The Book of Secrets

XLVI

Strassburg

‘Written by the hand of Libellus, and illuminated by Master Francis.’

I sat on the floor, resting against a timber post, and read the inscription for the hundredth time. I held the book like a chalice, a talisman. I could have sold it and paid off half my debts at once, but I would never do that.

Kaspar, fiddling with the press, glanced over. I knew he liked to watch me reading his book. I angled it down.

‘What is that?’

His eyes were sharp as ever. I turned the book around and raised it so he could see what I had done. The blank space underneath the explicit was now filled by the card I had pasted in: the eight of beasts, the map that led me to Kaspar.

He smiled. ‘You are a collector.’

‘A devotee.’

‘You’re right to hang on to the card. There will not be any others.’

A confused look.

‘The plate is gone. I melted it down and sold it.’

I was aghast that something so beautiful should have been lost for ever. ‘All of them? The whole deck?’

‘About half.’ He laughed at the expression on my face, though I did not find it funny.

‘Johann, you saw what happened to our own plate. Even in a few dozen pressings it decayed. The same would have happened to the cards. Nothing endures.’

‘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.