The Scribe(111)
Gorgias repaid her with a couple of worms he found nearby, putting some spare ones in a wooden bowl, which he then covered with a stone. After drinking some fresh rainwater, he carefully unwound the bandage to examine his stump. Zeno had sawed off the bone just above the elbow and sewed up a flap of skin, which he had somehow also cauterized. The blisters from the burns were still visible. But Gorgias accepted his stump of an arm as a lesser evil, knowing that it had been the only way to prevent the rot from returning. He carefully re-bandaged himself and sat down to consider his situation.
In his head he tried to make sense of all the events that had transpired since the morning when a stranger with pale blue eyes had attacked him in order to steal the parchment in his bag. Then there was the fire and loss of his daughter. Remembering made him cry again. After the burial, Wilfred had ordered him to hand over the Donation of Constantine, but the document had gone up in flames in the parchment-maker’s workshop. Then Genseric had intervened, in collusion with Wilfred himself, it would appear, to lock him away in the crypt in order to ensure he carried out his task. After a month in captivity, and without news of any imminent papal delegation, he had attempted to flee, which he managed thanks to Genseric’s strange death. Then there was the man with the serpent tattoo, and the amputation of his ruined arm.
He pondered the role that Genseric had played. At first he had assumed he was acting by himself, had even assumed it was Genseric who had attacked him, but the unusual circumstances of his death and the fact that Wilfred was keeping watch over Rutgarda made him doubt those assumptions. And who was the serpent man? Certainly, it must be someone aware of what was happening. What’s more, from the way he had threatened Genseric, he undoubtedly appeared to outrank him.
Resting against the barrels, Gorgias noticed that the hen was examining the bandages on his shoulder with her pea-brained curiosity, and he smiled bitterly. He had lost his right arm, his writing arm, because of a despicable document. He took the parchment out of his bag and studied it closely. For a moment he was tempted to tear it to pieces and offer it to Blanca as feed. But he resisted. After all, if it was so valuable, perhaps they would pay him to recover it.
It has stopped raining, so he got up to wander about the area and create a list of priorities. First he had to find a way to survive, a problem that was still unresolved despite the best efforts of the hen. On the way back to the mine, he had passed through a walnut grove. Nuts and berries could supplement the eggs, but even so he would need more food. He considered trying to catch some animal using Blanca as bait, but he soon decided that the idea would surely lose him his hen.
Hunting would be difficult. With just one arm, and without the necessary traps, even a duck could get away from him. But perhaps fishing would be possible. In the mine he had twine and thread, pieces of metal to bend into hooks, and enough worms to offer up a banquet. The river was close and while he waited for the fish to bite, he could make more hooks. He felt pleased to have resolved the problem of finding food. Then he remembered his wife Rutgarda, and he yearned to see her again.
He didn’t know how long they would keep her under watch and he tried to think of someone who could help him, someone to tell her what he was doing and how he was faring. He would be satisfied if he could just let her know that he hadn’t forgotten her. But he feared being discovered, so he decided to wait for a better opportunity. Rutgarda was doing well, and that was all that mattered.
After a while he took out the document and examined it carefully. Its transcription was perfectly finished, and he read it repeatedly, focusing on the parts that had surprised him while he made the copy. There was something dark in that parchment, something that perhaps Wilfred had not even noticed.
He put it in his bag and looked for somewhere to hide it. If he was captured, he might be able to negotiate with it. He inspected his surroundings until he found a beam that he considered suitable. Then he climbed up on to some barrels and hid the document behind it. Then he rolled away the barrels so nobody would have reason to even suspect. He looked up at the beams and was satisfied. Then he unleashed Blanca so she could go eat worms while he prepared the fishing hooks.
A week passed which Gorgias spent in terrible pain. His temperature rose, keeping him bedridden for a while, but just as quickly, the fever was gone. He amused himself with Blanca, giving her slack so she could search for worms by day, and bringing her in at night so that she would lay her eggs nearby. He found some old blankets, which he used to make himself comfortable. Sometimes he would climb to the top of the hill to look over the city, or admire the mountains in the distance, their snowy peaks beginning to thaw. He told himself that when the passes were clear, he could flee to another city with Rutgarda.
As the days went by, his arm improved. Gradually he began to move his shoulder without excruciating pain. The stitches fell out and the scar took on a pinkish tone like the rest of the shoulder. One morning the stump stopped hurting, and it never bothered him again.
At the beginning of the third week he decided to explore the tunnels that went down into the mine. In the nearest one, he found steel and enough tinder to light the torches that were mounted throughout the tunnels. Further down he found some strips of iron that he could use as cooking utensils. During his excursions he categorized the tunnels into caves, passages, and pits. The first two tunnels, which he thought had entrances prepared for moving animals and materials, he judged to be useful shelters. The rest of the tunnels were so slippery that he decided he would only use them if he were in danger.