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.
Even given her predicament, she resolved to learn. She would work as a farm laborer or find a job as a tanner’s apprentice. Anything but end up in a brothel covered in boils and riddled with disease.
With the rain growing heavier, she considered whether she should move somewhere safer. What’s more, she thought, in Würzburg they had probably started searching for her by now, and if she stayed near the path, they would soon find her. Then she remembered the old lime kiln, a building in a small quarry half an hour’s walk away. She knew the place because she’d been there on several occasions to collect the lime they used to tan the skins. The kiln belonged to the Larsson widow, a burly woman who worked the quarry with the help of her sons. In winter, when the builders’ orders stopped, they closed the kiln and plied their trade in Würzburg, so she knew she could take shelter in one of the sheds and wait for the storm to ease without running into anyone.
Not long before midday, Theresa approached the quarry. She was desperate to get out of the rain, but rather than rush in, she pricked up her ears and cautiously listened. The pit was dug into the side of the mountain like a great gap-toothed mouth, boulders strewn down the slopes like fallen teeth. At the foot of the mountain stood the lime kiln, a sort of squat, tapered tower slightly larger than a bread oven. At the top there was a circular hole that served as a chimney, while on the side were four vents. The house stood on the riverbank, away from the vapors of burning lime, and farther on, behind it, were the sheds used as storehouses.
Theresa waited to make sure neither the Larsson widow nor her sons were in the area. She was holding on to the hope that she was alone, but as she approached the house, she saw the door ajar and wondered whether she had made the wrong decision. Still she knocked, but there was no answer. She knew it was foolish but decided to go in nonetheless. Picking up a stick from the ground, she pushed the door open with her shoulder. It was jammed. On the third attempt it flew open with a loud crash, revealing an empty room. Theresa went in, leaving the door ajar the way she found it. Then she closed her eyes, savoring a moment of peace. The bitter odor of lime burned her throat, but she welcomed it in exchange for a bit of rest. She heard the rain beating against the roof and the wind battering the timber, and she felt comforted in her newfound shelter.
Similar to other buildings in the area, the house had no windows, so the only light was from the hole in the wattle that served as a chimney. As her eyes grew accustomed to the half-light, she could see that the room was a mess, with stools tipped over and belongings and pans scattered on the floor. She assumed some animal had been the cause of the chaos and so thought nothing of it. After establishing that there was no food or warm clothes, she decided to amuse herself by tidying up the room. In one corner she piled up the offcuts of logs and timber that the Larsson widow would use to make clogs. Like so many other families, the Larssons had found woodcutting to be an additional trade they could ply while they waited for a batch of lime to be baked.
Theresa gazed at the impressive tool that lay on one of the workbenches, a sort of giant machete articulated with a ring nailed to the bench. This enabled the blade to pivot on its end like a guillotine, which reminded Theresa of a drawbridge.
On occasions she had seen the Larsson widow operating the implement with great skill. She would lift the handle and rest it on a support, place a piece of wood under the blade, and with precise up-and-down movements she would hew the timber until she had carved the outside of the clog.
Driven by curiosity, Theresa decided to try it out. She found a piece of wood the right size and positioned it beside the blade. Then she took hold of the guillotine’s handle and with both hands she lifted it to rest it on the support, but the handle slipped and the blade fell violently onto the bench. Theresa was glad she had used two hands, for otherwise she surely would have lost one. More carefully this time, she raised the blade once more and placed it on the rest. Securing it in place, she decided that her career as a clog-cutter was over and picked up the overturned stools instead.
While she worked she pictured her arrival in Aquis-Granum. First she would go to the market and trade her steel and stylus for food. No doubt she could get a pound of bread and several eggs, or even barter for a slice of smoked meat. Then she would seek work as a tanner in the artisans’ quarter. She had never been to Aquis-Granum, but she assumed there must be an artisans’ quarter in the city King Charlemagne had chosen for his residence.
Suddenly her heart gave a leap upon hearing voices outside, and those voices were growing ever nearer. Horrified, she stopped what she was doing and ran to the door. Was it the Larssons? She pressed her head against the wall, peering through a crack, and saw two blurred figures approaching the house. Oh, Lord! They looked like armed men and in a few seconds they would be inside the room.
She had to find somewhere to hide. Remembering the pile of wood by the guillotine, she ran and crouched behind it, just as the men burst in. She tucked her head between her legs and prayed they would not discover her. But the two men, instead of searching the place, went to the middle of the room and set about lighting the fire.