“That could well be, though the maker may have added them simply as common practice. But the box may have been made for it later. If the book was commissioned first, scribe and binder would finish it in the usual fashion. But if it was the kind of book it may well have been, by the traces left behind, the owner may very well have had a casket made for it to his own wishes, afterward, to keep it from being rubbed by being drawn in and out from a chest among others of less value.”
Cadfael was smoothing out under his fingers the scrap of purple vellum, teasing out the fringe of gossamer fluff along the torn edge. Minute threads clung to his fingers, motes of bluish mist. “I spoke to Haluin, who knows more about pigments and vellum than I shall ever know. I wish he had been here to see for himself. So does he! But he said what you have said. Purple is the imperial color; gold on purple vellum should be a book made for an emperor. East or west, they both had such books made. Purple and gold were the imperial symbols.”
“They still are. And here we have the purple, and traces of the gold. In old Rome,” said Anselm, “the Caesars used the same fashion, and were jealous of it. I doubt if any other dared so exalt himself. In Aachen or Byzantium, they’ve been known to follow the Caesars.”
“And from which empire, supposing we are right about this book and the box that contained it, did these works of art come? Can you read the signs?”
“You might do better than I can,” said Anselm. “You have been in those parts of the world, as I have not. Read your own riddle.”
“The ivory was carved by a craftsman from Constantinople or near it, but it need not have been made there. There is traffic between the two courts, as there has been since Charles the Great. Strange that the box brings the two together as it does, for the carving of the wood is not eastern. The wood itself I cannot fathom, but I think it must be from somewhere round the Middle Sea. Perhaps Italy? How all these materials and talents come together from many places to create so small and rare a thing!”
“And once it contained, perhaps, a smaller and a rarer. And who knows who was the scribe who wrote - in gold throughout, do you think, on purple vellum? - whatever that text might be, or for what prince of Byzantium or Rome it was written? Or who was the painter who adorned it, and in which style, of the east or the west?”
Brother Anselm was gazing out across the sunny garth in a dream of treasure, the fashion of treasure that best pleased him, words and names inscribed with loving care for the pleasure of kings, and ornamented with delicate elaborations of tendril and blossom.
“It may well have been a marvel,” he said fondly.
“I wonder,” said Cadfael, rather to himself than to any other, “where it is now.”
Fortunata came into Jevan’s shop in the early evening, and found him putting his tools tidily away, and laying aside on his shelves the skin he had just folded, creamy white and fine-textured. Three folds had made of it a potential sheaf of eight leaves, but he had not yet trimmed the edges. Fortunata came to his shoulder and smoothed the surface with a forefinger.
“That would be the right size,” she said thoughtfully.
“The right size for many purposes,” said Jevan. “But what made you say it? Right for what?”
“To make a book to fit my box.” She looked up at him with wide, clear hazel eyes. “You know I went with Father to try and get them to release Elave, to live with us here until his case is heard? They wouldn’t do it. But they took a great interest in the box. Brother Anselm, who keeps all the abbey books, wanted to examine it. Do you know, they think it must once have held a book. Because of the size being so right for a sheepskin folded three times. And the box being so fine, it must have been a very precious book. Do you think they could be right?”
“All things are possible,” said Jevan. “I hadn’t thought of it, but the size is certainly suggestive, now you speak of it. It would indeed make a splendid case for a book.” He looked down into her grave face with his familiar dark smile. “A pity it had lost its contents before Uncle William happened on it in Tripoli, but I daresay it had been through a great many changes of use and fortune by then. Those are troubled regions. Easier to plant a kingdom there for Christendom than to maintain it.”
“Well, I’m glad,” said Fortunata, “that it was good silver coin in the box when it reached me, rather than some old book. I can’t read, what use would a book be to me?”
“A book would have its value, too. A high value if it was well penned and painted. But I’m glad you’re content with what you have, and I hope it will bring you what you want.”
She was running a hand along a shelf, and frowning at the faint fur of dust she found on her palm. Just as the monks had smoothed at the lining of the box, and found something significant in whatever minute residue it left upon the skin. She had caught the tiny flashes of gold in the sunlight, but the rest she had not understood. She studied her own hand, and wiped away the almost imperceptible velvety dust. “It’s time I cleaned your rooms for you,” she said. “You keep everything so neatly, but it does need dusting.”
“Whenever you wish!” Jevan took a detached look about the room, and agreed placidly: “It does build up, even here with the finished membranes there’s a special dust. I live in it, I breathe it, so it slips my notice. Yes, dust and polish if you want to.”
“It must be much worse in your workshop,” she said, “with all the scraping of the skins, and going back and forth to the river, coming in with muddy feet, and then the skins, when you bring them first to soak, and all the hair
It must smell, too,” she said, wrinkling her nose at the very thought.
“Not so, my lady!” Jevan laughed at her fastidious countenance. “Conan cleans my workshop for me as often as it needs it, and makes a good job of it, too. I could even teach him the trade, if he was not needed with the sheep. He’s no fool, he knows a deal already about the making of vellum.”
“But Conan is shut up in the castle,” she reminded him seriously. “The sheriff is still hunting for anyone who can show just where he went and what he did before he went out to the pastures, that day that Aldwin was killed. You don’t believe, do you, that he really could kill?”
“Who could not,” said Jevan indifferently, “given the cause and the time and place? But no, not Conan. They’ll let him go in the end. He’ll be back. It won’t hurt him to sweat for a few days. And it won’t hurt my workshop to wait a while for its next cleaning. Now, madam, are you ready for supper? I’ll shut the shop, and we’ll go in.”
She was paying no attention. Her eyes were roaming the length of his shelves, and the rack where the largest finished membranes were draped, cut, and trimmed to order into the great bifolia intended for some massive lectern Bible. These she passed by to dwell upon the eight-leaved gatherings of the size that fitted her box.
“Uncle, you have some books this same size, haven’t you?”
“It’s the most usual,” he said. “Yes, the best thing I have is of that measure. It was made in France. God knows how it ever found its way to the abbey fair here in Shrewsbury. Why did you ask?”
“Then it would fit into my box. I’d like you to have it. Why not? If it’s so fine, and has a value, it should stay in the household, and I’m unlettered, and have no book to put in it, and besides,” she said, “I’m happy with my dowry, and grateful to Uncle William for it. Let’s try it, after supper. Show me your books again. I may not be able to read, but they’re beautiful to look at.”
Jevan stood looking down at her from his lean height, solemn and still. Thus motionless, everything about him seemed a little more elongated than usual, like a saint carved into the vertical molding of a church porch, from his narrow, scholarly face to the long-toed shoes on his thin, sinewy feet, and the lean, clever adept’s hands. His deep eyes searched her face. He shook his head at such rash and thoughtless generosity.