Gorgias understood. For a few days he had not felt his fingers. He had tried to ignore it, but from the elbow down all that remained was a lifeless limb. He pondered Zeno’s words. If he lost the arm, he would lose his livelihood, but at least he could fight for Rutgarda. He looked at his pustule-covered arm miserably. It pulsated, but there was no pain. It was clear the physician was right. When Zeno explained that Genseric opposed the amputation, Gorgias could not comprehend it.
“I’m sorry, but he’s the one paying,” Zeno replied.
Gorgias tried to reach for something at his neck, but Zeno stopped him.
“Take it,” Gorgias managed to utter. “The stones are rubies. It’s more than you’ve ever been paid.”
Zeno examined the necklace that hung from the patient’s neck. He clasped it and then pulled it off him, thinking it over as he looked at the door. “Genseric will kill me.”
But he spat on the ground and told Gorgias to bite into a dry stick. Then he took hold of the saw and carved through the arm like a butcher.
When Genseric returned, he found Gorgias unconscious in a great pool of blood. He looked for Zeno, but could not find him. The amputated limb lay on the floor. Where it used to be was now just a skillfully sewn stump.
Before long Zeno reappeared, doing up his trousers. When he saw Genseric he tried to explain that he had decided to do the inevitable, but the coadjutor would not heed reason. He cursed him a thousand times, condemned him to hell, insulted and attempted to hit him. But suddenly he calmed down, as if seized by a strange fatalism, before reeling again. He seemed confused. His gaze wandered around the room. Zeno managed to catch him before he collapsed onto the floor. He was coughing, his face pale as a mask of marble. The physician gave him a swig of liquor, which seemed to revive him.
“You look unwell. Would you like me to accompany you?”
Genseric nodded without conviction.
Zeno unfastened Gorgias’s other arm, then brought his cart around, ushering on the coadjutor before loading Gorgias as if he were a sack of wheat. Finally he climbed on, cracked his whip, and guided the horse through the woods, following Genseric’s confused directions. As they traveled, Zeno noticed that the coadjutor was repeatedly scratching the palm of his left hand. It seemed irritated, as though he had rubbed it with nettles. He mentioned it, but Genseric was oblivious.
They stopped in the oak grove near the fortress walls. Genseric clambered down from the cart and started walking, dragging his feet like a ghost until he reached a wall. In the darkness, the coadjutor groped among the climbing plants until he found a small door, took a key from his robes, and inserted it with difficultly into the lock. Then he leaned against the doorframe to rest before opening it and entering like a sleepwalker. Finally, he collapsed.
When Gorgias awoke the next day, Zeno was long gone, and Genseric’s dead body lay by his side.
It was some time before Gorgias was able to stand. With his vision still cloudy, he looked at the stump that Zeno had bandaged for him with a strip of material from his own chasuble. The pain was excruciating, but at least it was not bleeding.
He turned toward Genseric’s body. The monk was lying on the ground with a contorted expression, his hands clutching his stomach, the left one a strange purple color. Gorgias wanted to kick him, but contained himself.
Looking around, Gorgias saw that he was in the circular crypt where he had been imprisoned all that time. He turned toward the cell and pushed the door open with a squeak. Fear made him hesitate, but finally he went in to search through his documents. Fortunately, the truly valuable ones were still where he had hidden them. Stashing away the original and the Greek transcription, he did his best to tear up everything else he could find with his one hand. Then he took some bread that had been left there and departed for the old mine.
By midmorning he could make out the great, corroded honeycomb that the iron deposit had become. He continued along the old mining paths, among mounds of sandstone, the remains of old chests scattered around, broken lamps, and gnawed leather harnesses, which, after the mines were depleted, nobody bothered to remove.
Soon he reached the old slave huts and stopped to examine the half-ruined structures, often used by bandits and vermin, praying they were unoccupied. The rain was growing heavier, so he walked into the only hut that still had a partially preserved roof, seeking refuge among the pulleys, amphorae of caustic, tackle, and dismantled winches. Finally he found a space near some barrels full of stagnant water. He slumped against them and closed his eyes, trying to manage the searing pain. For a moment he wished he could cast off the bandage that covered the stump, but he knew it would be foolish.
He thought of his wife, Rutgarda.
He needed to know that nothing bad had happened to her, so he decided to visit her that night. He would wait for the sun to go down and then enter Würzburg through the drainage channel, which could be used to pass through the walls when the gates were locked. Trying in vain to get to sleep, he remembered his daughter Theresa. How he missed her!
He ate a little of the bread that he picked up in the crypt and pondered how Genseric had died. Over the course of his life he had witnessed many deaths, but never had he seen a face as distorted as the coadjutor’s, choked on his own vomit. He wondered if he had been poisoned, perhaps by the man with the serpent tattoo.
Suddenly he could see it, like an apparition: the night when he was attacked. Those pale eyes, an arm thrusting at him, all his attempts hold his assailant off. His mind conjured the image of a snake wrapped round the dagger that had wounded him. Yes, he was certain. The man who had attacked him was same man who had argued with Genseric in the crypt. It was the man with the serpent tattoo.
At nightfall he began the journey back to Würzburg, where he arrived protected by the half-light. He found his house empty and he supposed Rutgarda was still sharing a roof with her sister, so he decided to try her home, located on the hillside. As he approached, he heard his wife humming a little tune she often sang. For a moment the pain in his shoulder disappeared. He was about to go in when he heard some men who were around the corner.
“Christ’s wounds!” one of them blurted out. “I don’t know what the hell we’re doing here. The scribe has probably been eaten by wolves by now,” said one of the men who was trying to protect himself from the downpour.
Gorgias cursed his bad luck. They were Wilfred’s men, and the fact they were waiting for him suggested that Wilfred was involved. He couldn’t take the risk, so he clenched his teeth and retraced, heavy-hearted that he wouldn’t see Rutgarda.