house you are constructing here, Mr. Woode.”
Woode sat at the end of the table and put his hands flat on it. “It is for the children more than anything. I had planned it these ten years past but lost the will to proceed when the Lord took my good wife, Margaret, three years ago. At last, though, I realized my children needed a good home. I had more to think about than just myself.”
“I am sorry about your wife. Is that her portrait in the hallway?”
Woode smiled a gray, sad smile. “I loved her deeply. We had known each other since childhood. Our parents were friends. When I lost her, I very nearly lost the will to live. But who are we to question the ways of our Lord?” He paused, suddenly uncomfortably aware that he was straying into private grief in the presence of a complete stranger. “God rest her soul,” he said softly.
“From her portrait, I would say she was beautiful. Please, forgive my intrusion.” Shakespeare laid out the paper and the type sorts retrieved from the burnt-out house in Shoreditch two days earlier. “I am told by Job Mallinson at Stationers’ Hall that you are the man who knows most in England about the provenance of letters and papers. I want you to tell me what you can about this paper and these type sorts.”
Thomas Woode did not need to look closely at the paper or the sorts; he knew them all too well. He felt the prickles of hair rise on his neck as he gazed upon them. He picked up the paper and looked at it this way and that in the light of a candle. He brought out a goldsmith’s loupe from a drawer and held the paper and the type sorts up close to his eye, one by one.
Shakespeare waited and watched him, saying nothing. Catherine came back with two stoups of wine. Shakespeare gazed at her as she moved with quiet grace to the door, closing it soundlessly behind her. At last Thomas Woode put down his loupe.
“And this,” Shakespeare said, taking out the broadsheet. “Could this have been printed on the same paper and by the same press?”
Woode looked at it quickly.
“Well, Mr. Woode?”
Woode nodded slowly. “I can tell you a great deal about these papers and type sorts, Mr. Shakespeare. Can I ask you where you found them?”
“No, I fear not. It is part of an investigation into a most grievous felony; I can offer you no more than that. But I can say that the broadsheet was bought from a street seller.”
Woode moved the broadsheet to one side. “Well, there is no connection. The broadsheet is poor stuff, but it most certainly has not been made with the same paper or press as the other scrap and sorts.”
“Then concentrate on the scrap, sir.”
Woode held the scrap of paper between them so they could both see it clearly. “What I can say first of all is that this is inferior-quality paper and very bad printing. See how brown and stained it is? The paper has been made using turbid water, almost certainly at a mill downstream of a town. The manufacture of paper needs a lot of very clear, pure water, Mr. Shakespeare, which is why paper mills should always be built on the higher reaches of rivers, upstream of towns where so much accumulated filth is dumped and so much river traffic stirs up the sediment. Muddy streams will stain the paper brown, as this has been stained. The other requirement of good paper is good- quality rag, which, as you probably know, is the raw material of our industry. Good rags are hard to come by, which is why so many of us scratch our heads wondering what alternative material might be used. But as it is, we have nothing but rags and I can tell you plainly that whoever manufactured this paper did not have access to a good supply of them. That might, of course, lead one to think that the papermaker was either very bad at his craft or, more probably, that he was working outside the law with whatever materials he had available.”
Shakespeare tapped his fingers on the table. He studied Woode with a stern, impatient eye. Did the man take him for a fool? His hackles were rising; first the girl had laughed at him, now this. “That could very well be the case.”
If Woode saw the way Shakespeare was looking at him, he did not betray it, but continued his theme. “Now let us consider the typefaces used on this piece of paper-and these, I can tell you, correspond with the selection of type sorts you have brought me. They are old and worn, which is why the print quality is so poor. Some of the letters are so degraded that you cannot, for instance, tell a D from a B. Type sorts are made of soft metal and invariably wear down at an alarming rate, which is why the great printers, such as Plantin of Antwerp-for whom I am an agent-replace them frequently. They are very expensive and often it is difficult to get enough of them. To my mind, the use of such old, thinned sorts would reinforce the suspicion that this was printed outside the law. Furthermore, we have here a curious selection of fonts from letter foundries all over Europe. You see these roman types? They are from Rouen and are commonplace in England. But they are mixed up with others, such as this black-letter, which I am certain is from Basle. No printer would use these together in the same line unless he had no option. For one thing they look odd-Gothic simply doesn’t work with roman-but mainly, they will have been made to a different gauge and will have to be filed to size by the printer, an extremely time-consuming task. There are other fonts, too, some of them from Italy. It is a curious collection, like the sweepings of a printer’s floor, Mr. Shakespeare.”
Shakespeare drank some wine. It was remarkably good; clearly Thomas Woode had good taste as well as wealth. Unfortunately, the man was a dissembler, too. “Can you, then, venture to suggest who did this printing?”
Thomas Woode put his hand to his furrowed brow, his soft gentleman’s fingers flicking the gray at his temples. He seemed to be deep in thought, as if trying to work out who had made this paper or who had done this printing. But the truth was, he knew the answers to these questions very well: he had supplied the typeface and press himself and the paper had been made by the old monk Ptolomeus on the Thames by Windsor. Who else could have made such a poor job of it? At last Woode sighed and shook his head. “All I can say with certainty, Mr. Shakespeare, is what I have already told you: this was not printed by a licensed printer. I would venture to suggest a wagonback press, the sort that can be lifted and moved from hiding place to hiding place at a moment’s notice, possibly concealed beneath hay bales or canvas as it is transported. As to the paper, it would probably have been made near a town on the Thames or the Medway. A river setting not far from London. No one would bother to carry such a poor product any great distance, however malign their intent. Further than that, I’m afraid I can’t really say. It certainly hasn’t been produced by any of the recognized papermakers or printers licensed by the Council through Stationers’ Hall.” He sighed and met Shakespeare’s gaze. “I apologize for my inability to be more specific, but I hope I have been of some use to you.”
Shakespeare gave Thomas Woode a hard look. He didn’t believe a word the older man said. Woode was lying to him and he wasn’t very good at it. When Shakespeare spoke, his tone was curt. “You must come across many different printers, Mr. Woode.”
The heat was rising in Woode’s breast. It suddenly occurred to him that he was performing his part badly, very badly. He was under suspicion of something, but what? This agent of the state did not trust him and that was dangerous. He rose and went to the hearth to damp down the fire. “Sir, I pride myself that I know all the legitimate printers in London and the counties close by. I can tell you for certain that none of them is responsible for this shoddy work. Are you sure that it was printed here in England, that it was not smuggled in by a colporteur?” Woode felt a bead of sweat at his brow. If only this man would go. He was not made of the stuff of martyrs; he did not wish to die for his religion as others were prepared to do. He was merely the son of a successful printer who had learned his trade well and become even more successful than his father. Apart from his Roman Catholicism, he would be of no more interest to the state than any other wealthy merchant in this affluent city. Yet here in this house, not far from this man sent by Walsingham-who could order torture and organize execution of anyone he wished-were secreted two renegade priests who could, with their discovery, bring him and his family to their doom.
At first, he had shrunk from the task of telling Herrick he had to go; he had feared the priest’s reaction. But in the end he had approached him that morning after they had breakfasted. Woode explained his fears for the safety of his children. Herrick merely shrugged his shoulders, smiled, and agreed it was time to move on. It had been good of Woode to have him here at all, he said, and he would be gone on the morrow. This, too, was to be Cotton’s last night under their roof. He already had another lodging to go to, in the house of a great lady, who wished for a resident chaplain. In some ways it had been Cotton who unnerved Woode the more; he so blatantly yearned for a martyr’s death, as if life were nothing and the life hereafter the be-all. It was a way of thinking Woode could not comprehend. He would have given anything to have Margaret back with him, alive, in this world.
And now… what if Shakespeare should order in the pursuivants? It would be all too easy to find the priests.
