“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.
She recognized the feel of the parchment. The sheets were sewn together in quinternions of double pages, joined by the fold where they were backstitched. She found the second page of the irregular sheet. It was the same as the rest: rough and dark. Worn in the same way.
There was only one explanation for this, and she knew it because she had done it herself dozens of times. When a parchment was smudged, it could be rescued by scraping its surface until the stained skin is removed. If the entire sheet were scraped, it would look as good as new, ready to be reused. However, after scraping, it became thinner and a slightly different color. Scribes called it palimpsest.
She reexamined the smooth sheet. The handwriting was also different than the writing on the rest of the pages. Without doubt it had been written some time later.
She wondered why someone would be compelled to scrape an entire page.
For a moment she thought about waking Alcuin, but she decided to wait. Then she recalled a game the scribes would play in Korne’s workshop to recover deleted text. They would place damp ash on the page underneath a newly scraped page and lightly rub to reveal the pressure marks left by the quill. Sometimes it was impossible because the marks of the new text jumbled the marks of the old. However, all scribes knew that before writing on a reused page, they had to position a tablet underneath to avoid leaving marks on the sheet behind it.
She took a handful of ash from the fire and crossed herself. Then she applied it, rubbing little circles gently on the page underneath until it became a gray powder that disappeared with one blow. She lifted the codex and held it against the light of the candle. A short text in white lettering appeared before her eyes. She copied it onto her wax tablet:
On the calends of February of the year 796 of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Under the auspices of Boethius of Nantes, Abbot of Fulda, and guaranteed by Charles known as the Great, King of the Franks and Patrician of the Romans.
Transaction of six hundred pecks of rye, two hundred of barley, and fifty of spelt, settled at a discounted price, dispatched to the county of Magdeburg.
Paid to this abbey, the sum of forty gold solidi, under the law of God.
May the Almighty protect Magdeburg from the Plague.
The rest of the paragraph referred to the opening of a minor road, and it coincided with the new writing on the scraped sheet.
A surge of joy ran from her stomach to her ears. Immediately, she called out to Alcuin, telling him to wake up.
“By God, you will wake the entire chapter,” he said, half-asleep.
While she told him of her discovery, Alcuin examined the codex eagerly. Then he looked at Theresa in astonishment.
“It is not a purchase, but a sale. What’s more, the price… forty solidi is far too low.”
“But it mentions a plague, and if that weren’t important, they wouldn’t have taken the effort to hide it,” she argued.
“It could also be that, though still significant, it bears no relation to our epidemic. Yet, let me think: Magdeburg… Magdeburg… nearly four years ago… Heavens above! That’s it!”
He ran to the bookshelf and took down the document containing the latest capitularies published by Charlemagne. Then he examined the pages with the focus of someone who knew precisely what he was looking for. “Here it is: a decree of assistance dated January of the same year.” He quickly read it and explained, “It regulates the delivery and price of food sent to the county of Magdeburg. It does not specify the reasons behind the pricing, but I recall that at that time a plague was devastating the area bordering with Eastphalia, on the banks of the Elbe.”
“And what does that mean?”