The Scrivener's Tale

by Fiona McIntosh

  Reynard smiled. ‘I’m glad you like it. It’s a quill, of course.’ Then added, ‘You British see it as a sign of cowardice.’

  Gabe was momentarily stung by the comment that he wasn’t sure was made innocently or harking back to his refusal to see Reynard’s patient. Too momentarily disconcerted to find out which, Gabe noticed that the shaft of the feather was sharpened and stained from ink. Now it truly sang to his soul and the writer in him as much as the lover of books and knowledge.

  Reynard continued. ‘It’s a primary flight feather. They’re the best for writing with. It’s also very rare for a number of reasons, not the least of which is because it’s from a swan. Incredibly old and yet so exquisite, as you can see. Almost impossible to find these days.’

  ‘Except you did,’ Gabe remarked lightly, once again fully in control.

  Reynard smiled. ‘Indeed. You are right-handed, aren’t you?’ Gabe nodded. ‘This feather comes from the left wing. Do you see how it curves away from you when you hold it in your right hand? Clever, no?’ Again Gabe nodded. He’d never seen anything so beautiful. Very few possessions could excite Gabe. For all his money, he could count on one hand the items that were meaningful to him.

  ‘Where did you get it?’ he added.

  ‘Pearlis,’ Gabe thought he heard Reynard say.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘A long way from Paris,’ Reynard laughed as he repeated the word, and there was something in his expression that gave Gabe pause. Reynard looked away. ‘Apparently it’s from a twelfth-century scriptorium. But, frankly, they could have told me anything and I’d have acquired it anyway.’ He stood. ‘Have you noticed the tiny inscription?’

  Gabe stared more closely.

  ‘Not an inscription so much as a sigil, in fact, engraved beautifully in miniature onto the quill’s shaft,’ Reynard explained.

  He could see it now. It was tiny, very beautiful. ‘Do we know the provenance?’

  ‘It’s royal,’ Reynard said and his voice sounded throaty. He cleared it. ‘I have no information other than that,’ he said briskly, then smiled. ‘Incidentally, only the scriveners in the scriptorium were given the premium pinion feather.’

  ‘Scriveners?’

  ‘Writers … those of original thought.’ His eyes blazed suddenly with excitement, like two smouldering coals that had found a fresh source of oxygen. ‘And if one extrapolates, one could call them “special individuals” who were … well, unique, you might say.’

  He didn’t understand and it must have showed.

  ‘Scribes simply copied you see,’ Reynard added.

  ‘And if you extrapolate further?’ Gabe asked mischievously. He didn’t expect Reynard to respond but his companion took him seriously, looked at him gravely.

  ‘Pretenders,’ he said. ‘Followers. Scribes copied,’ he repeated, ‘the scriveners originated.’

  Again they locked gazes.

  This time it was Gabe who looked away first. ‘Well, thank you doesn’t seem adequate, but it’s the best I can offer,’ Gabe said, a fresh gust of embarrassment blowing through him as he laid the feather in its box. He stood to shake hands in farewell, knowing he should kiss Reynard on the cheek, but reluctant to deepen what he was still clinging to as a client relationship.

  ‘Is it?’ Reynard asked and then smiled sadly.

  Gabe felt the blush heat his cheeks, hoped it didn’t show in this lower light.

  Reynard looked away. ‘Pardon, monsieur,’ he called to the waiter and mimicked scribbling a note. The man nodded and Reynard pulled out a wad of cash. ‘Bonsoir, Gabriel. Sleep well.’

  Something in those words left Gabe feeling hollow. He nodded to Reynard as he headed for the doors, toying briefly with finding another bar, perhaps somewhere with music, but he wanted the familiarity of his own neighbourhood. He decided he would head for the cathedral — Notre Dame never failed to lift his spirits.

  Clutching the box containing his swan quill, he walked with purpose but deliberately emptied his mind of all thought. He’d taught himself to do this when he was swotting for his exams ‘aeons’ ago. He’d practised for some years as a teenager, so by the time he sat his O levels he could cut out a lot of the ‘noise’, leaving his mind more flexible for retrieval of his study notes.

  By the time he reached his A levels, he’d honed those skills to such an edge he could see himself sitting alone at the examination desk: the sound of the school greenkeeper on his ride-on mower was removed, the coughs of other students, the sounds of pages being turned, even the birdsong were silenced. At his second-year university exams, the only sounds keeping him company were his heartbeat and breathing. And by final exams he’d mastered his personal environment to the point where he could place himself anywhere he chose and he could add sounds of his choice — if he wanted frogs but not crickets he would make it so. Or he could sit in a void, neither light nor dark, neither warm nor cold, but whatever he chose as the optimum conditions.

  He was in control. And he liked it that way.

  Curiously, though, when he exercised this control — and it was rare that he needed it these days — he more often than not found that he built the same scene around himself. Why this image of a cathedral was his comfort blanket he didn’t know. It was not a cathedral he recognised — certainly not the Parisian icon, or from books, postcards, descriptions — but one from imagination that he’d conjured since before his teens, perhaps as early as six or seven years of age. The cathedral felt safe; his special, private, secure place where as a boy, he believed dragons kept him safe within. And at university he believed the cathedral had become his symbol — substitute even — for home. As he’d matured he’d realised it simply represented all the aspects of life he considered fundamental to his wellbeing — steadfastness, longevity, calmness, as well as spiritual and emotional strength. However, in the style of cathedrals everywhere it was immense and domineering, and if the exterior impressed and humbled, then the interior left him awestruck.

  Gabe had sat for his Masters and then finished his PhD, writing all of his papers from the nave of this imaginary cathedral. The pews he deliberately kept empty to symbolise his isolation from others while he studied. The only company he permitted in the cathedral was that of the towering, mystical creatures of stone, sculpted in exquisite detail. They supported the grand pillars rearing upwards to the soaring roof and each was different and strange.

  A curiosity was that he knew what they were, although he’d never seen them in life. He also allowed that his cathedral — when he wasn’t within its care — was regularly populated by worshippers and knew that every person who entered the cathedral belonged to one of the fabulous creatures. Pilgrims didn’t have to know before they entered which was their totem. They could walk into the cathedral and one of the creatures would call to them … talk to their soul. Gabe had no idea how he knew this, for he had never seen anyone in the cathedral.

  But which creature did he belong to? That was the single image he couldn’t evoke. He couldn’t summon a scene in which he saw himself entering the cathedral and feeling the pull of his creature. He was either outside the cathedral admiring it, or within it … but he couldn’t participate in the life of the cathedral. It had never mattered though — the cathedral of his mind had protected him and given him peace and space.

  Gabe hadn’t needed the cathedral in a long time. In fact, tonight was the first time in possibly as long as three years that he had thought about his old haven. Was he feeling threatened by Reynard — is that why the cathedral was in his thoughts and why he was drawn to Notre Dame this evening? Gabe understood the clever machinations of the mind — how it could trick and coerce, manipulate oneself and others. And somewhere during the course of this evening he had been left feeling ‘handled’. Gabe gave a soft growl.

  He’d been skirting the Tuileries; gorgeous on summer nights, but a little too dark for comfort on a winter eve like tonight. Cars whizzed down the wide boulevard of the rue de Rivoli but he barely noti
ced them. He was looking for one establishment and there it was, next to the equally celebrated hotel Le Meurice. Angelina was an early 1900s tea salon and café, once known as Rumpelmayers. The rich and famous had frequented it and still did, although these days it was on the pathway of the tourist stampede. It was closed though tonight. Gabe was deeply disappointed, especially since he could already taste his first sip of the famous Chocolat L’Africain and now would have to go without. He strolled by the Louvre, hauntingly lit and knew the cathedral was not far away now.

  Notre Dame loomed, floodlit and imposing — especially tonight with the moon so bright and the Seine waters reflecting their own light back onto the structure. Gabe walked around the building; he was particularly fond of the flying buttresses about the nave but he always found something new to enjoy about the gothic structure. Tonight it was cold enough to move him along faster than usual and he was quickly heading for the Petit Pont, the bridge that would take him across the river onto the Left Bank. Perhaps he’d head for Les Deux Magots for the second-best hot chocolate in Paris.

  High above, hiding behind one of the structures that Gabe had been admiring moments earlier, the same dark figure that had studied him this morning while he dreamed now watched his retreating back until he was lost in traffic and the darkened streets beyond the river. It blinked, looking into the night, as still as one of the famous ‘grotesque’ sculptures that decorated the cathedral. After a long time the watcher stirred and hopped back along the buttress and onto the part of the building that housed the choir, disappearing into the blackness of the night. No-one saw or heard it. But it had marked Gabe … and now it knew him.

  THREE

  The next morning at the bookshop passed slowly, but Gabe kept himself busy in the office catching up on paperwork. Eventually his rumbling belly told him it was nearing lunchtime. He emerged from the office stretching, wound his way down the rickety staircase and saw that the shop was all but empty.

  ‘I’m just ducking out for a baguette,’ he said. He didn’t offer to pick up for anyone else. Didn’t want that becoming a habit.

  The day had not improved with age. It was overcast and drizzly. He zipped up his jacket. He didn’t walk along the river, as the cafés here tended to ply their trade — and their prices — for hardy tourists. Instead he walked deeper into Saint-Germain unaware that he was being followed.

  ‘Bonjour, Gabriel,’ he heard a familiar voice call after him.

  He turned. Reynard waved to him. He was not alone. Standing alongside, dwarfed by the tall physician was a fragile-looking girl. Gabe could hardly ignore them. He smiled weakly.

  ‘Bonjour, Reynard … mademoiselle.’

  ‘This is Gabriel, whom I’ve mentioned,’ Reynard said to her.

  Gabe noticed how Reynard held the girl’s arm. There was something possessive in his stance. Reynard was nervous, too. Gabe took all this in with a brief gaze at the man and then shifted his attention to the reason they were surely paused in a damp, narrow street of Paris. She turned her dark and solemn eyes on him, but said nothing. He felt his breath catch slightly. She looked like a piece of exquisite porcelain; her skin was almost translucent it was so pale. Her ebony-black hair cut bluntly in a bob only accentuated her alabaster complexion as it skimmed the line of her jaw. It was a severe style yet she seemed to wear it with ease, and the texture was shiny and slippery like silk. In that moment he wanted to touch it.

  He cleared his throat. ‘Forgive me, I hadn’t expected to meet anyone,’ he said, cutting a look at Reynard.

  ‘Gabriel, could you spare us just five minutes of your time?’ the man began, and when Gabe started to shake his head Reynard put a hand up. ‘A quick coffee,’ he appealed. ‘Two minutes … if you could just …’ His words ran out as he gestured at his companion.

  Again the dark eyes of the girl regarded him. How odd. He’d thought they were dark brown, but now he noticed they were the smokiest of greys, brooding and stormy … and troubled. In a moment of hesitation, he recalled Reynard’s fear that the girl might kill herself. He felt suddenly obliged.

  Just a few minutes couldn’t hurt. The smell of grilling meat and spices of cumin and coriander, anise and cinnamon wafted over from the kebab shops in the narrow streets around Place Saint-André-des-Arts, reminding him he was hungry. His mouth began to water at the thought of lamb with tzatziki, perhaps some tabbouleh and hoummos wrapped in a warm pita. It would have to wait. A swift coffee first.

  ‘Sure,’ he said, shrugging a shoulder and noticing at once how Reynard’s anxious face lit with surprise. Nevertheless, he appeared tense despite his relief at Gabe’s decision.

  ‘Over here’s a café,’ he said, pointing, then guiding his companion.

  Gabe followed Reynard noticing that his charge was as uninterested in her surrounds as she was in her companions.

  He sat down opposite the odd pair and smiled at her.

  ‘We haven’t been introduced yet,’ he said, but as he’d anticipated, Reynard answered before she could.

  ‘Oh, my apologies. Gabriel, this is Angelina.’

  His mind froze momentarily as though he’d been stung.

  ‘Gabriel?’

  ‘Sorry. Er, like the famous tea salon,’ he muttered. Then took a breath and smiled at them. ‘I was only staring at its sign last night.’

  She said nothing but fixed him now with an unwavering look. Her expression didn’t betray boredom or even dislike. He felt as though he were being studied. He’d experienced such regard before and allowed her to fixate without showing any discomfort in his expression.

  ‘Do you believe in coincidence?’ Reynard asked him in English.

  Gabe remained speaking in French to let Reynard know that he had no intention of isolating Angelina, if she didn’t understand English. ‘Do I believe in coincidence?’ he repeated. ‘Well, I know it happens too often to not be a reality of life, but I would never count on one, if that’s what you mean.’ He noticed Reynard was trying to catch the attention of the waiter. ‘Er, with milk for me,’ he said.

  Reynard nodded, conveying this to the waiter before returning to their conversation. ‘I meant,’ he continued, now in French, ‘do you believe in coincidence or do you believe in fate?’

  ‘I’ve never thought about it. But now that you make me consider it, I think I’d like to believe in predestination rather than chance.’

  Reynard raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s interesting. Most people would prefer coincidence. They don’t like the notion of their lives already being mapped out.’

  ‘You can change life’s pathway. I’m testimony to that. But then the question was hypothetical. I like the notion of fate. It doesn’t mean I believe it’s what runs our lives or that chance doesn’t have a lot to do with what happens to us.’ He returned his attention to Angelina, feeling highly conscious of her penetrating gaze. The winter sun was filtering weakly into the café and lighting one side of her face. The other was in shadow and just for a moment he had the notion that her spiritually darker side was hidden.

  The waiter arrived to bang down three coffees and their accompanying tiny madeleine biscuits.

  ‘Do you enjoy Paris?’ he tried.

  ‘I should tell you that Angelina is mute,’ Reynard said. ‘She is not unable to talk, I’m assured, but she is choosing not to talk.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s where you come in, I hope.’

  She hadn’t shifted her gaze from Gabe and now — as if to spite Reynard — shook her head and he realised it was in answer to his earlier question. He persisted. ‘If you could be anywhere, where would you go?’ He reached for his coffee.

  She blinked slowly as if she didn’t understand the question. Then turned to Reynard and pointed at the sugar up on the counter. Reynard looked in two minds. He cast a gaze around to nearby tables but it seemed sugar wasn’t routinely left on them.

  Gabe frowned. ‘Er, I think you’ll have to go to the counter,’ he suggested.

  It was clear Reynard didn’t want to get up. Angelin
a pushed her coffee aside suggesting she wouldn’t drink it without the sugar. It was done gently but the message seemed forceful enough. As a couple, they were intriguing. Gabe felt a tingling sense of interest in unravelling the secrets of the relationship before him.

  Reynard rose. ‘Back in a moment,’ he said.

  Angelina was astonishingly pretty in her elfin way but she shocked him as his gaze returned from Reynard to her. ‘Help me.’

  He coughed, spluttering slightly with a mouthful of coffee. ‘So much for being mute,’ he remarked.

  ‘You have to get me away from him,’ she urged, fumbling for his hand beneath the small table. ‘Don’t look at it now. Just take this,’ she said, pressing a small note into his hand.

  Reynard was back. ‘There you are,’ he said, sliding a couple of sticks of sugar onto the table.

  Gabe was in no small state of shock at her outburst. The girl was obviously frightened of the physician.

  ‘So,’ Reynard began, sipping his drink, ‘Angelina will not mind me saying this, I’m sure, but she is suffering a form of depression. She has feelings of persecution and —’

  ‘Wait,’ Gabe interrupted. ‘If she’s mute how can you know any of this?’

  ‘Previous notes from previous doctors,’ Reynard answered. ‘“Delusional” is the word that has been used time and again. Her muteness is a recent affliction. Remember, she’s choosing not to speak.’