Chapter 4 #2
The young monk watching me from beneath a fringe of long eyelashes looked pleased with my reaction.
“You must be Professor Nash.” His English was less accented than the abbot’s, his smile genuinely welcoming.
“I am the librarian and archivist, Brother Eduardo. Please, come in.” He stretched out his hand for me to shake, like an English gentleman, although the grip was light. “It is good to put a face to the name.”
“Indeed it is,” I said. “What a wonderful space you have to work in, Brother. You are fortunate to be surrounded by so much knowledge.”
“Would you like to look around, Professor?” Smiling, he indicated a set of shelves housing manuscripts chained to iron rods running the length of each shelf. “These are the oldest volumes. Some date to the thirteenth century.”
“Vellum?”
“And parchment.”
I wiggled my fingers, not quite sure where to begin or whether I should be touching such precious tomes at all. “You are fortunate to be able to work in this wonderful space, Brother.” Oh lord, I was repeating myself. I felt like a buffoon in front of such a composed young man.
Fortunately, Brother Eduardo didn’t laugh.
Instead, he took in the room as if he were seeing it with fresh eyes all over again.
“It was once the scriptorium, filled with a dozen monks all bent to the task of copying precious documents. The illustrators had great skill, their work so fine and elegant. May I suggest a volume to you, Professor? It’s one of my favorites. ”
“Oh yes, please do.”
He lightly grasped my elbow and steered me toward another bookshelf. He smelled of lavender soap and ink, a rather pleasant combination, and offered me a warm smile as he reached past me to retrieve a book.
Behind us, Oscar cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to intrude upon this meeting of like-minds, but I need to point out that it’s growing late. Brother, do you have the book we requested?”
I’d been so preoccupied with my surroundings that I didn’t notice the abbot had disappeared until he chose that moment to return.
He stood near the door, hands clasped loosely in front of him.
Did he think the books and his librarian needed guarding from us?
Or was he simply being a good host? I wasn’t familiar enough with Italian or abbey customs to know.
“I am afraid I have some unfortunate news,” Brother Eduardo said.
Oscar stilled. “How unfortunate?”
“I cannot find any books on the subject of ink magic.”
“Why didn’t you tell us this when we wrote to you a year ago?”
I tried glaring at Oscar, encouraging him not to get so heated, but he wasn’t looking at me. I didn’t think a glare would make any difference anyway. He oozed disappointment and frustration from the fists clenched at his sides to the hard set of his jaw.
“I have been looking for the book you requested for a year, Mr. Barratt.” Brother Eduardo swept a hand around the room to encompass the vast number of volumes. “Without a title, or any indication what the book was about, I had to search these individually.”
“You hadn’t already read each one?”
Brother Eduardo’s lips quirked with wry amusement. “No.”
Oscar huffed. “Then you have wasted our time.”
“Oscar,” I hissed. “Brother Eduardo warned me in his last letter that he’d not yet found it. It was our decision to come anyway.”
Brother Eduardo cast me a grateful smile. “Perhaps your visit is not a waste. I believe I know where the book is now.” He glanced at the abbot who remained by the door, his chin jutted forward and his back ramrod straight. He was definitely keeping an eye on us.
The librarian picked up a leather-bound ledger from his desk. “This is a catalog of books that were once kept here but have been sold or given away over the years. Professor, will you join me?”
I peered over his shoulder. “Why not keep all of your books?”
“Some are sold to raise funds for the abbey’s upkeep. Our financial situation was not as it once was. Unfortunately, abbeys and monasteries in remote areas are falling into ruin these days.”
“And the books that are given away?”
Again, he glanced at the stern abbot before meeting my gaze. “In their case, the values of the subject matter do not align with the values of the Abbazia di San Vittore al Lago.”
Ah. I understood. Magic and religion were not always comfortable companions, even now when it was widely accepted that a magician was born not bred, and therefore his or her magic was as God-given as blue eyes or a big nose.
From the cautious glances Brother Eduardo cast in his abbot’s direction, it seemed the head of this abbey held the view that magic was heresy.
Hopefully his prejudice ran only as deep as rejecting books in his collection, not magicians themselves.
And hopefully Oscar would keep his mouth shut and not decide to demonstrate the beauty of floating ink.
Brother Eduardo flipped back a page and indicated several entries.
“These were given away some months ago to a gentleman in Monteoro. They are all books that mentioned magic in some form. I had not read them all, so it is possible the book you seek is in there. Some were written in the time that fits the book you seek, some were more modern, others older.”
Oscar joined me to read the titles, but they were all in Latin so he wouldn’t have understood them. Without him asking, I translated for him. He stood close to me, which didn’t go unnoticed by Brother Eduardo, watching us intently from beneath those long dark lashes of his.
I tapped my finger on the final entry to get his attention. One particular book had caught my eye. “This was an important work, known to have been used by Charles Darwin as a basis for his theory on evolution.”
“What’s the title in English?” Oscar asked.
“Bloodlines and Birthright: Observations on Inherited Traits by a Monk,” I read. “Did you give it away or sell it?”
Brother Eduardo gave a soft sigh. “It was given to Signore Scala along with the others listed here.”
“We would have paid you well for it.”
Brother Eduardo’s gaze once again flicked to the abbot before lowering again to the ledger. “Perhaps it contains the ink magic spell you need, Professor.”
“No, it doesn’t. I read it years ago and would remember something of that nature.”
“He would,” Oscar chimed in. “His memory is excellent.”
“The professor is a learned man, I understand.” Brother Eduardo sounded interested. Pleased, even. Perhaps he didn’t meet too many educated gentlemen, isolated as he was in this decaying abbey.
“Very learned,” Oscar told him. “Gavin has written some excellent books on the history of magic, among other things. The university where he worked was sorry to see him go. Their loss is my gain. I am very happy to have his big brain on our book hunting endeavors. His company too, of course.”