The Scribe(157)

Within moments there was some banging on the door. Hearing it, Theresa gave a start and backed into the wall, right into an icy stone that stabbed her between her shoulders and made her yelp. She put her hand over her mouth, hoping she hadn’t given herself away. She clambered onto the window ledge as a pool of blood seeped under the door.

Someone lifted the door latch and Theresa turned to look outside. She saw a moat beneath her. If she fell, she would die. Suddenly, a crashing sound made the latch jump. Theresa crossed herself and grabbed on to some projections on the outer wall, praying to God for help, as her body hung over a void.

She could hear that on the other side of the window, someone was smashing up the room. Soon her arms began to tremble and she knew she wouldn’t last long. She looked around and saw the nail under the windowsill for airing food. If she grabbed it, she would tear her hand, but perhaps she would be able to hook her clothes to it.

Attempting it, her hand slipped. Then, just as her other hand lost its hold, the front of her robe caught on the nail. For a moment she felt herself falling into the void, but suddenly a hand grabbed her, hoisting her toward the window. She thought she was about to be run through with a blade, but her fear vanished when Izam’s kind face appeared. After pulling her into the room, he held her tight and urged her to be calm.

Still confused, the young woman gathered up the objects that were scattered all over the place, while Izam tended to the sentry who was lying flat under the doorjamb. Theresa hoped he was just wounded, but the pool of blood told her he had been killed. She let herself drop to the ground, sobbing and feeling defeated. Izam asked her who it had been, but she hadn’t seen them. After searching all over the place, Theresa discovered that they had stolen her father’s Vulgate.


Izam and Theresa explained to a pair of servants what happened and they took care of the body. Then, they gathered their belongings in order to go somewhere safe. Though Theresa lamented the loss of the Bible, she was grateful that the thief had disregarded the tablets on which she had reproduced the phrases from the Vulgate.

While they walked in the direction of one of the courtyards, Theresa attributed the attack to Alcuin, for he was the only person who knew of the hidden message in her father’s Bible.

“It must have been him,” she repeated to Izam.

They decided to ask the monk for an explanation, but when they arrived at the scriptorium, the door was locked.

Theresa shared with Izam the hidden message she had transcribed and they wasted some time in one of the atriums, pondering its significance. Theresa admitted that she had not been able to decipher a single word.

“But my father will help us,” she asserted.

Izam nodded. Then he looked up to the sky. Soon it would be time to meet the physician and try to help Gorgias.

A few minutes after the agreed time, Zeno appeared with his bag. He smelled of wine, though no more than he had when Izam first spoke to him that morning. He paid the agreed sum, and then Izam, Theresa, and the physician headed to the dungeons.

Theresa was surprised to hear that they used some old meat safes to lock away prisoners. The safes consisted of holes resembling silos cut into the rock, which when filled with snow preserved food until summer. Since they were not needed in winter, on occasion they were used as storerooms and, if necessary, as improvised cells.

“Elsewhere they only use them for thieves, but we put other criminals in there, too,” Zeno boasted as if he were responsible for the idea. “We throw them into these ditches and they don’t come out till they’re dead. Sometimes, depending on the crime, we’ll throw them bread from up top just to see them kill each other for a few crumbs. But in the end, they all rot like vermin.”

Izam asked him to spare them the details, but Zeno prattled on as if Theresa wasn’t there. Only when Izam grabbed him by the shirtfront did he finally hold his tongue.

The meat safes were located in a basement under the kitchens that could be reached either from the wine cellar or from an entrance near the stables. They entered through the kitchens, for the passage near the stables was very narrow and primarily used to shovel snow through.

When they reached the meat safe, they met Gratz, the sentry posted there by Izam. The man urged them to be quick, for he did not know when the other guard, who he had distracted with a prostitute, would return.

Zeno and Izam went down into the meat safe using a wooden ladder that Gratz had found. Theresa waited at the top because Zeno said she would only get in the way. From the edge, Theresa could see her father. She watched as the physician, shaking his head, inspected the scar on Gorgias’s shoulder.

Her father was barely able to stammer a few words, though she heard a loud groan when Izam sat him up so that the physician could better examine him. Zeno took out a tonic, which he had Gorgias drink, but he coughed it up, making the physician curse. Then he clambered up the ladder.

“Go down if you want,” he told Theresa.

“How is he?” she asked.

Zeno spat on the ground. Without answering, he took a swig of the tonic himself and then moved away from the meat safe. Theresa wanted the physician to vomit, too. At that moment Izam pressed her to climb down.

Once she was by her father’s side, he looked at her oddly.

“Is it you?” he whispered.

Theresa embraced him, trying not to let him see the tears running down her face.

“Is it you, little one?”