Matthew Skelton: Endymion Spring

My Master had not noticed the dip in temperature nor the diminishing light, but was absorbed in the finicky craft of invention. The other workmen had retired for the night to the dormitory at the top of the house, but he had pulled a stool closer to the fire and was busy tinkering with a complex piece of metal. Using a sharp tool, he scraped away tiny scrolls of brass from the edges of a mold.

A perfectionist, he was making ever more minute alterations to the equipment so that each piece of type he created would transfer exactly the right amount of ink to the paper he had imported from the mills upstream. Barrels of ordinary stock were stored beneath the stairs, while finer reams of rag paper from Italy, which he preferred, were kept alongside the expensive animal skins, which he was going to prepare as vellum.

Each night, he tried to convince me that we were one day closer to our dreams, but I was no longer so sure. The money he had invested in the printing press — a much-guarded secret — was swiftly running out and what remained of his gold was turning to sand between his fingers. Besides, I was content the way things were. The room crackled with warmth, and the sounds of my Master's industry were all the company I needed. It was a far cry from my past.

Just then, I sensed a bundled-up figure lurking outside the church on the opposite side of the street and pressed my face closer to the glass, trying to distinguish its shape. A lump of shadow had detached itself from the main porch and was staring in my direction.

"Are you moon-gazing again, young Endymion?" said my Master, making me turn around. "Come, I need your fingers."

I nodded, then glanced back at the window. The figure had gone. Breathing on the thick swirl of glass, I drew a face in the moon of condensation and turned back to my Master before the smile could fade.

"My hands are too clumsy for this work," he sighed as I crouched behind him. His fingers were scored with scars and his skin coated in a soft silvery sheen from the metals he used: lead, tin and just a touch of antimony — that most poisonous element, which gave his pieces of type their bite. Black inky blotches had settled on his knuckles like flies.

I took the magnifying lens from the table and held it out to him. His face was streaked with dirt and his beard had grown long and grizzled, but I loved him just the same. He studied the mold in his hand for a moment, his eye swimming behind the lens of beryl. Even now he was not satisfied. He held the apparatus closer to the fire and resumed his tinkering.

I liked to think that I could help Herr Gutenberg. He had taken me in as an apprentice two years before, when I was a starving waif on the street. It was the least I could do to repay his kindness — no, better yet, his confidence.

Mostly, I performed menial tasks in the print room. I rose early to stoke the fire, sweep the floor and dampen the sheets of paper prior to his daily experiments with the printing press: a machine he'd had specially adapted from the wine presses in the region. This latest model consisted of a sturdy, upright wooden frame with a lever and screw that lowered a heavy plate onto an artfully arranged tray of type, which he slid beneath. The inked letters then transferred their message to the paper he inserted, sheet by sheet. We could print multiple copies of a text for as long as the type lasted. Books would no longer have to be copied laboriously by hand; we could print them with this machine. The invention, Herr Gutenberg believed, would change the world.

Sometimes he allowed me to mix the inks. This was a messy business that involved blending the soot from our lamps with varnish, with just a splash of urine added in for good measure ("The secret ingredient," he said with a smile); but what I really enjoyed was composing type. This was my special task — a job reserved for my fingers alone.

For a few hours each day, while the workmen operated the press, I would sit at a low trestle table with hundreds of bits of metal type — a broken alphabet — in front of me. Piece by piece, I would string the letters together to form words, sentences and finally whole passages of text, always mirror images of the examples my Master set before me. Backwards writing, he called it. I excelled at it. Even better, I was learning to read.

So far, we had experimented with basic Latin primers for the law students who thronged the city, but my Master had recently set his sights on greater, bolder initiatives: Bibles. This was where the real money lay. There were always people hungry for the Word of God. All we needed was additional backing from our investors and a chance to prove that our books were every bit as beautiful and accurate as those produced by the most accomplished scribes.

Unbeknownst to my Master, I was also practicing the art of printing on my own. Already, I had put my name on a little toolkit he had given me on my first anniversary: a soft leather pouch containing my picks, awls and chisels. One by one, I added the letters in my composing stick, and then punched them into the leather with the utmost care, gradually assuming my new identity: E-n-d-y-m-i-o-n S-p-r-i-n-g. The letters were a little crooked, but the name stuck.

I knew that my skill impressed him. Herr Gutenberg said that I had swift fingers, but an even swifter mind. I was growing into a fine apprentice. "A real printer's devil," he said half jokingly, dislodging my cap and mussing my hair.

I wanted to tell him that he was growing into a fine father, too, but I couldn't. My voice, like everything else, had been taken from me at birth.

At this moment the door downstairs blew open and I got up to shut it.

No sooner had I reached the top stair than I stopped. A figure had entered the house and was rapidly ascending the steps towards me. A gust of snow raged in behind him. I rushed back to rejoin my Master by the fire.

Within moments a bullish man had appeared on the threshold of the room. Red welts streaked his cheeks, where the frost had nipped him, and he breathed through flared nostrils. His eyes roamed round the workshop, knocking over tables and equipment until they settled on my Master, who had looked up in surprise.

"Fust," he said, recognizing the stranger. There was little warmth in his voice.

The intruder bit back a smile. "Gutenberg," he replied.

Fust noticed my look of disapproval.

"And who is this urchin?" he asked, flicking the snow from his shoulders and advancing towards the fire. A short, round-shouldered man, he was dressed in a heavy, fur-trimmed cloak with chains and medallions draped across his chest — a sure sign of his wealth. The boards creaked under his weight.

He brought a surge of cold air into the room and I shivered.

"His name is Endymion," said my Master. "My apprentice."

I glowed to hear those words, but Fust snorted derisively. He tore off his gloves and slapped them on the table, making me flinch. Then he reached out and grasped my chin between his ring-encrusted fingers. Turning my face from left to right, he inspected me with hard, flinty eyes, which flashed in the firelight. He had thick, reddish-brown hair and a fox-colored beard that divided at the base to form two distinct points.

"Endymion, he?" He tasted my name, then spat it out. "What is he? A dreamer?"

My Master said nothing. He had often told me the legend of Endymion, the Greek shepherd who was loved by the moon and granted eternal youth. He said the name suited the way I gazed into the distance, dreaming of other things.

"Johann, what are you doing?" said Fust, finally letting me go. "Just look at him. He's a runt! Too puny even to pick up a piece of type, let alone turn the screw. What use is he to you?"

I opened my mouth to protest, but no sound emerged.