The Book of Secrets

by Tom Harper

  This is how God forms us all, I thought: raining down blows to draw out shapes from the crude stone of our creation. A tap and a crack, a puff of dust, the rattle of fragments falling on the cobbles. Another piece of our imperfection cut away. The smoothest skin is scar tissue.

  ‘The curve of the knee is too sharp.’

  A shadow fell over the bench. Drach had arrived, stealing up behind me in silence. He glanced at the bear, emerging from the stone as if from a forest, then at the drawing pinned to the tabletop.

  The stone carver looked up. He was well-used to Drach’s interruptions. ‘The bear needs to fit the column. I made him crouch lower.’

  Drach laughed and swung away. I followed him through the stone yard. It was like a cemetery: a field of stones in every stage of refinement, from boulders fresh out of the quarry to fluted sections of arches that only wanted a keystone to make them stand erect.

  ‘That is the way to create copies,’ Drach said. ‘I make a picture and he copies it. What could be simpler?’

  ‘You said yourself it isn’t a true copy.’

  ‘True enough.’

  ‘Not for me.’

  We sat down on a roughly dressed ashlar. On a stone capital opposite, a bearded man parted foliage like curtains and peered out. I squinted, but it was not one of Kaspar’s.

  ‘I have found a way we can raise the money,’ he said, without preamble.

  A season had passed since our experiment in Dritzehn’s cellar. I had not meant it to, but sometimes time escapes all plan and reason. For three days afterwards I could not raise my spirits to even think about it. When the worst of my melancholy had passed, I no longer cared. I found other things to occupy me; I concentrated my energies on earning my living and maintaining my household. My stays in St Argobast became longer; Drach’s visits less frequent. The passion that had run so full in my veins had eased. Yet when Drach sent a boy to call me to this meeting, it had flooded back unbidden, as high as ever.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘There is a widow in this town named Ellewibel. She lives by the wine market.’

  He paused, playing up the suspense. I humoured him. ‘Do you expect me to marry this widow for her fortune?’

  ‘No. But she has a daughter, Ennelin. Twenty-five years old and not yet married. If Ellewibel could find a husband to take her, the dowry would be immense. All the money we need to advance our art.’

  I stared at him. He smiled, nodding, encouraging me to follow his train of thought.

  ‘That is the most preposterous idea you have ever suggested.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You know why.’

  We had never spoken of the demon that possessed me. But from the moment we had shared our first drink in the Wild Man, he had surely known. He allowed me to wash his back in the river and watch him dress; when he stayed at my house we slept in the same bed wrapped together like an old married couple. Sometimes he allowed my hand to slide into the hollow of his hips, so I could lie awake and torment myself with possibilities. I never went any further. The demon had wormed itself into my soul so deep it had become a part of me, a tumour I could not remove without also destroying myself. Drach was different. I knew he did not desire me, but encouraged my cravings because he loved perversity, danger, the hair-thin ledge he walked along the cliffs of damnation. Perhaps, I begged God in the solitary hours of the night, because he loved me.

  But now he was pitiless. ‘You are a bachelor of thirty-some years. You have an income, a house, a good family behind you. Why should you not marry this girl?’

  Because I love you, I wanted to scream. But I understood that to say it would destroy everything.

  ‘If she is twenty-five with a substantial dowry, why is she still unmarried?’

  He stroked my cheek with his finger, taunting me. ‘So uncharitable, Johann. She is probably a rosebud who has not yet opened.’

  ‘At twenty-five?’

  ‘Then perhaps she is as ugly as a two-headed mule.’ He shrugged. ‘You shouldn’t mind. When indulgences are pouring out of our press like wine, you can buy one to salve your conscience.’

  He slid off the stone and paced around me. ‘If every challenge was overcome at the first attempt, it would never have been a challenge. Do you know how many sheets of paper and copper I ruined to make the playing cards? How many three-legged bears and unicorns that looked like goats?’

  ‘Your unicorn still looks like a goat.’ I wanted to wound him, but he shrugged it off with rare modesty.

  ‘Catch me one and I will draw it better.’

  ‘At least a unicorn would be worth something.’

  ‘But we are hunting a rarer beast. If – when – we make it right, a more valuable beast.’

  He pulled a coin out of his pocket and flipped it towards me. He must have brought it with him precisely for this piece of theatre, for I never otherwise knew him to carry any money. I snatched it out of the air.

  ‘Imagine that is your bride.’

  The image on the coin was a man, John the Baptist, his head framed in a heart-shaped halo. I read the inscription around the border. IOHANNIS ARCHIEPISCOPVS MAGVNTINVS. John, Archbishop of Mainz.

  ‘I saw Dunne the goldsmith yesterday,’ Drach said. ‘He has been carving a new plate which he says will make the lettering more even. But it takes hours to make. He cannot afford the time without extra payment.’

  I was not listening. The lettering on the coin had transported me back to my childhood. Some colleagues of my father from the mint had lived in our house for a time. A die maker had been one. I remembered tiptoeing into his room one afternoon and watching him at work. He took the block of iron that he had engraved with the design, held a steel rod against it and struck it hard with a hammer. Sparks flew; I whimpered in surprise. He heard me and beckoned me over. He let me hold the steel rod and told me it was called a punch. He showed me the end, which had been carved away so that the letter A stood proud on its tip. When he struck it against the die, it left a perfect imprint in the iron. Later it would be filled with gold, and the impression of that letter hammered into the coin. Such was the unceasing cycle of creation and reproduction: punch and form, male and female, stroke and imprint.

  Like all obvious ideas, the wonder afterwards is that it took so long to discover. Why had we wasted months trying to carve the words with a graving tool, when Dunne and I both knew that the best way to imprint letters in metal is with a punch-stamp? All I can say is that Drach had engraved his cards, and we were so bent on following his method we did not pause to think.

  Drach was watching me impatiently. He hated to be ignored. I met his gaze and smiled. Of course I saw what he was doing. But I could not help myself.

  ‘How much is Ennelin’s dowry?’

  XXXVII

  Paris

  ‘Could they have followed me?’

  It had taken Emily three hours to get back. She’d changed trains, jumped indiscriminately on and off buses, browsed in the reflections of shop windows, made sudden detours – all the while looking over her shoulder for any sign of pursuit. Darkness had fallen by the time she sneaked back into the hotel. She’d shaken Nick awake from his jet-lagged sleep and dragged him to a café in a quiet backstreet near Montparnasse. She still didn’t feel safe.

  ‘If they’d followed you, they’d have come back to the hotel.’ Nick sipped his beer and looked around the café for the dozenth time. He couldn’t sit still. ‘It was lucky you had that pepper spray.’

  ‘I had a bad experience once.’ Emily barely moved. Shock gripped her like stone. ‘It must have been the book. It must have triggered some kind of alarm somewhere. A tripwire.’

  Not so long ago it would have sounded ludicrously paranoid. Now, Nick just nodded. ‘Maybe that’s how they found Gillian. That’s why she left her library card in the bank vault.’ The cards Gillian had left them were beginning to look more like a box of sharpened knives than a treasure trove. ‘If only we could find her that easily.’

 
Emily cupped her palms around her mug of coffee in silence. Twice she looked as if she was going to say something, but held back. Nick could guess what it was.

  ‘If you want to go home, I understand.’ He said it quickly, knowing he’d regret it if he gave himself time to think about it. ‘God knows what those guys would have done to you if you hadn’t escaped. There’s no reason for you to risk it for Gillian.’

  Emily seemed to flinch. ‘I’m not…’ She trailed off, paused, began again. ‘I’m not going home.’

  He knew he ought to argue but he didn’t have the will. She flicked him a tentative look and he held it, trying to reassure her. It was hard when he had so little to give.

  ‘At least I got something for my troubles.’ Warmth returned to Emily’s face. ‘Gillian was reading up on a physiologus – a book of beasts. I’ll bet that was the book she found the card in. There must have been one in the chateau’s library.’

  Nick thought about it for a second.

  ‘I know the man who’d know.’

  ‘Atheldene.’

  The familiar voice, so intimidating in its studied neutrality. ‘It’s Nick.’

  A taxi drove past the phone box. The noise of its wheels on the slick cobbled street drowned out Atheldene’s surprised silence. As it died away, Nick heard, ‘Any news of our mutual friend?’

  ‘Maybe – we’re not sure. We need to check the list of books she recovered from the chateau. Can you do that?’

  ‘Perhaps with a good enough reason.’

  ‘Gillian’s missing. Emily went to the Bibliothèque Nationale today and almost ended up the same way. How’s that for a reason?’

  ‘I’m very sorry to hear it.’

  Nick glanced at Emily, watching through the phone-box door. She nodded.

  ‘Gillian found a card. An old one.’

  ‘The Master of the Playing Cards, I presume.’ Atheldene didn’t sound surprised. ‘Have you got it?’

  ‘We think she may have found it in some sort of bestiary, or…’ Nick stumbled over the word. ‘Physiologus.’

  ‘Really?’

  Nick could almost imagine the raised eyebrow, the searching stare. He was glad of the phone line between them. He waited out the silence.

  ‘I’ll check the inventory from Rambouillet. Can I call you back on this number?’

  ‘It’s a payphone.’

  ‘I’ll be quick.’

  Atheldene hung up. Nick waited in the phone box, scanning the road through the cracked glass. A little way down the street, a homeless man sat hunched under a filthy quilt on a raft of cardboard boxes. Nick was amazed he hadn’t already frozen. His hand dipped to his pocket to find some euros, but fear restrained him. What if the old man wasn’t what he seemed? He was sure he’d read books where spies dressed as bums to conduct surveillance. Was the man looking at him? Nick watched him carefully and kept his hand in his pocket.

  A shadow crossed his line of sight. He jumped, but it was only Emily. She walked across the empty street and crouched beside the homeless man. She dropped some coins into his styrofoam cup and exchanged a few words, then hurried back. Nick felt ashamed.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He said you should stop staring at him.’

  Before Nick could feel even more guilty, the phone rang. He seized the receiver gratefully.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Good news. There was a bestiary in the old man’s collection. Just the one. Gillian catalogued it. Date, mid to late fifteenth century. Remarks: some stylistic similarities with the workshop of the Bedford Hours Master.’

  ‘The who?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later. You’ll like it.’

  ‘When can we see the book?’

  A dry laugh. ‘I’m afraid it’s not quite so straightforward.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well for one thing, the book’s not in Paris any more. Remember it had been soaked through? The conservators took it away to their controlled storage facility.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Brussels.’

  Nick swore. ‘Can we get in there?’

  ‘I could get you in there.’ There was an implicit offer in the sentence, a stress that opened a negotiation. Nick’s mind raced. He looked down the street and saw that the beggar had gone. Had he used Emily’s gift to find a warm bed for the night – or was he even now telling a man with a broken nose where to find Nick and Emily?

  ‘How soon can we leave?’

  ‘Straight away, if you like. It’s only about three hours’ drive. But there’s another problem.’

  Nick waited.

  ‘The book’s frozen solid.’

  XXXVIII

  Strassburg

  The house reminded me of my father’s. That instantly deepened my discomfort. It stood near the wharves, where the streets echoed to the roll of barrels coming up from the barges. The square opposite looked like a rabbit warren: holes yawned outside every house where trapdoors stood open to the wine cellars beneath.

  There was a trapdoor outside the widow Ellewibel’s house, but it was bolted shut. So were the shutters over the ground-floor windows. I knocked on the door and hoped no one would answer.

  The door swung in. A servant in black admitted me and led me up to a room overlooking the square. My first impression was that it looked well enough. Rich wine-coloured fabrics draped the walls; a welcoming fire burned hot in the hearth. Though it was not yet dark outside, candles were lit. Four large chests positioned around the room announced they had no shortage of possessions.

  Yet on second glance, the picture diminished. The floor around the chests was streaked with dust, as if they had only recently been dragged into place. The chandeliers had been scraped clean of old wax, but the candles within were little more than stubs. The cloths on the wall were scarred with many darnings; one of them looked like an old dress that had been recently pressed into service. Even I, who had spent half my life in hovels and attics, could see through the pretence. It was probably the first time in my life that anyone had tried to impress me.

  A woman of about fifty rose as I entered. She wore a long black robe belted just below the breasts, with a white collar and a scarf carefully arranged to cover her thin grey hair. Her mouth turned down at the corners; her eyes were small and hard. But, like the room, she did what she could with what she had. She forced a smile and managed to hold it for as long as it took to usher me across the room. She put me in the place of honour, a high-backed chair that must have been her husband’s, and told the servant to bring the best wine in the best silver cups.

  ‘My daughter will join us presently,’ she told me. ‘I thought it best we acquainted ourselves first.’

  The servant brought wine on a tray. I took the goblet and drank thirstily – far more than was respectable. Ellewibel looked surprised, but collected herself and sipped parsimoniously at her own.

  ‘I am told you are a goldsmith, Herr Gensfleisch.’

  ‘I served an apprenticeship.’

  I did not volunteer any more information. I doubted the widow Ellewibel wanted to hear how it had ended.

  ‘My late husband was a wine merchant.’

  I did not dispute it. ‘I have heard that Mainz is also renowned for its wines.’ She peered at me hopefully. ‘That is where you come from, is it not?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘And your father: he was…?’

  A brute? A pig? ‘He was in the cloth trade. He was also a companion of the mint.’

  Hope rose in Ellewibel’s drawn face. ‘And your mother’s family?’

  ‘Grocers.’

  She visibly deflated, as I knew she would. I enjoyed it. The wine and my misgivings put me in a cruel humour.

  ‘Tell me of your work here in Strassburg.’

  ‘Various ventures,’ I said vaguely. ‘Andreas Dritzehn tells me you instructed him in the art of gem polishing.’

  ‘I owed him money.’

  She did not flinch. ‘But you have an in
come?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘And a house?’

  ‘Rented. In St Argobast. You probably do not know it – it is some miles from Strassburg.’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘I know it well. A pretty village, and no distance from the city at all.’

  I was about to embark on a disagreeable anecdote about a woman who had been surprised by bandits and abducted on the road to St Argobast, when a knock sounded at the door. Ellewibel stood.

  ‘My daughter. She will be delighted to meet you.’

  I had prepared myself for a monster. In fact, all that surprised me was her utter ordinariness. True, she was no beauty. Her face was flat and hard, like overbaked bread, its oval shape accentuated by her white wimple. Her nose was small, her teeth crooked (but no more than normal), her skin no longer smooth. With two hundred gulden attached to her name, there seemed no reason any man should not want to marry her. Except me.

  She curtsied. We both stood there, neither knowing what to say. With a start, I realised she was examining me just as I had examined her. What did she see? A man in his middle age, sweating under the weight of the fur-trimmed hat and coat he had borrowed. My back was stooped, my face scarred by too many misadventures in the forge. Grey had begun to appear in my beard, though my fair hair disguised it. With a good name and an adequate income, why should she not want to marry me?

  ‘Of course, there is the matter of the dowry,’ I said.

  ‘My late husband – bless him – was an honest and thrifty man. When he died, his estate was valued at two hundred gulden. I am willing to endow my entire claim on Ennelin.’

  There was something evasive in her manner. ‘That is very generous.’

  ‘A mother’s joy at seeing her daughter established in marriage is beyond price.’

  I did not answer. My borrowed coat weighed on me like stone; the collar choked me. I could hardly bring myself to look at Ennelin. The worm twisted in my guts.

  ‘I will have to consider…’