‘It is only a book,’ I demurred.
‘But what are books? Ink and vellum? The accumulation of marks scratched by a reed on a page? You know better. They are the dew of the vapour of pure thought.’ He paused for a second, enchanted by his own eloquence. ‘Christ and the saints may speak directly to us, but more often they speak through books. If you can create them in such numbers, and with such immaculate text, all Christendom will speak with a voice so loud it stretches to heaven itself.’
His words warmed me all the way back to Mainz. I recounted them to Peter, and we passed a pleasant journey talking of all the books we might make and sell for the profit of the Church. I was glad, for it had never been easy between us. Often I found his enthusiasm for our work too aggressive, and rebuffed it; those times when I did try to encourage him, he took it as meddling. Looking back now, I think he nursed a deep passion for the work of the books and was jealous of it: he distrusted all motives but his own.
I was still dreaming of books to come as I rode over the bridge into Mainz and passed through the city gates. Peter took the sample quires back to the house; I returned our horses to the inn where we had hired them. It was almost dark, but I could not wait to share my success with Fust. I hurried to the Humbrechthof.
The gate was locked. When I tried my key it refused to turn. Irritated, I rang the bell hanging by the gatepost.
The window in the gate snapped open and a hooded eye appeared. It looked like Fust’s face, though there was no reason why he should be playing the gatekeeper.
‘Will you let me in?’
His face was hard.
‘I am sorry, Johann. This is no longer your house.’
LXXIX
Oberwinter
The shadow under the gate was darker than anything Nick had imagined. He shivered as they passed through it. A few paces on, he looked back. The town was already fading behind them, wrapped in mist and the safety of its walls. Inside, soft light glowed behind curtains; a Christmas tree twinkled in a window; a recorded soprano sang a lonely song. Beyond the walls, nothing but darkness.
They walked up the highway. Habit kept them pinned to the verge, though there was no traffic to avoid. Soon enough, they drifted to the middle of the road and walked side by side. Their shoes crunched in the ankle-deep snow; the shovel slithered as Nick dragged it behind him. Once or twice they heard rumblings from the river to their right, and saw lights like distant stars as barges swept past.
Nick had no idea how long they walked. On a map it probably looked no distance at all, but in that cold, monochrome world, with only his footsteps to mark the time, it seemed an eternity. Lost in his thoughts, he might have missed the turning altogether if Emily hadn’t tugged his sleeve.
‘Is that a path?’
They’d come to a bend where the road swung sharply around one of the mountain’s flanks. Just before the turn, a lay-by had been scooped out of the forest that ran up the gorge beyond. Where Emily was pointing, a dark cleft loomed in the ghostly snow-covered trees.
Nick turned on the flashlight. Before he could look for the path, something at the edge of the road caught his eye. It was a sign, barely poking out of the snow bank that the ploughs had heaped up. Nick went over and rubbed the crust of frost off it.
‘Wolfschlucht Brucke,’ he read. ‘Wolf’s Gorge Bridge.’ He looked around for the bridge, then realised he was standing on it. He peered over the guard rail and saw the yawning mouth of a corrugated-iron pipe disappearing under the road.
‘I guess this is the place. That path you saw must be a frozen stream.’
They climbed over the icy guard rail and slithered down the embankment. The frozen stream led away into the forest, a narrow ribbon of white.
Nick reached out for Emily’s coat. ‘You don’t have to come.’
She shook him off without reply and headed up the hill.
Even with the stream to follow, the woods were all but impenetrable. The forest seemed alive. Low branches snagged his shoulders, snapped into his face, poked his legs and dribbled snow down the back of his neck. Underfoot was equally treacherous. The snow smoothed out all traces of the rocks and roots lurking beneath. He didn’t dare use the flashlight in case someone was watching from the castle. Even where it was flat it wasn’t safe, for that usually meant they were walking on a frozen pool. Once Nick’s foot went through to the ice: he skidded, flailed, and was thrown onto his back. The shovel banged on a stone. He lay there and listened to the echo clatter through the forest.
Blinded by snow and branches, they almost missed the castle. The only hint was a glimmer of light in the otherwise unbroken darkness to his right. That was enough. Nick struck off towards it, blundering through the undergrowth like a wild boar. A blizzard whirled around him; tree limbs creaked and cracked. If he didn’t find it soon, he thought he might be lost for ever.
The trees ended in a rock face. Nick leaned against it, breathing hard and shivering. Meltwater trickled down his back. The light had vanished, but if he craned back his head until his neck ached he could see stone walls at the top of the cliff, dark against the grey clouds. It looked a long way up.
There was a snap behind him as Emily emerged from the forest. She’d lost her hat; snow sprinkled her hair like diamonds.
‘How do we get up there?’
Nick tried not to think about how high it was. ‘Are you any good at climbing?’
‘Not since I was ten.’
Gillian had been a climber, for a while at least. One of their less successful dates had been when she’d taken him to the climbing wall where she went every Wednesday. She crawled up to the ceiling like a spider, laughing, while Nick still hadn’t figured out how to put on the safety harness. When he did finally make it onto the wall – about eight feet up – his wrists ached for a week.
‘I guess I’d better try.’
He stared at the cliff, trying to figure out how Gillian could have got up. The black rock face offered no clues. He ran his fingers over the surface to feel for a crack or a ledge, anything to get him started. A small bulge, about knee high – that might do.
‘Here goes nothing.’
He put his foot on the outcrop, pushed off and lunged up for a handhold. All he felt was glassy ice. He scrabbled for purchase and got none; lost his balance and fell to the ground. The snow probably broke his fall, though it didn’t feel like it.
Emily leaned over him. ‘Are you OK?’
He brushed himself off and got up. ‘Gillian wasn’t a mountaineer. Even she couldn’t have climbed a sheer ice face.’
He went back to the cliff and examined it again, brushing his hands over it in broad sweeps. Emily hung back. She fumbled in her pocket and examined the sheet of paper Gillian had left, now creased and damp from the snow.
‘Maybe she didn’t go up.’ She tapped Nick on the shoulder and pointed to the paper. ‘Mariannenbad means Mary’s Pool. And the book in the restaurant said there was a shrine to her near the medieval monastery.’
‘You think Gillian prayed her way in?’
‘Marian shrines were often built over springs. They thought the water had healing powers.’ Emily’s words sounded quiet under the snow, as if the trees themselves were listening. ‘We came up a stream bed. It must come from somewhere.’
They scrambled around the base of the cliff, wading through the deep snow. It looked so permanent. Any holes or caves must surely have been filled in weeks ago.
‘What’s this?’
There was hope in Emily’s voice. Nick hurried over to where she was standing. Shading the beam with his hand, he shone the flashlight on the rock.