eyes to prevent the tears from falling.
'Here,' said Peter, shoving a shallow wooden bowl into my hands. 'This will complete the look — and allow you to beg for money along the way. You'll need all the help you can get.'
He winked at me in an effort to cheer me up and then stepped back to assess his handiwork.
I glanced shyly at the mirrors on the wall. An old man stared back. Peter had taken care to dress me as the poorest beggar this side of Christendom. A rough Hessian cloak had been pulled over my small, hunched frame and a long pointed hood, like a jester's cap, hung loose behind me. My eyes were unnaturally round and large, my back misshapen.
The change in my appearance only heightened my sense of foreboding. I was headed from Oxford. An unknown landscape unrolled before me: frigid territories to the north; mysterious cities to the east and west; marauding Turks somewhere to the south; and a limitless expanse of water surrounding the island I needed to find. My legs shook beneath me. I was already at sea.
I had hoped that Peter would accompany me — he had traveled far and wide and could protect me from cutthroats and thieves — but I had underestimated his love for Christina. She had proved the greatest temptation of all. Peter was indebted to her father…at least until he achieved his independence and claimed her hand in marriage. He promised to take care of Herr Gutenberg and defend him, should the need arise.
I grabbed my short wooden staff — half walking stick, half weapon — and followed Peter towards the hearth.
We had rehearsed this moment several times since returning from Frankfurt four days ago, but that didn't make it any easier now that the time had finally come. We approached the open chest with a shared sense of misgiving.
As if aware of the monumental journey ahead, the loose sheets of dragon skin had undergone a magnificent transformation — withdrawing from the snakes' fangs and binding themselves into a wondrous book that looked impossibly heavy to carry, yet weighed surprisingly little. It was guarded by new talon clasps and armored with jagged silver-green scales. Fust was fascinated by the alteration, but unable to account for its sudden metamorphosis. He had no idea of my imminent departure. Nor could he read yet from its pages: stories began, but ended in mid-sentence; potions appeared, but lacked one or two vital ingredients to achieve their full potency; and all doorways to the future remained sealed…at least until he discovered I held the missing sheets in my toolkit. And that was only a matter of time.
Peter stared into the chest, while noises from the crowd outside lapped beneath the open windows.
'I wish there were another way,' he sighed as he took the fabulous book make of dragon skin and fitted it into a makeshift harness, which he had secured to my back, making me look even more hunched over than ever. The toolkit, which even Peter did not know about, was safely concealed beneath my girdle.
He refused to meet my gaze, but worked steadily and methodically, tightening the straps of cloth around my body and then covering the whole again with my rough yellow cloak. He kept his thoughts to himself, as though words would be a sign of weakness.
I tried to imagine Fust's face when next he peered inside the chest and found the dragon skin missing. Surely his wrath would be insurmountable! I quivered at the thought. Would he pursue me to the ends of the earth, searching for it? Would I ever be able to return to Mainz?
My knees buckled beneath me, but Peter put out a hand to support me.
'Are you ready?' he asked, giving me a sad smile — his most brotherly gesture yet. Before I could react, he raised the hood of my cloak, so that I could not see to either side: only straight ahead. That way, he thought, I could not detect the tears in his eyes.
But I could.
Christina surprised us by bounding down the street to meet us. Her flyaway hair showed her distress.
'My father knows!' she called out over the din of the jubilant voices. 'I tried to hide it from him, but he knows! He's coming for you now!'
She shoved and battled her way through the throng of dancers. Peter had entrusted her with the job of keeping Fust preoccupied while we prepared for my departure; but the man, ever wary, had wrested the truth from her. There was no end to his jealousy or suspicion. Even now, he was visible at the far end of the street, fighting through the crowd. By sheer force of will, Christina had beaten him to us.
My heart bolted inside me. I looked frantically to right and left, desperately seeking a means of escape, but my legs had turned to water. Bodies boxed us in. Cries of 'Thief! Thief!' rose in the distance, Fust's voice unmistakable above the roar of the crowd.
'Hurry! There's no time!' shrieked Christina. 'You've got to go!' Like a frantic hen, she started shooing people away from her with lifted skirts — which only made them rowdier.
Luckily, Peter had a plan. He grabbed me by the arm and propelled me through a knot of merrymakers.
'Quick! Act as if you're dancing!' he shouted to me as kings, queens, knights and jesters whirled round us in a blur of masks. I did a poor imitation of a leap and caper behind him, unable to match the fervor of his steps, and pretended to smile — but inwardly, I was stiff with terror. I grinned like a death's-head.
Fust was rapidly closing in, his jeweled hands pulling people aside.
Our diversion finally started to take effect. Recognizing the principal characters, Adam and Eve, dancing towards them, most of the revelers stopped to point and stare.
'Why are you waiting here?' cried Peter, giving the nearest onlookers the order to start the formal procession towards the grave. 'Let's go!'
The words seemed to release the citizens of Mainz from a spell. With a mighty cheer, the crowd surged after us, dancing in our wake, all heading in the same direction: the graveyard at the edge of the city. Ahead of us, strangers jumped aside to let us pass and then clapped their hands and leaped in our trail, joining the carnival atmosphere. The street was sheer pandemonium .
'Stop!' I heard Fust cry as more and more people blocked his way. 'Let me pass, you fools! They've stolen my book!'
I glanced behind me. Fust, in his vanity, had dressed as the Pope, one of the foremost members of the procession. While some taunted him with jibes and jests, others bowed before him and allowed his Holiness to advance unimpeded. If anything, the stream of bodies was pulling him closer.
Feeling me waver, Christina tightened her grip on my other hand and together we charged through the streets and alleys, picking up more stragglers. Breathless and dizzy, I clung to my rescuers as they pulled me under the shadow of the large rose-colored cathedral and up the cobbled lane towards the North Gate.
Suddenly, like an assault of brass angels, a triumphal fanfare greeted us from the heights of the city wall. Musicians scurried along the parapets, dancing and playing their instruments. The flames of the apocalypse were upon us! Horns and trumpets sparked in the sunlight and red and gold pennants, fixed to the gate, rippled like silken fire. Already, a great crowd had assembled by the tall, turreted tower, close to the graveyard. Voices burst into song the moment we appeared.
Fust pursued us, showing no sign of letting up. His cries hounded us like a baying dog.
Desperately I searched for a sign of Herr Gutenberg, but couldn't see him anywhere in the confusion of faces. We tore through the crowd.
Ahead of us loomed the large wooden gate and, beyond that, the entrance to the graveyard. If we were not careful we would soon be sucked into its embrace and trapped for good. Fust would surely have us then.
Peter and Christina seemed to have reached the same conclusion. Without warning, they flung me ruthlessly aside, into a multitude of waiting arms. I bobbed and bounced from person to person, until I landed, winded and bruised, near the giant stone ramparts, on the city-side of the wall. Bent double with exhaustion, I struggled to regain my breath. The book felt suddenly too heavy for my back; my body ached. By the time I looked up, Peter and Christina had gone, swallowed by the graveyard.
For a moment, I stood where I was. People yelled and applauded and danced all around me, but I neither heard their songs nor felt their joy. I was numb with shock. I had not expected Peter to fling me aside so roughly, so impersonally, without even a word of farewell. I knew why he had done so — to give me time to escape — but still I
