Authors: Skelton-Matthew
Endymion Spring (5 page)
He looked at her again.
She seemed unhappy.
"It's nothing," he said more gently.
"It's just an empty book."
He let her hold it for a moment,
then
returned it to the shelf, where it disappeared between two thick volumes on printing history.
He put his arm around her.
"Come on.
Let's wait for Mum over there."
2
R
eaching the foyer, Blake went to sit on the marble steps leading up to the gallery.
A grandfather clock ticked wearily beside him.
Above him, on a landing halfway up the stairs, was a glass cabinet containing the most treasured item in the library's collection:
a thick manuscript belonging to the monks who had lived in the college more than five hundred years
before.
He got up to take a closer look.
The manuscript was decorated with elaborate vines of green and gold paint that blossomed into feathery leaves and beautiful peacock-colored flowers.
He breathed on the glass and watched as the twin columns of black handwriting disappeared beneath a layer of ice.
From his vantage point he could see the foyer below — a hall lined with pillars and busts — but there was still no sign of his mother.
Duck crouched by one of the tall card catalogs, stroking Mephistopheles.
The cat curled like a comma round her feet.
Blake returned his attention to the manuscript.
As the mist slowly cleared, he saw a red oval letter regain some of its color at the top of the left-hand column.
Inside the large crimson O was a miniature painting:
a monk in a black robe sat on a
faldstool
with a tiny puppet-like figure perched on his knee.
The unusual character wore a distinctive mustard-colored hood, a bit like a jester's cap, and a dull yellow garment that barely disguised his hunched back.
A typewritten note next to the manuscript explained:
Majuscule
:
Here, the scribe
Theodoric
receives
words
from an old man in a
yellow cloak.
Identity unknown.
Mid—15
th
century.
Blake stared at the strange, emaciated figure.
"But he's a boy," he murmured to himself, "not an old man."
"I'm afraid you're mistaken," said a voice at the bottom of the stairs.
Blake tore his eyes from the manuscript to see Paula Richards, the librarian, bounding up the steps towards him.
Readjusting her glasses, she leaned in for a closer inspection, her blouse crushing against the glass in an explosion of silk and lace — like a frilly airbag.
"See here," she said, underlining part of the text with her finger and spouting something incomprehensible in Latin.
"
Theodoric
attributes great learning to this figure.
How could a child know such things?
Most scholars agree he is an old man, extolling the wisdom that comes with age and experience."
Blake was about to object when he noticed a string of words unfurling from the puppet's mouth like a square speech bubble.
"What does that mean?" he asked.
The librarian considered the motto for a moment and then translated it as:
"Wisdom speaks with a silent tongue."
Blake frowned.
"I don't get it."
"No, nor quite frankly do I," said the librarian with a laugh, wiping away the smears his fingers had left on the glass.
"Oh no, not you too," exclaimed his mother from downstairs.
"Come on, Blake.
Don't take up any more of Mrs. Richards' valuable time.
I'm sure she has better things to do."
Blake muttered something under his breath, but Paula Richards merely chuckled.
She put her arm round his shoulders and gently guided him down the steps towards the door, where his mother was waiting, briefcase in hand.
"I think it means it's better to be seen, but not heard," the librarian remarked privately in his ear.
Blake nodded,
then
glanced over his shoulder at the manuscript in its glass coffin.
"I still think it's a boy," he murmured to himself.
A
The sun was shining brightly when at last they emerged from the library.
Paula Richards held the door open for Mephistopheles, who was undecided whether or not to go out.
He stretched lazily, half in and half out of the door, although Blake noticed that she finally nudged him out with her foot.
"The library is no place for the likes of you," she told the cat warningly.
Blake grinned.
He remembered her telling him how Mephistopheles had once been trapped in the library overnight and left her a "little present," which it wasn't part of her duty to clear up.
Juliet Winters led Duck and Blake down the steps and round a small circular lawn that faced the library.
A warm breeze followed them through the trees and cast a shimmering pattern of light and shade on the path.
Mephistopheles bounded ahead, leapfrogging over shadows.
They passed under a stone archway, thick with matted cobwebs, and continued along the side of an immense building with protruding diamond-paned windows:
the dining hall.
A stairwell led up to the main doors, which were stippled with carved roses, but they carried on, round the buttery, until they came to a long, covered passageway.
This was the oldest part of the college, dating back to the fourteenth century, when St. Jerome's was home to an order of Benedictine monks.
Back then, it had been a warren of stone buildings with neatly tended herb gardens and cloistered passages leading to the chapel; now, it was a good place to whoop and holler, since the low ceilings and colonnaded walkways rang out with echoes.
Blake raced ahead, disturbing centuries of peace and quiet.
To his right, dusty staircases spiraled up to what had once been the monks' dormitories, but were now book-lined offices, while, to his left, a series of stone arches gave way to a central plot of land, in which a giant plane tree was growing.
A bench had been positioned beneath its lowest branches — "for quiet
comtemplation
," his mother had said, meaning it was not for him or Duck to clamber on.
Almost exactly opposite, just visible through a screen of ivy, was the Old Library.
A series of jagged curves, like teeth, had been carved around its entrance, making it resemble a snarling lion.
A low wooden door, slatted with iron bolts, barred the way in.
Blake longed to see inside — he could imagine all sorts of treasures on its shelves — but like many things in Oxford it was closed to tourists, and especially children.
Blake did not wait for his mother to catch up, but stepped into an adjoining courtyard.
He gazed up at the honey-colored walls.
As always, the college reminded him of a castle.
Stone battlements crowned with square towers engulfed him on all sides.
Gargoyles grinned at him from the gutters.
They weren't
drooling
rainwater today, which was fortunate, but basking in the strong sunlight.
Blake closed his eyes and, like them, let the warm air cushion his cheeks.
"Come on, Quasimodo," his mother called out, turning unexpectedly towards the Fellows' Garden.
Duck giggled and screwed up her face at him before following their mother.
Blake charged after them.
The Fellows' Garden was a private area extending behind the chapel to the eastern edge of the college, where a tiny door opened on to a tree-lined boulevard that divided St. Jerome's from its neighbors, St.
Guineforte's
and
Frideswide
Hall.
Thick walls guarded the flowerbeds from view, although Blake could detect a faint summery sweetness in the air.
"Aren't you going to the Porter's Lodge?" he asked, trying to redirect their steps towards the small building inside the main gate, where the post arrived.
It was unlikely that a letter from his father would have been delivered since that morning, but he wanted to make sure.
"I thought we'd go for a short stroll instead," answered his mother, shading her eyes with her hand.
"Then walk back to the house.
It's such nice weather.
It'd be a shame to waste it."
She turned to unlock the gate.
Blake was happy to get some exercise — the previous weeks had been rainy and cold, and they'd traveled in on a bus each day — but he wasn't in a hurry to return to Millstone Lane.
The house there didn't feel like home yet.
It was damp and dreary, no matter what the weather, and there wasn't even a TV or computer to keep him company during the long evenings.
"Well, can I go and check?" he said.
He knew he was pushing his luck and scraped a line in the gravel with the toe of his shoe.
The key grated in the lock.
"Oh, go on," she said, "but be quick.
We'll wait for you over here."
She indicated a stretch of grass just inside the wrought-iron gate, where a few late flowers were soaking up the sun.
Blake nodded and dashed back the way he had come.
It was about time a letter reached them.
They had been in Oxford for almost two weeks now and he'd already written several postcards home.
He'd not been able to say as much as he wanted to, since his large, loopy handwriting filled up the space too quickly.
Worse, his words left a lot unsaid.
He wasn't sure whether he ought to tell his father how he liked the college, Mrs. Richards and the library — or how much he missed home.
He hadn't many friends at
new year
.
What if everyone thought he'd failed?
Yet even his dad had recommended the break.
"Oxford's a great place," he'd said when the opportunity first came up.
"You never know, you might enjoy it.
Think of it as an adventure."
Duck had agreed.
"Alice in Wonderland, The Lord of the Rings," she'd said, listing her favorite titles.
"They were written there.
I can't wait to go!"
Blake, however, was not so sure.
Nor really, had he known it, was his father.
The smile on his father's face that morning had been faraway and sad, and there was a quiver of doubt — or defeat — in his voice.
Blake tried to block out the memory.
The lodge was a short distance ahead and he sprinted towards it.
A
A man with dark curly hair had arrived moments before him.
Dressed in
a
black
leather jacket that made a crunchy sound when he moved, he sauntered up to the main counter and deposited an iridescent green helmet, like a decapitated head, on its surface.
The porter was busy slipping letters into a number of
pigeon-holes
on the wall behind him and signaled the motorcyclist to wait.
Drumming his fingers on the countertop, the visitor turned to survey the room.
Blake, streaking past a pile of suitcases near the door, met the stranger's cool, confident gaze and skidded to a halt.
He looked away in confusion and went over to check a laminated sign that had caught his eye.
It had been created on a special notice board in the corner.
The poster welcomed members of the Ex
Libris
Society to its annual conference, to be held conjointly at St. Jerome's and
A caption at the bottom read:
"Notable speakers to include Sir Giles Bentley,
Whose
Mortal Taste?
First Editions & Forbidden Fruit
and Prosper
Marchand
, Gutenberg's Dying Words:
The E-book and the Virtual Library
."
Blake was reminded of the blank book he had found in the college library and wondered whether this could be of any interest to the society.
Probably not, he gathered, judging from the lavish tome on the poster:
that book had
a burnished
silver binding, inlaid with rubies and pearls, whereas his own had a broken clasp and moldering brown cover.
He was interrupted in his reverie by Bob Barrett, the porter, who had finished sorting through the post and turned to greet the visitors.
"Right," he said.
"Sorry about the delay.
And you, sir, are...?"
"Professor Prosper
Marchand
," responded the man, as though he needed no introduction.