Contents

The Gutenberg Rubric

Five

FRANK ALREADY HAD COFFEE brewed when Keith and Maddie awoke in the morning. He sat Keith at the dining room table to redress his wounds while Maddie went to take a shower.

“Bad cuts on your hand, but it looks like it will heal,” Frank said softly. “I’m worried about your eye, though.”

“My right hand was protected by my computer case when I fell,” Keith said. “The case covered some other vital parts, too. But my left hand was flat on the pavement when the shit hit. Luckily my mouth was closed.”

“Don’t understand why people would do this,” Frank said.

“That’s why we needed to come here as quickly as possible, Granddad. It’s about the other Gutenberg. We have a new clue,” Keith said, pointing to the archival box on the table.

“Are you sure you want to go there?” Frank asked. “It’s been hidden for 600 years. Maybe it should stay hidden.”

“Finding this means someone else knows, too,” Keith said. “Someone else is looking.” He opened the box and lifted the pages of the book just enough to remove the letter fragment. Frank pulled a pair of latex gloves from a box in the kitchen and reached for the fragment.

“If your rare books curator found you handling these documents without gloves she would be very upset,” Frank said as he took the letter. “What does she think of it? Have you verified that it’s genuine?”

“Maddie hasn’t seen it yet. It all happened just before the explosion. Spectrographic analysis indicated late 1400s,” Keith said. “I thought we could finish it here.”

“It was just loose in the manuscript?” Frank asked.

“Yes. This is a catalog of books that were in a monastery near Württemberg Mountain,” Keith responded. “It was stuck between two pages of the catalog. I verified about half the book as being genuine, but haven’t checked every page after the late 1400s where this was inserted. But this letter hadn’t been there since the 1400s. The book was rebound around 1680 or so. You can tell by the stitching in the leather. There’s no residual impression of the letter on the pages surrounding where I found it. It hadn’t been in the book more than a few years at most.”

“And you think there is some significance to it being where it was?” Frank asked.

“Open the book and I’ll show you where I found it.” Frank began turning the pages, commenting on the quality and importance of the manuscript. As he found the page that Keith pointed out, Maddie entered the room and gasped.

“What are you doing with that open here? We need a controlled environment!” she exclaimed.

“Sorry to start without you,” Keith said turning toward her. He was arrested by the image of Maddie standing in the doorway. Frank, too, seemed speechless.

She was dressed in a sea-green pāreu, wrapped around her waist and drawn up and tied behind her neck. It left a mile of leg and acres of flesh exposed. Keith gazed open-mouthed. Maddie stared at the book open between Frank and Keith.

“Wow!” Keith said, breathlessly.

“Wow, indeed,” Frank agreed. “Are you cold, Madeline?” he asked. “I don’t usually turn the heat on during the day.”

Maddie looked at her pāreu and grinned at Frank.

“We were on our way to Jamaica when they blew up the library,” she said. “I’m afraid I didn’t repack.”

“Little island, little clothes,” Frank said. “You’ll probably want to go into town and buy something warmer. I’ll keep the heat on.”

“Maddie’s right,” Keith said, changing the subject back to the book. “We should have taken this to the lab.”

“Well, it’s not too late,” Frank said. “Forgive our enthusiasm for getting right to the book,” he said to Maddie. If you wouldn’t mind helping to transport it, we’ll take it to a proper facility. He pointed to the box of latex gloves and Maddie snapped a pair on before closing up the book and boxing it. She paused to look at the letter fragment before putting it in the box as well.

Frank opened a door into a cozy study lined with bookshelves. Opposite a small secretary at one side stood a library table with reading stand, camera, and electronic equipment. The setup, in fact, was very similar to the reading rooms in The Whit. Maddie crossed to the stand and sniffed the air.

“There’s a filtration system that ionizes the air to remove particles,” Keith said. “It’s where I did most of the research for my thesis.” Maddie nodded approvingly. She unboxed the book, placing it carefully on the reading stand.

“Where were you?” she asked, taking charge of opening the pages. Keith quickly explained the section of the book they were looking at and what he was looking for. Frank crowded in on the other side of Maddie with a magnifying glass and looked at the entry Keith pointed to.

“Wyrich family Gospels,” Frank read. “What makes you think that could have anything to do with it? You think Gutenberg printed a Gospel?”

“It’s possible,” Keith pondered. “But what if Gutenberg’s secret wasn’t a book he printed, but one he owned. It could be his mother’s family Bible. They may not have been able to afford a whole Bible. If it shows names of his grandparents with dates that correspond, that could be what’s missing.”

“So where is it?” Frank asked.

“That’s a problem,” Keith sighed. “We have to find it.”

“Well, there you are, back to what the Guild has been hunting for 500 years,” Frank said.

“It’s a different age now, Granddad,” Keith said. “We have different tools.”

“This thing, you mean?” Frank said, pointing to Keith’s laptop bag. “What can it do?”

“Do you remember Rob Nelson?” Keith asked.

“Yes. I had great hopes for that boy,” Frank said with a hint of disappointment in his voice. “I thought he’d be your equal in the Guild until he got seduced away by computer technology.”

“He’s doing quite well in that field,” Keith said. “And he’s written me a program to help in on-line searches. It’s called a spider—kind of a super search engine. I enter keywords into it and it gives me results after searching the entire Web. The longer it runs the more results it returns.”

“You are looking for a real book,” Frank said. “Paper and leather and ink, not some electrons floating around in outer space.” Frank had never been a big fan of computer technology. It had destroyed print, as Keith had heard him say on numerous occasions.

“It will show me any references that have been made to the real book,” Keith went on. “I just need to tap into the dish and send out the query.”

“Well, it’s still there,” Frank conceded. “Won’t hurt to find out if somebody mentioned this fabulously rare book of the 15th century on SpaceBook or YouHoo.”

“Granddad, you’re getting all technical on me now.”

“Do it!” the old man commanded. “I want to examine the letter. Care to join me, Miss Zayne?” he asked Maddie politely.

“Perhaps you could tell me about the Guild and this secret project you mentioned,” she said. “It seems to be something Keith neglected to tell me.” Maddie smiled at him and soon the two were bent over the letter and Frank was telling her about the ancient Guild to which he and Keith belonged.

Keith sat at his computer and started to design his search.

This room was more home to Keith than anywhere he had lived in the past twenty years; it always gave him pleasure to return to it. On his first visit to his grandfather, the old man had brought him to this room and shown him to a desk. Keith divided his time between study at the desk and work in the shop.

Frank had a small but exquisite collection of early American printing, including flawless specimens of Ben Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac and Thomas Payne’s Common Sense. He said it was a great reminder that the press brought freedom with it wherever it arrived.

Keith devised several keywords that would help him locate references to the book, including the way it would be classified in a library. The Wyrich Family Gospels would probably be in a private collection, but if it had been sold there might be a registry entry or sales record in someone’s database. He cross-referenced the keywords with an index of names and places that were relevant in the Gutenberg saga. He was so intent on getting his search parameters set up correctly that he didn’t hear Maddie come up behind him. Frank had left the study to make lunch.

“Keith?” she said softly from a few steps behind him. He started and spun to face her.

“You take my breath away, darling,” he said looking up at her through his one good eye. “Even when you aren’t startling me half to death.” Maddie was still dressed in her island wrap, but she seemed hesitant and a bit in awe. “What is it, Maddie?”

“Keith, your grandfather has a copy of the Mainz Psalter in a glass case,” she said, pointing to a case in the bookshelves beside the desk. She shook her head in disbelief. Keith had forgotten all about the pristine volume his grandfather kept in a museum case. He realized it must look very suspicious to Maddie. “There are only ten of these known to be in existence,” Maddie continued, “and this one isn’t documented. It must be worth three million dollars, at least.” Keith smiled and hugged her. Her fresh scent nearly overwhelmed him.

“It would be,” he said, kissing her ear, “if it were genuine.”

“You can’t be serious!” Maddie exclaimed, dragging him with her to the case. “This is a counterfeit?”

“One of the best ever printed. It looks perfect, but it wouldn’t withstand carbon-14 dating. It’s only about fifty years old,” Keith laughed. “Spectrographically, though the inks are almost indistinguishable from the originals. Granddad made me test my analysis theories by dating this piece.”

“But it’s perfect,” she said. “Your grandfather printed it?”

“He won a rather profitable competition with it,” Keith said. “It was before electronic publishing, and cold type was still just starting. Everybody was moving to offset lithography and the Guild decided to hold a competition among the members to see who could reproduce a historic work with the greatest accuracy. The Guild chose the Mainz Psalter as one of the greatest examples of incunabula. The prize was $100,000 at a time when that wasn’t a common salary.”

“And your grandfather won?”

“By a unanimous decision,” Keith affirmed. “There was only one close contender as I understand it. He did pretty well, too. His copy was broken up and sold as limited edition artwork and may have made him more than Granddad’s did. There was one hanging in the library. I mean your library. I hope it wasn’t harmed in the explosion.”

“So that’s where it came from,” Maddie whispered. “He really was a great printer.”

“Was and still is,” Keith responded.

“Only members of the Guild were in the competition?”

“Yes. They were the best in the world at the time. There hasn’t been a similar competition since.”

“In order to make a copy that exact,” Maddie mused, “he must have had access to an original. How did he manage that?”

“The Guild has a copy,” Keith said. “Not one of the ten. Each printer in the competition was given equal access to the original.”

“They let them touch it?” Maddie exclaimed in disbelief.

“Let me assure you, the Guild’s copy is in perfect condition.”

“You’ve seen it?” Maddie asked.

“When I became a Master in the Guild I was given the tour of the private archives. A lot of my work creating the database of printers’ inks is based on analysis I did in the Guild library. It is one of the best cared-for collections in the world—and most secret. The Psalter is unbound—leaves straight from the press of Peter Schoeffer.”

“Information overload. So, in addition to being a scholar and incunabulist,” Maddie said, “you are also a Master Printer?”

“Not exactly,” Keith said. “Different guild. For now, let’s say I’m a Master Typesetter. Nothing compared to Granddad, but I was his apprentice out here for five years.”

“How did he teach you typesetting clear out here?” Maddie asked.

“That’s his secret, not mine,” Keith responded, placing another kiss on her ear. “I’ve forgotten where I was. Let’s see.” Keith spun her around and pointed to a freckle on her arm. “Four,” he said. “Five, six,” he continued randomly pointing at freckles. Maddie silenced him with a kiss which went on until they heard Frank clearing his throat at the door.

“Internet search isn’t what it used to be,” the old man said. “Who’s for burritos?”

Keith and Maddie broke their embrace. Keith was flushed almost as red as Maddie. They followed Frank to the dining table where he served the Southwestern staple.

“Granddad,” Keith said when they finished lunch and he had taken the prescribed painkillers. “Maddie would like to see the shop.”

“Well, that can be arranged,” Frank said. “Maybe I’ll get a new shop apprentice.”

“I’ve always been fascinated by typesetting and printing,” Maddie said. “I started reading about it when I was a little girl.”

Frank led the way to the back of the house. The last door at the end of the hall opened into a dark cavern. A second door opened ahead of her and she stepped into a wonderland of antique printing equipment. The shop was as immaculate as the rest of Frank’s house and library. Three hand-operated presses, typesetting equipment, and trays of metal type lined the room. Shelves held books and magazines Frank had printed over the years. Maddie looked at the shelf of samples.

“You printed all this by yourself?” Maddie asked, astounded.

“It’s hard to get help out here in the desert,” Frank laughed. “Of course, once they were inside I’d never be able to let them out again.” He laughed and ignored Maddie’s quick glance at the door. Frank moved from tray to tray of type as if greeting old friends. “This is the type I used on the Psalter,” he said, holding up a handful of metal bits. “Keith told you about it, didn’t he? Not much use for black letter these days, but I’ve never been able to bring myself to melt it down. The real trick was that particular characters had to be used in specific places. The slight imperfection of one bit of type might show up on only the first, tenth, and seventeenth pages. I had to be sure that I had precisely that bit of type in that particular position.”

“How long did it take you?” Maddie asked. “It sounds impossible.”

“Nearly three years,” Frank said. “Three master typesetters working side-by-side in identical set-ups held to the same working hours that Peter Schoeffer and his staff would have had in 1459. It was a life-changing experience. Of course, it took us longer than it did Schoeffer,” he chuckled.

“What Gutenberg saw in the Mainz Bible after which he patterned his type was the variation in the letters written by the scribe. No one ever writes the same letter twice in exactly the same way. But the type from the 42-line was used and reused, so in spite of some 250 different characters that he cast, the exact same character anomalies show up repeatedly.” Frank handed two bits of lead type to Maddie and pointed out a small crack in one of the letters. The other was perfect. “The same is true of the new type font Schoeffer used for the Psalter. It was a little more elegant than the earlier Gutenberg type, but if one metal character had a tiny flaw, it reappeared in the printed work each time that bit of metal was set. I had to make sure my type-case replicated Schoeffer’s, and that the individual characters were used in the same places.”

“That’s amazing,” Maddie enthused. “What about paper? What did you use?”

“We have a lot of research on the subject within the Guild. It’s vellum, of course, and came from Northern Italy where Schoeffer, like Gutenberg before him, acquired most of his substrate. It’s the one sure giveaway regarding the age of the book under glass. The aging process for animal skin is clearly identifiable. Under proper conditions, you’d be able to tell that the vellum is only about 50 or 60 years old.”

“This place looks like half print shop and half chemistry lab,” Maddie said as she began exploring the shop.

“Typefounding is an alchemical science,” Frank said.

“We create the physical manifestation of ideas and dreams,” Maddie mused. Frank turned suddenly to Keith.

“I’m impressed,” Frank said. “One would think you had read The Printer’s Devil.”

“The magazine?” Maddie asked. “I read every issue. In fact, I think it was responsible for my becoming a librarian. There is simply no way to read that magazine and not fall in love with books. I wonder what happened to it.”

“The subscription base was too small to keep up the labor of producing it,” Frank said. “Newer, more cost efficient ways had to be found to educate the next generation. We simply couldn’t keep producing the magazine every quarter for the number of subscribers.”

“We?” Maddie asked, turning to Frank. “Were you involved in The Printer’s Devil?” Keith approached Maddie and turned her toward the shelves of samples in Frank’s workshop. Frank went immediately to a file cabinet and began riffling through folders.

“Granddad is The Printer’s Devil,” Keith said softly. He lifted a stack of uncut signatures from the shelf to show to Maddie. “Every issue of the magazine that was produced is right here,” Keith went on. “It’s the reason this workshop exists.”

“It was such a wonderful magazine,” Maddie said.

“How did you happen to come by them,” Keith asked.

“They started coming to me in the mail when I was little, back in South Carolina,” Maddie said. “It was near the time my dad died and it was like having a connection with him. He loved books, too. Kind of an archaeologist, I guess. He was killed in Iran about the time the embassy was taken over. I was 12.”

“What happened to your copies?” Keith asked.

“I wanted to keep them forever,” Maddie said. “But I started sharing them with my little brother when he was old enough to make sense of them. He ended up taking them all.”

“Is your brother a librarian, too?” Frank asked. Maddie hesitated, choosing her words carefully.

“He’s a linguist and translator,” Maddie said. “He does freelance work for the State Department sometimes, but personally, I don’t think it’s all translating for foreign dignitaries. He is incredibly paranoid and always believes someone is following him.”

“You know what they say,” Keith said. “It’s not paranoia if they really are after you.” Maddie punched him lightly and smiled.

“Madeline,” Frank said cautiously, “I have only one Madeline in my subscriber list, but Zayne is not her last name.”

“I suppose there hasn’t been time for Keith to tell you all the background,” she answered. “I was married at the time I completed my doctorate. After the divorce, I didn’t change my name back for career reasons. My maiden name was Wadsworth.” Frank returned to the card file and examined an entry. His shoulders were hunched forward and Keith was puzzled over his sudden cautiousness. Still, the name Wadsworth rang a bell, but Keith’s mind wasn’t working fast enough to solve the puzzle.

“Madeline, how would you like to be a printer’s devil yourself?” Frank asked, returning the card to its cabinet.

“You mean be an apprentice in a print shop? Don’t I need some kind of indoctrination first?” Maddie asked.

“That was the purpose of the magazine,” Frank said. “So I don’t see any problem in teaching you the next level. At this stage, we have to do whatever we can to preserve the knowledge and culture of the Guild.” Keith nodded.

“Can we get back to the fragment?” Keith asked Frank. “I know you and Maddie were working on the letter while I was working on the search parameters.”

“No question. The letter is from the mid-1400s,” Frank said.

“I’ll even vouch for that,” Maddie confirmed. “I can’t believe you didn’t come running to me as soon as you found it.”

“I’m still puzzled though,” Frank said. “According to your spectrometer, there’s a phthalocyanine dye the page.”

“What does it say?” Keith asked, astounded.

“What do you mean?” Maddie asked.

“Phthalocyanine is a basic ingredient of invisible ink,” Keith said.

“That’s the thing,” Frank responded. “It doesn’t say anything. It covers the entire page in a very light coating. It’s detectable on the front, but not the back. I can’t see any reason for it other than possibly trying to treat the page to see if there were secret messages on it.”

“What about the paleography?” Keith asked his grandfather. Maddie looked at him questioningly.

“What would you compare this handwriting to?” Maddie asked.

“Other letters by the same person. Letters that are in the Guild archives. I am 99% positive that the handwriting is an exact match,” Frank said.

“Which means?” Maddie asked.

“Which means that this document is part of the initiation mysteries of the third degree mastery in the Guild,” Keith said. Then he added, “Written by Peter Schoeffer.”

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