Tom Harper - The Book of Secrets

‘You shouldn’t have done it,’ I insisted.

He clapped me on the shoulder. ‘Some survive in Dunne’s workshop. Speaking of whom, I must go. He has some work for me.’

I wrapped the bestiary in its cloth and followed Kaspar out. My joy in the book had gone. Nothing endures. Except failure, I thought – and my engagement to Ennelin.

I made my way through Strassburg to an apothecary’s shop where my credit was still tolerated. The lead cast I had made of Dunne’s plate barely survived my experiment: the metal was so soft it blurred the moment it touched the paper. But, like the first print I ever saw from Konrad Schmidt’s ring in Cologne, I had recognised something in it. I knew I could make it stronger. Already, by alloying it with tin and antimony I found I could make a good clean cast. The hope was just enough to hold off the full weight of my dread whenever I thought of Ennelin.

She was still lurking in my thoughts when I passed the Rathaus, the city hall. I almost missed her. The court was in session, and crowds thronged the street outside waiting for verdicts. I glimpsed her coming down the steps and almost dismissed it as a manifestation of my imagination. But it was enough to make me look again, just in time to confirm it was indeed her. Her mother was behind her. They stepped into the crowd and vanished before I could reach them.

I found someone who knew her, a member of the wine merchant’s guild, and asked why they had been in court.

‘They have just heard the suit regarding her late husband’s estate. He had a son by his first wife who challenged her inheritance.’

‘And?’

‘The son won. The widow – his stepmother – is left with nothing but a room to live in and food to eat.’

Before I could react, a heavy hand clamped down on my shoulder and spun me around. I looked down into the last face I wanted to see. Stoltz, the moneylender, a regular acquaintance of mine.

‘Were you in court this morning?’

I shook my head, too numb to speak. ‘The widow Ellewibel’s estate is worthless.’

‘I have just heard.’

He grabbed me by the collar. ‘I loaned you fifty gulden against that inheritance.’

‘And I can repay it.’

He was a small man, lean and cunning. Even so, for a moment I thought he might try to shake the money out of me. Then something behind me caught his eye – no doubt another debtor of doubtful means. He let me go.

‘I will come and visit you to discuss it presently.’

I left him and ran down the street. The two women had disappeared, but I could guess where they had gone. I overtook them just outside their front door. Ellewibel’s eyes narrowed as she saw me; her face was grim. Her daughter kept her eyes downcast and said nothing.

‘Herr Gensfleisch. I am sorry – this is not a good time for us.’

‘I know.’

She drew herself up and fixed me with her sternest stare. ‘A few days ago you came to my house and confessed your prospects were not as promising as you had led me to believe. I admired your honesty and treated you generously, though I was under no obligation to do so. I hope that now you will extend me the same courtesy.’

‘There will be no marriage.’ The words were sweet in my mouth.

‘You have agreed the contract. You cannot break it off.’

‘You have broken it. You promised me your husband’s estate, two hundred gulden.’

‘I promised nothing of the sort,’ she said quickly, a gambler who had been waiting to play her top card. ‘I promised you my claim on the inheritance. In good faith, I believed it was worth what I told you. I could not foresee that the court would side with my stepson.’

‘Perhaps if you had mentioned the suit I could have judged its prospects for myself.’ I drew myself up with a shiver of righteous glee. ‘Perhaps if you had paid me the courtesy of fair dealing I would be more inclined now to forgive the deficiency of Ennelin’s dowry.’ That was a lie. ‘As it is, you have tricked me twice over. The contract is void.’

The pleasure must have told in my voice. It only added to her fury.

‘This is not the end of the matter, Herr Gensfleisch. I will take you to the courts for breach of contract, if I must, and this time they will side with me.’

I turned to Ennelin. ‘Goodbye, Fräulein. I am sorry it has ended this way.’

Ego absolvo te. I free you. I did not need to buy an indulgence: I had never felt freer.

Belgium

Nick stared at the letters that had appeared on the page. ‘What is that?’

‘Hard point,’ said Emily. ‘You press the words into the parchment with a blunt nib, a pen with no ink. It only shows up if you look at it in the right light, and know where to look. It’s simple but very effective. Did you ever read a mystery story where the detective looks on a pad of paper for the impression of what was written on the sheet above?’

‘I guess.’

‘This is the same thing, only deliberate. Medieval scribes often used hard point to rule their lines. Some of them adapted the technique to write hidden messages.’

‘So what does it say?’

Emily read the words slowly, tracing them out with the light. Jerome watched her with a look somewhere between fury and grudging respect.

‘“Occultum in sermonibus regum Israel.” ’ She looked up. ‘It means, “Which is hidden in the sayings of the kings of Israel.”’

‘And what does that mean?’

‘It’s a continuation of the previous line. He – Master Francis, the illuminator – also made another book of beasts using this new form of writing, which is hidden in the sayings of the kings of Israel.’

Nick’s head throbbed. ‘Great. You know, I’m surprised they bothered to hide it. It makes absolutely no sense. There’s no way Gillian could have found it.’

‘I think she did.’ In her tiredness, Emily spoke so quietly that Nick struggled to hear her. She said it again. ‘I think she found it. The Sayings of the Kings of Israel is a lost book of the Bible.’

She watched their reactions. Nick confused; Brother Jerome with his strange, ill-concealed irritation. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’

Jerome played with the hem of his dressing gown and said nothing.

‘I saw it in that book in the Bibliothèque Nationale. Lost Books of the Bible.’ She pointed to the bestiary splayed open on the desk. ‘Gillian got it out the day after she found this. I’d be pretty sure she saw the inscription. But where that gets us… ’

‘What do you mean by a lost book of the Bible?’ said Nick. ‘Do you mean a lost book as in a missing copy, or as in a piece of text like the Gospel according to Mary Magdalen or whatever?’

‘I don’t know.’ Emily slumped back against the wall. ‘I didn’t read that carefully. I suppose it’s more likely to be a book as in text, like the Book of Revelation or the Book of Job. Though how that’s supposed to get us closer to Gillian…’

‘Gillian must have been searching for something when she left Paris,’ said Nick. ‘It wasn’t the card, and it wasn’t this book – she had both of those already. There must have been something else.’

Emily turned back to the book on the table and stared at the illuminations. ‘This book alone is priceless. A bestiary that we can attribute with near certainty to the Master of the Playing Cards – practically signed by him. Just discovering it would have made Gillian’s professional reputation for life. What would make her abandon this to go chasing after something else?’

They wrapped the book in newspaper, made their excuses and left. For all his hostility, Jerome seemed reluctant to see them go. He followed them to the car, standing on the pavement in his bathrobe until they were out of sight. Nick wished they hadn’t spoken so freely in front of him. Only when they’d left him well behind did he voice the obvious question.