Garrido, Antonio - The Scribe

Those who slept within reach of the embers’ warmth bore the cold with resignation, but Theresa was far from any heat and could not fall asleep. Her weeping had inflamed her eyelids until they were swollen like wineskins, and her feverish eyes could hardly make out the pigsty that she had found shelter in. Her skin was still ash gray from the smoke, and the charred smell of her clothes constantly reminded her of the hellish nightmare she had experienced. Again, she broke into tears and asked God to forgive her sins.

The images of all that had happened flashed through her mind again: the mocking laughter of the workshop boys, the rotten skin floating in the pool, the test that she had fought so hard to take, the argument with Korne, and finally, the terrifying fire. Just thinking about it gave her goose bumps, but she thanked the heavens that she had been able to escape the flames with her life.

Lord, if only you could have prevented Clotilda’s death!

Once or twice she had stumbled upon Clotilda as she skulked around the workshop’s storerooms or rummaged through the waste. Theresa thought her parents must have died at the onset of winter since she wandered alone about the cathedral, with nobody taking pity on her. She calculated that Clotilda must have been the same age as herself or even a bit younger. The girl eventually disappeared, and was never heard from again until the day of the fire.

She remembered the moment that she decided to return to the workshop, right after making sure Korne’s wife had reached the top of the courtyard wall safely. As she went in, the fire was crackling on the roof, turning the place into a great forest of flames. She was looking for her latest books when she had seen her. Clotilda, curled up in a corner, was waving her arms around in an attempt to fend off the embers that rained down on her from the ceiling. At her feet apples were strewn across the ground. No doubt the girl had taken advantage of the mayhem to enter the workshop and find some food.

Theresa tried to get her out, but the girl resisted, her face etched with pain. That was when Theresa saw that her reddened skin looked as if it were already burning. At that moment, Theresa saw her blue dress under one of the tables, the one she wore when she had submerged herself in the pool. She picked it up and—discovering that it was still soaking wet—she offered it to the girl, who threw off her rags and pulled on the dress. The water soothed her, but at that moment the roof creaked and the beams began to cave in. Theresa remembered trying to drag her out, but the girl was too terrified and ran in the opposite direction. Then everything collapsed, and Clotilda was buried under the wreckage.

Theresa managed to escape, fleeing down the hill—running, stumbling, feeling the Devil’s breath on her neck. She took the path that ran around the walls, running deep into the undergrowth, until she reached a chestnut grove where pigs would often be put to forage. There she took shelter in the swineherds’ hut. She closed the door hard as if wanting to shut out all the sorrow and pain left behind, and then fell to the ground, resting her back against the wall of mud and bramble.

The burned books, the workshop ruined and consumed, that poor girl dead. She would never be able to look Gorgias in the eye again. She had dishonored him in the worst way a daughter could dishonor her father, and though it pained her to admit it, letting him down was what caused her the most grief. She cried inconsolably until the tears made her cheeks raw. She sobbed, deeply releasing mournful cries from her throat over and over, asking God for forgiveness, praying that none of it had actually happened. It was all her fault. All because of her stupid desire to be someone she was not. They were right, those who said that a woman’s place was in the home—with her husband, bearing children, and looking after the family. And now God was punishing her for her greed.

Theresa woke up shivering, her body numb and her temples thumping against her head. As she stood, her legs wobbled as if she had been walking all night. The cold tightened her chest and her throat felt lined with thorns. When she had managed to clear her head, she opened the door and saw that dawn had already arrived. The hut seemed deserted, but still she scanned it carefully.

A flock of starlings took flight, their fluttering making a great clamor. In the light of a new day, Theresa admired the green of the fir trees, the purity of the sky. The chestnut wood clumped as if a neatly arranged garden and for a moment she lost herself in the scent of damp earth and the soft whispering of the wind.

Her stomach grumbled, reminding her that she had not had a bite to eat since the previous day. She untied the leather bag that her father had left behind in the parchment-maker’s workshop before he was carried away, and she spread its contents on the ground. Wrapped in a linen cloth, she discovered a wax tablet and a bronze stylus. Also wrapped in cloth was a ripe apple. She bit into it with relish. As she munched on the fruit, she looked through the rest of her belongings: a little steel for lighting fires, a crucifix cut from bone, a vial of essence for perfuming parchments, and a reel of hemp thread, which Gorgias used to sew quinternions. Then she put everything back in its place.

She thought hard for a while about what to do next before coming to a decision: She would flee far from Würzburg, to a place where no one could find her. Perhaps to the south, to Aquitania—or the west, to Neustria, where she had heard there were abbeys run by women. If the opportunity arose, she would even travel to Byzantium. Her father always said that one day she would meet her grandparents, the Theolopouloses. She could barely remember them, but if she reached Constantinople, no doubt she would find them. She could work there until she was a woman of standing. She would study grammar and verse, as Gorgias would have wanted, and perhaps one day she would have the courage to return to Würzburg to find her father and beg his forgiveness for her sins.

Frightened, she picked up her father’s bag and turned to look upon the city’s walls for the last time. Now, in her nineteenth year, she would have to build a new life for herself.

She prayed to God for the strength she would need and set off purposefully on the path that wound through the vegetation.

By the midmorning she dropped her bag on the ground, exhausted. She had traveled five miles along the path between Würzburg and the roads to the north, but as she climbed the first foothills, the path had disappeared under the snow. Wherever she looked, everything from the smallest stone to the most distant hill was covered in a white blanket, obscuring any landmark she might use to guide her. Every tree was identical to the last and every outcrop a reflection of the next.

She needed to rest. Sitting on a fallen trunk, she looked to the sky with concern, for the weather was changing quickly and the threat of a storm loomed. She had thought she would find nuts and berries on the way, but ice had ravaged the shrubs, so she had to make do with the apple core that thankfully she’d had the foresight to keep. As she opened her bag and took it out, a bolt of lightning suddenly lit up the horizon. The wind began to shake the treetops and gradually the sky turned a somber gray. Before long it started to rain. Theresa sought shelter among some crags, but soon she was soaked through.

As she huddled under a projection, she grasped the naivety of her decisions. No matter how much she wanted it, she would never reach Aquitania or Neustria, let alone far-flung Byzantium. She had neither food nor money, nor relatives to turn to. She had no knowledge of the hoe or plow. She had never harvested crops nor even made a rudimentary stewpot. She only knew about useless parchments that would never help her make a living for herself. What a fool she had been not to listen to her stepmother! She should have devoted herself to cooking or some other women’s trade: spinner, seamstress, washerwoman… any of them would have enabled her to earn a crust in Aquis-Granum, and even save enough to pay her passage to Neustria with a caravan.