Garrido, Antonio - The Scribe

“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.

“Well,” he said, wiping his hands on his chest, “all done. Take care of him, and in a couple of days—”

“Will he recover?” Theresa butted in.

“He might. Though, of course, he might not.”

The man roared with laughter, then rummaged in his sack until he found a vial containing a dark liquid. Theresa thought it might be some kind of tonic, but the physician uncorked it and took a long draft.

“By Saint Pancras! This liquor could revive a corpse. Would you like some?” the little man offered, waving the flask under Theresa’s nose.

She shook her head. The surgeon repeated the gesture with Korne, who responded by taking a couple of good swigs.

“Knife wounds are like children: They’re all made in the same way, but no two are ever the same,” he sniggered. “It’s not up to me whether he lives or dies. The arm’s well stitched, but the cut is deep and it may have reached the tendons. All we can do now is wait, and if in a week’s time there are no pustules or abscesses…”

“Here,” said the surgeon, taking a little bag from his sash. “Apply this powder four times a day, and do not wash the wound too much.”

Theresa nodded.

“As for my fee…” he said as he slapped Theresa’s backside, “don’t worry, Count Wilfred will pay me.” And he continued laughing as he gathered his instruments.

Theresa reddened in indignation. She despised men taking that kind of liberty with her, and if Zeno had not just helped her father, God knows she would have smashed the flask of wine over his ugly head. But before she could protest, the surgeon flung open the door and left, humming to himself.

In the meantime, Korne’s wife returned from the attic with some lard cakes.

“I brought one for your father,” she said with a smile.

“Thank you. Yesterday we had barely a bowl of porridge to eat between us,” Theresa lamented. “We’re receiving less and less food. Mother says we’re fortunate, but the truth is she can barely lift herself from the bed she’s so weak.”

“Well, child, it’s the same for all of us,” the woman answered. “If it wasn’t for Wilfred’s love of books, we’d be eating our fingernails by now.”

Theresa took a cake and nibbled it delicately, as though she didn’t want to cause it pain. Then she took a bigger bite, savoring the sweetness of the honey and cinnamon. She breathed in its aroma deeply, trying to trap it inside her, and she slid her tongue into the corners of her mouth so as not to waste even the tiniest crumb. Then she put the remaining piece in her skirt pocket to take to her stepmother. Part of her felt ashamed to enjoy such a delicious morsel while her father lay unconscious on the table, but her accumulated hunger got the better of her conscience and she succumbed to the comforting taste of warm lard. Suddenly, the sound of coughing distracted her from her indulgence.

Theresa’s father was coming round. She ran to his side to stop him from sitting up, but Gorgias would not listen to reason. As he moved, he grunted and winced with pain. After he managed to sit up, he briefly rested before opening his bag. With his healthy arm, he nervously rummaged through his writing instruments. Cursing, he kept looking around as though something was missing. His irritation growing, he tipped the contents of the bag onto the floor. Quills and styluses scattered across the pavement.

“Who took it? Where is it?” he cried.

“Where is what?” Korne asked.

Gorgias stared at him with a wild look, but he bit his tongue and turned his head. He rifled through the instruments again and then turned the bag on its head. When he was sure nothing was left in it, he walked over to a nearby chair, slumping into it. Closing his eyes, he whispered a prayer for his soul.

2

By early afternoon, the boys’ voices brought Gorgias back to the land of the living after spending all morning in a dreamlike state. He had remained lying down, his head to one side and his gaze absent, oblivious to Korne’s suggestions and Theresa’s gestures of affection. But gradually awareness crept back into his face, and after a few moments of confusion he lifted his head to call for Korne. The parchment-maker seemed pleased to see Gorgias’s health improving, but when Gorgias asked him about his assailant, Korne’s countenance changed, and he declared he could not remember anything.

“When we went to help you, whoever it was had already fled.”

Gorgias screwed up his face and spluttered a curse as he grimaced with pain. Then he stood and began pacing around the workshop like a tormented animal. As he walked up and down, he tried to recall his attacker’s face, but his efforts were in vain. The darkness and the suddenness of the attack had masked the identity of the assailant. He was weak and confused, so he asked Korne to allow one of his sons to accompany him to the scriptorium.

Once Gorgias left, the workshop gradually resumed its usual bustle. The younger workers spread earth over the blood on the ground and cleaned the table, while the craftsmen complained about the mess that had been created. Theresa said a brief prayer for her father’s recovery before diligently returning to her daily tasks. First, she cleaned and picked up the rubbish from the day before. Then she separated the more damaged pieces of leather and placed them in the scrap barrel, where they would rot. Unfortunately, the keg was overflowing. She had to decant its contents into maceration jars so that once the leather had been soaked, mashed, and boiled, they could make the glue that the master craftsmen used as an adhesive. When she had finished, she covered herself with a sack to keep the rain off and made for the outdoor pools in the dilapidated inner courtyard.

Theresa examined the quadrangular pools closely. Seven pools were distributed in a disorderly fashion around the central well so that the flayed skins could be easily transferred between them after the usual process of cutting, shaving, and scraping. The young woman observed the whitish skins floating on the water like scrawny corpses. She hated the penetrating acid stench that came from the defleshed pelts.

On one occasion, when she had had a severe chill, she asked Korne to relieve her for a few days because the dampness and causticity of the pools were aggravating her lungs, but all she received was a cuff around the head and a scornful guffaw. She never complained again. When Korne ordered her to turn over the sticky, wrinkled skins, she hiked up her skirt, and—holding her breath—stepped into the pools.

She was still looking over the pools when someone came up behind her.

“They still repulse you? Or perhaps you think it’s not a task a parchment-maker’s nose should have to endure?”