“We will get you out of here,” she said, not knowing how she would fulfill such a promise. “But first I need your help. Do you understand?”
The man nodded, making a guttural sound. Theresa repeated question after question until she was convinced that the poor wretch was truly a half-wit. He responded with meaningless gestures, poked about in the bowl with his deformed hands or simply glanced from side to side. However, when he heard the name of the redhead, he started hitting himself on the head as if he had lost his senses. When Theresa repeated the name Rothaart, The Swine showed her the raw stump of his severed tongue.
At that moment she heard the screech of a bolt at the other end of the passage. She hid in a cubbyhole just in time to avoid being seen by the guard who approached bearing a torch. Theresa gestured to The Swine to be silent and remained out of sight until the guard passed. Then she ran with all the speed she could muster toward the exit. She did not stop until she reached the abbey.
When she found Alcuin, she had to wait to catch her breath before she could inform him of her findings. She tried to tell him everything all at once, gesticulating with her arms and stumbling over her words, while Alcuin attempted to make sense out of her blather. Theresa sucked in some air before blurting out, “I know who the culprit is,” she announced with a triumphant smile.
She told him again, this time more slowly, the events that had transpired at the slaughterhouse, taking pleasure in recounting the most gory details and leaving the big surprise to the end. Alcuin listened attentively.
“You should not have gone alone,” he reproached her.
“And that was when,” she added, ignoring him, “hearing the redhead’s name, he hit himself with such force I thought he would split open his head. He showed me what that man did to his tongue. It was horrible.”
“Did he tell you that Rothaart did it?”
“Well, not exactly. But I’m certain of it.”
“Even so, he’s not the one we’re looking for.”
“I don’t understand. What do you mean?”
“Rothaart was found dead this morning. At Kohl’s mill. Ergot poisoning.”
Theresa let herself flop, dejected. It was not possible. She had risked her life for nothing. She was about to argue with him when the monk cut in.
“And not just that. It would seem that our man is rushing to sell all the flour. Since this morning people have been falling sick all over the place. Saint John’s Church is crammed full, and the hospital is overrun.”
“But in that case it’ll be easy to catch him.”
“And how do you propose we do that? He is clearly very cunning, and is most likely selling batches of putrid flour alongside batches in good condition. What’s more, remember that nobody is aware that wheat is the source of the illness.”
“Even so, we can question the sick. Or their relatives, if necessary.”
“Do you think I have not already done so? But people don’t just buy their flour from the mills. They also acquire it from the market, from houses, from farms. They eat it in taverns, at bakeries or at peddlers’ stalls. They share bread at work, use flour to pay for their purchases, or trade it for meat or wine. Sometimes they even mix wheat with rye flour so that it holds up longer in the oven.” He paused to reflect. “Each sick person told me a different story. It’s as if the entire town has been infected.”
“It’s all very odd. If this man is as clever as you say—”
“He is, I’m sure of it.”
“Then he will have contact with the various flour traders. And they trust him.”
“Presumably.”
“So, perhaps he has distributed the contaminated batches far and wide so that there are more suspects.”
“You mean more accomplices?”
“Not necessarily.” Theresa was feeling important. “He could have deposited the batches in various storehouses without their owners knowing. This would explain why there are so many more getting sick from purchasing flour at so many different outlets.”
“Perhaps,” Alcuin admitted.
“And what’s more, there’s the matter of The Swine.”
“What of him?”
“Well, the fact that it was the redhead who cut his tongue out.”
The redhead cut out his tongue. Alcuin pondered the idea as he and Theresa made their way to the hospital. What if he had been rash in drawing his conclusions? In truth he had only seen Rothaart’s body from a distance, and though he thought he had seen signs of gangrene on his limbs, perhaps his death had not been due to ergot. In fact, it was difficult to believe that a healthy and well-fed man could succumb so quickly to rot.
“I must return to Kohl’s mill,” he announced to Theresa. “You continue to the hospital. Record the names of those who have recently fallen sick. Note everything—where they come from and where they buy their bread, what they have recently eaten, and when they started to feel unwell. Anything you can think of that may help us. Then go back to the chapter. We will meet at the cathedral after Sext.” And without giving her time to respond, he turned and ran off into the narrow streets.
When Theresa reached the monastery, she came across crowds of people streaming in through its open gates. It seemed that the influx of sick was so great that the cellarer and other monks had been sent to the hospital to help in whatever way they could. Theresa used Alcuin’s ring that he had given her, in order to jump ahead of the long lines of relatives of the sick who were waiting for news. Entering the hospital she was received by an infirmarian, who, after recognizing her, impressed on her that she should not get in the way of the monks desperately running to and fro like bees in a hive.
Theresa did not know where to begin. The sick filled the room, scattered around on improvised beds, while outside in the courtyard, the less severe patients awaited anything that might alleviate their pain. Some of them seemed seriously ill, with pain in their limbs or afflicted by hallucinations, but many of them were mostly terrified.
Speaking to them, she discovered that the bishop and his secretary had met to discuss the possibility of burning houses and closing the city walls. She was surprised. On other occasions she had heard of such measures, but in this case, the pestilence was limited to the flour that was poisoned with the ergot fungus. She thought that she must convince Alcuin to change his mind about not revealing the cause of the sickness.
Within two hours, Theresa had gathered enough information to determine that at least eleven of the patients had not ingested any wheat bread. When she completed her questioning, she gathered her things and returned to the chapter kitchens. There she found Helga the Black busy polishing some pans that looked like they had been used as plant pots. Seeing Theresa, the woman stopped what she was doing and ran to greet her. She told her that the entire city was in a state of anxiety because of the Plague.