno reached for them, Izam seized his wrist.

“A warning: Make sure you are sober, or it’ll be you who needs his mouth fixed.”

Zeno gave him a stupid smile. Before parting, they agreed to meet after the Sext service, by which time Izam hoped he would have persuaded Wilfred to increase security at the dungeons with his own men. Then he went with Theresa to collect her belongings from her room, for he didn’t want her to stay there any longer. The young woman took some clothes, a burin, and her wax tablets before they continued to Izam’s cell.

“What do you intend to do?” she asked once the door was closed.

Izam removed his sword and threw it on the table. He said he would advise Wilfred to increase the watch with some of his men, then wait for Wilfred’s sentry to leave.

“I’ll find a way to have Gratz watch the door.”

He told her to wait there and not to leave the room under any circumstances. Then he equipped himself with a dagger that he hid under his cloak. When he was about to leave, Theresa stopped him. She was scared Hoos would attack her, but Izam assured her he wouldn’t. He went out into the corridor and called to the soldier
on guard. The youngster, a beardless, pock-faced kid, promptly accepted his order to stop anyone from entering the room.

When Izam had gone, Theresa curled up on the straw mattress to await his return.

Theresa lay there staring at the ceiling, wondering why Wilfred had been compelled to send Gorgias to the dungeons. After a while she decided to take a look at the Vulgate she still had in her bag. She took the codex to the window and, after finding the verse from the Thessalonian Epistles, she went over the notes that her father had made in diluted ink.

In total she counted sixty-four phrases—or rather, sixty-four lines, for they did not form clear sentences or paragraphs, but strings of unconnected words, all related to the famous parchment. It was no use. But she knew those words must have some significance, so she went about transcribing each one to her wax tablets. When she had finished, she placed the tablets on the mattress and with the dagger that Izam had given her, scraped away the hidden text in the Vulgate. Then she closed the codex, hid Gorgias’s parchment under her skirt, and waited for Izam to return.

Within moments there was some banging on the door. Hearing it, Theresa gave a start and backed into the wall, right into an icy stone that stabbed her between her shoulders and made her yelp. She put her hand over her mouth, hoping she hadn’t given herself away. She clambered onto the window ledge as a pool of blood seeped under the door.

Someone lifted the door latch and Theresa turned to look outside. She saw a moat beneath her. If she fell, she would die. Suddenly, a crashing sound made the latch jump. Theresa crossed herself and grabbed on to some projections on the outer wall, praying to God for help, as her body hung over a void.

She could hear that on the other side of the window, someone was smashing up the room. Soon her arms began to tremble and she knew she wouldn’t last long. She looked around and saw the nail under the windowsill for airing food. If she grabbed it, she would tear her hand, but perhaps she would be able to hook her clothes to it.

Attempting it, her hand slipped. Then, just as her other hand lost its hold, the front of her robe caught on the nail. For a moment she felt herself falling into the void, but suddenly a hand grabbed her, hoisting her toward the window. She thought she was about to be run through with a blade, but her fear vanished when Izam’s kind face appeared. After pulling her into the room, he held her tight and urged her to be calm.

Still confused, the young woman gathered up the objects that were scattered all over the place, while Izam tended to the sentry who was lying flat under the doorjamb. Theresa hoped he was just wounded, but the pool of blood told her he had been killed. She let herself drop to the ground, sobbing and feeling defeated. Izam asked her who it had been, but she hadn’t seen them. After searching all over the place, Theresa discovered that they had stolen her father’s Vulgate.

Izam and Theresa explained to a pair of servants what happened and they took care of the body. Then, they gathered their belongings in order to go somewhere safe. Though Theresa lamented the loss of the Bible, she was grateful that the thief had disregarded the tablets on which she had reproduced the phrases from the Vulgate.

While they walked in the direction of one of the courtyards, Theresa attributed the attack to Alcuin, for he was the only person who knew of the hidden message in her father’s Bible.

“It must have been him,” she repeated to Izam.

They decided to ask the monk for an explanation, but when they arrived at the scriptorium, the door was locked.

Theresa shared with Izam the hidden message she had transcribed and they wasted some time in one of the atriums, pondering its significance. Theresa admitted that she had not been able to decipher a single word.

“But my father will help us,” she asserted.

Izam nodded. Then he looked up to the sky. Soon it would be time to meet the physician and try to help Gorgias.

A few minutes after the agreed time, Zeno appeared with his bag. He smelled of wine, though no more than he had when Izam first spoke to him that morning. He paid the agreed sum, and then Izam, Theresa, and the physician headed to the dungeons.

Theresa was surprised to hear that they used some old meat safes to lock away prisoners. The safes consisted of holes resembling silos cut into the rock, which when filled with snow preserved food until summer. Since they were not needed in winter, on occasion they were used as storerooms and, if necessary, as improvised cells.

“Elsewhere they only use them for thieves, but we put other criminals in there, too,” Zeno boasted as if he were responsible for the idea. “We throw them into these ditches and they don’t come out till they’re dead. Sometimes, depending on the crime, we’ll throw them bread from up top just to see them kill each other for a few crumbs. But in the end, they all rot like vermin.”

Izam asked him to spare them the details, but Zeno prattled on as if Theresa wasn’t there. Only when Izam grabbed him by the shirtfront did he finally hold his tongue.

The meat safes were located in a basement under the kitchens that could be reached either from the wine cellar or from an entrance near the stables. They entered through the kitchens, for the passage near the stables was very narrow and primarily used to shovel snow through.

When they reached the meat safe, they met Gratz, the sentry posted there by Izam. The man urged them to be quick, for he did not know when the other guard, who he had distracted with a prostitute, would return.

Zeno and Izam went down into the meat safe using a wooden ladder that Gratz had found. Theresa waited at the top because Zeno said she would only get in the way. From the edge, Theresa could see her father. She watched as the physician, shaking his head, inspected the scar on Gorgias’s shoulder.