IN-NOMINE-SANCTAE-ET-INDIVIDUAL-TRINITATIS-PATRIS-SCILICET-ET-FILII-ET-SPIRITUS-SANCTI
- - -
IMPERATOR-CAESAR-FLAVIUS-CONSTANTINUS
He knew the text by heart. He had read the heading a hundred times and transcribed it just as many. He crossed himself before beginning and checked the quality of the skin on which he would make the copy. Despite its rather large size, it was still too small for the twenty-three pages in Latin and twenty in Greek that he would need. He ran his fingers over the imperial seal printed at the foot of the parchment that depicted a Greek cross over a Roman head. Encircling the seal was the name Gaius Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus—Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor and founder of Constantinople.
Legend had it that Constantine’s conversion had taken place four centuries ago, during the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. It was said that, shortly before the attack, the Roman emperor saw a cross floating in the sky. Inspired by the image he embroidered the Christian symbol onto his standards. The battle ended in victory for Constantine and in gratitude he renounced paganism.
Gorgias reflected on the document, which was divided into two different texts. The first part, or the Confessio, recounted that Constantine, now afflicted with leprosy, went to see the pagan priests at the Capitol in Rome, who advised him to dig a ditch, fill it with the blood of newly sacrificed children, and then bathe in it while the blood was still warm. However, the night before he was to do this, Constantine had a vision in which he was told to turn to Pope Sylvester and give up paganism. Constantine decided to obey his dream, so he converted and was cured.
The second part, entitled Donatio, spoke of the honors and privileges that, as payment for his cure, Constantine would grant the Church. The preeminence of the Roman Papacy over the patriarchates of Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, and Jerusalem was thus recognized. Moreover, to guarantee that the pontifical dignitaries held lands and possessions befitting their rank, he also donated the Lateran Palace, the city of Rome, all of Italy, and the entire West. Finally, so that he would not infringe upon the rights he had granted, Constantine declared he would build a new capital in Byzantium, where he and his descendants would limit themselves to governing the eastern territories. There was no doubt: That donation represented a great leap in the expansion of Christendom.
With the utmost care, he divided the parchment into the gatherings that would form the quinternions. Next he split the sheets into bifolios of an identical size and ensured that there were enough of them. Then he dipped his quill in the ink and began to transcribe the text on the sealed parchment from memory. Despite the persistent pain in his arm, he did not stop until the day’s end.
10
Theresa was surprised to find she wasn’t disturbed by the taxidermic process, and it even made her forget for a moment about the dagger. She could see that Althar had started building the frame for the bear’s great pelt. The structure had a central trunk, with two thinner poles serving as legs. The old man asked her to remove the skin to test the balance of the frame. Then he changed the position of the legs and shored them up with nails and wedges.
“We can always keep it together with some rope,” he said, unconvinced.
He assigned Theresa the job of separating the skin from the remains of fat, delousing it properly, and washing it with soap. She was accustomed to doing these same tasks in Korne’s workshop so it didn’t prove to be difficult. When she had finished, she dried the skin and hung it on the frame to air it out.
“Shall I clean the heads, too?” she asked.
“No. Not for now.” Althar climbed down from the stall and threw his mallet on the ground. “That’s a another matter entirely.”
He sat on a rock with the head between his legs to better examine it. After confirming that the blood had stopped flowing, he made a vertical incision with his knife from the crown to the back of the neck, and then added a second, horizontal line on the nape, forming an inverted T. He then removed the skin by pulling hard from the vertices, revealing the skull.
“Chuck the head in the cask,” Althar ordered.
Theresa did as she was told. As Althar added the hot water, the boiling lime ate away at the tissue still stuck to the skull. Althar repeated the operation with the other head.
By midmorning they had finished preparing the frame. Althar took one of the perfectly clean heads and patted it dry. Then he positioned it at the end of a branch, which served as a kind of spinal column, with the wooden poles sticking out like legs. The frame took on the appearance of a horrendous scarecrow. But Althar seemed satisfied with the work.
“When the skin’s been cured, we’ll be able to finish the job,” he declared.
On their way back to the cave, they passed some strange, very dirty-looking wooden chests. Theresa asked what they were used for.
“They’re beehives,” Althar informed her. “The boxes are covered in mud because bees are fragile in winter. Sealing the structure, it keeps them warm.”
“So where are the bees?”
“Inside. When winter is over I’ll open the hives and then we’ll have honey again before long.”
“I love honey.”
“Who doesn’t?” he said, laughing. “The little creatures sting like bastards, but they give us enough honey to sweeten our puddings for a whole season. And not just honey. You see that old honeycomb?” He went over to one of the chests that appeared abandoned and lifted the lid. “It’s pure wax. Ideal for candles.”
“I didn’t see any candles in the cave.”
“That’s because we sell nearly all of them. We only burn them with good reason: when we’re sick and whatnot. God created night so we could sleep, otherwise He would have made us like owls.”
Theresa wondered if she might take some wax to fill the tablets she still had in her bag so she could practice her writing. However, when she suggested it to Althar, he roundly refused.
“But I’d return it to you intact,” the young woman argued.
“In that case, you will have to earn it.”
They closed the lid and walked back toward the cave where Leonora welcomed them with an appetizing hare stew. They all ate together, for Hoos was already up and about, and they drank heartily to celebrate their successful hunt. When they had finished, Althar said he was delighted with the return from the new traps, and announced that he would stuff Satan that afternoon, a task he would do alone because of the considerable patience it required. Before he set off, he told Theresa he would let her have some beeswax if she could find some suitable eyes.
“Eyes?” she asked in astonishment.
“For the bears,” he explained. “The real ones rot, so we need false ones. Some amber would be perfect, but I don’t have any. I’ll have to make do with whatever round pebbles you can find at the river.” He took some stones from his bag and showed her. “Like these, more or less, but smoother. Varnished with a little resin, they’ll appear genuine.”
Theresa nodded. When she finished washing the dishes, she told Leonora that she intended to head to the river.
“Why doesn’t Hoos go with you? A bit of fresh air won’t do him any harm.”
He seemed surprised at the suggestion, and Theresa was surprised that he gladly accepted. They left the bear cave together, but soon she walked on ahead, keeping her distance until they reached the stream where she bent down to search among the stones.
“This one might do,” said Hoos.
Theresa took the pebble he held out and compared it to one she had chosen. She was loath to admit that Hoos’s stone was smoother and more uniform.
“Too small,” she objected, and gave it back, barely giving it a second glance.
He put it in his bag. Looking at Theresa, he remembered again the day the young woman fled the cabin. He continued to observe her closely, the delicacy with which she examined the texture and color of the stones. He watched her fingers move deftly over the pebbles to feel how smooth they were, how she wetted them
to bring out their color, delicately tested their weight, and categorized them according to some system that only she seemed to know. At that moment, she turned around and he saw her eyes blaze like amber.
He was deep in thought when Theresa lost her footing and fell into the river. Hoos ran to help her and, as he pulled her out, he felt his chest constrict followed by a strange burning sensation. They finished collecting the stones and made for the cave. Hoos asked about the pebbles she had collected, and she said she was quite pleased with what she’d found. They walked on in silence until they reached the beehives.
“In the winter they cover them in mud. It stops the bees from dying,” Theresa declared.
“I didn’t know that.” He did not mention that his chest was throbbing.
“Neither did I,” she admitted with a smile. “Althar told me. He seems like a good man, don’t you think?”
“We are here thanks to him.”
“See that chest over there?” Theresa pointed to the abandoned chest. “Althar said I could use its wax to fill my tablet.” She approached it and lifted the lid.
“What’s a tablet? Some kind of lamp?”
“No,” she laughed. “A flat box, the size of a loaf of bread. Well, there are bigger ones, and smaller ones, too. Mine is wooden and once it’s filled with wax, I use it to write on.”
“Aha!” said Hoos as if he understood—though he was none the wiser.
“When I’m finished drying off, I’ll go to the cave where Althar keeps his trophies. That place is amazing! Do you want to come with me?”
“I’ve done enough walking for one day,” he complained. “You go. I’ll lie down for a while and change my bandages.”
“Hoos…”
“Yes?”
“I don’t know why I stole it from you. I am truly sorry.”
“It’s all right. Just don’t do it again.”
Theresa changed her clothes before setting off for the cave of trophies, but not before she had inspected the stones and chosen four lenticular pebbles of a similar size. She thought that once they had been painted they would without a doubt resemble real eyeballs.
When she reached the cave she found that the door was closed. She assumed Althar was inside, so she pushed it open and went in without knocking. Sure enough she found the old man working on the bear’s frame, to which he had added two branches as front legs, in a downward direction.
“Oh! I didn’t expect you so soon,” he said in surprise. “So, tell me, what do you think?”
The young woman looked at the bizarre structure. “Horrible,” she said without thinking.
Althar took it as a compliment. “As it should be,” he asserted. “It will sell for more that way. What are you doing here?”
“I’ve brought the stones for the eyes,” she said, showing him.
Althar examined them carefully. He put them on the box that contained the scalpels, scrapers, and awls.
“They’ll do,” he confirmed.
Between them they mounted the treated skin on the crude frame, sewing the seams and filling the cavities with hay and rags. Finally, they attached the skull, pulling the skin of the head over it. When they had finished, the bear resembled a gigantic and rather battered toy.
“It doesn’t look very fierce,” Althar complained.
They changed the filling several times, but the result was worse still. It was the first time Althar had attempted such a large specimen. After a while, the old man cursed and went outside to clear his head.
Meanwhile, Theresa thought about the pitiful appearance of the bear. It was clear that, in its standing position, the weight of the hay made it accumulate in the belly, making the torso and shoulders sag. The front legs flopped down weakly, and the head, its mouth closed, seemed permanently stooped. Instead of it looking ferocious, she thought the animal looked like it had just been hanged.
She went out to look for Althar and tell him her thoughts, but she couldn’t find him, so she went back inside the cave to continue to ponder the problem without him.
When the old man finally returned he was speechless. Theresa had changed the position of the front legs so they were now raised ferociously above the animal’s head. In this pose, the hay accumulated around the shoulders, bulking them up. For the rear legs she replaced the hay with backstitched rags to keep them tight.
“And if we insert hay between the skin and the fabric, you won’t be able to see the bumps,” she explained.
Althar continued to survey her work, completely absorbed. He could see that Theresa had also positioned a dark stick in the mouth to keep the jaws open, giving the beast a menacing expression. It seemed impossible that this magnificent animal was the same pitiful scarecrow he had cast aside in frustration a little earlier.
They returned together to the bear cave at nightfall, tired but happy. On the way they stopped at the beehives to collect Theresa’s promised wax. When they arrived back at the cave, Althar greeted Leonora with a loud kiss before telling her about the progress they’d made.
“My news is not so good,” the woman lamented. “The young man has taken a turn for the worse.”
Hoos lay in the corner, trembling and struggling to breathe. Leonora showed them a bloody cloth, and told them he had spat it out.
“Did he vomit or cough it up?” Althar tried to ascertain.
“How do I know? It all happened at once.”
“If he coughed it up, it’s bad news. Hoos, can you hear me?” he said into his ear. The young man nodded. Althar put his hand on his chest. “Does it hurt here?” He nodded again.
Althar grimaced and shook his head. The presence of blood in the young man’s spit could only mean a rib had pierced a lung and was now tearing at it. He cursed unceremoniously when he found out that Hoos had been exerting himself earlier in the day.
“If what I fear has happened, there will be nothing we can do,” he said to his wife as an aside. “Except pray, perhaps, and wait until tomorrow.”
Hoos spent the night coughing and moaning. Leonora and Theresa took turns tending to him, but even with their attention and care, he hardly improved. By morning, he was consumed by a fever. Althar knew that without the help of a physician he would die.
“Wife: Prepare some food for the road. We’re going to Fulda,” he announced.
They were ready by midmorning. Althar loaded the cart with the stuffed bear, the half-finished head, and the pebbles for the eye sockets. They lay Hoos Larsson on a pallet among the goods. Then Theresa gathered her belongings, and Althar packed up the food, as well as a bundle of skins to sell, and they said farewell to Leonora.
“I hope to see you again,” said Theresa, her eyes welling up.
“He’ll get better,” she said, giving her an equally teary kiss.
Their first day on the road went by without incident. They stopped only to eat some venison pie and empty their bladders. Hoos slipped in and out of consciousness, his fever still high. They spent the night by a stream, taking turns to keep watch. Theresa used this time to finish sewing the second bear head. When she inserted the false eyes it acquired a formidable appearance—or, at least in the dim light, that’s how it seemed. The next morning they set out again, and just after midday, they could make out plumes of smoke indicating that Fulda was near.
Though they were still some distance away, Theresa could make out the abbey and was impressed. On top of a large hill, dozens of buildings of all different colors crowded together. It appeared that for every inch of land where timber could be driven into the ground or a fence built, that’s what had been done. In the town center at the top of the hill stood the walls that protected the monastery, a cheerless, dark structure that blended into the mountain it was erected on. Lower down, on the slopes, scores of hovels, shacks, storehouses, and barns were jammed together alongside workshops and animal pens. It was such a jumbled confusion that it was difficult distinguishing where one structure began and another ended.
As they approached, the path
grew wider until it became a broad road, with peasants and animals trudging up and down in a disorderly fashion. Outlying farmhouses, with their roofs of wattle and mud, lay scattered around the fields with hawthorn fences protecting the owner’s land. Eventually they reached the banks of the River Fulda, the boundary between the tortuous road and the entrance to the city.
An endless line of peasants waited their turn to cross the bridge into and out of the city. Althar covered his face with a hood and urged the horse on until they reached the end of the queue.
They crossed the viaduct after paying their toll to the guard in the form of a jar of honey. Althar grumbled, for he could have saved the expense had they forded the river a couple of miles downstream, but with the cart loaded down with the bears, and with Hoos in a bad way, he decided it would be best to use the bridge.
Entering the city walls, Theresa remained silent, entranced by the coming and going of people, the constant clamor, and the smell of pottage and unwashed bodies, intermingling with the stench of sheep, chickens, and mules that seemed to be wandering about with more freedom than their owners. For a moment she forgot her worries, distracted by cloth merchants, food hawkers, improvised taverns, and groups of street urchins scampering among the apple stands that festooned the great city gates. It all seemed so different and vast that for a moment she thought she had returned to her beloved Constantinople.
Althar guided the cart toward a side entrance to avoid the busy artisans’ quarter. They left the market behind them and climbed an empty alleyway until they came to a square where a web of streets converged. There they were forced to stop and make way for a procession from the abbey and then some other carts that had been waiting to continue toward the hill.
As they waited, Althar told Theresa that he knew a person in the city who would put them up. “But don’t tell Leonora,” he laughed, which took Theresa by surprise because they seemed to share everything with each other. Althar stopped the cart and told her to keep an eye on it while he made some inquiries. He made for a group of men, joking with each other around a jug of wine. After greeting them as if they were old friends, he returned looking down in the mouth. Apparently, the person he was looking for had moved to the outskirts of town. At that moment there was a crack of the whip from the cart in front of them, and they all set off again.
The Scribe Page 15