Ex Libris

by Ross King

  The ritual was impressive and inspiring, but it also wreaked violence on Nonsuch House, especially my corner, which directly abutted the drawbridge and, six times a day, shuddered and groaned under the exertions. As the wheels spun and the girders lifted I could feel timbers quaking under my feet and hear the window-panes thrumming inside their fittings. Books had been known to topple from their shelves, cups and plates from their cupboards, copper pots and joints of meat from their hooks in the pantry. Even worse, soon after Mr. Smallpace's death I discovered how one of the upright beams in the study had shifted so far from the ceiling that one wall now bowed ominously outwards.

  Something had to be done. I hired a blacksmith's apprentice to arrest the drift of the rogue upright, but in the midst of the renovations a hole was knocked through the rotting wattle-and-daub, exposing a small cavity. The hole was soon enlarged to reveal a chamber, seven feet high by three feet wide, into which I could squeeze with a little room to spare. Experimental tapping with an iron poker revealed that entry to the chamber had been through a hatch concealed in its ceiling, the boards of which now formed the floor of a tiny boot-cupboard one storey above.

  Who had built the secret little compartment I could only guess. I found nothing inside except a wooden platter, a spoon, the tattered remains of what looked like a leather jerkin, and a battered silver candlestick. I had been expecting to find, if anything, a few ancient altar vessels or the scraps of priestly vestments, for I knew that priest-holes had been common features of houses built in the reign of Queen Elizabeth-little hiding-places under staircases or hearthstones to shelter priests of Rome and other victims of our religious persecutions.

  That night I had sat inside the chamber with my knees drawn up under my chin and a candle burning in the old candlestick, trying to imagine whoever had hidden here: a Franciscan friar in a hair shirt, possibly even a Jesuit? For a moment I could see him very clearly, a little man kneeling on a rush mat, whispering a miserere, breathing carefully in the cramped darkness as, inches away, the magistrate's searchers called out passwords to one another and sounded the floors and wainscots with the hilts of their swords. I was no papist, but I hoped he had managed to escape, whoever he was, and preserve his secretive life-a hushed, ascetic and almost hermetically sealed existence of the sort for which I suppose I had always longed. So perhaps that was why when I hired a carpenter to fill in the chamber I changed my mind at the last minute, on a sudden impulse, and instructed him to leave the little cavity as it was, but to conceal it behind another wall. This wall was then whitewashed and panelled, and the panelling covered with bookshelves. Once again the chamber was invisible.

  I had no expectations of ever using my secret chamber God forbid! I wished to preserve it as a memorial, that was all. Over the following few years I thought very little about it, though after the searchers began paying their little visits I used it to hide a few tracts and pamphlets that would otherwise have been confiscated and burned. No one else knew of its existence but Monk, to whom it had become a place of endless wonder. Often I could hear him thumping about inside, playing what I thought were mysterious little games. But then one day I raised the hatch in the boot-cupboard and peered inside to discover that he had furnished it with odds and ends such as a three-legged stool, candles, a blanket, reading material, even an old chamber-pot scavenged from somewhere. I suspected him of harbouring plans to take up residence. It was, after all, roughly the size of his own little bedchamber and probably no more uncomfortable.

  But one evening as I sat in my armchair I heard a fierce banging from behind the wall and rushed upstairs to catch him in the act of driving nails through the soles of three pairs of old boots and into the top of the wooden hatch. Under interrogation he explained he was devising things so that when he opened the trapdoor and slipped inside the chamber-like so-the pairs of boots would remain in place after the lid was closed. The entrance was thereby disguised. Clever, was it not? He had popped out of the hole and was panting heavily. I agreed that it certainly was. There was no need to ask what had prompted his inspiration. Only three nights earlier the searchers had burst through his door and thrust the burning lantern into his face.

  'Well done,' I repeated. I had decided to forgive him the boots, which I hardly ever wore. 'Yes, quite ingenious.' But as I peered into the tiny chamber I was reminded of the priest crouching in the darkness, praying for the preservation of his clandestine life and quiet mission. 'But let us hope we never have occasion to test it.'

  We closed the door and crawled out of the cupboard. Then for months on end-sometimes much longer-I would think no more about the little cell concealed behind my study wall.

  ***

  'Mr. Inchbold.' A whisper. The grip on my neck had tightened. 'This way, sir. Up. Follow me…'

  We ascended quickly, our shadows vaulting up the steps before us. Past the study and the bedchamber, round another landing, then up another curling flight. From below came flashes of torchlight and a rapid thunder of feet. All stealth had now been abandoned. I heard a voice shouting after us, then a thud and a curse as our pursuers were tripped by the fifth stair from the landing. They picked themselves up, cursed again, renewed their pursuit. I heard a voice shouting my name.

  By that time we had reached the top. Monk led the way, scrambling nimbly down the corridor while I staggered a few steps behind, stupefied with fright, looking over my shoulder for the first head to crest the top of the stairs. I had no idea what he was doing, other than running away, until I stumbled into him. He had stopped in front of the boot-cupboard and now held the door open, elegantly, as if we were to board a coach.

  'After you, sir.'

  I fell to my knees and lowered myself downwards, into the darkness, fingertips clutching the edge of the hatch until my feet found purchase on a stool. A second later Monk dropped lightly beside me, like a cat, then eased shut the camouflaged hatch. We found ourselves in total blackness, without so much as a chink of light from above. I could see no trace of Monk, even though I sensed him only a few inches away, stifling gasps. I turned round, also gasping, but bumped into something. Panic bulged its flimsy membrane inside my gut. The air was so dark it almost seemed material, dense.

  I turned again and bumped into another wall. The hole was little bigger than a coffin. I was about to climb out but then felt Monk's hand on my arm and heard boots-what sounded like an army of them-thundering overhead. The intruders had reached the top of the stairs. A voice shouted my name again. I fumbled for a stool, somewhere to sit. I couldn't breathe. More stomping. Doors banging shut. I was going to faint…

  But I did not faint. Monk slid a stool towards me, I seated myself, then for the next few hours the two of us listened to the commotions above us, faces upturned to the invisible hatch, frozen in silence as the intruders-three men, possibly four-opened doors and tapped every inch of the house with their swords and sticks. Our guests were very thorough. The staircase, the stone jambs of the fireplace, its mantelpiece and hearthstone, the ceilings and floors, the cupboards, wainscots, beds, curtains, every crumbling brick or worm-holed timber-nothing in the house was left untouched. Three times we heard them directly above us, thumping about in the corridor outside the boot-cupboard, then opening its door and tapping at its walls. But three times the cupboard door slammed shut and the footsteps and tapping receded. A moment later I heard soft blows a few bare inches from my ears as the end of a stick carefully sounded the wall of my study. But the partition was thick, filled with hair-plaster and pug, and the hollow sound, if there was one, must have been deadened. After a moment the tapping stopped. I expelled a sigh of relief and felt Monk's hand squeeze my shoulder.

  'All right, sir?'

  'Yes,' I stammered, a little too loudly. 'All right.'

  I was trembling badly and hoped he couldn't tell, but I supposed it no longer mattered. Throughout our ordeal it seemed as if the roles of master and apprentice had been exchanged. From the first moment of our hasty escape up the staircase he had
been patient and courageous, while I, his master, was nothing but terror, confusion and, later, complaints. I chafed terribly under the confinement. After only a few minutes on the stool my back ached; then my legs grew stiff and, a short time later, I realised that my bladder desperately needed relief. Then I couldn't breathe the thickening air. My chest gurgled, my diaphragm twitched and heaved as I stifled my basset-hound coughs, any one of which would have betrayed us. I bit my lip and tried to draw strength and comfort from the thought of the priest who had preceded us inside the cell, perhaps in circumstances like these, a little man kissing his Agnus Dei, telling his beads, reciting the Litanies of the Saints under his breath. But it was all I could do to keep from whimpering.

  Yet Monk was in his element in the cramped, pitch-dark cell. It was as if he had long been preparing for this moment, or as if his earlier experiences with intruders had been a sort of crucible, making him patient and wise, no longer my obedient subaltern but an efficient, decisive leader, capable of planning and assessing. He was the one who decided that we could not afford a candle, who found the blanket to cushion my back, who whispered reassurances about our supply of air and chances of escape… and who, after the outside door banged noisily shut and everything fell silent, was able to tell that one man was still inside the house, standing perfectly still, waiting for us to emerge, which I had been only too anxious to do. A few minutes later, of course, we heard a low cough from inside the study. So we waited another couple of hours until he too had departed. Then Monk made a step with his interlaced fingers and hoisted me upwards. I clambered into the boot-cupboard, gasping for air and then emerging into the dawn-lit corridors and chambers like a survivor crawling from the rubble of a disaster.

  Only there were no signs of disaster either in the house or the shop below. Certainly nothing like what had happened a few days before. We tiptoed through the rooms in semidarkness, keeping away from the windows-another of Monk's wise recommendations-and looking for any signs of what had happened. But it was as if no one else had been inside the house; as if the past few hours had been nothing but a shared nightmare. I even discovered the firelock on the bottom step, apparently untouched. The only evidence of our visitors was a faint whiff of torch smoke added to the fug of the house.

  'Who d'you reckon they was, sir?' Up here, pacing the familiar corridors, Monk had reverted to being my deferential apprentice. 'Same coves as before, d'you think?'

  'No, I think not.' We were inside the shop now, poking about with an eye on the green door. 'They weren't after our books, were they? Not like the men the other night.'

  He nodded his head, and for a moment we gazed about in silence. No, none of the books had been touched. They still stood in the perfect ranks into which we had assembled them on their shelves only a few hours earlier. Nor had the men come for our money. The lock on the iron chest under my bed was untouched, as was the pouch of coins behind the shop's counter and, more importantly, the store of sovereigns and papers under the floorboards. Not so much as a tin farthing was missing from the house. I became aware that Monk's baffled, querying gaze had come to rest on my face.

  'You reckon they came looking for you, then?'

  I shrugged, unable to meet his prising glance. I turned round to inspect the lock on the door, which was intact, like everything else. The cracksmen, whoever they were, had known their business.

  But just then something beside the door, a smudge of dirt, caught my eye, and I knelt to examine it. A dot of grey powder, a fairy-dust that was gritty to the touch and faintly iridescent in the morning light.

  'What is it, sir?' Monk was leaning over my shoulder.

  'Coquina,' I told him after a moment's inspection. 'Lime stone.'

  'Limestone?' He was scratching his head and breathing audibly. 'From a quarry?'

  'No, not a quarry. The sea. See this?' I blew on the powder to expose a tiny fragment, what looked like a bone chip. 'It's made from crushed cockle-shells.'

  He ran a finger over the dust. 'Blimey, sir. How'd cockle shells get in here? You reckon they was brought inside by…?'

  'I do indeed.' I straightened, still examining the fine chips in my palm. 'Coquina is used in road-making,' I explained. 'Carriageways in front of mansions, that sort of thing. It must have been tracked inside on their boots.'

  Monk nodded solemnly as if waiting for me to explain something further, which I didn't. After a minute I brushed the dust from my palms and stood before the shuttered window. It was almost eight o'clock, by now. I watched through the louvres as the morning sunlight striped the floor behind me and etched long shadows on to the carriageway. The bands of light hurt my eyes and sent sharp pains radiating to the back of my skull. But I leaned forward and-just as I had done a half-dozen times in the past two days-peered up and down the lengths of carriageway. It was filling with morning traffic, with its familiar cacophony of shouting voices, ringing horseshoes, the iron clanking of bolts and bars as shops opened along the bridge. Apprentices with broomsticks materialised before them and swept at patches of sunlight.

  I felt a painful throb beneath my breastbone as I watched the scene unfurl. This was my favourite moment of the day, the time when I would swing open the shutters, lower the awning, beeswax the counter and bookcases, cleanse the grate, light a fire, then bring a kettle of water to the boil for the first coffee of the morning and retire behind the counter and wait for my first customers to open the green door and step inside. But this morning I suspected the ritual would never be the same again. For who else, I wondered, might appear on the bridge this morning and then push inside the shop? Who else was out there, what evil eminence with his secret powers, hiding in the porches and doorways, watching the green door and waiting for the next time? Because what I hadn't told Monk was that the carriageways and footpaths of Whitehall Palace were covered with coquina-it had crunched under my feet as I wove my way to the offices of the Exchequer.

  My glum thoughts were interrupted by a loud shriek, then the window-panes hummed and the timbers of the shop trembled in anticipation beneath my feet. I squinted through the slats and saw the drawbridge rising skywards like a piece of enormous clockwork, casting its arm of shadow across the front of the shop. A familiar hush descended over the carriageway. Carts and wagons grouped outside my shop, while a dozen buff-coloured sails gathered the wind and drifted, rippling, through the gap. A few more minutes and the last of them had sauntered past the window. Then the ropes slipped and strained in their pulleys, the wooden cogs ground together, the floor timbers trembled, and the bridge lowered into place with a few more geriatric groans. The traffic in front of Nonsuch Books came back to life and surged across the cobbles, as it did every day at this hour, with its din of creaks and curses.

  Yes, all of the familiar rituals had begun. But I knew, suddenly, that I would not be a part of them this morning, that I would not be opening the shop, that for the first time in my professional life I would be turning my back on my duties. For my little ship was not sailing homeward, as I had thought, but careering wildly off course, into unknown waters, without maps or compasses. As I climbed the turnpike stairway a few moments later, clutching at the wall for support, I knew that Nonsuch House, my refuge for the past twenty years, was no longer safe.

  III. The Labyrinth of the World

  Chapter One

  So began my harassed and vagabond life, my tumultuous exile from Nonsuch House. I had no idea, at first, where I might flee. As I climbed the stairs to my bedchamber I contemplated leaving London altogether, but soon I thought better of it. I had set foot outside of the city on barely more than a half-dozen occasions: twice to the book fair in Ely, three times to the one in Oxford, and once as far as Stourbridge, also for a book fair. Then, too, there had been the longer and much more arduous journey to Pontifex Hall, where it seemed that all of my problems had begun.

  I thought of taking refuge in Wapping instead, but quickly decided against giving poor Biddulph any more grist for his mill, which already ground out
quite enough fear and conspiracy on its own. So as I filled a small leather book bag with a change of clothing I thought next of a few of my other customers. There were several of them-quiet, gentle scholars-who would, I believe, gladly have taken me for a night or two, or even longer if I wished. But what excuses might I have offered them? I buckled the bag and slung it over my shoulder. No: there was only one place in London left for me to go; only one place for fugitives like me.

  When I returned downstairs Monk had opened the shop, and several customers-cheery, familiar faces-were browsing among the shelves. I nodded to them and then whispered to Monk that I must leave Nonsuch House for a number of days and that the shop was once again in his hands. He glanced at my book bag but showed very little surprise. I supposed that after the events of the past few nights he had come to expect these sudden caprices from his master. I felt a pang of guilt at deserting him-as if I, of all people, might have saved or protected him. Then I took a last look round the shop and slipped outside, where I quickly lost myself among the thick crowds pressing five-deep along the footpaths of the bridge.

  Five minutes later I had crossed under Southwark Gate, where the traffic was slightly thinner. After glancing over my shoulder I stumbled with my thorn-stick down the footpath to the landing-stairs along the river, where I engaged a sculler. The waterman grinned and asked me where I wished to go.

  'Upriver,' I told him.

  He watched me suspiciously as he unshipped his sculls and shoved off from the pier, no doubt because I had pulled the canvas tilt over the wooden hoops and now, despite the sunny weather, sat hunched under the canopy, which reeked of mildew. I peeped out from under this shroud to confirm that no one had followed me down to the landing-stairs. The river downstream was empty except for a couple of fishing smacks anchored in the shallows, busily shortening sail and awaiting the drawbridge's next ascent. Beyond their masts Nonsuch House rose above the piers, before dwindling into the soft haze as if disappearing into thin air.