Imagine his hand, his bony fingers gripping the quill lightly, at the sloping desk in the stone room, where comfort is of secondary importance. Cold winter sunlight slants in from a biforate mullioned window, unfiltered. It sharpens the folds of his rough brown habit.
The sleeve is pushed back to the elbow, exposing the lean brown arm that on other days wields a hoe, gathers in hay, empties the latrines. His wrist is angled carefully above the creamy surface of a freshly scraped parchment, lest he leave an unintentional stain.
The other desks are cleared of all but the scars of sharpened quills and graffiti.
Imagine the ink, in a stout pottery jar, and his tonsured head, bowed, gleaming, as he marks the curves of a capital, snake-like. Now thick, then thin, neatly turning the tail with the last drop. He watches the glossy shape appearing and drying as he measures the distance for a smaller, downward line to follow. Knows without tracing how to place the three cross-marks. Parallel, perfectly balanced.
Thus, each letter, faithfully copied. Blindly constructing not just a text, but a work of precise beauty in a language he cannot read, but knows by heart. For how many pages has he never touched the inks on the far side of the room, the blue, the red, the gold?
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