Several old men sunning themselves in the almshouse yard smiled and waved at Bessie. She would not stop to see them today either. She liked these men enormously. The once-hardworking laborers, now supported by the abbey, were Bessie’s friends, though if her mother knew how her daughter fraternized with these poor commoners, she’d have her head.
As she rounded the almshouse wall, Caxton’s came into view. It was the largest shop on the short, narrow street leading out Westminster’s front gate. The castle, main and base courts, the soaring abbey, and this string of businesses lay within a thick wall. Beyond the gate lay Totehill Street, one of London’s major east–west thoroughfares, lined with every variety of shop and enterprise.
Caxton’s red-striped wood sign, the red pale, swung in the slight breeze, and beneath it the door opened. A woman carrying a parcel in her arms came out, the parcel the size and shape of several books.
Bessie smiled. Surely her friend Nell was inside working her trade as a bookseller. She was good at it. And liked her job. It was one she was not forced to do, for her father was a wealthy man, but did for the pleasure of it. This seemed to Bessie a great blessing. Sometimes she envied Nell for her usefulness in the world. What is a princess useful for, besides the marriage bed and baby making? But no, she would not dwell on such things today.
As Bessie pushed the shop door open, she anticipated the heavy clanking of the cowbell above her head. It was a bit of a joke, that bell, for most shops had something small and tinkling above their doors to announce customers. But Caxton’s shop with its crashing printing press was such a noisy place that a cowbell had been needed to be heard above the din. This day, to Bessie’s surprise, Caxton’s was blissfully quiet. The bookshop at the front was as silent as her father’s library. Through the archway in the back Bessie could see that the press was still. Jan de Worde, the printer’s brawny-armed apprentice, was carrying a heavy box of type down the steep wooden steps from above.
The smell in Caxton’s, Bessie thought, was like nothing she had ever known—still-wet inks, papers and vellum, leather, and the oill that lubricated the presses. Nell always said the smell was as natural to her as baking bread to a kitchen maid.
There was her friend standing with a customer, reverently turning the thick pages of William Caxton’s fourteenth-century illuminated manuscript, Deeds of Alexander the Great. Anyone who came into the shop, themselves no doubt interested in volumes popular, religious, and rare, would be granted a peek at the great book, a gift from Caxton’s old friend Burgundy’s Philip the Good. Everyone marveled at the gem-encrusted cover, the gold leaf and painted illustrations, and letters twined with flowers and vines and mythical beasts. Once a person was gorged with the wonder of that book, Nell would lead them cleverly to the tables and shelves of newer books that were for sale. Some had been imported from the continent, many in French—the language that the educated English read from most often. There were scholarly tomes in Latin and Greek and several in Arabic, the flowing letters of which fascinated Bessie, who wondered how anyone could possibly read them.
But the true pride of the bookstore were the books printed
by Nell’s father on his press. Books translated from the French and Greek and Latin to English. It was new, this reading of the printed word in the native tongue. A revelation. A novelty. And Nell’s father had invented it. Not the press, of course. Printing with movable type was thirty years old. Every man of learning had in his personal library a copy of the first book ever printed on Johann Gutenberg’s press—the Bible.
Bessie marveled to realize that in the six years since Caxton had come from the city of Bruges in Burgundy to set up shop in Westminster precinct, great numbers of his countrymen and women had been learning to write and read English. So customers for the translated works were becoming plentiful, and enthusiasm was growing.
Add to that a pretty, twenty-year-old girl, brilliantly educated, who listened with the greatest apparent fascination to her customers’ interests and desires, who would point them to just the right volume, and you had the most famous and beloved bookstore in all of England. Sometimes Bessie found it hard to believe that her friend was at the very center of such momen-tousness and influence.
William Caxton himself was generally too busy to serve book buyers, what with his presses running day and night to turn out a growing number and variety of printed matter. He trusted that the store was in the best of hands with his daughter, the love and light of his life—he a longtime widower with no other children to dote on.
Nell looked up then and saw her friend. A grin cracked her face wide open, and with a whisper to her customer, she came round the table and indulged with Bessie in an excited and mutual hug.
“I’ve never heard it so quiet in here,” said Bessie.
“Father and Jan are setting type for a new book. Enjoy the silence. It’s about to end.”
“I nearly stopped at the bake house to bring you some bread, but I couldn’t wait to tell you—”
The cowbell clanked again and both girls turned to witness the entrance of a surprising trio of royals. Surprising, as Richard of Gloucester—Bessie’s father’s only living brother—
came so infrequently to London. She realized she had not laid eyes on her uncle Richard, his wife, Anne, or their nine-year-old son, Ned, for nearly four years. Of course Bessie knew they were arriving shortly to join the royal progress out to Wales, but the sight of them in Caxton’s shop was unexpected and somehow incongruous.
Upon recognition, there were many exclamations and embraces. Bessie marveled loudly at how much Ned had grown, all the while thinking secretly that he looked too small and frail for a boy his age. She was reminded of her brothers, Edward and Dickon, the two princes—tall, leggy, golden lads exuding life.
This pale, large-eyed child, Bessie thought, would never reach adulthood. The burning core that fueled a person’s body, in Ned’s frame burned with too feeble a glow to sustain life. Anne was petite and prettier than Bessie remembered. She was aging well. Perhaps birthing only one child had benefited her. Though, thought the princess, her mother the queen had borne nine and was no more worse for wear.
It was Richard, though, who took Bessie most by storm.
She’d stepped back to allow Nell her greetings and obeisances to the Gloucesters, who, like every other member of the royal family, held William Caxton as their friend. Bessie had never remembered Richard so darkly handsome. Brooding brown eyes.
Luxuriant black hair worn long. A clean-shaven face made all of angles. And a slow smile revealing straight white teeth.
“Does my father know you’re here?” Bessie said to Richard, suddenly worried that she was staring at him.
“I’ve only just sent word to him,” Richard replied. “We arrived yesterday. We’re staying at your grandmother Cecily’s.” Bessie was aware that when he spoke to her his eyes never left hers. It was strangely discomfiting, but suddenly she realized that it was as much his height as his attention to her that caused her feeling. All the men of her family were tall. Her father was a very giant at six feet and four inches. Her mother’s brother, Lord Rivers, and her father’s brother, Uncle Clarence, when he was alive, were both large, well-made men.
Compared with them, Richard was short. His arms and shoulders were, however, unnaturally muscular from fighting with sword and battle-ax from his twelfth year. So whilst his torso was powerful, his normal-size and -shaped legs appeared more spindly than they were.
“Bessie dear,” said Anne with the sweet smile she was known for. “Will you tell your mother that the suit of clothing she had made for Ned fits him perfectly?”
“I will, Aunt Anne.”
“You’re looking so beautiful, Bessie,” Anne said. “I think in looks you’ve the best of both your parents, and your grandmother Cecily’s lovely manner.”
Bessie kissed Anne’s cheek for the welcome compliment. She was a beautiful woman herself.
“What can I show you, then?” Bessie heard Nell say to her uncle Richard.
“Well, ’tis a gift for a boy,” he replied. “Your friend’s brother, Prince Edward.”
“You’d best not let Edward hear you call him a boy, Uncle,” said Bessie. “Lately he fancies himself a man.”
“Does a boy become a man at thirteen?” Ned piped in. He was a serious child. “That’s how old my cousin Edward is, is he not?”
“I think it depends on the boy,” his mother answered. “We
haven’t seen young Edward in nearly four years. He may well be very manly at thirteen.” She regarded her husband warmly.
“Your father had already fought in his first battle at thirteen.”
“I think I have just the book for the Prince of Wales,” said Nell, her eyes mischievous. “I’ll be right back.” She hurried from the bookstore through the arch into the printshop.
Bessie and the Gloucesters all began browsing silently amongst the books that lay everywhere on tables, and were set—spines out—on shelves round all sides of the small room.
A moment later Nell returned carrying in her hands a large volume, followed by her father, William. He was beginning to show his age, thin hair falling in a ring round a balding pate. He stood of middling height but, like Richard, was brawny of chest and arms, in his case the result—he liked to say—of carrying heavy trays of typeface and working the presses himself.
“Gloucester!” he cried, then, seeing Anne and Ned, greeted them one by one with a hearty embrace.
William Caxton, thought Bessie, was equally loved by everyone in the royal family. It was no surprise, as the man’s loyalty and assistance had, ten years before, made it possible for the exiled King Edward to retake the throne that had been stolen from him. Truly, there was no common-born Englishman alive who was more highly regarded than Caxton.
“My Nell tells me you have need of a special book for a special boy,” he said. “I have just the thing.” He motioned to Nell and she placed the volume she had carried in on the counter before the family.
It was bound in green leather edged with gold, making it look very regal indeed. Bessie crowded in, peering over Aunt Anne’s tiny shoulder as Anne turned the cover back to reveal the title.
“ ‘Jason and the Argonauts,’ ” Richard read. “In English! Brilliant!”
“See who translated it,” Nell suggested.
Aunt Anne read, “ ‘Written by Raoul Lefèvre, translated by . . . William Caxton’! ”
Nell’s father was beaming. “There’s more,” he said. “Read the dedication.”
Richard read silently, then looked up, incredulous. “You’ve dedicated it to Edward, Prince of Wales.”
“He should be pleased,” said Caxton.
“More than pleased!” Richard exclaimed.
“It’s perfect,” Anne said, and grasped her husband’s hand.
She turned and shared a private look with him that was at once intimate and conspiratorial.
The gesture, to Bessie’s amazement, made her heart lurch unexpectedly, and she found her eyes stinging with threatened tears. She turned away quickly, pretending to gaze at the illuminated manuscript, trying to control herself. She forced herself to logic—the best antidote for rampant emotions, her tutor liked to say. Bessie had to admit that, more times than not, she was a victim of her emotions. Why, she wondered, can I not be more like Nell, who though warm and kind is ruled first by her head and afterward her heart?
But why had the sight of her uncle Richard and aunt Anne’s private moment clutched at her so desperately. Was it jealousy?
Logic. Logic, she commanded herself. The two of them had been deciding on a gift for Edward. When they’d seen the volume of Jason, their shared look said, “We’ve found the rare and perfect treasure we’ve been searching for.”
Then, in passing, Richard caught Bessie’s eye again and he smiled at her. She began to blush and had to turn away.
What was happening to her?
“Should I wrap it up, then?” Nell said. Relief flooded Bessie.
The Gloucesters would be gone soon and her runaway emotions, like a wild horse, could be reined in.
Thankfully the transaction was made quickly, the book wrapped in soft leather, and the family sent on their way. William Caxton excused himself and hurried back to his printshop.
“What’s wrong with you?” Nell demanded as the cowbell jan-gled at the Gloucesters’ exit.
“Nothing,” Bessie lied.
“I don’t believe you. You’ve gone a funny color. And I know you have no earthly interest in that illuminated manuscript you’ve been studying like an Irish monk.” Bessie tried to speak but ended up stuttering. Nell laughed and grabbed her friend’s hand. “Come on, then. We’re going up to my room and you are going to tell me exactly what you’re thinking.”
Bessie tugged halfheartedly in the other direction. “I promised Mother I’d find her a new romance.”
“I have just the one,” said Nell. “We’ll get it later. But right now you’re coming with me.”
Bessie allowed herself to be led through the archway into the printshop. Bessie was always struck by the sight of Caxton’s famous printing press, a strange framework of timber, iron, and worm screws, a mechanism that, many commented, resembled a cheese press.
Just now Jan de Worde was dunking into a huge ink pot a fat, soft cotton inking ball mounted on the end of a stick. The apprentice was waiting for his master’s final approval of the frame, set in the press’s center, filled with small letters made of lead.
It was the first page of the new book to be printed. Caxton examined the lines of type carefully before giving the signal.
Then the boy began daubing the assembled page with his ink ball.
Nell and Bessie had paused on their way out, for the printing of a book’s first page was always a moment of pure celebration at Caxton’s, and a privilege to be present.