In his hands, the man clutched a small brown leather book. A thin ribbon, like a lock of hair or rat's tail, slipped out from between its pages, marking his place.
This was a rare sight. Not many people could read books, let alone afford to buy them. Either this man was a thief or an impoverished scholar, down on his luck. They were often the poorest sort.
He glanced up at us, feeling the weight of our eyes on him.
'It's the tale of the two lovers,' he said, indicating the volume in his fingers. 'Piccolomini's latest. Scurrilous, rude and guaranteed to put the color back in your young friend's cheek.'
He nodded in my direction and I blushed, despite myself. The man took no notice. A sour belch, like a toad, escaped his throat.
'May I?' Peter took the book from the man and leafed expertly through its pages, perusing the words and assessing the quality of the penmanship. 'Where do you come from, friend?' he asked in a different voice.
'Here and there,' came the answer. 'London once, Oxford before that.'
Peter pricked up his ears. 'Where?'
'Oxford.' The man made a vague sketching movement in the dirt with his blunt fingers, mapping his travels. A series of towers and spires grew around him.
'Never heard of it,' said Peter.
'I'm not surprised. You're just a young popinjay.'
Peter stiffened, stung by the insult. 'That may be, but this town you mention, where exactly is it?'
'To the north, across the water. No easy journey, I assure you.'
'Is it a place of learning?'
'Second only to Paris.'
'And does it have a library?'
The man looked up, aware he had an audience. I gripped my apple wine more tensely, sensing where the argument was headed. The stranger noticed my uneasiness and stumbled to his feet.
He wedged himself between us. 'Buy me another drink and I shall tell you all you wish to know.' He waved his empty mug at Peter. 'William's my name.'
I glanced at Peter, who was clutching the remaining coins in his sweaty palm. He could not resist the urge to learn more. He marched into the adjoining room and soon returned with three more flagons of apple-wine.
I could already feel the first mug clouding my judgment and slid my second to William, who guzzled it in one go. He smeared his sleeve over his mouth and then began to tell us about the university town of Oxford. Words streamed from his lips almost as freely as the wine entered them.
He had been a student of theology, he said, living a virtuous life in virtual poverty, when a girl named Moll ignited a passion in is heart — and a fire in his loins. For some reason this did not sit well with the proctors who prowled the town by night, maintaining order and discipline, and he had been cast out from the university in disgrace. Then, when Moll's family got wind of the affair, William had fled for his life, pursued by a rabble of drunken townies, as he called them. Ever since, he had been driven to distraction, moving from library to library, working as a scribe. Those books he could not copy he carried with him in his head.
'If life has taught me one thing,' he said, 'there is nothing so loyal or true as the written word.'
'And this library in Oxford,' Peter prompted him. 'Is it large?'
William's eyes took on a dreamy appearance. 'Chests full of books; colleges crowded with manuscripts; bookbinders forever preparing new ones…Nothing can compare!' he said. 'Even now a new library is being built to accommodate the collection of Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester, God rest his soul.' He made a clumsy attempt at signing the cross on his stained doublet. 'It will surely be a new Alexandria, the greatest seat of learning this side of Rome!'
'Will it?' said Peter dubiously.
I, too, was disinclined to believe him. The library of Alexandria, I knew, had been built by the Greeks to accommodate all the scrolls and manuscripts in the world. It had been the most impressive, exalted depository of books in history. Yet what had taken its devoted libarians hundred of years to acquire from passing travelers had been lost in a blazing inferno. Many of the greatest works known to man had gone up in smoke, the victims of that most avaricious reader: fire. Even now, I supposed, there was a chance the dragon skin could revive them.
'And if we should attempt to find this library?' asked Peter, filling me with trepidation.
'Just follow the banks of the River Thames from that great eyesore, London, and you cannot miss it,' said William. 'I have traveled far and wide, but I have yet to meet its match.'
With that, William reached the end of his story. With a last apologetic belch, he sank to his knees and collapsed in a heap on the floor, leaving Peter and me to ponder his information alone.
Outside, the noise of the fair reminded us of our duties and we reluctantly left the alehouse to join Herr Gutenberg and Fust in the Town Hall.
That evening, in the dormitory of the inn where we were lodging, Peter turned to me.
'This place William spoke of,' he whispered. 'That is where you must go.'
The words stabbed at my heart. I knew Peter could not easily come with me, but the prospect that I was to leave Mainz — and travel alone — was too much to bear. For a moment, my eyes pricked with tears and I rolled over to face the pale, snoring stranger by my side to keep him from noticing. The long communal bed was full of rank, unwashed bodies.
Fust and Herr Gutenberg, like many of the richer merchants, had opted for finer accommodation a few streets away, leaving us to fend for ourselves.
'It's the only way,' continued Peter. 'I've been thinking. When I was copying books in Paris, I came across an old saying: 'The safest place to hide a leaf is in a forest.' How could anyone find a solitary leaf among so many trees?'
I shut my eyes and tried to imagine the scene. Each time I came close to counting all those leaves, the wind shifted slightly and rearranged the branches. It was a fool's task — an undertaking to last all eternity.
Peter put his hand on my shoulder. 'Don't you see? The best place to lose the dragon skin is in a library. The paper would be lost in a labyrinth of words, a forest of books. Fust would never be able to find it.'
Begrudgingly, I nodded. My toolkit had already completed its magical transformation into a small book, as though it knew its destiny. The brown leather covers, with my name printed on it, were guarded by two dragon- claw clasps that kept the paper inside from stirring and revealing their secrets. Perhaps the sheets in the chest would do the same?
'The Library of St. Victor is too near,' said Peter, referring to the abbey in Paris where he had trained as a scribe. 'Fust would follow you there too easily and discover the book in no time. He knows it all too well. But this library in Oxford is unknown. It could be even larger…It's certainly far enough away; Fust would never find you.'
The thought ripped at my heart. I started shaking. Then, recalling the way Fust had been creeping closer to me ever since I had opened the chest, as if I held the key to everything he wanted, I knew that Peter was right. I must go. I had no choice but to sacrifice my own happiness to save the skin.
14
The sound of scratching woke him, something was trying to get in!
Blake opened his eyes and tore the covers from his body in a panic, remembering the camouflaged dragon he had glimpsed in the tree a few hours earlier. His legs were tangled in a bed sheet, but he managed to scramble free and backed against the wall, breathing hard. He gripped his pillow like a shield and stared at the window.
