Endymion Spring (7 page)

They came to a broad street interspersed with stone-fronted colleges and tall tilting shops, all selling the same merchandise:
 
Oxford jerseys, Oxford scarves and Oxford teddy bears.
 
Tourists flocked from one to the other, shepherded by guides with colorful umbrellas.

Even though Blake knew his way around the city now, he still felt like a foreigner himself.
 
His accent made him stand out like a flag.
 
Nevertheless, he was beginning to appreciate life in Oxford.
 
Inside each tawny college lay a forgotten world of libraries, chapels and dining halls.
 
It was like stepping back in time.
 
He kept expecting to bump into people with powdered wigs, silk stockings and dark robes — like caped crusaders from long ago.

Unexpectedly, his mother stopped.
 
She was standing next to a secondhand bookshop, staring at a display of fine leather books and novels in torn dust jackets.
 
Before he could prevent her, she had gone inside, telling him to look after Duck.
 
There was something she wanted to look at.
 
"I'll only be a minute," she called out over her shoulder as the door jangled shut behind her.

Blake rolled his eyes.
 
He'd heard that one before.

Annoyed, he wandered over to the curb and started swinging round an old-fashioned lamppost, letting the city swirl past him in
a
 
blur
of sensations.

It felt liberating to be outside.
 
During the previous weeks, he'd seen mostly dun-colored museums and waterlogged statues from the misted heights of a double-decker bus.
 
This afternoon, however, the city blazed with life:
 
colleges glowed under an azure sky and pigeons spiraled round the towers on whistling wings.
 
Golden clock faces, scattered around the streets, told a multitude of times.

And then he saw him.

The man was sitting close to the bookshop, reading what looked to be an old battered book.
 
Blake slowed to a crawl — then stopped completely.

The stranger was dressed in a brown leather robe and had an unfashionably long, scraggly beard.
 
Despite the heat, he was wearing a peculiar hat that looked like sort of like a nightcap with a fur trim on it.
 
Blake had never seen anything like it before.
 
It was as if one of the many statues in the city had come to life and was resting unnoticed on the pavement.
 
Was he homeless?

All the while the boy stared at him, the man didn't move, didn't even turn a page, but concentrated on his book.
 
In fact, he could have been carved out of stone; he was motionless.

Most of the people passing by didn't pay him any attention, but those who did dropped a few coins at his feet and hurried on.
 
The silver coins glistened like gobs of spit on the ground.
 
The man, however, neither noticed their looks nor pocketed their change.
 
He was lost in his own private world.

A wiry hound with perky ears lay on a tattered blanket beside him, a bright red bandanna wrapped around its neck.
 
Duck walked straight up to it.

"I like your dog," she said, bending down to stroke the animal, which thumped its tail lethargically.

Even then, the man didn't look up, but continued reading.
 
He clutched the volume in grubby fingers that looked like gnarled tree roots.

"Duck!" hissed Blake, trying not to disturb or offend the old man.
 
The dog might have fleas, or, worse, might bite her; but neither possibility really worried him.
 
He was much more concerned with what his mother would say if she found Duck talking to a stranger.
 
He was supposed to be looking after her, after all.

"Duck!" he hissed again.

This time she heard him and looked up, smiling.

"What's your dog's name?" she said, but still the man ignored her.

Blake went to drag her away by the arm.

Then, suddenly, the man lifted his head.
 
It was as if he had come to the end of a complex sentence or an extremely long paragraph.
 
He looked at Blake with an expression that was not altogether hostile, but not entirely friendly either.
 
It was a searching, penetrating gaze, as though he was surprised to find a young boy standing in front of him, casting a shadow over his book.
 
He seemed to have woken up from a deep sleep.

Blake felt uncomfortable and immediately turned away, pulling Duck after him.

Just then the shop door opened and Juliet Winters returned, without the book she had wanted.
 
She gave the man a quick, dismissive glance and led the children away.

"What did he want?" she asked idly as they drifted towards the main shopping area and blended in with the crowds.

Blake didn't answer.
 
He had looked back just once — as they were crossing a side street — and was alarmed to see that the man was following them with his eyes.

4

B
lake tried his best to ignore Duck.
 
She had assumed that smug expression she sometimes got when she knew she had a secret he would want to hear, and which she was secretly dying to tell; but, as usual, she would wait for him to beg her for it first.
 
He decided to ask his mother about the book she had wanted instead.

"Oh, it was a book I used to like when I was a girl," she said vaguely, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
 
"A book about butterflies.
 
I saw it in the shop window and it brought back some memories.
 
Only, I don't have time to read such things now.
 
I have more pressing things to do instead."

"Well, I think you should have bought it," he said simply, but firmly, thinking it wouldn't do her any harm to be a child again for a few hours.

"Perhaps you're right," she answered, but he could tell from the sound of her voice that she was already miles away.

Duck's eyes were now the size of marbles.
 
Blake couldn't stand the suspense any longer and slowed his steps to fall in line with hers.
 
"Go on," he growled.
 
"Tell me."

She clutched him eagerly by the arm.

"Did you notice the strange man?" she squealed.

"Of course I did."
 
He disentangled himself from her grasp.
 
"I was standing right next to you, idiot."

"No, I mean, did you notice
what
he was reading?"

Blake shook his head.
 
"It was just an old book, but it must have been exciting, 'cause he didn't look up once till he got to the end."

"That's it!" she said triumphantly.

"What's it?"

"I noticed what he was reading."

She skipped back and forth, trumpeting the air in her cheeks.

"Well?"

"Nothing!"

"What?"

"Nothing," she said again.

"What do you
mean,
nothing?" he snapped, suspecting a trick.
 
"You're joking, right?"

His voice was louder than intended and his mother turned round to make sure they weren't arguing.
 
He smiled at her sheepishly and she continued on ahead.

"I'm serious," said Duck.
 
"There were no words in his book.
 
He was staring at a blank page — just like in your book."

She watched to see how he took the remark.

He remained silent and thoughtful for a while.
 
"That doesn't mean anything," he said finally.
 
"It could have been a notebook.
 
Maybe he was going to write something in it when you interrupted him."

"But he wasn't holding a pen," she said quickly.
 
Obviously, she had been thinking this through.

"Or maybe he'd just finished reading a novel and was thinking it over when you came along," suggested Blake.
 
"Some books have blank pages at the end, you know."

"Possibly," she conceded, "but I got a closer look at it than you, and I don't think it was a novel.
 
Or even a notebook.
 
Besides, he stared at you in such a funny way.
 
That suggests there was definitely something fishy about the book — or about you."

She gave him another look.

He grunted, unwilling to take the bait.
 
"He was just irritated because you interrupted him, that's all," he answered, and quickened his pace to catch up with his mother.
 
Either Duck was being annoying or else she was mistaken.
 
The man had certainly looked like he was reading
something
.
 
The possibility that there could be two blank books in one day seemed too unlikely to be true.

They had arrived at a busy intersection.
 
To their right stood an ancient stone tower with two gold-helmeted figures ready to strike the hour on the bells with their clubs, while several hundred meters away, beyond a college and its meadows, lay a low bridge, which crossed the river towards the neighborhood in which they lived.
 
Already Blake could sense the cramped row of houses in
Millstone Lane
growing nearer and shivered.

"Two blank books in one day," Duck mused aloud.
 
"I think it's a mystery.
 
And, if it is, then I'm going to be the one to solve it."

"Oh yeah?" he retorted.
 
"You'll have to do so without me."

"Good," she said.
 
"I was planning to do just that."

But Blake took no notice of her remark.
 
He had already resolved to steal away from the dinner that night and return to the college library.
 
He would find the blank book and this time read the riddle over and over again until he understood it.

5

B
lake fingered the torch in his pocket apprehensively.

He had expected the dinner to take place in the cavernous dining hall, a room full of drafts and sputtering candles; but it had been relocated to the Master's Lodgings, a cozier but no less opulent building tucked away in a far corner of the college.
 
He wondered how, or if, he was going to be able to sneak away to the library.

Little lanterns lit their way, emitting a ghostly glow that barely illuminated the path.
 
Plants with spiky fronds clutched at his clothes, while tangled shadows climbed the walls.

Ahead was a large house.
 
Even now he could hear the din of voices breaking from the ground-floor rooms and felt tempted to run back to the peace and tranquility of the library; but his mother put a hand on his shoulder and steered him onwards.

"Now, I want you two to behave," she whispered as they climbed the stone steps to the door, which was flanked on either side by stiff marble columns.
 
"There are important people present."

The hallway was dominated by an enormous chandelier that descended from the ceiling in a fountain of frozen light.
 
Duck danced beneath it, pirouetting on her heels, while Blake gazed at the paintings that once again graced the shot-silk walls.
 
The largest was of an old man in a desert, with a disproportionately small lion at his feet.
 
Wrapped in a scarlet cloak, he was scribbling feverishly in a book, although Blake couldn't decipher any of the words.
 
They were gibberish to him.
 
The
saintlike
figure, however, reminded him of the homeless man and he wondered again what he had been reading when Blake and Duck had stumbled upon him.

Juliet Winters did not pause to take in her surroundings, but guided them into a little cloakroom further down the corridor.
 
A row of black robes had been strung up along the walls like dead birds.
 
Blake noticed that his mother took one before putting her coat on the vacant peg.
 
He placed his jacket over hers and was about to reach for a robe too, when she put out a hand to stop him.

"Gowns are for Fellows only," she warned him, shrugging the black material on to her shoulders.

Blake didn't mind forgoing the formality — his mother looked like a disheveled crow, he thought — but Duck was itching to try one on.
 
She brushed her fingers along the embroidered sleeves and dreamed of being an Oxford scholar.
 
She refused, however, to take off her raincoat.

Juliet Winters glanced at her reflection in a gold-framed mirror and then opened the door to an adjoining room.
 
A multitude of people stood before them in conspiratorial circles, discussing books.
 
Blake moved around the edge of the crowd, carefully avoiding conversation.
 
An elbow jogged him once or twice and he apologized, but otherwise no one paid him attention.

Before long he found himself by a cabinet on which a cluster of glasses had been arranged like sparkling jewels.
 
He couldn't resist.
 
He reached for a glass of sherry as soon as his mother's back was turned.
 
The amber liquid had a beguiling aroma and tasted warm and sweet when he tested it with his tongue.
 
Not too horrible.
 
He took a deeper sip and swallowed.

Immediately, a fire erupted in his throat and rushed up the sides of his face.
 
He winced.
 
Quickly, before his mother caught him, he put the sherry back on its tray and opted for a safer glass of orange juice instead.