Endymion Spring (40 page)

All of a sudden I understood the marks
on
 
Theodoric's
hands.
 
He was a scribe, an illuminator.
 
He had taken me to one of Oxford's monastic colleges.

The book of dragon skin stirred again on my back and I squirmed, trying to get down; but
Theodoric
refused to let go.
 
He carried me in his arms to the front of the room, where a small, white-haired man was seated on a large,
thronelike
chair.
 
The Abbot was deep in prayer:
 
His eyes closed, his fingers fumbling with beads of a rosary.

An ancient librarian with skin like melted wax sat close beside him, reading from a tiny book.
 
His lips made a soft sound like a sputtering candle as he recited the words to himself and traced them in his Psalter.
 
Suddenly, he stopped.
 
One of his eyes was milky blue and rolled alarmingly in his head; the other, as clear as day, drifted towards me and fixed on my face.

Unnerved, I glanced away.
 
Through the window, I could see a sapling in an enclosed garden, its pale green leaves shuddering in a breeze.

Luckily, the Abbot took one look at me, crossed himself and rushed to my aid.
 
Despite his wild thistledown hair, he showed no signs of a prickly disposition.
 
He clamped his hand to my forehead and checked for symptoms of disease.
 
Then, ignoring the protests of Ignatius, the librarian beside me, he indicated the
Theodoric
should escort me to the infirmary.

Words were unnecessary.
 
They communicated by means of a system of simple hand gestures.

Theodoric
, however, stood his ground and slowly drew the Abbot's attention to the leather toolkit I normally wore beneath my belt.
 
It had transformed itself into a sealed notebook ages ago.
 
Somehow it had worked itself free.

I reached out to grab it, but Ignatius was too quick.
 
He snatched the book before either I or the Abbot could lay our fingers on it.

I watched helplessly as the old man turned the notebook over in his hands and tried unsuccessfully to prize the covers apart.
 
He studied the clasps more intently.
 
No matter what he tried, he could not get the book to open.
 
His brow creased in consternation and he shot me a suspicious look, as though the Devil lurked somewhere behind my eyes.

Theodoric
, amused by the older man's struggles, calmly took back the book and showed it to the Abbot.
 
Shifting my weight onto his shoulder, he underlined the name on the cover and gestured towards me.
 
Endymion
Spring
.
 
No wonder he had known my name.

The Abbot nodded thoughtfully and then, after gazing at the notebook for a while, made a curious writing motion with his hands.
 
The message was clear:
 
he wanted to know if I could read or write.

Theodoric
shrugged.

I didn't have the strength to enlighten them.
 
Despite the sunlight streaming in through the windows, I was shivering uncontrollably.
 
My face was clammy and hot, and my body felt as though I had rolled in splintered glass.
 
Every little noise boomed in my ears like thunder.

Theodoric
looked at me worriedly and then, returning the book to my possession, cradled me in his arms and hurried me through the cloisters to the infirmary.
 
My hands curled weakly round the book like an additional clasp.

We passed under another archway engraved with lion's teeth and dashed across an open area full of herb gardens and neatly cultivated flowerbeds.
 
Wicker hives, daubed with clay, hummed in the distance.
 
The air was sweet and honey-scented; but I barely noticed.
 
Already, I was sinking into a deathly cold delirium.

By the time we reached the infirmary, a long low building close to the latrines, a fever had gripped me — and would not let go.

A

Fust
waited for me in the darkness.

No matter how far I ran, no matter how hard I tried to escape, he always caught up with me the moment I closed my eyes.
 
He swept into my dreams like a shadow, filling my heart with dread.
 
Endlessly, he pursued me; endlessly, he hunted for the book...

From Mainz, I had fled not to Frankfurt, nor to Paris, as he had imagined, but to
Eltville
, a pretty little village on the banks of the River Rhine, where Herr Gutenberg had a niece.
 
For a few days I sheltered among the fragrant grape-
greeen
hills; then, when Peter sent word that
Fust
had stormed off towards the Library of St. Victor, hoping to overtake me, I grudgingly began my route north to Oxford.

For weeks, I kept to the grassy banks of the river.
 
Fust
had placed a bounty on my head and I was no better that a wanted criminal.
 
I avoided the inns, which were infested with lice, fleas and thieves, and bedded down with the cows in the fields at night.
 
Nowhere was safe.
 
No one could be trusted.

The book was my sole companion, but even this did not contain any news of Herr Gutenberg or Peter.
 
For all its power, it could not bring them back to me.
 
I was befriended only by the past, by the memories of those I had left behind.

As I neared
Coster's
homeland, the birthplace of the book, the place where
Coster
had slain the dragon, I began to fear that
Fust
had finally caught up with me.
 
His name was never very far from the lips of the people I passed in the woods or villages; but it was a name spoken of with loathing and distrust.
 
His theft had not been forgotten.
 
It rankled in the hearts of
Coster's
countrymen
.
Yet, even here, the book was not safe.
 
Haarlem
was too close to Mainz and
Fust
could follow my tracks too easily.
 
Only in the depths of the vast new library William had described in the Little Lamb could its pages be properly be hidden.
 
I kept going.

In Rotterdam, where the Rhine meets the sea, I found a vessel bound for England and two or three days later emerged from it, dazed and disorientated, in a city far larger than any I had known:
 
London.
 
Hungry and cold, I shivered through the densely packed streets, shunning strangers and disappearing into anonymous cracks.
 
I could not wait to be free of the city.
 
Yet there seemed to be no end to the wharves, houses and alleys that flanked the busy river, spewing their filth into the mighty waterway that cut through that land like a gash.
 
Boroughs festered outside the city walls.

Nevertheless, as the drunkard William had promised, the river eventually narrowed into a more navigable stream and I followed its wriggling course through the more pleasant countryside, overtaken by boats loaded with luxury silks and linens.
 
Half-starved
, I stole from farms and hamlets, sheltered beneath the
lych
-gates of old stone churches and watched miserably each night as the day's reflections sank in the turbid water.

Finally, Oxford lay, huddled in mist, on the other side of the river.
 
The spires were not nearly so grand as I had imagined — they squatted closer to earth than aspired to heaven — but I was cheered by the thought of the colleges and libraries, and the expectation of somewhere warm to rest my weary feet, which were rubbed raw with blisters.

I rushed forwards, joining a pilgrimage of laborers up to the South Gate, but my cheerfulness turned almost to despair.

"Your kind is not welcome here," snarled the shorter and smellier of the guards at the gate.
 
I could barely comprehend his language.
 
His face, however, said it all.
 
His partner stared fixedly over my head at the restless line of people behind me.

My bright yellow cloak was no more than a soiled rag and my skin was covered with sores and abrasions.
 
I looked like a victim of the plague.

I began to unfold my notebook, hoping to prove that I could read and write — surely a valuable skill in a university town — but they were not impressed.

"Look, be off with you," said the more officious guard.
 
"If you don’t move on, I'll throw you in the
boggards
' prison myself."

He shoved me roughly back and I tripped over the edge of a cartwheel that had been drawn up close behind.
 
I collapsed in a pool of muck and thought I heard a mule snigger.
 
Tears of humiliation pricked my eyes.

I got up and brushed the dirt from my already tattered clothes.
 
I had faced too many obstacles to be turned away so easily.
 
While the guards inspected the other travelers, checking their loads and wagons, I concealed myself in a cartload of squawking chickens and sneaked into town.
 
Theodoric
, however, must have noticed my notebook and kept a safe distance behind, biding his time... until my fever overcame me, my world went black and I collapsed in the filthy street.

A

I awoke to find
Theodoric
examining the little notebook by my side, wondering why the clasps would not open even for him.
 
He noticed me eyeing him from the edge of sleep and welcomed me back to the world of the living with an immense grin.

We were in a long infirmary lined with straw-filled beds.
 
I was the sole occupant.

Sheets of radiant light streamed in from the vine-trellised windows, offering glimpses of the garden outside.
 
Chests and cabinets stood with their backs to the walls.

The afternoon hummed with heat.
 
Flies circled the air in drowsy loops and bees droned near their hives.
 
Bunches of dried flowers had been tied to the rafters to obliterate the smells of death and disease, the
rooms
previous tenants.

Theodoric
looked around him apprehensively.
 
I could tell that a question was burning his lips, but he seemed uncertain how — or if — to ask.
 
Despite my aching bones, I sat up, grimacing with the effort.

"You can read?" he said at last, when he judged me ready to answer.

I nodded.

"And write?" he asked, even more doubtful.
 
He glanced at the window, through which we could see black-robed monks tending the garden, hopping from plant to plant like crows.
 
Theodoric
had phrased both questions in Latin, which it pleased him to know I understood.

Again I nodded.

"But this," he said, pointing to the book and stroking the letters on the cover.
 
"This is a different kind of book.
 
You are blessed with a secret knowledge, yes?"

Wearily, I smiled.
 
I was too tired to explain.
 
Besides, who would believe my story?

Theodoric
did not appear to mind my silence.
 
"You must rest," he said finally, and then got up as a solitary bell clanged outside, summoning him to prayers.

A

The bed they had placed me in was as soft as a cloud.
 
I could have lain there forever.
 
It had freshly laundered sheets, sprinkled with lavender and tansy to keep the fleas at bay, and the straw mattress smelled every bit as sweet as the day it was threshed.
 
I did not care that this could be my deathbed.
 
After the ditches and fields I had slept in, it felt like heaven.

For days, I drifted in and out of consciousness.
 
Each time I surfaced, I found
Theodoric
doting over me like a faithful puppy.
 
He treated the
chlblains
on my feet with a poultice made from marjoram and prepared bittersweet remedies for me to drink.
 
At first, the feverfew and lemon balm made my skin erupt in prickles of sweat, but gradually I began to recover my appetite and regain my strength.
 
Soon I was able to sit up and take note of my surroundings.

My clothes lay in a paltry heap on the floor at the foot of the bed — a dingy skin I had sloughed off
like
a past life.
 
The bright yellow cloak, which Christina had so lovingly sewed for me, was now no more than a flimsy burial shroud.
 
In its place I wore a garment of white cloth, its sleeves far too wide for my skinny arms.
 
They spread out from my shoulders like wings.

To amuse me,
Theodoric
tried on the long yellow hood I had worn on my arrival.
 
It sat on his head like a dirty sock, a tiny jester's cap, making me laugh.
 
Whereas the other monks shuffled past as discreetly as possible, keeping a respectful distance, through vows of silence were not strictly observed,
Theodoric
seemed unable to remain quiet or still for long.
 
He was too full of questions.