The Scribe(23)

Theresa closed her eyes and screamed. Yet, right when she expected to feel the Saxon’s killer blow, he instead let out a strange groan. His eyes turned white and he began to stagger, falling to his knees right in front of Theresa, before collapsing face-first onto the floor. In the bandit’s back, she saw a large dagger. And behind him, young Hoos Larsson offered her his hand.

Hoos took her safely outside, then went back into the house from where Theresa heard more gut-wrenching screams. Before long he returned, his hands bloody. He went to Theresa and wrapped her in his woolen cloak.

“It’s all over now,” he said awkwardly.

She looked at him with tears in her eyes. Then she realized that she was half-naked and flushed. She covered herself up as best she could, and Hoos helped her.

Hoos Larsson looked more attractive than she remembered. A bit too stout, perhaps, but with an honest face and restrained manner. She had not heard anything about him for some time, though it had not bothered her. She was grateful to him for saving her, even if he would surely now take her to Würzburg to hand her over to the authorities. But she no longer cared. All she wanted was for her father to forgive her.

“We should go in. We’ll freeze out here,” he said.

Theresa looked over to the house and shook her head.

“You have nothing to fear. They’re dead.”

She shook her head again. She would rather die of cold than go back in there.

“By God!” said Hoos gruffly. “Then let’s go to the shed. There’s no fire there, but at least we can get out of the rain.”

Without giving her time to respond, he took the young woman in his arms and carried her to the shed. There he arranged some straw on the ground with his feet and gently laid Theresa down on it.

“I must take care of those bodies,” he told her.

“Please, don’t go.”

“I can’t leave them. The blood will attract the wolves.”

“What will you do with them?”

“Bury them, I suppose.”

“Bury those murderers? You should cast them in the river,” she suggested with a frown.

Hoos burst into laughter. But on seeing the look of reproach on Theresa’s face, he tried to contain himself. “Sorry for laughing, but I don’t think that’s a good idea. The river’s so frozen I’d need a pick first in order to make a hole to throw them through.”

Theresa went quiet with embarrassment. The fact is she knew a fair bit about parchments, but almost naught about anything else.

“And even if the water was flowing,” he added, “throwing them into the river wouldn’t solve the problem. No doubt those men were part of a scouting party, and sooner or later the river might carry the bodies to their companions.”

“There are more Saxons?” she asked in fright.

“Just a small band—but fierce as wild animals. To be honest, I don’t know how they got through, but the passes are infested with them. In fact, I lost three days skirting the mountains to avoid them.”

Skirting the mountains… that could only mean Hoos had come from Fulda, so he wouldn’t know what had happened in Würzburg. She gave a sigh of relief. “Anyway, your arrival was heavensent,” she said, watching Hoos clean the blood from his hands by rubbing them on the snow.

“Well, the truth is I’ve been here for a couple of days,” he replied. “Yesterday, I had decided to spend the night in the kiln, but as I approached the site, I noticed light in the house and saw that it was those Saxons. I didn’t want any trouble, so I thought I would sleep in the shed instead and just wait for them to leave. When I awoke this morning they had gone. However, I searched the forest to make sure. After a while, I decided to head back home and that was when I saw that they’d caught you.”

“They must have gone out to hunt. They came in with squirrels.”

“Probably. But tell me… what were you doing in the house?”

Theresa blushed. She hadn’t expected that question.

“I was near the kiln when the storm took me by surprise.” She cleared her throat. “I remembered the house and I went to take shelter there. Then those men came out of nowhere.”

Hoos furrowed his brow. He still could not understand what a young woman was doing alone in these parts.

“What will we do now?” she asked, trying to change the subject.

“I need to start digging. As for you,” he suggested, “you should take care of that bruise on your face.”

Theresa watched Hoos go back into the house. She had not seen him for some time, and though his face had hardened, he still had his curly hair and kind countenance. Hoos was the Larsson widow’s only son to give up the trade of quarryman. She knew this because the woman was constantly boasting about his appointment as fortior of King Charlemagne, a position she knew nothing about, except for its strange name. She estimated that Hoos was around thirty years old. At that age a man would normally have fathered a couple of offspring. But she had never heard the Larsson widow mention any grandchildren.

Hoos eventually returned to the shed with the spade he had used to dig up the earth. With a weary gesture he threw it to the ground beside Theresa. “Those men won’t be causing us any more problems,” he said.

“You’re soaked.”

“Yes, the rain’s pouring down out there.”