The Scribe (42 page)

Alcuin arched his eyebrows. “How odd, because those black balls are peppercorns.” He closed his hand and put the wheat grain back in his pocket.

“Not so fast,” the bishop blurted out. “You have not yet explained your attempt to poison me and why, knowing what you knew, you decided to remain silent.”

“Do you truly want to know?” he said with a wry smile. “First, as everyone here should comprehend, it was never my intention to poison you. It’s true that I added this powder to your drink.” He opened his ring and showed them the powder. “But it is no poison, just a harmless purgative.” He tipped the remaining contents into his hand—and then, in full sight of the king, he swallowed it with evident disgust. “
Lactuva virosa
: unpleasant, but little more. If I had wanted to poison you, you can be sure I would have succeeded. No, dear Lothar, no. I drugged you, but it was to prevent another terrible murder. That of the poor wretch whose only crime was that he was born slow-witted.”

“Are you referring to The Swine? That degenerate who slit the throat of the miller’s daughter?”

“I am referring to The Swine. That man who you attempted to execute knowing that he was innocent. The simpleton you chose to blame for a murder committed by another: Rothaart, the redhead, an employee of Kohl and your accomplice.”

“By God! Have you lost your mind?” Lothar roared.

“It was him, in fact, who led me to you,” he said, even louder. Alcuin took a deep breath to calm himself. “The young woman was killed with a blade. I must confess that at first I too blamed the idiot with his grotesque face and the evasive look in his little pig’s eyes. But then I saw his deformed hands that have been that way since birth, and I realized that he could not have even held a spoon.”

“What do you know!”

“I know that Kohl’s daughter died from a knife to the throat. More specifically, it was on the left side and with an upward motion. A slash made by someone left-handed, without a shadow of a doubt. The maidservant who found the body described it in detail, and a small piece of the young woman’s ear was missing.”

“But how did that lead you to Rothaart?” Charlemagne inquired.

“Rothaart was hotheaded. He was left-handed, and he was skilled with the knife, which he brandished frequently in the tavern. He had money. Too much of it. The day I met him, he was bragging shamelessly to a friend about his wealth. I contacted that friend not long after Rothaart’s death, and his friend had no qualms admitting that, the day after the girl’s murder, Rothaart had scratch marks on his face.”

“That doesn’t prove it was he who killed her,” the monarch remarked.

“He knew the victim well. In fact, the night she was found dead, the redhead had spent the night at the mill. According to Kohl’s wife, that same night their daughter awoke in discomfort, left the house to empty her stomach, and never returned. I will say it again: left-handed and skilled with a knife. We know it could not have been The Swine because he is incapable of holding any kind of implement, and we know that Rothaart, the left-handed, was there on the premises with his knife.”

“But, what was his motive to kill her?” the king asked.

“His fear of Lothar, of course,” Alcuin said, unblinking.

“Explain yourself,” ordered Charlemagne.

“Rothaart drank frequently. He latched on to the barrel like a newborn to a teat. The night of her murder, he had to transport the contaminated wheat from the granary to the mill. When he arrived at the mill, he was drunk. As he was busy working to unload the poisoned grain, Kohl’s daughter happened upon him, probably surprised to see him there at that time of night. There
were a thousand excuses Rothaart could have given her, but the
aqua ardens
clouded his senses and he reacted as he would’ve in the tavern: He pulled out his knife and with one stroke, killed her.”

“I didn’t know that you had the powers of a witch,” said the bishop sarcastically. “Or is it that you were there in person?”

Alcuin declined to answer, instead posing another question: “Tell me, Lothar, is it true that Rothaart regularly visited your chambers? To speak to you about the mill business, I suppose.”

“I see so many people that if I had to remember all of them, I would not have room for anything else in my head.” He cleared his throat.

“And yet your acolyte remembers. In fact, he told me that you would spend quite some time discussing matters of money.”

Lothar gave his acolyte a stern look, then turned back to Alcuin. “And what if I did talk to Rothaart a lot? The bishopric owns a mill, and Rothaart works as a miller at Kohl’s mill. Sometimes they would mill grain for us, and sometimes we did it for them.”

“But the sensible thing would be to discuss these matters with the owner of the mill, not a subordinate.”

“And from that you infer who the murderer is? Alcuin, stop talking nonsense and accept the truth: Whatever Rothaart did, it doesn’t matter. It was Kohl who was selling the wheat.”

“If you don’t mind, I will continue with my nonsense.” He glanced at his notes. “As I have already said, Rothaart the redhead had money: He wore sumptuous jerkins, boots of fine leather, and enough gold on his arms to buy an allodium—and all the farmhands needed to work it. This is inexplicable for a miller. It is clear that he had other means of income, which fits with what his friend Gus at the tavern told me he does on Sundays.”

“What activity is this?” the monarch asked.

“I spoke to Gus after Rothaart’s death at length over a couple of tankards of beer. After lamenting the loss of his friend, he told me that Rothaart obtained wheat from somewhere, which he ground
at Kohl’s mill on Sundays when the mill owner was attending High Mass. Once it had been milled, he transported the cereal to a clandestine storeroom where he kept it until it was ready to be sold.”

“And Gus told you all of this, just like that?” asked the king.

“Well, it was easy to convince him that I already knew about his schemes. He was also shaken by the unexpected death of his friend Rothaart, which naturally I attributed to divine justice, and then there was the considerable amount of beer that I purchased for him to drink. So it is no surprise that he confessed to what at any rate he didn’t consider a sin. Bear in mind that Gus was being deceived, and made to work for little more than some wine and a paltry sum of money.”

“Gus, a drunk, and Rothaart, a murderer. Well, perhaps they were! But what does that have to do with me?” Lothar asked, incensed.

“Have patience, I’ve nearly finished. As I have already explained, I deduced that the sickness came from the grain due to the similarity of the symptoms I observed in victims during the famine in my native York. That was why I asked Lothar for the bishopric’s polyptychs: to find an entry perhaps related to contaminated rye. Surprisingly, neither Theresa nor I could find any direct mention of contaminated wheat, but there was a scraped and amended page containing the information we sought. As if by magic, it strongly suggested that a shipment of wheat had been transported from Magdeburg to Fulda. A deadly shipment of wheat that was likely bought at a discounted price or traded for no cost at all by the previous abbot.”

“So what are you talking about? Go to the cemetery then and accuse the late abbot,” Lothar said, red in the face.

“I would have done that, were it not for the fact that I always suspect the living, particularly since I discovered that you were plowing uncultivated land, preparing for something to be sowed
in the middle of January. Tell me, Lothar, since when is wheat sown in winter?”

“What rubbish! That land belongs to me, and I can do whatever I please with it. And I will say more. I am sick of your unfounded accusations and your eagerness to show how wise you are. You speak nothing but blather without a shred of evidence. You accuse Rothaart, yet he is dead. You speak of The Swine, but he is both demented and mute. You mention the old Abbot of Fulda, yet his body has been lying in his grave for several years. And finally, you claim that there is a polyptych that reveals secrets through some act of witchcraft, on a page that nobody has seen, let alone verified. Very well. Do you have this polyptych? Show it to us once—or rescind your accusations.”

Alcuin tensed. He had assumed that Lothar would crumble under the weight of his arguments, but he had risen to the challenge. Now, without solid proof, it would be difficult to gain Charlemagne’s support. He looked at the king, who shook his head disapprovingly.

Alcuin was about to speak up when Theresa stood and walked toward Charlemagne.

“I have that proof,” she announced in a firm voice, taking from her bag a crumpled sheet.

Everyone fell silent.

Standing before the king, Theresa unfurled the page from the polyptych that she had managed to tear from the volume moments before Lothar had cast it into the fire. Alcuin looked at her in astonishment.

The king took the page from her and examined it closely. Then he showed it to Lothar, who could not believe his eyes.

“Damned witch! Where did you get this?”

The king moved the sheet away from Lothar before he could snatch it from him. Then he gave it to Alcuin. Theresa handed him some ash so he could repeat the process of rubbing, slowly in the
reverse direction, before everyone present. When the hidden text emerged, the king read it out loud.

But Lothar fought back. “And who says I had a hand in it? That text was written two years ago by the previous abbot. He was in charge of all the polyptychs. Ask anyone.”

Several monks confirmed Lothar’s claims.

Theresa boldly intervened. “That’s right. The original text that the ash reveals was written by the abbot, but the subsequent scraping and the new text that covers it was written by you, by your hand. You wrote it thinking that it would conceal the only proof that linked the wheat to the Plague.”

“I never wrote that text!” Lothar cried in fury.

“Yes, you did,” the young woman insisted. “I confirmed it myself by checking it against your letters.
In nomine Pater
.”

“Ha! What letters, you pathetic liar?” he said, giving her a slap in the face that echoed in the church. “There are no letters. There are no documents.”

Theresa looked impotently at Alcuin, realizing that Lothar would have time to destroy any documents that could incriminate him.

However, Charlemagne stood. “Let us test her claims,” he said, removing a sealed scroll that he had been keeping close to his chest. He broke the seal and carefully unrolled it. “Do you recall this epistle, Lothar? It is the missive you dispatched to me yesterday, a copy of the message you were planning to send to the rest of the bishops. You submitted it to me as evidence of your forthright Christian conduct, I suppose, as a preliminary step before requesting a higher position.”

Charlemagne’s eyes fell on the words:
In nomine Pater
. The handwriting was identical to the text written on the palimpsest, down to the last detail.

“Do you have anything to say?” the king asked Lothar.

The bishop was speechless with rage. Suddenly he turned toward Theresa and tried to hit her, but Alcuin stood in the way. Lothar
tried again, but the monk stopped him, knocking him down with a punch.

“I have been wanting to do that for a long time,” he murmured as he massaged his fist.

Four days later, Alcuin told Theresa that Lothar had been arrested and taken to a cell where he would stay until his trial. He said it had not yet been revealed when the bishop discovered the wheat was contaminated, but it was clear that, despite being aware of it, he had continued to sell the grain as if nothing had happened. Kohl was freed after it was determined his involvement in the plot wasn’t intentional, as was The Swine. Although, unfortunately, his spirit was as broken and battered as a frightened puppy.

“Will they execute the bishop?” Theresa asked as she tidied away some manuscripts.

“To be honest, I don’t think so. Considering Lothar is a relative of the king, and he will continue to hold the position of bishop, I fear that sooner or later he will evade his punishment.”

Theresa continued to stack the codices she had been using all morning. It was the first time she had returned to the abbey scriptorium since Lothar’s guilt had been uncovered.

“It doesn’t seem fair,” she said.

“If at times divine justice is hard to comprehend, imagine trying to understand worldly law,” Alcuin responded.

“But so many people have died.”

“Death is not paid for with death. In this world in which the light of life is so easily extinguished at the whim of sickness, at the mercy of hunger, war, or the inclemencies of nature, nothing will be gained from executing a criminal. Reparations for the lives of murder victims are dealt according to their wealth and the wealth of their murderer. It is wealth that determines the severity of the punishment.”

“And since many of the dead are not rich…”

“I can see you learn quickly. For instance, the murder of a young woman of childbearing age is punishable with a fine of six hundred solidi, the same as if she were a boy under twelve. However, if the deceased is a girl under the age of twelve, the penalty could just be two hundred.”

“And what do you want me to understand?”

“In the eyes of God, man and woman are equal, but in the eyes of men, evidently, they are not: A man generates money and riches, while a woman creates children and problems.”

“Children that will bring wealth and labor,” Theresa added. “What’s more, if God created man in his image and likeness, why doesn’t man take God’s viewpoint?”

Alcuin raised an eyebrow, surprised at the thoughtfulness of her answer. “As I was saying, sometimes murder is punished only with a fine, while crimes that cause grave losses, such as arson or destruction, end up being punished with the execution of the perpetrator.”

“So he who kills is fined, while he who steals is killed.”

“More or less, that’s the law.”

Theresa turned her attention back to the gospel she had been working on since the early hours of the morning. After dipping her pen in the ink, she transcribed another verse so that she could complete the daily page that Alcuin required of her as soon as possible. Each page consisted of around thirty-six lines, which she usually finished in about six hours of work, half the time it would take an experienced scribe. For some time Alcuin had been working on a type of calligraphy that would enable faster and simpler writing that was easier to read and transcribe. He had developed a new kind of uncial lettering, smaller than capitals, which made it easier to copy Vulgates. Theresa was using it, and the speed at which she worked filled the monk with pride.