by S. J. Parris
"What is this book dealer's name?" I asked, though I had already guessed.
"Rowland Jenkes," Florio called over his shoulder, since there was not room for us to walk two abreast and still have the meagre respite offered by the eaves. "You will hear of him before long, I'm sure. He is greatly reviled in the town-they call him a necromancer, but you know how people gossip. But Jenkes will find you books that could not be had without travelling to France yourself-and that is of particular value to me. There are those who would not step foot in his shop and will spread malicious talk about any Fellow who does, but I try to close my ears to all that. I have enough trouble here already as un inglese italianato, as you have seen. Here we are," he finished, pointing to the low shop front where I had seen William Bernard and Jenkes enter the day before. The shutters were open now, but the windows looked no less dark and forbidding.
Florio hesitated, then laid a hand on my arm.
"Forgive me, but before we go in, I must ask you, Doctor Bruno, if you read my note?" he whispered, his eyes bright with urgency and apprehension.
I stared at him, astonished. "Your note?"
"Yes. I left you a note. Did you not receive it?"
"Well… yes, but I did not realise it came from you." I was still looking at him with incredulity; if the mysterious letter had come from Florio after all, it could only mean that he had vital information about the killings. Why, then, had he not told someone in authority what he knew? Then I remembered what Thomas Allen had said about the rumours of a government spy in the college; Florio, with his languages and his highborn contacts, would be just the sort of man Walsingham might make use of. Perhaps, then, he was afraid to reveal his cover and had been waiting until he could make contact with Sidney and me. I continued to stare at him, waiting for some further clarification. He looked slightly perplexed.
"Oh. I had thought it would be clear, for obvious reasons. I am sorry for any confusion."
"But, Florio," I said, clutching his arm and drawing him in closer; the water from the overhanging timbers above cascaded in sheets to the sodden ground and I had to raise my voice to be heard. "Why did you not come and speak to me about this in person?"
He lowered his eyes as if abashed.
"It is a delicate matter, Doctor Bruno-I thought it best that I approach it in a more formal manner. One must observe propriety in such things."
"Propriety be damned, Florio-two men have died and there may be more to follow!"
He looked at first startled, then his expression turned quickly to fear.
"But, Bruno-you think there will be more deaths? What makes you say so?"
"We cannot know, until we learn what links these two victims and discover the killer's motive, do you not agree? And there I think you have something to tell that could illuminate the matter, am I right?"
Florio stared at me then with a look of utter incomprehension, but before he could reply, the door beside us opened and Rowland Jenkes stood on the threshold of his shop, surveying us with his habitual expression of amused detachment.
"Buongiorno, signori," he said, in that sly, educated accent that so belied his ravaged face, while effecting a little bow that I took to be sarcastic. "Not the weather to be standing out of doors, Master Florio. Please, come in, and bring your friend." He stepped back and made a grandiose gesture with his arm to usher us in. Florio looked at me for a moment longer, then lowered his dripping cloak and stepped inside.
Chapter 14
The room we now entered was built below street level, so that we had to descend three stone steps onto flagstones strewn with rushes, which quickly soaked up the rainwater that streamed from our clothes. A low ceiling, ribbed with dark timbers, made the shop feel close and intimate. Florio and I, being short of stature, could stand upright, but Jenkes had to hunch his shoulders so as not to clip his head, a posture that gave him a slightly obsequious air, as if he were permanently half bowing. There was little light in the room, the grimy diamond-paned windows either side of the door admitting scant daylight in this gloomy weather, though a pair of candles burned in a wall sconce behind the ware bench opposite the door. They were good wax, too, as they did not give off the filthy smell of the cheap tallow kind that lit my chamber at Lincoln. In fact, the narrow shop smelled more like home than any place I had been since my arrival in Oxford, for it smelled of books; a warm scent of new leather and paper, and the mustier traces of old vellum and ink, a heady mixture that brought on a sudden pang of nostalgia for the scriptorium at San Domenico Maggiore where I had spent so many hours of my youth.
Carved wooden book stacks lined each side of the shop showing the bookbinder's art: each was filled from floor to ceiling with volumes bound in coloured leather and organised according to size, placed with their fore edge outward so that the brass clasps glinted under the darting flames of the candles. Along the bench where Jenkes stood, rubbing his hands and looking from me to Florio with an expression of greedy anticipation, examples of different types of binding and format were ranged, from the old-fashioned wooden boards encased in calfskin that would keep a parchment manuscript from cockling, to the newer Paris bindings of double pasteboard for lighter books of paper, that needed no brass clasps but were tied together with leather thongs or ribbons. All were secured, like the books in Lincoln library, by a brass chain attached to a rod running beneath the bench. Behind this bench, opposite the street door, was another door which gave onto a larger interior room, no better lit than this one, which, from the little I could see within, appeared to be the workshop. I thought I glimpsed the shadow of someone moving, out of sight, and supposed that Jenkes must have apprentices at work.
"And this is Signor Filippo Nolano, is it not?" Jenkes greeted me with a feline smile, holding out a surprisingly delicate hand, which I shook with some reluctance, feeling Florio's curious eyes on the side of my face. "I wondered when we would be seeing you here, after you followed me from the Catherine Wheel the other day."
"I… that is-" I was unsure how to meet this accusation, especially with Florio's amazed stare burning into me.
Jenkes waved his hand as if to dismiss my small offence. "No matter. But Signor Nolano, I cannot help noticing that our friend here, Signor Florio, seems surprised to hear me address you so. Perhaps he knows you by a different name?" He raised one eyebrow theatrically, steepling his fingertips. He had a habit of speaking almost without moving his lips, so that every sentence had the air of a confidence that could not quite be spoken aloud.
I looked him in the eye, feeling myself at a disadvantage; not only was I in his shop, soaked to the skin, but he had clearly made it his business to find out about me even as I had thought myself to be tailing him.
"For many years I travelled in places where it was not safe to give one's own name," I said, setting my shoulders back and attempting to hold myself with some dignity. "It has become a habit when among strangers, that is all."
Jenkes smiled. "A man would go to any lengths to avoid the Inquisition, I am sure, Doctor Bruno."
I nodded carefully, trying not to betray any surprise. Florio continued to frown, bemused.
"I hope you will not long think of us as strangers. But there are places even in our glorious free realm where a man would do well to watch his words. What drew you to the Catherine Wheel, I wonder?"
I shrugged. "I was hungry. I saw the sign and went to look for hot food."
At this, Jenkes threw his head back and guffawed, revealing his crooked teeth.
"You soon learned your lesson there, I think. Though it was mischievous of you to tell young Humphrey that you would not give that food even to your dog." He stopped laughing just as abruptly as he had begun, leaving a sudden silence hanging in the air.
"You speak Italian?"
"I speak seven languages, Doctor Bruno, though you would not think it to look at me, would you? I do not have the visage of a scholar, I know. But then you know better than to judge a man by his looks. I fancy you are another who is more than he
seems. Do you know what they say of me in Oxford?"
"I do not," I said bluntly. He clearly took pride in his notoriety and I had no wish to flatter his vanity further. I was gratified to see that he looked a little disappointed.
"They call me a disciple of the Devil, Bruno," he informed me, a half smile playing about his thin lips. "Folk songs are made about me to frighten children. They say I killed three hundred men with a single curse. What do you say to that?"
"I say that gaol fever spreads rapidly in certain conditions," I replied evenly.
"You are right, of course. But how, then, was I not touched?"
"Evidently you have the constitution of an ox," I said, glancing at the whorls and knots of scarred skin where his ears had once been. "You are no more a sorcerer than I am, or Florio here."
"No more a sorcerer than you?" Jenkes watched me for a moment, then burst into another of his sudden gales of laughter. "I like your friend, Signor Florio, he is quite the comedian," he said, with an air of indulgence. Poor Florio seemed quite uncomfortable with the undercurrent of antagonism between me and Jenkes, and continued to glance nervously between us.
"Have you my Montaigne, Master Jenkes?" he asked mildly. "I do hope so, for I have come out in this treacherous weather for it."
"Treacherous indeed," Jenkes said, sending me the briefest flash of his cryptic smile. "Two volumes arrived with a cargo at the end of last week, my dear Florio, and despite this apocalyptic weather, the cart made its way through from Plymouth on Saturday. Let it never be said that I disappoint those who place their faith in my abilities. If you will bear with me a moment, I will find them." He gave another brief bow and, keeping his head low, ducked through the doorway into the workshop behind him.
Florio turned to me.
"I MUST BEG from you an oath of secrecy, Bruno," he whispered, laying a hand on my arm, his eyes wide and earnest. I nodded breathlessly, thinking he was still referring to the matter of his note, in which we had been interrupted.
"I have decided to take upon myself a great and solemn task, which will commit my name to posterity as well as that of the great humanist genius I serve-a far greater work, I may say, than my own silly collections of proverbs could ever be." He clutched my sleeve tighter, his eyes shining. "I am going to bring the essays of Michel de Montaigne to English readers!"
"Does he know?" I asked.
He lowered his gaze, somewhat subdued. "I have written to the great man proposing my humble services as his translator, but as yet I do not have his imprimatur, it is true," he said. "I have asked Master Jenkes to order the French editions for me so that I could send Monsieur Montaigne a sample, in the hope of winning his approval. But as I'm sure you can imagine, until it is complete, this is a labour of love that will be both time-consuming and expensive, and so you understand now why I had to write to you as I did-"
"Any book you desire, from any country-just ask Rowland Jenkes, and if I cannot find it, it does not exist," Jenkes announced, springing from the shadows like a showman and holding up a slim volume in each hand, each bound in dun calfskin and tied with leather strings. He fixed me with a conspiratorial eye. "Any book, Doctor Bruno, for the right price." His eyes wandered pointedly to my belt, where Walsingham's purse was hidden beneath my jerkin. I made no move to acknowledge the look, but I felt suddenly exposed; he already seemed to know more about me than I would have credited, and I wondered if his source was Bernard.
He handed the volumes to Florio, who cradled one in the crook of each arm and looked down at them as lovingly as if they were newborn twins.
"You bring in a good many books from the Low Countries, then?" I asked, as casually as I could.
"France, the Low Countries-Spain and Italy sometimes, if there is demand. There are many in Oxford who crave certain material that cannot be got except from abroad. And occasionally the opportunity to traffic the other way arises too." He continued to level at me the same half-meaningful, half-mocking stare, as if appraising me for some employment. "But I expect you have heard that already, Bruno. Perhaps that explains why you followed me?"
I did not reply; Florio had begun hopping from one foot to the other in agitation, his face pent up as if he might burst into tears at any moment.
"Whatever is the matter, my dear Florio?" Jenkes asked.
"I…it is only that I did not expect two volumes at once, Master Jenkes, and I fear I cannot…that is, I may need to leave one in your care for a month or two, though I beg you not to sell it, for I will have the money eventually, but-"
Jenkes waved the apology aside.
"I have not the space for unclaimed books, Florio-better you take both now and pay me when you can."
Florio's face lit up with the surprise of a child given sweetmeats.
"Thank you, Master Jenkes-I assure you that you will not have to wait long for your payment, especially if certain developments unfold as I hope." Here he threw me an encouraging glance, as if to imply that I understood his meaning; he was mistaken, however, for I remained in the dark. If this was a reference to his enigmatic note, did he mean to imply that he hoped to profit from the deaths at Lincoln? I could only stare blankly at him in response as he fumbled at his belt for the coins he had brought.
"Well, then, Bruno, our business is done," he said, when the payment had been made and his new purchases wrapped carefully in oilskin against the weather. "Shall we brave the flood once more?"
"A moment, please," Jenkes intervened, as I turned to look at the torrents still sluicing down the windowpanes. The sky seemed to have grown even darker. "I would not wish to detain you longer, Master Florio, but there are matters of business I would discuss with Doctor Bruno, if he could spare me a moment of his time?" He raised the snaking eyebrow again to convey that he meant more than he was willing to say in front of Florio, who hesitated briefly, then appeared to remember the generous credit Jenkes had just extended and decided to take the hint.
"Of course-I must be back at college in any case. Doctor Bruno, if we do not drown on the journey, shall we speak further this evening?"
I nodded; Florio clutched his parcel closer to his chest, pulled up the hood of his cloak, and, with a final meaningful glance at me, stepped out into the downpour.
Left alone in the small shop with Jenkes, I shuddered involuntarily as the door banged shut behind Florio; the draught had chilled me in my wet clothes, but not as much as the intense stare the bookbinder now turned on me in the wavering shadows of the candles.
"Come-you will catch a fever standing there and the world will say I cursed you," he said with a dry smile, gesturing for me to pass through the door behind the ware bench. "In here we may speak freely, Doctor Bruno, and you may warm yourself. I will heat some sweet wine." He crossed to the street door, took a ring of keys from his belt, and locked it. Seeing me hesitate, he turned back, one hand on the doorjamb. "You may watch me drink it first, if you prefer. But I thought you did not believe in my diabolical powers?"
The watchful glint in his eye was momentarily displaced by self-mockery; despite myself, I returned his smile and followed him as he ducked through the doorway into the back room. Perhaps I should have been more apprehensive, but though I did not believe the superstitious gossip about the Black Assizes, I found something mesmerising about Rowland Jenkes, so much so that I was willing to be locked into a room alone with him in the hope of learning more about him. But we were not alone. As I crossed the threshold, from the corner of my eye, I caught the movement of a shadow; there, by a fire that blazed in a hearth on the left-hand wall, stood Doctor William Bernard, his thin arms folded across his chest.
"My workshop-and you are acquainted with Doctor Bernard, of course," Jenkes said, taking in the room with a sweeping gesture and paying Bernard no more heed than if he were one of the fittings. Along three walls, long benches lay covered with quires and manuscripts in various states of disrepair; portions of leather, calfskin, and cloth were spread out with patterns marked for cutting. Some books were
being fitted for linen chemises, outer covers to keep the calfskin bindings clean, while others were halfway through having new brass bosses and cornerpieces fitted to cover frayed or damaged edges. Some of the manuscripts that caught my eye appeared to be of great antiquity, the bookbinder's skill now preserving and renewing them, being made ready to continue their journey through the world for the coming generations. In the corner opposite the hearth, two large ironbound chests stood at right angles to each other, both heavily padlocked.
"You have business with a number of the Lincoln College Fellows, I see," I remarked, nodding a greeting to Bernard.
"I am a bookbinder and stationer, Doctor Bruno, of course I have business with the doctors of the university. How else should I make my living?"
"Master Godwyn, the librarian of Lincoln-he is a customer of yours too?"
"Of course," Jenkes replied smoothly, his strange translucent eyes never leaving mine. "I am often charged with repairing the books of his collection when need arises."
"And James Coverdale?"
Jenkes exchanged a glance with Bernard.
"Ah, yes. Poor Doctor Coverdale. William was just telling me he had been the victim of a violent assault. To think of such things happening in Oxford." He pressed a hand to his chest and shook his head ruefully; there was something in his manner that suggested he was mocking me. I wanted to ask further about his connections with Godwyn and Coverdale, but Bernard's hawklike glare made me hesitate.
"Here is a sight to make your heart bleed, Doctor Bruno," Jenkes said, turning aside and lifting a small volume from one of the benches, which he placed into my hands. It was a little Book of Hours in the French style from the beginning of the century, and had clearly once been an expensive piece; gingerly I turned over a few pages to reveal richly coloured illuminations in cobalts and crimsons and golds, the borders of each page of text decorated with intricate tracings of leaves, flowers, and butterflies against a background of primrose yellow.