The Scribe Read Online Free PDF Page A

could not find one. She turned with a look of puzzlement on her face, demanding an explanation.
    “It’s in there,” Korne indicated toward the deepest pool.
    Theresa walked over to the pool that received the skins just as they had been torn from the animals. Carefully, she took off herboots. Then she gathered up her skirt and stepped into the water, holding her breath.
    Scraps of skin and clots of blood floated in the bath, intermingling with the filth of the maceration pool. Under the attentive gaze of the crowd, she lowered herself until the liquid reached her stomach. The cold made her groan.
    She waited a moment before taking another deep breath and letting herself sink into the depths of the pool. For a blink of an eye she disappeared underwater, but she quickly emerged with her head veiled in grease. Spitting, she wiped the filth from her face. Then she plunged further into the center of the bath, pushing away the floating detritus. The lime stung her skin under her clothes and the ice numbed her bones. Under her bare feet she could feel a bed of slime. And she groped the surface like a blind woman looking for a rail to cling to. But she kept going, feeling her way forward as the water lapped against her chin.
    Suddenly she bumped into something under the water, and her heart missed a beat. When she managed to calm herself down, she felt the object with her foot to try to identify it. For a moment she thought about giving up, but she remembered her father and everyone who had believed in her. She filled her lungs with air and submerged herself into the water. The cold made her temples throb as her hands touched the object. Its sticky feel made her retch, but she suppressed her revulsion and continued to run her hands over the thing until she found a string of beads that felt like little shingles. She felt along the line and after a moment of uncertainty, she realized with horror she was grasping a row of teeth. She almost opened her eyes in fright and would have been blinded forever by the lime, but she kept control of herself. She let go of the jawbone and went up for air, gasping, her face flushed red as the Devil’s. As she coughed and spluttered, vomiting water, the remains of a putrid and deformed cow’s head bobbed up in front of her.
    The laborers immediately came to the edge of the pool to taunt the young woman. One offered her his hand, but as Theresa grasped it, he let go, making her fall back into the water. At that moment, the parchment-maker’s wife appeared in the courtyard. She had witnessed the scene and come with dry clothes. The woman pushed past the laborers and pulled Theresa—who was quivering like a puppy—out of the pool. She covered her with a blanket and took her into her home, but as they were about to go through the door they heard Korne say, “She can get changed and get back to work.”
    When Theresa returned to the workshop, she found the wrinkled remains of the cowhide on her bench. She spread it out with the help of a wooden trowel and then removed the excess water. After examining the skin, she deduced that the animal must have been flayed that very week, since the lime had barely begun to dislodge the hair, and scraps of meat and fat were stuck to the inside. The cow must have been devoured by wolves, because the skin had many bite marks. Aside from that, there were signs of the abscesses and blemishes typical of older beasts. She wouldn’t even throw that skin to the rats, she thought.
    “You want to be a parchment-maker, do you not? Well, there’s your test,” Korne smirked from the doorway. “Prepare the parchment that you are so keen for Wilfred to see.”
    Though she knew what he asked was impossible, Theresa did not protest. Rendering and cleaning an animal skin required several days of work with time to rest in between so the caustics and washing could take effect. Still, she was not about to give up. With a stiff brush, she scrubbed the skin to remove the remnants