Brother Cadfael 16: The Heretic's Apprentice

folded to make eight leaves - it would fit the box exactly. Most probably the box was made for it."
    "But if they had been made together," objected Cadfael, "the book would not have been given the tabs at the spine. They would not have been needed."
    "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 colour; 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 elabourations 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