“It’s my father. Quick, for the love of God!” Theresa implored.
The woman bounded down the stairs, trying to cover her intimate parts. As she reached the bottom, Korne and his son were coming in through the door.
“The water, woman—have you not prepared it yet?” Korne bellowed. “And light. We need more light.”
Theresa ran to the workshop and fumbled through the tools scattered over the workbenches. She found some oil lamps, but they were empty. Finally, she found a couple of candles under a pile of oddments, but one of them rolled under the table and disappeared into the darkness. Theresa picked up the other, hastening to light it. Meanwhile, Korne and his son had moved the skins off one of the tables and placed Gorgias on it. The parchment-maker ordered Theresa to clean the wounds while he went to find some knives, but the girl did not listen to him. In a daze, she held the candle closer and looked in horror at the awful gash on her father’s wrist. She had never seen such a terrible wound. The blood was gushing out, soaking clothes, skins, and codices—and Theresa did not know how to stop it.
One of Korne’s dogs came over and started lapping up the blood dripping onto the floor, but then Korne returned and kicked the dog aside.
“Light, here,” he blurted.
Theresa moved the flame where he indicated. Then the parchment-maker tore a skin from a nearby frame and spread it out on the ground. Using a knife and a piece of wood, he cut the skin into strips and tied the ends together to make a long cord.
“Get his clothes off,” he ordered Theresa. “And you, woman, bring that bloody water.”
“Good God! What has happened?” asked his frightened wife. “Are you all right?”
“Stop your chitchat and bring the damned pot,” Korne cursed, slamming his fist on the table.
Theresa started to undress her father, but Korne’s wife unceremoniously shoved her aside to take over. Once Gorgias was unclothed, Bertharda washed him carefully using a scrap of leather and warm water. Korne examined the wounds at length, noticing several cuts on the back and one or two more on the shoulders. The one that worried him most was on the right arm.
“Hold this here,” Korne said, lifting Gorgias’s arm.
Theresa obeyed, ignoring the trickle of blood soaking her own dress.
“Boy,” the parchment-maker said to his son, “run to the fort and alert the physician. Tell him it’s urgent.”
The young lad ran off, and Korne turned to Theresa.
“Now, when I tell you, I want you to bend his arm at the elbow and press it against his chest. Got it?”
With tears streaming down her cheeks, Theresa nodded without looking away from her father.
The parchment-maker fastened the leather cord above the wound and wrapped it round several times before tightening it. Gorgias seemed to regain consciousness, but it was merely a spasm. Soon, however, he did stop bleeding. Korne gestured to Theresa, and she folded her father’s arm as she had been told.
“Well, the worst is over,” Korne said. “The other cuts seem less serious, but we will have to wait for the physician to give us his opinion. He also has bruising, but the bones all seem to be in place. Let’s cover him to keep him warm.”
At that moment, Gorgias coughed violently and started to heave as he winced with pain. Through his half-opened eyes, he saw Theresa sobbing.
“Thank the heavens,” he said, his voice choked with emotion. “Are you all right, my child?”
“Yes, Father,” she sobbed. “I thought I could get help from the soldiers and I ran off to find them, but I couldn’t reach them, and then when I turned back…”
Theresa was unable to finish the sentence, choked up by her own weeping. Gorgias took her hand in his and pulled it toward him approvingly. He tried to say something but instead coughed again and fell unconscious.
“He should rest now,” said the woman, delicately leading Theresa away. “And stop crying—those tears won’t solve anything.”
Theresa nodded. For a moment she thought about returning to her house to let her stepmother know, but she quickly ruled out the idea. She would tidy the workshop while they waited for the physician. When she knew the extent of the injuries, then she would tell Rutgarda.
With a bowl of oil, Korne set about filling the lamps. “If you only knew the number of times I’ve almost dipped some old bread in this oil,” the parchment-maker grumbled.
When he finished lighting the lamps, the room looked like a torch-lit cavern. Theresa started clearing up the morass of needles, knives, lunella mallets, parchments, and jars of glue strewn between the tables and frames. As usual, she divided the tools according to their purpose, and after carefully cleaning them, she placed them on their corresponding shelves. Then she went to her workbench to check her pounce box, polish levels, and to ensure all surfaces were clean. Having finished her tasks, she returned to her father’s side.
She did not know how long it was before the surgeon Zeno arrived. He was a grubby and disheveled man whose potent body odor was matched only by the fumes of cheap wine emanating from his breath. On his back, he carried a sack. And he appeared to be in a half stupor as he walked into the room without a greeting. With a quick look around, he went over to where Gorgias lay unconscious. Opening his bag, he pulled out a small metal saw, several knives, and a tiny box from which he took some needles and a roll of string. The surgeon placed the instruments on Gorgias’s stomach and asked for more light. He spat on his hands several times, paying particular attention to the blood dried to his fingernails, and then he grasped the saw firmly.
Theresa went pale as the little man positioned his instrument over Gorgias’s elbow, but mercifully he only used it to cut the tourniquet Korne had made. The blood started flowing again, but Zeno didn’t seem alarmed.
“Good job, though it was too tight,” said the surgeon. “Do you have any more strips of leather?”
Korne brought him a long one, which the physician grabbed without looking away from Gorgias. He knotted it expertly and began working on the wounded arm with the indifference of someone stuffing a pheasant.
“It’s the same every day,” he said without lifting his eyes from the wound. “Yesterday someone found old Marta on the low road with her guts cut open. And two days ago they found Siderico, the cooper, at the gate to his animal pen with his head bashed in. And for what? To steal God knows what from him? The poor wretch couldn’t even feed his children.”
Zeno seemed to know his trade well. He stitched flesh and sutured veins with the dexterity of a seamstress, spitting on the knife to keep it clean. He finished with the arm and moved on to the rest of the wounds, to which he applied a dark ointment that he took from a wooden bowl. Finally, he bandaged the limb in some linen rags that he declared to be newly washed, despite the visible stains.
“Well,” he said, wiping his hands on his chest, “all done. Take care of him, and in a couple of days—”
“Will he recover?” Theresa butted in.
“He might. Though, of course, he might not.”
The man roared with laughter, then rummaged in his sack until he found a vial containing a dark liquid. Theresa thought it might be some kind of tonic, but the physician uncorked it and took a long draft.
“By Saint Pancras! This liquor could revive a corpse. Would you like some?” the little man offered, waving the flask under Theresa’s nose.
She shook her head. The surgeon repeated the gesture with Korne, who responded by taking a couple of good swigs.
“Knife wounds are like children: They’re all made in the same way, but no two are ever the same,” he sniggered. “It’s not up to me whether he lives or dies. The arm’s well stitched, but the cut is deep and it may have reached the tendons. All we can do now is wait, and if in a week’s time there are no pustules or abscesses…”
“Here,” said the surgeon, taking a little bag from his sash. “Apply this powder four times a day, and do not wash the wound too much.”
Theresa nodded.
<
br /> “As for my fee…” he said as he slapped Theresa’s backside, “don’t worry, Count Wilfred will pay me.” And he continued laughing as he gathered his instruments.
Theresa reddened in indignation. She despised men taking that kind of liberty with her, and if Zeno had not just helped her father, God knows she would have smashed the flask of wine over his ugly head. But before she could protest, the surgeon flung open the door and left, humming to himself.
In the meantime, Korne’s wife returned from the attic with some lard cakes.
“I brought one for your father,” she said with a smile.
“Thank you. Yesterday we had barely a bowl of porridge to eat between us,” Theresa lamented. “We’re receiving less and less food. Mother says we’re fortunate, but the truth is she can barely lift herself from the bed she’s so weak.”
“Well, child, it’s the same for all of us,” the woman answered. “If it wasn’t for Wilfred’s love of books, we’d be eating our fingernails by now.”
Theresa took a cake and nibbled it delicately, as though she didn’t want to cause it pain. Then she took a bigger bite, savoring the sweetness of the honey and cinnamon. She breathed in its aroma deeply, trying to trap it inside her, and she slid her tongue into the corners of her mouth so as not to waste even the tiniest crumb. Then she put the remaining piece in her skirt pocket to take to her stepmother. Part of her felt ashamed to enjoy such a delicious morsel while her father lay unconscious on the table, but her accumulated hunger got the better of her conscience and she succumbed to the comforting taste of warm lard. Suddenly, the sound of coughing distracted her from her indulgence.
Theresa’s father was coming round. She ran to his side to stop him from sitting up, but Gorgias would not listen to reason. As he moved, he grunted and winced with pain. After he managed to sit up, he briefly rested before opening his bag. With his healthy arm, he nervously rummaged through his writing instruments. Cursing, he kept looking around as though something was missing. His irritation growing, he tipped the contents of the bag onto the floor. Quills and styluses scattered across the pavement.
“Who took it? Where is it?” he cried.
“Where is what?” Korne asked.
Gorgias stared at him with a wild look, but he bit his tongue and turned his head. He rifled through the instruments again and then turned the bag on its head. When he was sure nothing was left in it, he walked over to a nearby chair, slumping into it. Closing his eyes, he whispered a prayer for his soul.
2
By early afternoon, the boys’ voices brought Gorgias back to the land of the living after spending all morning in a dreamlike state. He had remained lying down, his head to one side and his gaze absent, oblivious to Korne’s suggestions and Theresa’s gestures of affection. But gradually awareness crept back into his face, and after a few moments of confusion he lifted his head to call for Korne. The parchment-maker seemed pleased to see Gorgias’s health improving, but when Gorgias asked him about his assailant, Korne’s countenance changed, and he declared he could not remember anything.
“When we went to help you, whoever it was had already fled.”
Gorgias screwed up his face and spluttered a curse as he grimaced with pain. Then he stood and began pacing around the workshop like a tormented animal. As he walked up and down, he tried to recall his attacker’s face, but his efforts were in vain. The darkness and the suddenness of the attack had masked the identity of the assailant. He was weak and confused, so he asked Korne to allow one of his sons to accompany him to the scriptorium.
Once Gorgias left, the workshop gradually resumed its usual bustle. The younger workers spread earth over the blood on the ground and cleaned the table, while the craftsmen complained about the mess that had been created. Theresa said a brief prayer for her father’s recovery before diligently returning to her daily tasks. First, she cleaned and picked up the rubbish from the day before. Then she separated the more damaged pieces of leather and placed them in the scrap barrel, where they would rot. Unfortunately, the keg was overflowing. She had to decant its contents into maceration jars so that once the leather had been soaked, mashed, and boiled, they could make the glue that the master craftsmen used as an adhesive. When she had finished, she covered herself with a sack to keep the rain off and made for the outdoor pools in the dilapidated inner courtyard.
Theresa examined the quadrangular pools closely. Seven pools were distributed in a disorderly fashion around the central well so that the flayed skins could be easily transferred between them after the usual process of cutting, shaving, and scraping. The young woman observed the whitish skins floating on the water like scrawny corpses. She hated the penetrating acid stench that came from the defleshed pelts.
On one occasion, when she had had a severe chill, she asked Korne to relieve her for a few days because the dampness and causticity of the pools were aggravating her lungs, but all she received was a cuff around the head and a scornful guffaw. She never complained again. When Korne ordered her to turn over the sticky, wrinkled skins, she hiked up her skirt, and—holding her breath—stepped into the pools.
She was still looking over the pools when someone came up behind her.
“They still repulse you? Or perhaps you think it’s not a task a parchment-maker’s nose should have to endure?”
Theresa turned to find Korne smiling sardonically. The rain ran down his grotesque face and over his bare, exposed gums. He stank of incense, which he used to mask his usual rancid stench. She would have happily told Korne the nature of her thoughts, but remembering the past, she bit her tongue and bowed her head. After so much sacrifice, she was not about to give in to provocation. If he was trying to find an excuse to reproach her, he would have to try a lot harder.
“No matter,” continued the parchment-maker. “I must admit, I feel sorry for you: Your father has been hurt… you have had a fright… you’re nervous, of course. Evidently it is not the right time to undertake such an important test. So in consideration of your father, I am prepared to postpone the examination for a sensible length of time.”
Theresa breathed a sigh of relief. It was true that she still had the image of her blood-soaked father in her head. Her hands trembled, and though she felt strong enough, a postponement would give her the chance to calm down.
“I’m grateful for your offer, but I don’t wish to disrupt preparations. However, I would welcome a few days to rest,” she admitted.
“A few days? Oh, no!” he said with a smile. “Postponing the trial would mean waiting until next year. It’s the rules, you see. But in your state… look at you: trembling, frightened… I have no doubt that postponing it is the right thing to do.”
Theresa feared that Korne was right. Candidates who withdrew from the examination could not reapply for admission until a full year later. However, for a moment she had thought that given the circumstances the parchment-maker would make an exception.
“So?” Korne pressed.
Theresa was unable to respond. Her hands were sweating and her heart thumped in her chest. Korne’s offer was not unreasonable, but nobody could foresee what would happen in twelve months. However, if she attempted the test and failed, she would never again be allowed to retake it. Or at least, not while Korne was head of the parchment-makers, for he would use her failure as proof of what he had so frequently proclaimed: that women and animals are merely there to bear children and transport loads.
As Korne waited for her response, he tapped his fingers on a barrel. Theresa considered withdrawing, but at the last moment she resolved to show Korne that she was better qualified than any of his sons to be a parchment-maker. And what’s more: If she really wanted to become a master parchment-maker, she must get used to dealing with problems as they arose. And if for any reason she did not pass the test, perhaps in a few years’ time, she would be able to attempt it again. After all, she told herself, Korne was old, and by then he might have died or fallen ill. So she lifted her head, and with determina
tion in her voice, she informed him that she would take the examination that morning and accept the consequences. The parchment-maker looked unperturbed.
“Very well. If that is what you wish, let the show begin.”
Theresa nodded and turned to head back into the workshop. As she was about to go through the entrance, the parchment-maker called out:
“May I ask where you are going?” he said with nostrils flaring like a horse’s.
Theresa looked at him, perplexed. She was going to her workbench to check the equipment she would use in the test. “I thought I would sharpen the knives before the count arrived, prepare the—”
“The count? What has the count got to do with this?” he interrupted, feigning surprise.
Theresa lost the will to speak. Her father had assured her that Wilfred would be present.
“Ah, yes!” Korne continued with an affected grimace. “Gorgias said something about that. But yesterday, when I visited the count, he was so busy I judged that we should not disturb him for such a trivial thing. I presumed, and I think rightly, that if you are capable of coping with any turn of events, the count’s absence from your examination should not be an impediment. Or should it?”
Theresa then understood that Korne had not assisted her father out of kindness, nor had he suggested postponing the examination out of consideration of her circumstances. He had helped Gorgias knowing that the fate of the workshop, and therefore his own, was bound to the scriptorium’s activity. What a fool she had been! To think that for a few moments she had believed he had good intentions. Now she was at the mercy of this moron, and all her skills would be as much use as a pile of sodden firewood. The young woman bowed her head and prepared to accept the inevitable, but just as she had lost all hope, an idea lit up her face.
“It’s curious,” she said confidently. “My father not only assured me that Wilfred would witness the examination, but also that, aware of my progress, he wanted to keep my first parchment for himself. A parchment that—as you know—I must mark with my seal,” she pointed out. She prayed that Korne would swallow her lie. If he did, perhaps she would have a chance.
The Scribe Page 2