The Scribe(77)

“She’s there,” she pointed.

Despite the dark, Theresa could see Helga lying on the floor. Her eyes were closed, and her face was bloody.

“She’s sleeping now,” the old woman explained. “I went to ask for a little salt, and I found her like this. It was the same bastard as always. He’ll end up killing her.”

Theresa approached her friend, filled with dismay. There was a dreadful gash across her face, from temple to chin. She stroked her hair and told herself that it must end. She asked the old woman to look after her until the next morning and offered her a denarius for her effort, which she accepted. When she was sure there was nothing more she could do for her, she returned to the tavern, forced open the flimsiest window, and fetched her belongings.


At None she arrived at the chapter door, loaded down like a mule. On her shoulders she carried her clothes, some food, the wax tablets, and the pallet that Althar had given her before returning to the mountains. When she told Alcuin she had nowhere to go, he tried to console her.

“But you cannot stay here,” he explained.

They decided that she would sleep in the chapter stables until he found somewhere to house her. Theresa then asked him to take care of Helga the Black.

“She’s a prostitute. I can’t help her.”

She tried to persuade him that she was a good woman, that she was hurt, pregnant and in need of urgent assistance, but Alcuin remained firm.

Theresa could not contain herself. “Well, if you won’t help, I will,” she said, gathering up her possessions again.

Alcuin clenched his jaw. He could not employ another assistant without risking his discoveries being spread all over the chapter.

Cursing, he took Theresa by the arm. “I will speak to the woman in charge of the domestic service, but I cannot promise you anything. Now come, put your hood up.”

After leaving her belongings in the stables, Theresa went with Alcuin to the episcopal scriptorium, a smaller room than the one in the monastery, furnished with upholstered desks. There Alcuin unchained four volumes secured by their spines to the bookshelf. He placed them on the central table and examined their respective indices. Handing one to Theresa, he told her to look for any entry that mentioned grain transactions.

“In truth,” Alcuin admitted, “I do not know exactly what we’re searching for—but I hope to find a piece of information that reveals whether at any time the abbey, the chapter, or Kohl acquired a poisoned batch.”

“That would appear here?”

“The purchase would, at least. As far as I have been able to establish, Fulda’s harvests have never caused an epidemic, so the sickness must have originated in a batch imported from another estate.”

Theresa observed that the polyptych did not only record transactions of foodstuffs, but also acted as a record of income, land conveyances, taxes, and the allocation of roles within the chapter.

“This handwriting is incomprehensible,” she complained.

They dined on onion soup while leafing through the volumes making sure to not miss even a page. Theresa found several entries mentioning the purchase of barley and spelt, and even some of wheat, but nothing suspicious or out of the ordinary.

“I don’t understand,” said Alcuin. “We should be able to find something.”

“There are still Kohl’s polyptychs.”

“That’s what bothers me. His transactions are not recorded.”

“So?”

“There must be something here. There must be,” he repeated, opening the codices again.

They went through them for a second time with the same outcome. Finally, Alcuin gave up.

“Can I stay a little longer?” Theresa asked, for all that awaited her in the stables was the stench of dung.

Alcuin looked at her in surprise. “Are you sure you want to continue?”

She nodded.

“In that case I shall sleep here,” he said, signaling to a bench.

The monk lay on the rigid piece of furniture, which creaked under his weight. He half closed his watery eyes and began reciting prayers, which gradually turned into snores.

Theresa smiled watching him sleep, but she quickly turned her attention to the first volume, which she started to read with every ounce of her focus. She noted the appointments and departures of the warehouse workers, the repairs to the mills, and the profits that the sale of wheat brought in each season. However, after an hour, the letters on the page started to look like a disorderly trail of insects.

She set aside the volume and turned her mind to Hoos. No doubt he was sleeping—or perhaps like her he was awake, remembering the previous night and wanting to be back by her side as they traveled to Aquis-Granum. Was he cold? If only she could be there to embrace him. Then she remembered her father and her heart sank. With each day that went by, she missed him more.

A creaking brought her out of her daydreams. She turned to see Alcuin trying to make his willowy body more comfortable on the hard bench, all the while still snoring.

She returned to her task, interspersing her reading with a few vain attempts to mop up what was left of the soup in her dish. She progressed ever more slowly, repeating her annotations to herself, until suddenly, something strange caught her attention. But it wasn’t the text.

She moved a candle closer to one of the sheets, running the tip of her finger across its surface that was a different color than the rest. She stroked it again, confirming that its texture was also different than the other pages. She brought another candle near the sheet to examine it more closely. This particular sheet appeared lighter, cleaner, and smoother.