Stravaganza: City Of Secrets Part 11

When Matt arrived in the Scriptorium, the quiet and peace of the room with all its still presses did something to calm his inner rage. At first it appeared completely empty, the wooden presses seeming to hang lifeless from their ceiling struts.

He walked over to one of the machines and looked at the neat pile of printed sheets beside it. Again he found he could read without difficulty. It seemed to be a book about mythical beasts.

He was really enjoying reading about what a manticore was but after a moment the cupboard that concealed the door to the Secret Scriptorium swung open and Professor Constantin looked out.

His eyes lit up when he saw Matt.

'Ah, I thought I heard something,' he said. 'Come in.'

Matt hesitated. He had been going to find Luciano and Cesare but he was curious to see what might be going on inside the secret room.

Once in the inner room, he saw that Biagio was there too and, with an ap.r.o.n tied round his ample waist, was busy rubbing two leather ink b.a.l.l.s on the ink-block. Above his head, several pages were already hanging up to dry.

'Matteo,' he said with relief. 'Come and take over. Then I can work the press.'

Trust me to arrive in time for the dirty work, thought Matt. Especially on my day off. But he rolled up his sleeves and took over the inking. As he fell into the familiar routine, he gradually felt the pressure of his anger falling away. The three of them worked together in virtual silence, Constantin as compositor, Biagio as puller and Matt as beater. They got a good rhythm going, Matt rolling the ink b.a.l.l.s till they were well covered, then rocking them back and forth over the type that Constantin had set in the formes.

Biagio laid on the damp paper and turned the rounce the handle that moved the carriage under the great press then pulled the bar that brought the controlled weight down and literally pressed the paper against the type. Constantin also took on the task of removing the newly printed pages, peeling each one off the released carriage with a stick and hanging it up to dry.

By the time they stopped for lunch, there were an impressive number of these pages. Matt stretched until the muscles in his back and arms cracked.

'That was a good morning's work,' said Constantin. 'We shall take a break now.'

Matt looked up at the drying sheets, which he couldn't touch for fear of smudging them or getting ink on them from his hands.

'What book are we printing?' he asked.

He saw the swift look exchanged between Constantin and Biagio.

'It's a work of anatomy,' said Constantin. 'Of course the pictures are printed separately. Biagio and I have already done them on the rolling press on Saint Luke's day. I'll show you.'

They left the inner room and stepped out into the main Scriptorium. The rolling press was at the other end from the proofreaders' table and Matt had never had much to do with it. It was less complicated than the letterpresses but it still took two men to operate it, inking the engraved copper plates and turning the handle to roll the paper through.

Constantin took him to a set of thin wooden drawers where already-printed ill.u.s.trations were kept. He lifted out a heap of sheets containing maps and there, underneath, were pictures of a human body, showing the structure of the bones or the composition of the muscles. They didn't look exactly as they would in a modern textbook but to Matt's untrained eye, they still seemed pretty accurate.

'I don't understand,' he said. 'Why do you have to print this in secret? Aren't people supposed to know how their bodies work? It's hardly magic or superst.i.tion.'

Constantin put the sheets away.

'For many years,' he said, 'knowledge of the composition and working of the human body has been arrived at by guesswork, or by cutting up the bodies of horses and dogs.'

Matt wondered if sixteenth-century scholars knew that humans were related to chimpanzees and other apes. He didn't see how they could; how would a Talian have ever seen a chimp?

'You are right,' said Constantin, interpreting his expression correctly. 'A horse or dog does not function much like a man. But in Talia we have followed the pioneering work of the anatomist, Iohannis Armiger. We have taken his theories and descriptions of how the human body works for several hundred years. Until now.'

'And what now?' asked Matt.

Constantin lowered his voice.

'Before the laws against magic there were other laws, including one that said anatomists could dissect only the bodies of executed foreign criminals, both men and women.'

Matt shuddered.

'The problem is that there aren't enough of them. Medical students need many subjects to work on, male and female, old and young, those who have died by accident and those by murder, or any of a variety of sicknesses, babies both before and after birth you understand that the law does not allow this.'

Matt had a vague idea that in his world you could leave your body to medical science but he had never really thought about it. He carried a donor card for organs but he was pretty sure it didn't mean his whole body could be dissected. The idea made him feel a bit sick. Constantin and Biagio were both watching him.

'I can see the idea troubles you,' said the Professor. 'Most people feel the same. And that is why we have the laws. But we also have here in the University of Padavia a very great scientist an anatomist called Angelo Angeli. He has taken terrible risks to discover the truth about the human body and it is different from what Armiger believed.'

'You mean he cuts up bodies illegally?'

Constantin nodded. 'There are all sorts of poor people whose families cannot afford to bury them. A scoundrel called Gobbi has been putting them in touch with Professor Angeli. Money has changed hands. It's all against the law. But Angeli believes that if his book can be published it will mean that fewer dissections will have to be performed in future. And his discoveries will help everyone doctors and the sick.'

'That's logical,' said Matt. 'But if it's so dangerous you have to print it in secret, how will students and doctors get hold of it?'

'We have an arrangement with the bookbinder,' said the Professor. 'The same one who works on our official publications.'

Matt knew the bookbinder, whose shop was at the end of the street in which the University stood. He hadn't thought about it before but all the secret books must have been bound somewhere, including the one that was his talisman.

'Isn't it terribly dangerous?'

'Very,' said Biagio. 'The more people who know about our work, the more danger there is. But Nando the bookbinder has as much at stake as we do.'

'How will people know when the book is ready?' asked Matt.

'We do it by word of mouth,' said Contantin. 'I will tell Angeli and he will tell his students individually. The ones he feels he can trust. He will keep a small stock of the books and the rest will be taken to a safe house, where they can be bought.'

To Matt it seemed incredible that something like the composition of the human skeleton would be treated in the same way as magic spells. Then he remembered that Luciano had warned him about keeping his knowledge of the solar system to himself. Now he thought he could understand why.

It seemed as if in Talia knowledge was under the control of a small number of people who wanted to keep it limited and strictly monitored. And Matt was pretty sure he could guess who those people were.

Chapter 11.

The Evil Eye The University was closed for Archangel Raphael's Day but Luciano and Cesare were waiting outside the Scriptorium when Matt came out.

'We guessed you were here,' said Cesare.

'Constantin has you working on your day off?' asked Luciano sympathetically.

'Yeah,' said Matt, yawning. 'And I'm starving.'

'The Refectory's closed,' said Cesare. 'But we can go to the inn.'

The Black Horse was rapidly becoming their local and had the advantage of being near the University and Scriptorium. It seemed that many other students felt the same. Today it was more crowded than usual so they had to share a table. Conversation about dangerous issues was impossible.

The other students at their table were particularly boisterous; Luciano said they were all students of Medicine and Anatomy. That made Matt p.r.i.c.k up his ears. He wondered how many of them would soon be reading the book he had been printing that morning.

But that got him thinking about dissection and he looked with a ghoulish sort of horror at these cheerful, outgoing young men, who might have been cutting up bodies only yesterday.

'Do you get to do any Anatomy in your year here?' he asked Cesare and Luciano.

'No,' said Luciano. 'That's not considered part of a n.o.bleman's education.'

'Should be,' said one of the medical students, who knew Luciano by sight. He tapped him on the chest. 'Everyone should know what goes on inside here.'

'I was just going to say,' said Luciano. 'That there are public dissections that anyone can go to. There's one at Christmas.'

'And some before that,' said the student. 'There's one quite soon. You should all come. Professor Angeli is an absolute demon at dissection.'

Matt wondered about whose body the Professor would be using for his demonstration; how could he know now which criminals would be executed in advance, particularly if they had to come from somewhere outside Padavia? But surely he wouldn't dare use an illegal corpse in a public demonstration?

Filippo di Chimici was already in Padavia. It had been difficult to explain to Francesca and Gaetano why he was leaving after only two nights in Giglia.

'Fabrizio has work for me to do in Padavia,' he had said, 'of a diplomatic nature.'

For Gaetano, who knew his family of old, the word 'diplomatic' had an ominous ring. He wondered if he should get word to Luciano.

But now Filippo had taken up residence in a grand palazzo near the cathedral. Though he didn't know it, he was staying only a few hundred yards from Luciano. It was his plan to attend some cla.s.ses at the University and mingle with the students until he found his way to his quarry.

But it would be less pleasant going to the University than tracking down the Bellezzan. Filippo had already studied for two years at the University of Bellona, which claimed to be the oldest in Talia, and he felt nothing but contempt for the upstart inst.i.tution in Padavia, even though both universities were over three hundred years old.

As soon as his servants had unpacked his luggage and provided him with lunch, Filippo went out to explore. He began with the cathedral, which was fuller than usual as it was a saint's day. Filippo was impressed in spite of himself, even though it was hard for a di Chimici to concede that any city not run by his family might contain sights worth seeing.

As Filippo wandered round the ornate interior, admiring the Tomb of the Saint and the many chapels decorated with fine frescoes, he didn't notice a shabby figure dodging between pillars and watching him.

Enrico prided himself on being a bit of an expert on the di Chimici. He had worked for three of them, helped one in a killing, been a little in love with another and had seen most of them at the fatal weddings in Giglia six months before. Besides, there was a strong family resemblance. The di Chimici were in the main a handsome family, though this Filippo of Bellona was a better specimen than his cousin Rinaldo, Enrico's first employer.

Filippo strolled round the cathedral as if he owned it, occasionally stopping to flick imaginary dust from his immaculate velvet cloak, and nodding his fine aristocratic head whenever he saw a painting or statue he approved of. Something about Filippo's bearing, as if he were one of the lords of the universe, made Enrico's blood simmer.

As the young Bellonan n.o.ble doubled back and pa.s.sed him, Enrico shot him a look of pure, concentrated hatred. Ever since Enrico had realised that he had killed his own fiancee as a result of a di Chimici plot, he was now as much against the di Chimici as he had once been their loyal, if somewhat crooked servant. As he left through the main door, Filippo stumbled slightly, as if he had felt the force of Enrico's glower.

Outside the great cathedral two young men were lounging around near the statue of the bronze horseman. One was pointing out the finer points of the horse to his friend.

'Hang on,' said Luciano. 'That's one of the di Chimici, I'm sure.'

He had seen almost as many of them as Enrico had and, although he didn't know which one this was, he was as sure as the spy that this was a member of the family who were nearly all his enemies. His hand went involuntarily to the hilt of his sword.

Then he saw the spy himself slipping out of the cathedral and very casually beginning to tail the di Chimici.

'That's the rogue who kidnapped me in Bellezza,' he hissed, grabbing Cesare's arm. His friend was immediately alert.

'He kidnapped me too,' he said grimly. 'Remember? Stopped me from riding in my first Stellata.'

'We've both got scores to settle with him,' said Luciano. 'Let's follow.'

Matt went back to the secret room, pondering on dissecting dead bodies.

'Time to swap,' said Biagio, grinning through his curly moustache.

Matt was pleasantly surprised. So far he had always been the beater, if he hadn't been doing even more menial tasks like making ink or was.h.i.+ng it off the type in the forme with hot lye and water, before the compositors redistributed the letters in their ca.s.setini. Now, after was.h.i.+ng all traces of his lunch off his hands, he took over the damping and laying of paper on the tympan of the press. It was delicate and precise work, fixing the paper exactly in place and laying over it the frisket the thick paper template with cut-out shapes that made sure no ink got on the margins of the page to be printed.

They were printing the other side of the pages they had done in the morning and, to his surprise, Matt found that he was good at this work and enjoyed turning the rounce and pulling the bar. As with beating, he got into a rhythm with Biagio and Constantin and, at the end of their afternoon session, felt he had done a good day's work.

The candles were giving off their usual aroma of cooking fat, which made Matt feel a bit queasy after his lunch.

'Why do they smell like that?' he asked.

Biagio looked surprised; all candles in Talia smelt the same except for the expensive church ones. But Constantin answered, 'They are made from tallow it's a kind of animal fat.'

I wonder if I could be a printer, Matt thought but almost immediately dismissed the idea. It must all be done by computers and photography in twenty-first century England and his experience in Talia would not help him. And who had ever heard of a dyslexic printer? he thought. But even that didn't diminish his sense of achievement as he stretched out on the floor in Constantin's studio, holding his spell-book and thinking of his own bed. He was asleep in minutes.

Matt woke late on the Tuesday, suddenly remembering that he was going to see Ayesha. She had said she'd come on his driving lesson with him. Brian didn't mind; she'd done it before. So she sat in the back seat, revising her History notes, while Matt practised his three-point turns in a cul-de-sac.

'Good,' said Brian. 'You're really getting the hang of that. 'It's doing you good having all these extra lessons and practising with your dad.'

He dropped them both outside Matt's house but they didn't go back in. Instead they wandered aimlessly down to the High Street, Matt carrying Ayesha's bookbag. He wanted to ask her what she'd been doing with Jago the day before but couldn't quite bring himself to and in the end their conversation petered out. He couldn't tell her what he'd been doing and he was afraid of discovering what she had been up to.

Suddenly she stopped and held out her hand for her bag.

'We're not going anywhere, Matt,' she said.

He felt as if he'd just stepped off a cliff.

'You mean literally?' he said, trying to keep things light. 'We could go for coffee.'

'No,' she said sadly. 'I don't mean that. I mean that you don't talk to me any more. I don't know what you're thinking.'

That was true; he couldn't deny it. But it still hurt to hear her say it.

'I think we should take a break,' she said. 'Just to cool it for a while.'

'You mean you're dumping me,' said Matt bitterly. 'Don't dress it up in all that "it's not you, it's me" stuff.'

'I wasn't going to,' said Ayesha. 'It is you. Not me. You're the one that's changed. You're moody and irritable and jealous and suspicious. I saw the way you looked yesterday, in the car, when you saw me with Jago. I can't carry on like this. Sort out whatever it is that's bugging you and then let's see where we are after a few weeks.'

And she turned and walked away from him. When she got to the corner, he saw a red car take the turning and knew that this had been planned.