The Book of Secrets

LXXX

Mainz, 1455

‘You cannot come in.’

Fust’s eye stared at me through the window in the door, pressed so close that his knotted skin seemed cut from the same timber.

I didn’t understand. ‘Is this a joke?’

‘You have broken the terms of our contract. I am calling in my loan.’

I still could not comprehend it. Like a chicken strutting around the farmyard spouting blood from its gizzard, I carried on as if it were a reasonable discussion.

‘How much do you say I owe you?’

‘Two thousand gulden.’

I laughed wildly; I did not know what else to do. ‘You know I cannot pay. Every penny I have is tied up in the Bibles. Every scrap I own is mortgaged against them.’

The eye surveyed me dispassionately. ‘If you cannot pay, then you forfeit everything. I will take over the works and finish the Bibles myself.’

‘How can you?’ A thousand questions distilled into one. Fust chose to answer its narrowest, pragmatic meaning.

‘The men know who pays their wages. They will see the work through. I will meet you tomorrow to discuss it.’

He snapped the window shut.

Ten years of hope died in an instant. I slammed my fist against the gate so long I almost unhinged it. I denounced Fust to all the powers of sin and the devil, while passers-by gathered in knots and stared. No one took mercy; no one came out of the Humbrechthof, though every man inside must have heard me.

When I had spent every drop of my rage, I crept home.

We met in the vineyard on the hill near St Stephan’s church. The last time I had been there it was a muddy building site. Now a stone wall enclosed it, and neat formations of vines grew waist high. Next spring, they would fruit for the first time; a year from now they would pour forth wine. I wanted to rip them out and burn them.

At Fust’s suggestion, we each brought a witness. I almost chose Kaspar, but at the last moment thought better of it and invited Keffer the press master instead. Fust brought Peter Schoeffer. He and Keffer stood by the wall and watched, while Fust and I walked among the leafless vines.

‘I am sorry it has come to this,’ he said.

His gaze was unyielding: the carelessness of a man sure in his victory, already thinking of the next battle. On that hilltop there was nothing behind him except empty grey sky.

‘Was this your plan all along? To lure me down this road and then set about me like a brigand when we finally sight our destination?’

He looked disappointed. ‘I thought better of you, Gutenberg. I thought we could have done something extraordinary together. I did not expect you to be stealing from me every night while I slept.’

I stared at him.

‘While you were away in Frankfurt, I made an audit of the Humbrechthof. Everything relating to our common project. Do you know how much you stole? Two hundred sheets of vellum. A dozen jars of ink. Fifty gulden unaccounted for. Did you think no one would notice?’

‘I never stole a thing.’

‘Borrowed, then. No doubt you will say you intended to replace everything in due time.’

‘I took nothing. Everything we used at the Gutenberghof was separate from what we used on the Bibles.’

‘What about those indulgences?’

‘That was a mistake I made two years ago. I never repeated it.’

‘ “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?” ’ He waved his stick at me. ‘I have made enquiries about you. For such a long and unusual life you have left few marks on the world – but not all your footprints have vanished. The burgomaster of Strassburg had a few tales he was eager to tell.’

Now I was bewildered. ‘The burgomaster of Strassburg? Who is he?’

‘A man named Jörg Dritzehn. He told me how you snared his brother in a venture he did not understand, bled him dry and then stole his portion for yourself when he died.’

‘Everything I did with his brother was faithful to our contract.’

‘And everything I have done is faithful to ours. You swore that the money I loaned you would be put towards our common profit. Not skimmed off to line your pocket while I carried all the risk of the Bibles.’

‘I swear I did not.’ A vision came into my head: my beautiful Bibles, my life’s perfection, locked away from me inside the Humbrechthof. ‘Even if I did, why insist on it now? In a few months there will be profit enough for both of us. Whatever you think I owe you, whatever will make it right between us, I will pay with interest when the Bibles are sold.’

A grim smirk was my reply. I saw he had taken it as a confession; more, that this was what he always intended. By bringing the suit now he had caught me without a chance to pay. The incomplete Bibles would be valued not for what they would be worth when finished, but what they had cost in materials. If the court awarded even half his claim, Fust could take them – together with the presses, the types and paper stocks – for a pittance. When he sold them, all the profits would be his.

I looked to the boundary wall where Peter Schoeffer waited.

‘I suppose he will oversee the completion of the Bibles.’

Fust nodded. ‘You have taught him well.’

Another coil of anger tightened around me. ‘You will have to find new premises. I am the leaseholder of the Humbrechthof.’

‘No longer.’ Fust handed me a sealed sheet of paper. ‘From your cousin Salman. He has cancelled your arrangement and transferred the property to me.’

‘Why should he do that?’

‘I promised to use my influence with the guild council to see that no harm came to his property. And I offered to pay double the rent.’

I wanted the earth to swallow me up, to knot me in vine roots until they crushed me. I leaned on a fence post.

‘Please,’ I begged him. ‘There is no need-’

‘The trial date has been set.’ He cut me off and turned away. ‘The sixth day of November, an hour before noon, in the convent of the barefoot friars. Whatever defence you have to offer, you can say it there.’