The Book Of Secrets Part 46

'Can I get you anything else?'

Emily tried a smile. Her face was drawn, her mouth tight with exhaustion. 'We were just talking we wondered if you knew have you heard of a place called Kloster Marianenbad near here?'

'In Oberwinter?'

'A monastery.'

An apologetic shake of his head. 'I do not know this place.'

'What about castles?'

He laughed. 'This is the romantic Rhine. We have here castles every five hundred metres.'

'Any nearby? Any that aren't on the tourist trail?'

The waiter thought for a moment. 'We have the Castle Wolfsschlucht. But this is closed.'

'You mean for the winter?'

'For all of the time. Private. I think it is owned by an American.'

He put his hands on his hips and scanned the bookshelves over their heads. Nick and Emily waited. Eventually he reached down an old book with a frayed cloth cover and dog-eared pages. Beautiful Oberwinter, said the t.i.tle.

'If you want to know more, maybe this has something.' Nick thumbed through the book while Emily wolfed down her food.

'Here we are: "Castle Wolfsschlucht".'

In medieval times, the building was a monastery dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Tradition says it was built on the site of a local shrine, though this has never been proved. The monastery was obedient to the Archdiocese of Mainz, with one of the most famous libraries in Germany. Most such foundations were dissolved during the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, but the monastery pet.i.tioned the Emperor Charles V and was declared reichsfrei, independent of all local authority and answerable directly to the emperor himself. Residents of Oberwinter are still proud of the tradition that the pope himself interceded with the emperor on behalf of their monks, promising Charles support in his war against France in return.

The monastery was finally dissolved by the Secularisation Law of 1802. The t.i.tle pa.s.sed to the Counts of Schoenberg, who converted the buildings into a castle. In fact, the monastery was perfectly suited to this role. It is built on top of a steep rock overlooking the Rhine, surrounded on three sides by the Wolfsschlucht or 'wolf's gorge'. When the armies of Napoleon marched through the Rhineland, they did not even attempt to capture it.

In 1947 the castle was sold to an anonymous benefactor. It is closed to the public, but one can still glimpse it from the river and wonder what history lies behind those ancient walls.

'The last sentence sounds rather plaintive,' Emily said. 'As if the author was almost as curious as we are.'

'It is a bad place.' The waiter had returned with another basket of bread. He lowered his voice, and looked around the empty restaurant for theatrical effect. 'My grandfather has once told me that in the wartime, the n.a.z.is are going there often. Always in the middle of the night. He said that even maybe the Reichsminister, Joseph Goebbels, has been there.'

Nick was about to ask him how Goebbels had got in, but at that moment a woman's voice called the waiter into the kitchen. He excused himself. Nick looked back to the book.

'There's a picture.'

He spread the book flat on the table and turned it to face Emily. The image was dark and vivid: a lonely castle perched on an outcrop in a gorge between two mountains. Heavy lines scratched out a brooding sky, while a black river boiled in the foreground.

'Is that where we have to go?'

'If that's where Gillian went.' Nick laid the sketch map beside it. It was hard to see in the woodcut exactly how the castle was laid out, but there were two turrets that might correspond to the corners of Gillian's pentagon, and a squat tower rising from the back that could be the keep. He rotated the drawing until it looked right.

'Must be it.'

'It certainly sounds as though the Pope went to a lot of trouble to keep it safe. There must be something in there he didn't want the Protestant reformers finding.'

'Or the n.a.z.is.'

Emily studied the plan. 'So how did she get in?'

'This tower here' Nick indicated the X 'around the back. Gillian must have found an entrance there.'

Emily read over Gillian's list in the margin. 'Or tunnelled her way in with her spade and her head torch.'

'Maybe we can improvise.' Nick signalled for the bill. When the waiter came, he said, 'Our car's stuck in the snow just outside town. I don't suppose you have a shovel and a piece of rope we could borrow to get ourselves out?'

The waiter looked surprised, but he was too polite to question Nick's priorities. He went outside, and came back a few minutes later with a garden spade, a torch and a length of blue nylon rope.

'Perfect.'

Nick paid the bill with the last of his euros. He felt bad that he couldn't leave a better tip. He put on his coat and picked up the spade.

The waiter held open the door as they left. Snowflakes blew across the floor on a gust of wind; the gla.s.ses on the table rattled. The waiter peered out into the dark street.

'Good luck.'

LXXVIII.

Frankfurt, October 1454

When we revisit places from our childhood, most reveal themselves to be small and mean compared with the magnificent locations of memory. Frankfurt was different. It seemed that all the world had arrived that year for the Wetterau fair. In one square, the cloth makers' stalls became a tented city of every colour and weave imaginable: from heavy fustians and gabardines to the lightest Byzantine silks that s.h.i.+mmered like angel wings. From the covered market hall came the warm perfume of unnumbered spices: pepper, sugar, cinnamon, cloves and many more I had never tasted.

I tended our stall in a corner of the market between the paper makers and parchmenters. It was a lonely spot for all the hundreds of merchants, we were the only booksellers at the fair and I struggled to make myself heard above the clamour. After so many fearful years of secrecy, I could hardly bring myself to speak.

It should have been Fust. He was our salesman, and he had conceived this plan to show off the first fruits of our labour. But he had cried off the day before, complaining of a fever, so I had come in his place. It was good that I did. I had been too much in the Humbrechthof lately. Fust's deadline was approach ing and the Bibles were still behind schedule. The constant awareness of it calculating and recalculating schedules, supplies, man hours had become a weight that hung heavy on my back. I dreaded the journey. I could not imagine myself away from the project, or it without me. But Fust insisted. 'Peter will come with you. It will do you good,' he told me.

After an hour on the road to Frankfurt, I knew he was right. The autumn air pinked my cheeks and cleared my head; the ripe smells of fallen apples and leaves unclogged my senses. Even the clamour of the fore-stallers, who risked the wrath of the authorities by offering goods outside the market, seemed more vibrant than irritant. That night I fell into easy conversation with the other merchants at my inn, staying up far later than I was used to, drinking too much and suffering a sore head next day.

On the first morning of the fair, a total of three men came to my stall. I almost counted a fourth, but he only wanted directions to the tanners. I had little to do but slap at the fleas who had warmed my bed the night before. My pleasure at leaving Mainz grew faint; in my mind I composed long can-tankerous complaints to Fust of how this was a fool's errand. But that afternoon, the flow of visitors quickened. By next morning, I could barely keep pace with them. Many were priests and friars, but they must have reported what they saw favourably. Soon richer hands were picking up the pages, fat rings brus.h.i.+ng the vellum. I saw abbots, arch deacons, knights. And, eventually, an unexpected bishop.

Every half-hour, something like this would happen: I would be standing behind the stall, commending the virtues of my books, when a young man with an ink-stained smock and wild hair would make a commotion, pus.h.i.+ng through the crowd until he came to the front. He glanced at the Bible pages, then turned to the crowd and announced loudly, 'He is a fraud.'

He held the quire open so everyone could see.

'This man claims his text is perfect, but clearly he has not even read it. There is not a single correction.'

He fumbled under his smock and unrolled a scrip of parchment. He showed it to the crowd.

'My work, on the other hand, is perfect.'

The audience, realising what was happening, laughed. Compared with the milk-white pages and velvet-smooth text of the Bible, his parchment was a sorry sight. The edges were tattered, the hide yellowed (we had soaked it in beer the night before), and the words almost invisible under a scruff of amendments.

'Not one error remains,' he declared.

'Nor here,' I answered.

He bent almost double, pointing his b.u.t.tocks to the audience, and put his nose to the Bible pages.

'I cannot find any fault,' he admitted grudgingly.

Murmurs from the audience.

'But any man can get lucky once.'

I picked up two more of the quires and displayed them. 'Thrice? And, indeed, if you come to my workshop in Mainz you will find one hundred more available for purchase, all identical in their perfection.'

Peter Schoeffer (for he was the indignant scribe) puffed out his chest. 'I could do you as many.' He flapped his fingers in wild arithmetic. 'They will be ready in the year 1500.'

'Mine will be ready in June.' I lifted my voice and addressed the whole crowd. 'Any man who wishes to buy one, or to see more of this miraculous new form of writing, can visit me until Tuesday at my lodgings at the sign of the wild deer; or thereafter at the Hof zum Gutenberg in Mainz.'

Many in the crowd pressed towards our stall, clamouring to know more. Schoeffer pulled off his smock, smoothed his hair and joined me behind the table.

'In two years, twenty men have made almost two hundred of these,' I heard him boast to a pair of Dutch merchants. Under the table I kicked him: I did not want him revealing too much of our art, or even getting men thinking how it might be achieved.

But before I could say anything, a new arrival demanded my attention. I saw him coming from a distance rather, I saw the commotion he made in the crowd as it opened before him. All I could see of him was the crown of his mitre. Even that barely poked above the surrounding throng. I smoothed my surcoat and rearranged the quires on the table.

'The Bishop of Trieste,' a priest announced.

I bowed. 'Your Eminence.'

'Johann?'

The pointed hat tipped back. A clean-shaven, olive-skinned face grinned up at me. Even then I did not recognise him: his t.i.tle blinded me to the man who stood before me.

'Aeneas?'

'Aeneas has become more pious. You swore you would never take holy orders.'

'Did I?' Aeneas looked genuinely surprised. 'I must have meant that I was not ready for it at the time.'

We walked in the cloisters of the cathedral. Across the square, a gaggle of priests and retainers watched from the door and wondered who I was.

'The last time I saw you, in Stra.s.sburg, you were working for the council to frustrate the Pope.' I gestured to his rich robes. 'Now you are his amba.s.sador.'

'I deny nothing, but sinned in ignorance. I begged the Pope's forgiveness and he has granted it.'

He said it in earnest, but even Aeneas could not make it sound spontaneous. I had the feeling he had said those words many times.

'You were also trying to seduce a married woman. Did you conquer her?'

He had the grace to blush though with embarra.s.sment rather than remorse.

'Keep your voice down. You know there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than ninety-nine who never stray.'

We turned a corner in the cloister.

'Truly, I am not the man I was the last time you saw me. The council of Basle . . .' He waved his hand as if wafting away a smell. 'They were so tedious, Johann. They could not see it was a lost cause. They denounced the Pope, they denounced each other. Some even denounced me. Eventually I was offered a post as secretary to the Emperor Frederick and I took it. I went to Vienna.'

He smiled at me, his anger forgotten.

'If there is a more boring city in Christendom I pray I never see it. The Jews in Babylon suffered less than I did in my exile. But G.o.d works in mysterious ways. It was there that I heard my calling. In that fractious, factioned, clique-ridden court I came to see that our friend Nicholas was right. Unity is everything.'

'In Stra.s.sburg, you cared more about perfection than unity,' I reminded him.

'But how can there be perfection without unity? Unity is the foundation of perfection. And with your books you have achieved both. They are miraculous.'

'If it was a miracle, it was worked by human sweat.' I thought of Andreas Dritzehn, of Kaspar's disfiguring wounds. 'And blood.'

He laid his hand on my arm. 'I take nothing away from you, Johann. You are a most astonis.h.i.+ng man. Multum ille et terris iactatus et alto indeed. Let me see the pages again.'

I handed him the quire I had brought with me.

'Absolutely free from error,' he marvelled. 'And what you said in your speech that you have a hundred others exactly the same was it true?'

'Closer to two hundred.'

'How have you done it?' He saw my expression and retreated hastily. 'I know you have your secrets. But this is I repeat myself, but there is no other word miraculous. Can you make anything with this art?'

'Anything that can be written.'

This excited him greatly. Though still leaning on his stick, he seemed to dance down the cloister. When we reached the next corner he exclaimed, 'Imagine it, Johann. The same Bible, the same ma.s.s, the same prayers in every church in Christendom. The same words in Rome and Paris, London, Frankfurt, Wittenberg and Basle. Perfect unity. These columns on your page would be the pillars of a Church stronger, purer and more whole than anything ever seen. A delight to G.o.d.'

'It is only a book,' I demurred.

'But what are books? Ink and vellum? The acc.u.mulation of marks scratched by a reed on a page? You know better. They are the dew of the vapour of pure thought.' He paused for a second, enchanted by his own eloquence. 'Christ and the saints may speak directly to us, but more often they speak through books. If you can create them in such numbers, and with such immaculate text, all Christendom will speak with a voice so loud it stretches to heaven itself.'

His words warmed me all the way back to Mainz. I recounted them to Peter, and we pa.s.sed a pleasant journey talking of all the books we might make and sell for the profit of the Church. I was glad, for it had never been easy between us. Often I found his enthusiasm for our work too aggressive, and rebuffed it; those times when I did try to encourage him, he took it as meddling. Looking back now, I think he nursed a deep pa.s.sion for the work of the books and was jealous of it: he distrusted all motives but his own.

I was still dreaming of books to come as I rode over the bridge into Mainz and pa.s.sed through the city gates. Peter took the sample quires back to the house; I returned our horses to the inn where we had hired them. It was almost dark, but I could not wait to share my success with Fust. I hurried to the Humbrechthof.

The gate was locked. When I tried my key it refused to turn. Irritated, I rang the bell hanging by the gatepost.

The window in the gate snapped open and a hooded eye appeared. It looked like Fust's face, though there was no reason why he should be playing the gatekeeper.

'Will you let me in?'