Gutenberg's Apprentice by Alix Christie Page B

alchemy in Peter nonetheless. His mind was stilled, the bitter chatter overwhelmed by the necessity of steadying his breath. Each stroke had to be placed at the same precise depth, or else the letters would come out uneven. Each tiny slip required him to start over, smoothing out the sand. He screwed his eyes in concentration, hearing nothing, seeing nothing but the motion of his hands. He shut the box and tipped the ladle—and in so doing, tipped and emptied out the roiling in his soul.

CHAPTER 6
     
    MAINZ
     
             Early December 1450
    T HE FACT that Gutenberg could come and go as freely as he did was a clear proof of his high rank. He did not seem to worry that he’d be seized abroad as a debtor citizen of Mainz, as the merchants and guildsmen feared. Fust for his part paid dearly at each junction, his silver greasing countless palms to move his wagons out along the smaller, less-watched roads. If someone knew just where the master went, that someone would be Hans—but Hans, with a swift shake of his head, said only that he’d gone out prospecting. Which book the workshop cranked out next made little difference to Peter. Let Gutenberg and Fust decide; by then he would be off, once more a scribe for hire.
    As it happened, the project was decided for them. The second week of Advent Lorenz arrived in haste, his old face pasty white, and thrust a letter at the master. Gutenberg set down the file he held, wiped his hands on his smeared apron, and examined the folded packet, which was heavy with official wax and seals.
    “My appointment to His Majesty the King, no doubt,” he cracked and broke it open. They watched him read, the weather moving in swift bands across his face: first clouded mist, then squall, then sudden clearing as he dropped his hand and stared a moment, far away. His eyes met Hans’s. “Rosenberg,” was all he said; the foreman nodded. “I am to dance attendance up at Eltville. Somehow they’ve heard . . . or got their mitts on one of the first copies.” He spun, surveyed the rest of their poor crew; his eyes were knives that moved across each man.
    “They”—the archbishop, plainly, and Hermann Rosenberg, his vicar general in spiritualibus . The vicar could not have heard from Heilant, surely—nothing Peter divulged could possibly have led to this. Nonetheless his hands were slick as he turned his face away and pressed the thin punch in the sand.
    After Gutenberg had gone striding off, intent on making inquiries, the rest of them put down their tools and made a silent circle around Hans.
    “What?” He scowled. “It’s not as if he tells me either.”
    Even so, Hans did allow that the letter might have come from Gutenberg’s own business with the higher clergy; he’d been to see them more than once. Why, back in Strassburg he was friendly with the bishop, and of course his godfather had been Archbishop Dietrich’s close adviser years ago—though he was dead now, rest his soul. As for the rest, who knew what Rosenberg had seen or heard—you lot had best get back to work.
    It took another day before the master’s plan emerged. He would take Peter, though God knew he’d never thought he’d need the cover of a scribe. He wasn’t sure exactly what the vicar general knew—how much or little of his new technique—but they would carry on as if they made what Gutenberg and Fust pretended. Knock out some pilgrim mirrors, he told Konrad and Hans—and as for you, boy, write me out a canticle or two to take to Dietrich in his country castle on the Rhine.
    “Which ones?” asked Peter warily, uneasy at this turn.
    “Whichever ones would go into a psalter for a pope,” the master snapped.
    He must have looked astounded. Gutenberg just shook his head, his tufted eyebrows raised. “You do, I plan.” He cocked his chin at Hans. “I’ll take a printed sheet from the Donatus too, and five new mirrors if you’ve still got those blasted stamps.”
    Hans laughed. “Don’t throw