The Scribe (24 page)

Theresa spluttered. It was impossible that Alcuin could know those things because she had not even told Hoos. For a moment she thought she was looking at the Devil himself.

“And just in case you’re wondering—no, Hoos Larsson did not reveal these things to me.”

Theresa grew even more frightened, suddenly stopping. “So who, then?”

“Keep walking,” he said with a smile. “The question is not
who
, but
how
.”

“What do you mean?” she said, picking up her pace to catch up with him.

“Anyone with the right expertise and keen observation skills could have guessed it.” He stopped for a moment to explain. “For instance: Your Byzantine provenance is easy to establish from your name, Theresa, of Greek origin and unusual in these parts. Then there is your accent, an uncommon mix of Romance and Greek, which not only confirms my theory but also suggests that you have been in the region for several years. And if this were not enough evidence, your ability to read the medicine jars would have sufficed, since for reasons of security were written in Greek.”

“And the fact about a wealthy family fallen on bad times?” She stopped again, but Alcuin kept walking.

“Well, it is logical to assume that if you can read and write you are not from a family of slaves. Plus, your hands do not have the typical scars of heavy manual labor. In fact, the particular kind of corrosion on your nails and the minor cuts between your left index finger and thumb, signal to me that you have been engaged in parchment-making.” He stopped for a moment to allow a procession of novices to pass. “All of this tells me that your parents possessed enough wealth to prevent their daughter, an exquisitely educated young woman, from having to work in the fields. However, the clothes you wear are humble and threadbare, and you do not wear fine shoes. This means that, for some reason, your family’s past affluence is no longer.”

“But what made you assume I lived in Würzburg?”

The processions finished filing past and they starting walking again.

“The fact that you have not resided in Fulda for very long was obvious since you didn’t know what the Brother Herbalist looked like. So the only possibility was that you were from a nearby town, for with this recent storm it would be unthinkable that you came from further afield. The three closest towns are Aquis-Granum, Erfurt, and Würzburg. If you had lived in Aquis-Granum, without doubt I would have known you, because that is where I reside. And in Erfurt there is no parchment-maker’s workshop, so by a simple process of elimination, I knew you must be from Würzburg.”

“And the fire?”

“I must admit, that was a riskier assumption. Or at least it was riskier to assume that was the reason you left.” He turned and continued to walk and talk as if they were engaged in mundane banter about the weather. “Your clothes and arms are dotted with little burns, which though dispersed are identical in appearance: Very small and precise, they indicate their cause was a single event. Their nature and dispersion reveal that you were in a burning building or at least in the vicinity of a large fire, because the marks can be found on both the front and the back of your dress. What’s more, the burns on your arms have not scarred yet, which means the incident must have taken place not much over three weeks ago.”

Theresa looked at him, doubting his words. Although his explanations sounded reasonable, she could still not believe that someone could deduce so much information from a mere glance. She picked up her pace even more in order to keep up with his long strides. They skirted a little garden that led to a low building.

“But how did you find out about the chops? When I gave them to the cellarer, we were alone.”

“That was the easiest bit to figure out,” he said, laughing. “When that glutton accompanied you to the optimates’ residence, he didn’t even wait for you to go in before taking out the second chop and
devouring it in three mouthfuls. I saw it from the window, where I was awaiting your arrival.”

“But that doesn’t mean that I gave them to him,” Theresa replied defensively. Then she added, “Not to mention that it was in exchange for allowing me to pass.”

“That also has an explanation: Benedictines cannot eat meat, for the Rule of Saint Benedict forbids it. Only in certain cases is it allowed, for example when one is sick, and of course, that’s not the case with the cellarer. So I surmised that it must have been someone from outside the abbey who supplied the chops. I knew he was chewing on a chop because I saw him spit out a piece of bone. What’s more, yesterday you brought me a meat pie as a gift, so it would be logical to expect you to do the same again.”

He bent down to straighten out a lettuce that was growing crooked. “And if that were not enough information to confirm you gave him a chop for your entry, before you started writing, I saw you wipe your hands on a cloth, leaving a trace of fat there that soon attracted a pair of flies. I do not believe a young lady so well educated would appear before a supposed apothecary dirty, even if dressed in peasant clothing.”

Theresa remained silent, dazed. She still found it hard to accept that Alcuin was not calling upon the black arts to make those divinations. But before she could think of a suitable reply, a sulfurous smell alerted her that they were arriving at the abbey hospital. Before going in, Alcuin asked her to make it quick.

The hospital had a large but dark hall, with two rows of beds, most of them occupied by monks too decrepit to care for themselves. There was also a small room for the infirmarians and an adjoining chamber used for patients from outside of the monastery. Alcuin explained that, despite what Theresa may have heard, the abbey did indeed treat the townsfolk.

A stout friar suddenly appeared and delivered a short summary on Hoos’s welfare. His fever was in remission and he had got up to
visit the latrine and walk about for a while, but grew tired and went back to bed. He also told them that he had wheat bread and a little wine for breakfast.

Alcuin frowned at the monk and told him next time he must give him rye bread only. However, he was pleased to hear that he had not coughed up any blood since his last visit. While Alcuin inquired after other patients, Theresa walked over to Hoos, who lay covered in thick furs, his face bathed in a veil of sweat. She stroked his hair and the young man opened his eyes. Theresa smiled at him, but it took a few moments before he recognized her.

“They say you’ll be better soon,” she said.

“They also say this wine is good,” Hoos responded, smiling back. “What are you doing wearing a novice’s robe?”

“I had to put it on. Do you need anything? I can’t stay long.”

“To get better is what I need. Do you know how long they will keep me here? I hate priests almost as much as quacks.”

“Until you recover, I suppose. From what I’ve been told at least a week, but I promise to visit you often. In fact starting from today, I work here.”

“Here, in the monastery?”

“Yes, I don’t know as what, exactly, as a scribe I think.”

Hoos nodded. He seemed very tired.

Alcuin approached to ask after his health. “I’m glad you’re improving. If you keep on this trajectory, within a week you will be hunting cats, which is the only thing that you’ll find to hunt around the abbey,” Alcuin informed him.

Hoos smiled again.

“Now we must go,” he added.

She would have liked to kiss him, but instead Theresa said good-bye with a look that brimmed with tenderness. Before they left, Alcuin instructed the infirmarian on the treatment that the young man should receive for the rest of the day. Then he led Theresa to the abbey exit, explaining as they went that the art of medicine
rested on the foundations of a science, the
theorica
, which provided the elements required to put it into
practica
. Knowledge of both components,
theorica
and
practica
, improved the
operatio
, or everyday practice. “At least, in theory that’s what should happen in the art of medicine. As it should,” he added, “in the art of writing.”

She was surprised to meet a monk familiar with two such different arts, writing and medicine, but after witnessing his divinatory ability, she didn’t want to ask too many questions. As they reached the gate, Alcuin said good-bye and told her to return the next day, first thing in the morning.

When Theresa arrived back at Helga’s house, she found her lying on her bed, crying. The room was still a mess, with upturned chairs and pieces of broken cups and earthenware jugs scattered all over the place. She tried to console her, but Helga hid her head in her arms as if her greatest desire was that Theresa should not see her face. The young woman hugged her anyway, not knowing how best to comfort her.

“I should have killed that bastard the first time he beat me,” she finally said between sobs.

Theresa dampened a cloth with water to clean the dried blood from her face. Helga had a gashed eyelid and split lips, but she seemed to be crying more out of rage than pain.

“Let me wash you at least,” Theresa pleaded.

“Damn him a thousand times! Damn him!”

“What happened? Who hit you?”

Helga was crying inconsolably now. “I’m with child,” she sobbed. “By a pig that almost killed me.”

She said that though she took precautions, this was not the first time she had been made pregnant. At first she had followed the advice of the midwives. To guard against pregnancy she would remove her clothes, smear herself with honey, roll around on a pile of wheat, and then carefully gather up all the grain that had stuck
to her body and grind it manually in the opposite direction of normal—from left to right. The bread made from this flour she then fed to the man before copulating, whose germinal fluids would then be sterilized, but she was more fertile than a family of rabbits, she said, and despite these precautions, as soon as she let her guard down, she would fall pregnant.

After her husband passed away, she had allowed her first two children to die as soon as they were born, because that was what unwedded mothers normally did. The other pregnancies ended before birth thanks to an old woman who stuck a duck feather between her legs. However, last year she met Widukind, a married woodsman who didn’t seem to mind how she made her living. He would say that he loved her, and they were like young lovers when they went to bed. Once he told her he would forsake his wife to marry her.

“Which is why, when I missed my second period, I thought it would make him get on with it. Well, you can see what happened. When I told him this morning, he flew into a rage as if he had been robbed of his soul. He laid into me, calling me a devious whore. The lying bastard. I hope his prick rots, and if one day he does want to have children, let them be born with antlers!”

Theresa stayed by her side until Helga eventually stopped crying. Later she learned that Widukind hat hit her on other occasions, too, but never as brutally as that day. She also heard about the countless women who without the means to support their children would kill their newborns rather than give them up as slaves.

“But this one I want to keep,” Helga confessed, stroking her belly. “Since I lost my husband, I’ve had nothing but problems.”

Between the two of them they tidied the tavern. Theresa told her about Alcuin of York who was not the apothecary, and how Hoos was recovering from his injuries but would need to remain at the monastery for a while. She added that Alcuin had mentioned how odd he thought the sickness that afflicted the town.

“He’s right. It’s a strange illness, for it only seems to affect the wealthy,” said Helga.

At midday they ate a pottage of boiled pulses and rye flour. They spent the rest of the afternoon talking about childbirth, children, and pregnancy. At the end of the day, Helga admitted that she had started selling herself in order to survive. One night, not long after she had become widowed, a stranger came into her home and raped her until she was broken. When the neighbors found out they turned their backs on her, refusing to speak or break bread with her. Nobody offered her work, so she had to earn a living by humiliating herself.

They went to bed early, Helga complaining of a headache.

It was not yet dawn when Theresa left the hostelry equipped with tablets filled with fresh wax and headed out into the frost-covered streets. At the first corner, she felt the wind growing stronger and so wrapped herself in the novice’s robe that Alcuin had given her. Then she ran through the streets, fearing that she would take a wrong turn and arrive late on her first day at work. When she reached the monastery, the cellarer opened up as soon as he saw her and again accompanied her to the optimates’ building where Alcuin waited at the entrance.

“No chops today?” he said to Theresa with a smile, leading her to the same room as the day before. Theresa found it better lit thanks to some large candles arranged around the table. She noticed that they had added a newly oiled desk on which sat a codex, an inkwell, a knife, and several sharpened pens.

“Your workplace,” announced Alcuin, signaling the desk with the palm of his hand. “For the time being you will remain here copying texts. You must not leave the room without my authorization, and of course, when you do, you will always be accompanied.
Later on, when I have informed Bishop Lothar that I have employed you as an assistant, we will move to the chapter.”

He went off for a moment and returned with two cups of milk. “At midday we will pay a brief visit to Hoos. If you need anything in my absence, tell one of my acolytes. Good. Now I must attend to other matters, so before you start with the notes, I would like you to copy a few pages of this codex.”

Theresa leafed through the volume with curiosity. It was a thick codex, of recent making, its leather cover wrought in gold, with beautifully illuminated miniatures. According to Alcuin it was a valuable specimen of the
Hypotyposeis
by Clement of Alexandria, a transcription of an Italian codex translated from Greek by Theodore of Pisa, which like so many other codices went from abbey to abbey, for various copyists to duplicate. She noticed that the writing was different, smaller and easier to read. Alcuin explained that it was a new type of calligraphy that he had been working on for some time.