A Burnable Book A Novel by Bruce Holsinger

Author:Bruce Holsinger
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2013-12-10T11:00:00+00:00

THIRTY-ONE

Ave Maria Lane

From the top of Paternoster Row, Millicent Fonteyn watched the stationer guide Edgar Rykener into his shop. The apprentice followed them inside, his worried glance in both directions telling Millicent all she needed to know.

She surveyed the narrow lane. The trio had attracted little attention from the neighbouring craftsmen, all busy at their work. Yet there was one of them, a man standing in front of a shop just across the lane, who had witnessed the interaction. He was staring at the door with a hard intensity that gave Millicent a prickle of concern. She and Agnes weren’t the only ones searching London for a book. There were others on the watch, others working on behalf of whatever forces or factions sought to use its perilous contents to their advantage. Others looking to take, and to kill.

She stepped out and signalled for Agnes to join her. Two other girls waved in relief as Millicent dismissed them with a grim nod. For days now, and at Bess Waller’s orders, a clutch of Southwark mauds had taken turns lying in wait for Eleanor Rykener in these precincts, some watching Paternoster Row itself, others surveying Ave Maria Lane, still others keeping an eye on Amen Lane above Pembroke’s Inn. All setting a net for the wretched little fish, the swerver who’d stolen the book out from under Bess Waller’s nose and now sought to sell it for whatever it would bring.

Now they’d found her. Him.

Yet it appeared they were too late. How could Edgar be so foolish? Did he have no idea what it was he possessed, how much of his own future might turn on the fate of the book he’d stolen, and now sought to sell to half the bookmakers of London? For soon the master stationer would realize he had little choice but to inform the authorities that a book prophesying the death of King Richard had come into his possession. Nor could Millicent steal it from the stationer as Eleanor had stolen it from the Pricking Bishop, for all the master’s attention would be on the volume for the duration of its stay in his shop.

Could she and Agnes take the thing by force, grab a few logs on the way in and have at it? Hardly. A master and his young apprentice, hale men both, would be more than a match for them, even if the sisters took them by surprise. Besides, she reasoned, the streets in this neighbourhood were so narrow escape would be impossible. The guildsman would raise the hue and cry, summon a constable. It would all be over within minutes, the sisters taken before they got as far as the Boar’s Head.

‘So,’ said Agnes. ‘Let’s walk in.’

‘What’s that?’

Agnes looked at her. ‘Let’s walk right in there, talk to Eleanor. She’ll give it back, come with us.’

‘Have you gone wood, Ag? She’s the one stole the book from us!’

‘She’ll listen to reason, if I know Eleanor Rykener. She’ll listen to me.’

Millicent scoffed. ‘Listen to that man’s coin, I’ll be bound.

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