The Scribe

by Garrido, Antonio

  “I would be an ingrate if I forgot it. But that was six years ago, and I believe my work has more than compensated you for your help.”

  Wilfred gave him a stern look, but then his face softened. “I’m sorry, but I cannot help you. By now Korne will already have been to the judge to report what has happened. It would be reckless for me to accept the body of a person who might be found guilty of murder. And there is more. I would advise you to start worrying about yourself. You can be certain that Korne will go after you.”

  “But why? During the fire I was with you in the scriptorium.”

  “Hmm… I see that you still have no understanding of the complexities of Carolingian Law, something you will have to remedy if you value your head.”

  Wilfred cracked his whip and the dogs moved obediently, dragging the wheeled contraption to one of the lavishly decorated chambers. Gorgias followed, obeying the count’s gesture to follow.

  “This is where the optimates are given lodging,” Wilfred explained. “Princes, nobles, bishops, kings. And in this little room we keep the capitula that our king has been publishing since his coronation. Archived with these are the codices of Salic and Ripuarian Law, decretals and acts of the May Assembly—in short, the rules that govern the Franks, the Saxons, the Burgundians, and the Lombards. Now let me see…”

  Wilfred brought his wheelchair up to a bookcase built low to the ground and, one by one, examined the volumes organized and protected in wooden covers. The cleric stopped in front of a threadbare tome. He removed it with difficulty, then leafed through it, wetting his finger with the tip of his tongue.

  “Aha. Here it is: Capitular de Vilbis. Poitiers, anno domine 768. Karolus rex francorum. Allow me to read it to you: ‘If a free man inflicts material or personal damage on another man of equal status, and if due to any circumstances he is unable to compensate for his offense, the punishment that justly befits the offender will fall upon his family.’”

  Wilfred closed the book and returned it to the shelf.

  “My life is in danger?” asked Gorgias.

  “Perhaps. I have known the parchment-maker for a long time. He is an egotistical man. Dangerous, perhaps, and shrewd as they come. You are no good to him dead. I imagine he will go after your assets. But what his family wants is another matter. They are from Saxony. Their customs are different from those of the Franks.”

  “If what he seeks is wealth…” said Gorgias with a bitter smile.

  “That is precisely your biggest problem. The trial could finish you. You could end up being sold on the slave market.”

  “I don’t care about that now. After I have buried my daughter, I will find a way to remedy this situation.”

  “For God’s sake, Gorgias, think it over. Or at least consider Rutgarda. Your wife is innocent. You should concentrate on preparing your defense. And do not even think about running away. Korne’s men will hunt you like a rabbit.”

  Gorgias lowered his head. If Wilfred did not authorize the interment, his only option was to take the body to Aquis-Granum. But this would be impossible if—as the count warned—Korne’s relatives were prepared to hunt him down. “Theresa will be buried tonight in the cloister,” Gorgias said, “and it will be you who oversees the trial. After all, Your Grace needs my freedom much more than me.”

  The count flicked the reins and the dogs growled menacingly. “Look, Gorgias, since you started copying the parchment for me, I have given you food that many would kill for. Now you are pushing me too far. In fact, perhaps I should reconsider the scope of our agreement. Your skills are to a certain extent essential to me, but if an accident, illness, or even this trial prevented you from completing the task we have agreed to, do you think my plans would go on hold? That your absence would prevent me from completing my undertaking?”

  Gorgias knew that he was treading on thin ice, but his only chance was to put pressure on Wilfred. Otherwise his head would end up on a dung heap alongside Theresa’s.

  “I don’t doubt that you will be able to find someone. Of course you could. All you would have to do is find a scribe whose mother tongue is Greek, who knows the customs of the ancient Byzantine court, who has equal mastery of both diplomatics and calligraphy, who can distinguish an unborn calf’s vellum from a lambskin parchment, and, who of course, knows how to keep his mouth shut. Tell me, Your Grace, how many men like that do you know? Two scribes? Three perhaps? And how many of them would be prepared to undertake such a risky commission?”

  Wilfred growled like one of his animals. His head tilted to one side, aglow with rage. He was more grotesque than ever.

  “I could find that man,” he said defiantly as he turned away.

  “And what would he copy? A charred piece of parchment?”

  The count stopped dead. “What do you mean?”

  “You heard me, my Lord. The only complete copy in existence went up in flames, so unless you know someone who can read ashes, you will have to accept my conditions.”

  “What do you want? For us all to end up in hell?”

  “That is not my intention, for luckily I remember the contents of the document word for word.”

  “And how exactly in the Devil’s name do you think I can help you? I represent the law in Würzburg. I owe obedience to Charlemagne.”

  “You tell me. Or is the powerful Wilfred, count and guardian of the greatest of secrets, unable to arrange for a simple burial?”

  As soon as they heard the news, Reinold and Lotharia rushed to Saint Damian’s to help with Theresa’s interment. Lotharia was Rutgarda’s older sister, and after her marriage to Reinold, the ties between the two families had only grown stronger. Once the arrangements had been made to bury the body in the cloister cemetery, Gorgias and Reinold left to retrieve the body.

  Arriving home, Gorgias placed the body on the straw mattress that his daughter slept on. He looked upon her with tenderness and his eyes reddened. He could not accept that he would never again enjoy her smile, never again see her bright eyes or glowing cheeks. He could not understand how all that remained of her sweet features was a disfigured face.

  It was going to be a long night of digging and the cold would numb their limbs, so Rutgarda suggested they have something hot beforehand. Gorgias agreed and he lit a fire. Once it was burning brightly, Rutgarda heated the turnip soup she had prepared the day before, topping it up with water and thickening it with a piece of lard that Lotharia had brought, while her friend busied herself tidying a corner that she thought would be appropriate for shrouding Theresa. The woman, despite her ample size, worked with the agility of a squirrel, and in a blink of the eye she had cleared the area of clutter.

  “Do your children know you are spending the night away from them?” Rutgarda asked.

  “Lotharia told them,” Reinold replied before whispering to Gorgias, “I shouldn’t say it, but that woman is a gem. As soon as she heard what happened to Theresa, she ran to the midwife’s house to ask for a vial of essence. I know it’s improper for me to say this, but sometimes I think she has more sense than some men.”

  “It must be a family thing. Rutgarda is sensible, too,” Gorgias confirmed.

  Rutgarda smiled. Gorgias did not say nice things to her often, but he was a good man, and it made her proud.

  “Stop your flattery and go chop some firewood. I have to prepare the shroud. I’ll let you know when I’ve finished,” Lotharia grumbled.

  Rutgarda filled a bowl with soup and handed it to Gorgias.

  “See what I mean. They have more sense than some men,” Reinold repeated.

  The two men drank their broth eagerly. Before going out, Gorgias’s eyes turned to the single chest in the room. He examined it closely and after a moment’s hesitation he opened and started to empty it.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “I think I’ll be able to turn it into a casket. Outside I’ve got some planks that might work.”

  “But it’s our only chest. We can’t just throw our belongings on the
floor,” said Rutgarda.

  “We’ll leave our clothes on Theresa’s bed—and don’t worry, I’ll buy another better one soon,” said Gorgias as he pulled out the last garment. “When you’ve finished shrouding her, wrap these things in a blanket. Then gather up everything of value: food, pots, dresses, tools… I will take care of the books.”

  “Good God! But why?”

  “Don’t ask, just do as I say.”

  Gorgias seized a torch and asked Reinold to help him with the task. His friend lit another torch and together they dragged the chest outside.

  Lotharia left Rutgarda to gather their belongings while she undressed Theresa’s charred body. Naturally it was not the first time she had shrouded a body, but until then she had never had to deal with one whose skin came off in pieces like willow bark. She carefully removed the remains of her dress and cleaned the blackened body with hot water. Then she doused it in perfume, splashing it with cardamom essence. To wrap her she used a linen sheet, swathing her from feet to shoulders. Afterward she selected an old dress, which she tore with a knife to use as decoration for the shroud. By the time Lotharia had finished, Rutgarda had gathered up practically all of their valuable things.

  “Though she was not my daughter, I always loved her as my own,” Rutgarda said with tears in her eyes.

  Lotharia thought it best not to say anything. It was already enough that Rutgarda could not conceive, and now she had lost her only stepdaughter.

  “We all loved her,” Lotharia said at length. “She was a good girl. Different, but good… I’ll get the men.” She dried her hands and called out to Gorgias and Reinold.

  The two of them appeared with the chest transformed into a strange coffin.

  “It’s not pretty, but it will do,” Gorgias declared. He dragged the chest near to where the body lay, looked sadly upon his daughter and turned to Rutgarda. “I’ve been talking to Wilfred. He warned me that Korne is likely to lodge a complaint against us.”

  “Why us? What does that rat want? Does he want us to be exiled? Does he want us to admit that Theresa should never have set foot in the workshop? For the love of God! Have we not been punished enough?”

  “Not enough for him, it would seem. I presume he wants to get his dues for the losses caused by the fire.”

  “But what is he going to achieve? We barely have enough to eat.”

  “That’s what I said to Wilfred, but under Frankish law, they can take everything we have.”

  “Oh? And what do we have? All our possessions are there, wrapped up in a tiny bundle on the bed.”

  “They could take your home,” suggested Lotharia.

  “The house is rented,” Gorgias responded. “And that is precisely the problem.”

  “Why’s that a problem?” Rutgarda asked anxiously.

  Gorgias looked hard at Rutgarda and sucked in his breath. “Because they could sell us at the slave market.”

  Rutgarda’s eyes opened almost as wide as her mouth. Then she buried her head in her lap and broke into tears. Lotharia shook her head and reproached Gorgias for his words.

  “I said they could do it, not that they will do it,” he explained. “First they must prove that Theresa is guilty, and Wilfred says he will help us.”

  “Help us?” Rutgarda sounded doubtful as she sobbed. “That cripple?”

  “I promise he will. In the meantime I want you to take all our belongings to Reinold’s house. That way nobody will be able to take justice into his own hands. Leave some old junk here, and a couple of worn blankets. Don’t forget the mattresses. Empty out the straw and use the covers to transport everything. That way we won’t arouse suspicion. Then you and Lotharia must shut yourselves in with the children at their house while Reinold and I take care of the burial. We’ll return at dawn.”

  Gorgias sat alone on the casket and waited for nightfall. He had agreed with Reinold that they would head to the cloister after sundown, so all he had to do now was keep vigil over his daughter’s body and wait for the first stars to appear. Soon his mind was painting a picture of Theresa. He remembered Constantinople, the pearl of the Bosphorus, the land where he was born. Those were times of good fortune and abundance, of enjoyment and happiness. How life had changed, and how cruel his memories had become. Nobody in Würzburg could have imagined that Gorgias, the man who worked as a simple scribe in the scriptorium, had once held the title of patrician in the city of all cities, far-off Constantinople.

  He recalled the birth of his daughter, that little peach, that bundle of life trembling in his arms. The wine and honey had flowed for weeks. He sent news to all the empire’s forums, commissioned an altar be built behind the villa, and had his slaves mark her birth with offerings on that happy day. Not even his appointment as optimas of Bithynia had brought him greater satisfaction. His wife Otiana lamented that they had not had a boy, but he was in no hurry. The girl had his blood running through her veins, the blood of the Theolopouloses, the most renowned merchant family in Byzantium, from the Danube to Dalmatia, from Carthage to the Exarchate of Ravenna, respected and feared beyond Theodosius’s walls. There would be time for more children to fill their home with their mischief. They were young and had their whole lives ahead of them. Or at least, that’s what he had thought.

  The second pregnancy was ill-fated. The physicians attributed Otiana’s death to the damp softness of the fetus. Damned fools! They could have at least prevented all her suffering. For months, desperation had become his only companion. He could see his wife in every corner of the house, smell her perfume, hear her laughter. In the end, on his brothers’ advice, he decided to put some distance between himself and the melancholy that consumed him, and he moved to old Constantinople. There he bought a villa, surrounded by gardens, close to Trajan’s forum, where he made a home for himself with his slaves and a wet nurse.

  Several years went by in which he watched Theresa grow surrounded by books and writing, which were his only passion, and the only remedy for his grief that no physician could prescribe. His title of patrician and his friendship with the Cubicularius of the Basileus gave him access to the library of the Hagia Sophia, the greatest repository of wisdom in Christendom. Every morning he would visit the hall at the cathedral accompanied by Theresa, and while she played, he would reread Virgil, copy passages from Pliny or recite verses by Lucian. After her sixth birthday, the child took an interest in her father’s activities. She would sit between his legs and bother him until he let her have one of the codices he was reading. At first, to distract her, he would offer her damaged documents, but he noticed that, as he wrote, Theresa would imitate each of his movements with extraordinary delicateness.

  In time, what had started as a pastime became her preoccupation. The little girl hardly ever played with other children and when she did, she would amuse herself by scribbling on their clothes with feathers she’d stolen from the henhouses. The librarian Petrus had told him about Theresa’s behavior with the other children and persuaded him to introduce her to the secrets of writing, putting himself forward as the girl’s tutor. That was how Theresa learned to read and, later on, to make her first inscriptions on wax tablets.

  He reminisced with sorrow how her passion for reading had been interrupted when she was sixteen years old, following the assassination of the Emperor Leo IV at the hands of his wife, the Empress Irene. The death of the Basileus triggered an endless cycle of feuds and revenge, ending in the arrest and execution of anyone who dared oppose the new monarch. But it was not just dissenters who ended up in the cemeteries. Anyone who had forged political or commercial ties with the Basileus while he was alive also suffered the wrath of the empress.

  One winter night, the Cubicularius turned up at Gorgias’s home in disguise with a warning and a couple of horses. The next day he and his daughter were to be put to death. They fled on horseback to Salonika. Then they undertook a pilgrimage to Rome before journeying to the cold Germanic lands.

  But why was his mind preoccupied with the past at this
precise moment? Why bring back memories that only fueled his pain? Accursed destiny. Cruel torment. Meandering caprices that tear the flesh that was mine from my soul, leaving me empty. Loathsome hair shirt, path of punishment. Take me with you so that I may give you my hatred. Come and embrace me. He closed his eyes and began to weep.

  Despite the stony soil, Gorgias and Reinold finished digging the grave just after midnight when the clerics were resting in their chambers and Wilfred could officiate the funeral in complete secrecy. Afterward, he told Gorgias to cover the casket without a cross or any sign that would betray their act.

  “The manuscript…” the count reminded him when it was all done.

  Gorgias nodded in understanding with reddened eyes.

  Then Wilfred lowered his head and left Gorgias to be alone in his bitter sadness.

  5

  That night chilling winds from the north covered Würzburg in a blanket of ice. The men busied themselves sealing off cracks and stoking the fires in their homes, while the women pressed their children between straw mattresses. They all prayed for the firewood to last until dawn.

  Those who slept within reach of the embers’ warmth bore the cold with resignation, but Theresa was far from any heat and could not fall asleep. Her weeping had inflamed her eyelids until they were swollen like wineskins, and her feverish eyes could hardly make out the pigsty that she had found shelter in. Her skin was still ash gray from the smoke, and the charred smell of her clothes constantly reminded her of the hellish nightmare she had experienced. Again, she broke into tears and asked God to forgive her sins.

  The images of all that had happened flashed through her mind again: the mocking laughter of the workshop boys, the rotten skin floating in the pool, the test that she had fought so hard to take, the argument with Korne, and finally, the terrifying fire. Just thinking about it gave her goose bumps, but she thanked the heavens that she had been able to escape the flames with her life.