The Scribe (4 page)

“Want some?”

He smiled at Theresa’s disgust. Looking at the fruit again, he saw a worm squirming in its rotten center. Without batting an eye, he bit through the core and the worm, casting the rest of the apple into one of the pools. As he chewed, he gathered his unkempt hair into a grotesque ponytail. Then he went over to the pool where he had discarded the apple.

“Here you have your test,” he said, and he opened the latticework lid that protected the pool. “Make ready the skin and you will earn the qualification you so crave.”

Theresa’s lips tightened. Scraping and preparing the skins was not a task befitting a craftsman, but if that was what Korne wanted, she would not disappoint him. She walked over to the edge of the pool and observed the layer of blood and fat floating on its surface. Taking a spade, she pushed the remains left by the caustics to one side and fished around for the skin that she would work on. But after several attempts, she still could not find one. She turned with a look of puzzlement on her face, demanding an explanation.

“It’s in there,” Korne indicated toward the deepest pool.

Theresa walked over to the pool that received the skins just as they had been torn from the animals. Carefully, she took off her
boots. Then she gathered up her skirt and stepped into the water, holding her breath.

Scraps of skin and clots of blood floated in the bath, intermingling with the filth of the maceration pool. Under the attentive gaze of the crowd, she lowered herself until the liquid reached her stomach. The cold made her groan.

She waited a moment before taking another deep breath and letting herself sink into the depths of the pool. For a blink of an eye she disappeared underwater, but she quickly emerged with her head veiled in grease. Spitting, she wiped the filth from her face. Then she plunged further into the center of the bath, pushing away the floating detritus. The lime stung her skin under her clothes and the ice numbed her bones. Under her bare feet she could feel a bed of slime. And she groped the surface like a blind woman looking for a rail to cling to. But she kept going, feeling her way forward as the water lapped against her chin.

Suddenly she bumped into something under the water, and her heart missed a beat. When she managed to calm herself down, she felt the object with her foot to try to identify it. For a moment she thought about giving up, but she remembered her father and everyone who had believed in her. She filled her lungs with air and submerged herself into the water. The cold made her temples throb as her hands touched the object. Its sticky feel made her retch, but she suppressed her revulsion and continued to run her hands over the thing until she found a string of beads that felt like little shingles. She felt along the line and after a moment of uncertainty, she realized with horror she was grasping a row of teeth. She almost opened her eyes in fright and would have been blinded forever by the lime, but she kept control of herself. She let go of the jawbone and went up for air, gasping, her face flushed red as the Devil’s. As she coughed and spluttered, vomiting water, the remains of a putrid and deformed cow’s head bobbed up in front of her.

The laborers immediately came to the edge of the pool to taunt the young woman. One offered her his hand, but as Theresa grasped it, he let go, making her fall back into the water. At that moment, the parchment-maker’s wife appeared in the courtyard. She had witnessed the scene and come with dry clothes. The woman pushed past the laborers and pulled Theresa—who was quivering like a puppy—out of the pool. She covered her with a blanket and took her into her home, but as they were about to go through the door they heard Korne say, “She can get changed and get back to work.”

When Theresa returned to the workshop, she found the wrinkled remains of the cowhide on her bench. She spread it out with the help of a wooden trowel and then removed the excess water. After examining the skin, she deduced that the animal must have been flayed that very week, since the lime had barely begun to dislodge the hair, and scraps of meat and fat were stuck to the inside. The cow must have been devoured by wolves, because the skin had many bite marks. Aside from that, there were signs of the abscesses and blemishes typical of older beasts. She wouldn’t even throw that skin to the rats, she thought.

“You want to be a parchment-maker, do you not? Well, there’s your test,” Korne smirked from the doorway. “Prepare the parchment that you are so keen for Wilfred to see.”

Though she knew what he asked was impossible, Theresa did not protest. Rendering and cleaning an animal skin required several days of work with time to rest in between so the caustics and washing could take effect. Still, she was not about to give up. With a stiff brush, she scrubbed the skin to remove the remnants of meat that the worms had not managed to devour. When she finished with the flesh side of the skin, she turned her attention to the hair side. She brushed and scraped the hair energetically. Then she
wrung out the leather and spread it over the bench to better see the areas that still had hair. Finally, she looked around for the box that contained the broom bundle used to apply the acid—but she was surprised to find it had disappeared.

Korne observed the whole process, a smile appearing on his lips from time to time. Occasionally he would turn away, as though he had more important things to do, but he would soon return to check the young woman’s progress. Theresa did her best to ignore him. She assumed that the broom’s disappearance was no coincidence, so she did not bother searching for it. Instead she scooped up a trowelful of ash, mixed it with some dung that the mules had deposited at the entrance, and applied the resulting paste to the pores in the skin. Then, with the help of a blunt, curved knife, she continued to work on the thick hair until she achieved the desired result.

Then she stretched the skin over a frame to form a gigantic tambourine—a delicate step, for she ran the risk of tearing the leather at its most damaged points. She skillfully positioned some pebbles around the skin and wrapped them in pinches of the leather to form little sacks resembling thick teats, which she fastened with some cord. Then she attached the leather to the frame and stretched it using the cords coming from the teats. When she saw that the tears on the skin were holding, she sighed with relief. Now all she had to do was dry the skin by the fire and wait for it to tighten before scraping it. She moved the frame over to the fire blazing in the center of the workshop. Not only was it the warmest part of the room, it was also the brightest, so the benches where the most valuable codices were repaired were located there.

As she waited for the moisture to exude from the taut leather, she warmed herself by the fire and wondered where the skin had come from. Cattle had been in short supply for some time, and as far as she knew, only Wilfred had a few animals, so Korne had probably obtained it from one of his intendants. And judging by
its condition, he had done so with the sole intention of making her life difficult.

The parchment-maker came over to the fire. He ran his finger over the skin, which was oozing moisture. He turned to Theresa with a look of indifference.

“I can see you are applying yourself. You may yet get something out of it,” he said, pointing at the taut skin.

“I’m doing my best, sir,” she responded.

“And this pig’s ear is the best you can do?” Korne sneered as he drew his knife and waved it at the skin. “Have you seen these marks? The skin will break here.”

Theresa knew that would not happen. She had checked the tears and tightened the cords in a way that would prevent breakage.

“That won’t happen,” she retorted.

Korne seemed barely able to contain his rage. Very slowly, he passed the point of his knife over the taut leather, like someone sliding a dagger over the throat of his victim. The blade scraped against the skin, roughening it ever so slightly. Theresa watched, aghast, as the blade’s point stopped near a mark Korne had indicated earlier. With flashing eyes and his mouth opened enough to show his bare gums, Korne started to press the point into the surface.

“No!” Theresa implored.

At that moment, Korne sunk the knife into the skin, making it tear into a thousand pieces that flew over their heads and floated down like dead leaves onto the fire.

“Oh, dear!” Korne said. “It would seem that you did not calculate the required tension for the skin, which regrettably reverts you to your miserable life as an apprentice.”

Theresa clenched her fists, her face contorting with anger. She had endured cold and humiliation. She had tended to that unusable skin and made it into something acceptable. She had put her
heart and soul into preparing for the test. And now, for the sole reason that she was a woman, Korne was condemning her forever.

She was seething as he grabbed her arm and put his lips to her ear. “You could always earn a living massaging some drunk’s skin,” he sniggered.

Theresa could not take any more. She jerked her arm away and was about to leave the workshop, but the parchment-maker stopped her. “No harlot disrespects me like that,” he muttered, dealing her a blow to the cheek.

Theresa tried to defend herself, but Korne pushed her again and she slipped, falling against the frame she had been working on. The structure wobbled heavily, swaying for few prolonged moments before finally collapsing onto the fire with a great crash. On impact, a swarm of embers flew out into the workshop, turning it into a furnace. Sparks flared and landed on the nearest benches. A few of the cinders set fire to the codices, and in the blink of an eye, the flames had reached the shelving.

Before Korne could react, a dimwitted laborer rushed to open all the windows. Fueled by the draft, the flames licked at the timber and wattle roofing, making the dead leaves catch fire. Korne had just enough time to snatch a bundle of parchment away before a burning branch fell, close to where Theresa stood in a daze.

Ignoring her, Korne ordered the laborers to quickly grab anything of value they could find and flee the building. They obeyed, bumping into each other as they gathered objects and bolted outside. One of them started to drag Theresa away from the flames, but when he saw that she was regaining her senses, he left her to her own fate.

When Theresa came round, she thought she was on the threshold of Hell. She looked around in desperation to see the flames devouring everything in their path and threatening to surround her. A creaking above made her look at the ceiling. For a moment she thought the roof would fall in, but then she could see that the
flames were not spreading across the wattle, probably because of the damp and the accumulated snow.

She scanned the room and saw that her only hope of escape was to reach the inner courtyard, for the way out to the street seemed impassable. On her left she discovered a group of codices that had been stored under a ledge. Without hesitation, she wrapped herself in her dress, still damp from the pool, and gathered up as many codices as she could carry. Then she ran out into the courtyard, where she noticed a chestnut tree climbing up the easternmost corner to the rooftop that adjoined the cathedral’s eaves. She took off her wet garment and used it as a sack for the codices, but as she was about to climb the vine, a cry from inside made her stop.

Theresa dropped the codices and ran toward the workshop. As she entered the room, smoke blinded her. She advanced toward the fire, unable to breathe with the heat burning her insides. Huddled behind a wall of fire, she discovered Korne’s wife, crying out in desperation. The fire must have caught her by surprise while she was up in the attic and for some reason prevented her escape. As she approached, the woman was squealing like a hog about to be slaughtered, and suddenly Theresa noticed that the woman’s clothes were already on fire.

Theresa moved toward her, but a wall of fire between them kept her from getting close. Above the fireplace the roof creaked. The branches of the latticework were beginning to give way under the thick layer of snow piled on top of it. Looking around, Theresa found a long spade lying on the ground. She picked it up and thrust it with all her might into the branches above that were starting to break. The roof creaked again, but she kept jabbing at it, until suddenly a great cracking sound made her stop. The latticework was on the verge of collapse. With the smoke asphyxiating her, she needed air. With her remaining strength she rammed the spade into the ceiling as hard as she could.

A flood of snow suddenly burst through the hole that had opened up to the roof. When the avalanche subsided, the flames between her and Korne’s wife were extinguished.

“Your hand! For God’s sake, give me your hand!” Theresa cried.

The woman stopped screaming and opened her eyes. She stood, kissed Theresa’s hand, and moving as quickly as the woman’s thick legs would allow, they ran together toward the baths.

3

When Gorgias arrived at the scriptorium, he realized with horror that he had left his bag in the parchment-maker’s workshop. He cursed his stupidity, but he was comforted by the fact that he had hid the parchment that he was working on in a secret compartment inside the bag. He was certain that the man who had attacked him knew the incalculable value of the parchment and had been after it. If he had not taken this extra precaution, his assailant would now have his hands on a document more valuable than even he probably knew. However, the assailant had stolen a draft from out of his bag that contained some of the most delicate passages, and it would cause Gorgias a significant delay.

He looked at his arm and saw blood had soaked through the bandage that Zeno had made. Using his healthy hand he undid the dressing and rested his wounded limb on a table. He tried to move his fingers, but they would hardly bend. The wound was still bleeding, so he tightened the stitches that kept the cut from opening, but the pain made him give up. He could feel his raw flesh palpitating in time with his racing heart. Worried, he asked a servant to call the physician again. While he waited he lay back in his chair and reflected on all that had happened.

The creaking of the door roused Gorgias from his thoughts. The same servant reappeared and asked for permission to enter. With him was the surgeon, visibly annoyed.