The Scribe (16 page)

After a few moments, Althar realized that Hoos Larsson was still breathing. He immediately informed Theresa, and they carried him to the cart to tend to his wounds. The old man examined him with concern. Theresa questioned Althar with her eyes as to the seriousness of his injuries, but he didn’t answer.

“You say he saved you?” he asked.

She nodded, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Well, I’m sorry for him, but we can’t take him with us.”

“We can’t leave him, he’ll die.”

“He’s going to die anyway. What’s more, look at that wheel,” he said, pointing at the repaired spoke. “You two, me, and the load—with so much weight, it won’t last a mile.”

“Then get rid of the furs,” Theresa suggested.

“The skins? Don’t make me laugh! They’re my living for the next year.”

Althar’s words seemed final. Theresa hesitated. She knew that if she was to help Hoos, she would have to be convincing.

“The man you want to abandon to his fate is called Hoos Larsson. He’s an antrustion of the king,” she lied. “If he survives he could feed you and your family for the rest of your lives.”

Althar looked at Hoos’s near-lifeless body and spat in surprise. He was at pains to admit it, but perhaps the girl was right. Upon examining the young man, he had already noticed his fine clothes, and though he had thought them stolen, perhaps that was a rash conclusion. After all, he could see how well tailored his robes were and the perfect fit of his shoes; he doubted that a thief would have had such good luck.

He cursed. Perhaps the man was indeed who Theresa claimed he was, though that did not change his fragile state or his own predicament. He might not be able to save him, but maybe he would last long enough to reach Aquis-Granum alive. He cursed again and took the reins of the horse, which had been grazing through the layer of snow. Carefully reconsidering it, he spat and grumbled, “He might live, I suppose.”

Theresa nodded, relieved.

“Until I get my reward, at least,” Althar muttered to himself.

With the additional weight of Hoos, Theresa was forced to walk. Althar urged on the mount, using the whip as readily as he uttered oaths. He forbade Theresa from holding on to the cart because, he said, it couldn’t bear the weight. And he made Theresa push with all her might whenever they had to climb a slope.

Most of the time Althar drove alongside and in pace with Theresa. She confessed that the traps she had spoken of actually belonged to Hoos Larsson, but this fact did not seem to bother him. They kept moving, stopping only when they had to readjust the repaired wheel. When they reached the gully, the traps were still next to the horse’s carcass, nearly licked clean by the pack of obstinate wolves.

As Althar retrieved the equipment, she attended to Hoos. The old man had said that Hoos had several broken ribs and that they
might have pierced his lungs, which is why he laid him face up on some bundles of fur.

He was still breathing weakly. After moistening his face, she wondered what had made Hoos deviate from his planned route. She thought he might have followed her to reclaim the dagger, which she suddenly became aware of again under her skirt where she had concealed it. She continued to clean Hoos until Althar returned, laden with equipment.

“There was more than you promised,” he announced with a smile. “Now let’s see how we’re going to carry it.”

“You’re not intending to leave him.”

“Don’t you worry, lass. If it’s true that these valuable things are this man’s possessions, I’ll do everything in my power to save him.”

After some food, they continued their journey headed toward the mountains and Althar spoke of the past. Years ago he said he had lived in Fulda, working like the rest of its inhabitants in the service of the abbey. He and his wife, Leonora, managed to rent a plot, where they built a nice cabin. In the morning they would work the land, and in the afternoon they would move onto the abbey’s fields to pay their
corvées
. That tenure gave them enough to buy a small piece of land, not much, around forty unplowed arpents, but enough to grow their own crops. He explained that they didn’t have children. The Lord’s punishment, he reasoned, for the little faith he professed. Like most simple folks he learned several trades without mastering any. He was skilled with the axe and the adze. He built his own furniture, and in autumn, with his wife’s help, he repaired the roof.

The years went by and he thought he would spend the rest of his days in Fulda, but then one autumn night a man raided his smallholding and tried to steal his only ox. He took an axe and without saying a word sunk it into his head. The thief turned out
to be the abbot’s son, a wild young man who was a slave to wine. After the burial, they came to his house, seized him and took him to trial. His statement was worthless, for twelve men swore that the young man had jumped over the fence looking only for a little water. Althar couldn’t prove that they were lying. They took everything he had and condemned him to exile.

“The sentence made Leonora sick with melancholy,” he continued. “Fortunately, her sisters offered to look after her while I waited for her to join me in the mountains. A couple of neighbors who knew me well also helped me. Rudolph gave me an old adze, and Vicus lent me some traps, provided I return them along with any furs I could collect. I found refuge in the south, in the Rhön foothills,” he said, pointing at a nearby mountain, “in an abandoned bear cave. I closed up the entrance, made it as homely as possible and spent the winter trapping.

When I went back for Leonora, I learned that some of the bastards who had wrongly accused me had confessed to their false testimony, but by then they had already sowed my land with salt. Even then, the abbot refused to sell me seeds or rent new land to me, and he we went so far as to threaten anyone who helped me with the same treatment. That was when Leonora and I decided to move to the bear cave and live alone there forever.”

“And you haven’t been back to Fulda since then?” Theresa probed.

“Of course I have. Where else would I sell my furs? The abbot died not long afterward,” he said with a smile. “He exploded like a cockroach. The one who succeeded him forgot about the threats, but nothing would be the same again. I travel to Fulda frequently to trade honey for salt—or when I need it, tallow, which is nowhere to be found round here. Leonora used to come with me, but her feet are in a bad state now and she seems to struggle with everything.”

At sundown they left the green of the forest behind them and the land grew rugged. Trees became scarce and the wind grew fierce.

It was nightfall by the time they approached the bear cave, an area so stony that Theresa was surprised the two wheels of the cart remained intact. Althar told her to hold Hoos tightly, but despite her efforts, all the jolting made the young man moan for the first time.

At the foot of a great wall of granite, Althar stopped the cart and gave a couple of whoops as he clambered down. “You can come out, my dear,” he said, whistling a silly tune. “We have company.”

A plump face appeared among some bushes. It let out a funny little cry and intoned the same melody. A large, squat body moving with surprising swagger followed the woman’s contagious smile.

“What has my prince brought for me?” asked Althar’s wife, running into her husband’s arms. “Jewelry or some perfume from the Orient?”

“Here are your jewels,” he joked, pressing his crotch against the woman’s stomach and making her laugh wildly.

“And these two?” she asked motioning behind him.

“Well,” Althar murmured, raising an eyebrow. “I mistook him for a deer, and she fell in love with my flowing locks.”

“I see.” She laughed. “In that case, come in and we’ll talk inside. It’s getting cold as hell out here.”

They left the goods outside, then took Hoos into the bear cave and lay him on a bed of furs. Theresa noticed that they had made a hole in the ceiling to serve as a chimney and around it they had set up a cooking area. A roaring fire kept the cave warm. Leonora offered them some apple cake, which they accepted with pleasure. There was hardly any furniture, but even so, Theresa felt like she was in a palace.

As they ate their dinner, Althar explained that they had another cave that they used for storage, and a cabin where they went when the weather improved. When they had finished, Theresa helped Leonora clear the table. Then she turned to Hoos to wrap him in more furs.

“You’ll sleep here,” Leonora indicated. She kicked aside a goat and cuffed away some hens. “And don’t worry about the young man. If God wanted to, He would have taken him already.”

Theresa nodded. When she lay down to sleep, she wondered again if Hoos had really followed her to retrieve his dagger.

That night Theresa barely slept, pondering the significance of the parchment that had been tucked away in her father’s bag. Before going to bed, she had taken it out and read through it quickly. It appeared to be a legal document detailing the legacy left by Constantine, the Roman emperor who founded Constantinople. She assumed it was very important or her father wouldn’t have bothered to hide it. Then her mind bubbled over with thoughts of the fire in Würzburg; the flames devouring Korne’s workshop; the parchment-maker’s loathsome smile; and the inferno swallowing up that poor girl. As she drifted to sleep she dreamed of the two terrifying Saxons, half men, half monsters, holding her down and violating her. Then it was the wolves, which, after devouring Hoos’s mount, were trying to tear her to pieces. In her delirium she thought she saw Hoos himself in front of her, slowly raising the emerald-studded dagger to her throat. Several times she didn’t know if she was sleeping or daydreaming. When she managed to open her eyes, she would evoke the protective image of her father. Though that calmed her for a while, yet another demon would come through the darkness at the mouth of the cave to torment her once more.

In that bear cave, where all was silent except for the hooting of an owl and the crackling of flames, she found it difficult to think. Awaiting the new day, she concluded that so much ill fate could only be part of some greater design: God was sending her a message. She reflected on what her sin might have been, and decided that perhaps everything bad that had befallen her was a consequence of her lies.

She recalled lying to Korne when she made him think the count wanted to personally check her entrance examination. She had deceived Hoos, telling him that she worked as a master parchment-maker rather than admitting she was a simple apprentice. And she had proceeded in the same manner with Althar, claiming that she had fled an arranged marriage, when she was merely escaping from the consequences of her deeds.

She wondered whether the master parchment-maker was right about women being the broth in which the filth of lies is boiled; whether in truth she had been a corrupt soul since birth, at the mercy of the compassion of the Almighty. Many times she had refuted those who proclaimed that the daughters of Eve embodied all the vices: weak, impulsive, changing at the whim of their flows, tempted by lust… and yet, at that moment, she began to doubt her convictions. She asked herself whether her lies were the Devil’s doing. After all, it was he that used his trickery to seduce the first woman created by God. In which case, wasn’t it the same demonic force that took Korne’s hatred and transformed it into fire?

Who was she trying to fool? As much as it pained her, she could not deny what she had become. And what would she do when Hoos awoke? Tell him that she had picked up the wrong dagger by mistake? That in the darkness, she had mistaken it for the crude scramasax that he had offered her? Every lie was followed by another, each one a little bit bigger than the last.

She cried inconsolably, but when she felt she had no more tears left, she promised herself that she would never lie again. She promised it for her father. Even if he could not see her, this time she would not fail him.

8

With the first light filtering through the roof of the cave, Theresa decided it was time to rise. She was surprised to find Althar and Leonora still asleep, but she would soon understand that things went at a different pace up there in the hills. She wrapped herself in the cloak she had slept under and silently approached the bed where Hoos was resting. His breathing sounded deep, which put her mind at ease. It was cold, so she turned to the fireplace and stoked the embers. The noise woke Althar, who came round with a clamorous fart. With his eyes half-closed, he huddled affectionately against Leonora.

“Mmm… you’re up already?” he grumbled to Theresa as he finished scratching his crotch. “If you need water, just up the path you’ll find a stream.”

Theresa thanked him. Dodging the nag that like the rest of the animals had spent the night in the cave, she pushed open the door that sealed the entrance and went outside. Satan barked but then followed behind her, tail wagging. She noticed that the temperature had fallen since yesterday, just as Leonora had predicted. Holding her cloak tightly around her, she examined the surroundings.

In front of the entrance to the bear cave there was the empty cart, which she assumed Althar must have unloaded. Wandering a little farther up the path she discovered a hawthorn animal pen,
with signs that it had recently been emptied. All around there were woodchips, interspersed with chopped firewood, used wedges, logs of various sizes, mounds of shavings and several mallets, piled into a strange heap. There was no sign of a vegetable patch or anything resembling one.

As she was about to wash she realized she was bleeding down below. Satan came over to sniff her and, annoyed, she shouted at him to go away. Her flow was abundant, so she washed herself thoroughly in the stream before positioning the folded cloth that she always carried with her for this purpose. She crossed herself and ran back to the bear cave.

By then, Althar had already taken the animals outside and Leonora was attending to Hoos.

“How is he?” Theresa inquired.

“He’s breathing better, and seems at ease. I’m heating water to wash him. Come on, give me a hand.”

Theresa obeyed. She took the pot from the embers and brought over the soap made from boiled animal fat, blushing when she realized that Leonora was starting to undress him.