The Seer and the Scribe (9 page)

There were fewer festival-goers. Many had abandoned the evening's activities due to the unexpected storm and were now forming a lengthy supper line outside the open kitchen's dining hall. Sophie quietly moved between their noisy chatter, admiring the women's colorful dresses accented with scarves, beads, and tassels. So intent was she on such spectacles, she almost bumped into a scowling old man with a basket of flopping fresh fish.

“Out of my way, child,” he said, kicking at her shins.

Sophie, however, was quick and sidestepped the blow, disappearing into the throng of families. She weaved behind fathers carrying children on their shoulders and in baskets affixed to their backs. She could hear the conversations of those children old enough to walk, tugging on their mother's skirts, begging for more attention. Sophie stepped out of the crowd and hung back against the wall, watching and listening with an avid curiosity. Women especially, were a novelty to her, she found them sadly puzzling. Those she observed did not seem content with their lives. They were hurried, tired, or annoyed most of the time, treating their husbands more like children than companions. She winced in pain as she saw one young mother discipline her child with a reddening slap on his cheek.

In the world she and her Grandda had shared, there were only stonemasons with their familiar and predictable ways. She knew little of such family closeness and its apparent discord. Grandda was the only real stability she had ever had in her short life. They had travelled far, visiting many towns and staying as long as there were great carvings to create. Now, with her Grandda's failing health, her world was crumbling like thin layers of slate. Sophie suddenly felt alone in the crowd, different from everyone else. What would she do if the unthinkable happened and Grandda passed on?

“You would survive,” she heard her Grandda whisper in her heart. Sophie turned around, half-expecting to see his dancing eyes. Instead she saw in the distance a trainer guiding his chained bear up a wooden ramp and back into its iron cage.

A minstrel
³⁸
, with fiery red hair and a bushy beard, winked at her as he passed by. He must have sensed her pensive mood, she thought, for suddenly he switched to singing an old love ballad. She lingered longer, listening attentively and watching in awe as his fingers moved over the strings of the lute
³⁹
. It was effortless for him, like it was for her when she sculpted. It was as if the fingers had a mind of their own. The people all around her also grew quiet to listen to the song's familiar, evocative story. The melody was so sad and full of longing that Sophie wanted to cry. In the song, the poor wench
⁴⁰
discovers that she has fallen in love with a young man who loves another. The pitiful wench, like all young children, has no memory, and lives entirely in the present. She feels pleasure and pain, and bears great hopes and wishes. However, when she witnesses her love in another's embrace, her world shatters as easily as glass. She is unable to recover, for she has no depth of experience to draw upon. In the end, she suffers with such intensity she ends up taking her own life.

“If such a tragic fate should overtake you,” the minstrel concluded as he serenaded Sophie, “then know that you, like she, will live on for a time in a song.”

The dismal fate of the young wench tugged at the cobweb of common sense Sophie possessed. There were times in life, her Grandda used to tell her, when there were only poor choices; but nevertheless, the world was a place of beauty and mystery, and always there was hope.

The minstrel gave Sophie a fleeting smile, then moved on unhurried through the crowd to sing to another troubled soul.

Only then did Sophie sense that someone was watching her. She searched the crowd, clearly feeling the uncomfortable gaze of a stranger. Her eyes met up with a young woman, a few years older than herself, who was taller than her and was dressed richly in a velvet cape of navy blue with a silver filigreed clasp at her neck. She had long, luxuriant auburn hair that fell about her shoulders loosely as if it had just been combed through. Sophie stiffened, feeling suddenly exposed in this woman's intense gaze. She felt at once shabby and as poorly dressed as a leper. She also felt an overwhelming need to flee.

“Wait,” the young woman called out to her, as Sophie took off down the hill. She stumbled in front of a performing juggler, causing—to the utter delight of his young audience—his red, blue, and yellow leather balls to tumble from their arcs and roll up to their feet. The young woman called out again, this time with more urgency, “Sophie!”

Sophie froze. How did this strange woman know her by name? She held her breath and turned around to face the young woman's flushed but relieved face.

“I have a message I'd like you to give to Brother Volmar,” the woman said, handing her a rolled parchment tied with a golden string. Then she did a most astonishing thing. She took Sophie's hands in hers, squeezed them and prophesized, “One day, you will achieve recognition for your gifts; hold fast to that as the darkness rises and the storm clouds gather.” She turned from Sophie and spoke to the space next to the young girl. “She is stronger than you realize. You've given her a great start in life. Go in peace, knowing this.”

Before Sophie could question this woman's insights into her future, a carriage, the same elegant one that nearly trampled her and Volmar earlier that day, stopped directly in front of the young woman.

A footman dismounted and said with a sigh of relief, “My lady, we've been looking all over for you.”

“Forgive me,” the young woman apologized meekly before turning to Sophie. “Your grandfather wants you to know he loves you very much.”

“What do you mean?” Sophie sputtered. “How do you know of Grandda?”

“I know, because he is there standing beside you.” The young woman hesitated, “and will always be there, he says, to look after you.” She smiled sadly and accepted the footman's arm as he assisted her into the coach.

The horses snorted, their warm breath coming out as small trails of smoke in the cool night air. Moments later, Sophie watched as the carriage clambered away down the darkened road leading to the porter's gate and out from the protected walls of Disibodenberg.

The Infirmary at Disibodenberg Monastery

Harvest Festival, After Compline the Same Day

Paulus's very black eyes started watering and his cheeks grew red. He smashed his fist down on the table and muttered, “Send for Sophie. She'll need to know right away.” Brother Paulus was unaccustomed to losing a patient and it took him more than a moment to find his composure.

Volmar had only just returned from Compline to prepare the patients for bed when he found to his horror that Silas, Sophie's grandfather, had died in his absence.

Volmar gently shut the lids of eyes no longer dulled by the confusion of delirium and pulled the sheet up over the old man's face. He said a prayer for his soul and remarked as if the value of the life suddenly
lost needed to be reaffirmed, “Silas was a stone carver in Mainz. He and Sophie worked on a portico at Saint Martin's Cathedral.”

Paulus slumped forward, muttering absently, “The bump on Silas's head merely hastened Death's arrival. It was just a matter of time, really. When trees grow old they begin to lose their inner greenness. Likewise, when a man ages, his brain shrivels and dies chamber by chamber, eventually leaving the skull a hollow shell.”

Paulus reached for the poker and used it to stoke the fire. There was such a cold finality to death, he thought, watching as the embers glowed with renewed warmth and life. He put on another log and stood back, watching as the flames devoured it slowly. The intense heat reddened his face even more and finally he drew back, unable to repress an unworthy flash of malice towards God for permitting such suffering. He lowered his head until he was able to conceal his private sentiment, the losing war he waged against God. Still trying to rein in his temper, he asked quietly, “Did you say that Sophie also knows how to carve in stone?”

“Or wood,” Volmar said, genuflecting
⁴¹
and making the Sign of the Cross. “She apparently finished the portico when her Grandfather's hands started shaking.”

“It takes skill, patience, and a great deal of artistic talent to sculpt in stone. I wonder . . . does Sophie have any other family?” Paulus queried, straightening his shoulders, gathering his resolve to help the living, rather than grieve over the dead.

“I am alone,” a small voice answered him from the darkest corner.

Brother Paulus blinked in momentary confusion, and saw in the shadows how very pale Sophie had become. “I am so sorry, my dear child. Your grandfather passed on a short while ago.” Paulus motioned with his head for Volmar to go to her. “She's still afraid of me,” he said.

Paulus stood back as Volmar approached Sophie. Both were surprised by her reaction. At first, Sophie gave Volmar her hand and a scowl that trembled very slightly. She then wrapped her arms around the young monk and held him snug to her small frame as if such an action made possible her desire to squeeze the life from one to nourish the other.

Volmar whispered to her, blinking back his tears. “Sophie, do not let this grief steal your dream.”

Saint Peter's Altar at Disibodenberg Monastery

Before Matins the Next Morning

Uppermost in Sophie's mind was the need to burn a remembrance candle and to say a prayer for Grandda's soul. It troubled her how his illness and injury made him curse and say such wicked things, and she wanted to remind God that he was not himself the past year. Could God remember a man's soul before it was spit upon by a demon's sickness?

Sophie couldn't sleep, though she pretended to do so. Patiently she waited until everyone else went off to bed before quietly reaching for her tattered cape. So that no one could hear her footfalls, she slipped on her wooden clogs once she was safely outside. She then turned her back to the Infirmary and followed the moonlight as it directed her path to the church. She shivered uncontrollably as she entered the cooler sanctuary. Women were strictly forbidden to enter the church after Compline. Tonight, she didn't care.

It was much smaller than the Mainz Cathedral but imposing nevertheless with its looming ceilings, frescoed walls, and high, leaded-glass windows. Even on such a bitterly forbidding night, God's house at that moment felt more welcoming and familiar to Sophie than the harsh world she'd left outside. Its serene stillness embraced her trembling soul and stilled her wayward thoughts. The stones beneath her feet smelled comforting, of lingering incense. After spending a year traveling, dare she allow herself to feel she had returned home at last? She knelt on the small knee bench and folded her hands. She had witnessed many ceremonies and knew she needed to make a vow
⁴²
, promising to the Almighty her commitment to furthering His Kingdom on Earth for saving the soul of her Grandda.

The alcove
⁴³
was dedicated to the memory of Saint Peter, the founding Saint of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. Surely Saint Peter would understand her suffering and intercede
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on her behalf.

“Unworthy as I am.” She prayed in earnest, knowing very well that her presence before the altar might be interpreted by some as blasphemy. “I beseech thee, Saint Peter, to call to mind that sickness my Grandfather suffered. Pity me for my spirit is anxious. Thou, who art standing on the eternal shore, behold my dearest Grandda. When all others abandoned me, he stayed. Place him where light abides and life reigns eternally, and I swear to serve the Lord God Almighty with my gift cheerfully all the rest of my days.” Sophie breathed a sigh and knew the enormity of what she had just promised. Not many servants of the Lord, no matter how enlightened, would accept a stone-carver so young and especially one that is a female.

She opened her eyes when she sensed a movement in front of her. There, in front of her, stood Saint Peter, glaring down at her as if she were a boil on the end of his nose. In the half-light she saw that he was alive and fully dressed as he once was, as a poor fisherman and not the revered saint. He watched her silently a moment longer. “Did you take my lamp?” he demanded. “I couldn't see a thing down there.” A cold force emanated from his body.

Sophie stood bravely despite the tears brimming over in her eyes. “Please,” she pleaded, “keep searching for my Grandda. Turn away thine anger, and have pity on thy servant's frailty. Deliver him, O Saint Peter, from the malice of the Devil down there, and from all sin and evil, and grant him a happy end for thy loving mercy's sake.”

In a flash of insight, the man who Sophie addressed as Saint Peter muttered, “Go, child, and speak nothing of this to anyone.” He waved her off with his hand.

Sophie hurriedly left the Saint behind her in the sanctuary, feeling only a sense of secrecy and discordance emanating from him. There was doubt, too, as a disturbing awareness washed over her. Maybe what she had encountered was not supernatural at all. She would have to ask Brother Volmar; he would know if it was, she thought.