The Scribe(4)
“Light, here,” he blurted.
Theresa moved the flame where he indicated. Then the parchment-maker tore a skin from a nearby frame and spread it out on the ground. Using a knife and a piece of wood, he cut the skin into strips and tied the ends together to make a long cord.
“Get his clothes off,” he ordered Theresa. “And you, woman, bring that bloody water.”
“Good God! What has happened?” asked his frightened wife. “Are you all right?”
“Stop your chitchat and bring the damned pot,” Korne cursed, slamming his fist on the table.
Theresa started to undress her father, but Korne’s wife unceremoniously shoved her aside to take over. Once Gorgias was unclothed, Bertharda washed him carefully using a scrap of leather and warm water. Korne examined the wounds at length, noticing several cuts on the back and one or two more on the shoulders. The one that worried him most was on the right arm.
“Hold this here,” Korne said, lifting Gorgias’s arm.
Theresa obeyed, ignoring the trickle of blood soaking her own dress.
“Boy,” the parchment-maker said to his son, “run to the fort and alert the physician. Tell him it’s urgent.”
The young lad ran off, and Korne turned to Theresa.
“Now, when I tell you, I want you to bend his arm at the elbow and press it against his chest. Got it?”
With tears streaming down her cheeks, Theresa nodded without looking away from her father.
The parchment-maker fastened the leather cord above the wound and wrapped it round several times before tightening it. Gorgias seemed to regain consciousness, but it was merely a spasm. Soon, however, he did stop bleeding. Korne gestured to Theresa, and she folded her father’s arm as she had been told.
“Well, the worst is over,” Korne said. “The other cuts seem less serious, but we will have to wait for the physician to give us his opinion. He also has bruising, but the bones all seem to be in place. Let’s cover him to keep him warm.”
At that moment, Gorgias coughed violently and started to heave as he winced with pain. Through his half-opened eyes, he saw Theresa sobbing.
“Thank the heavens,” he said, his voice choked with emotion. “Are you all right, my child?”
“Yes, Father,” she sobbed. “I thought I could get help from the soldiers and I ran off to find them, but I couldn’t reach them, and then when I turned back…”
Theresa was unable to finish the sentence, choked up by her own weeping. Gorgias took her hand in his and pulled it toward him approvingly. He tried to say something but instead coughed again and fell unconscious.
“He should rest now,” said the woman, delicately leading Theresa away. “And stop crying—those tears won’t solve anything.”
Theresa nodded. For a moment she thought about returning to her house to let her stepmother know, but she quickly ruled out the idea. She would tidy the workshop while they waited for the physician. When she knew the extent of the injuries, then she would tell Rutgarda.
With a bowl of oil, Korne set about filling the lamps. “If you only knew the number of times I’ve almost dipped some old bread in this oil,” the parchment-maker grumbled.
When he finished lighting the lamps, the room looked like a torch-lit cavern. Theresa started clearing up the morass of needles, knives, lunella mallets, parchments, and jars of glue strewn between the tables and frames. As usual, she divided the tools according to their purpose, and after carefully cleaning them, she placed them on their corresponding shelves. Then she went to her workbench to check her pounce box, polish levels, and to ensure all surfaces were clean. Having finished her tasks, she returned to her father’s side.
She did not know how long it was before the surgeon Zeno arrived. He was a grubby and disheveled man whose potent body odor was matched only by the fumes of cheap wine emanating from his breath. On his back, he carried a sack. And he appeared to be in a half stupor as he walked into the room without a greeting. With a quick look around, he went over to where Gorgias lay unconscious. Opening his bag, he pulled out a small metal saw, several knives, and a tiny box from which he took some needles and a roll of string. The surgeon placed the instruments on Gorgias’s stomach and asked for more light. He spat on his hands several times, paying particular attention to the blood dried to his fingernails, and then he grasped the saw firmly.
Theresa went pale as the little man positioned his instrument over Gorgias’s elbow, but mercifully he only used it to cut the tourniquet Korne had made. The blood started flowing again, but Zeno didn’t seem alarmed.
“Good job, though it was too tight,” said the surgeon. “Do you have any more strips of leather?”
Korne brought him a long one, which the physician grabbed without looking away from Gorgias. He knotted it expertly and began working on the wounded arm with the indifference of someone stuffing a pheasant.
“It’s the same every day,” he said without lifting his eyes from the wound. “Yesterday someone found old Marta on the low road with her guts cut open. And two days ago they found Siderico, the cooper, at the gate to his animal pen with his head bashed in. And for what? To steal God knows what from him? The poor wretch couldn’t even feed his children.”
Zeno seemed to know his trade well. He stitched flesh and sutured veins with the dexterity of a seamstress, spitting on the knife to keep it clean. He finished with the arm and moved on to the rest of the wounds, to which he applied a dark ointment that he took from a wooden bowl. Finally, he bandaged the limb in some linen rags that he declared to be newly washed, despite the visible stains.