Near six — the loft above Wren Alley 🔍

Near six in the morning, in my rented loft above Wren Alley, I dressed beside a horn-paned window while pale light seeped through its cloudy surface. At thirty-nine I apparently pass here as a journeyman bookbinder, and my fingers seem to know the waxed thread, bone folder, and little knife laid upon the chest even when my mind does not. Mistress Harwood, the widow below, gave me small beer, coarse bread, and a dab of salted butter, watching only long enough to ask whether I had slept poorly. I answered that the heat had troubled me and kept my surprise hidden in the cup. In my leather purse I found a few worn silver pennies, and their weight felt far more serious than coins ever had before. Before leaving, I wrapped yesterday’s mended binding in linen and tucked it beneath my arm as though this life had always belonged to me.

After the noon bell — Barley Quay bindery 🔍

Just after the noon bell, at Master Vale’s bindery beside Barley Quay, I stood at a scarred oak bench with glue warming in a small iron pot. The room smelled of calfskin, damp paper, soot, and the sharp paste made from flour, while presses creaked whenever an apprentice leaned upon their wooden screws. My hands folded gathered sheets, pierced the cords, and drew waxed linen thread through the holes with a confidence that frightened and comforted me in equal measure. Outside, porters shouted beneath sacks, horses stamped among the flies, and the broad river flashed between warehouses whenever the sun broke through. For dinner I shared cold mutton, onions, and bread from a wooden trencher with a young apprentice named Will, who laughed when I nearly spent a whole penny too freely on pears. I kept my questions small—where the rag seller lodged, which lane led home, when the shop closed—and let everyone mistake my caution for a headache.

At dusk — Stag Court pump and my chamber 🔍

At dusk, beside the hand pump in Stag Court, I waited with a leather bucket while women traded household news and children chased a hoop over the uneven stones. Wood smoke hung low between the timbered upper stories, mingling with the smell of horse dung, rosemary, and frying fish from an open doorway. I carried the water upstairs, washed the paste from my hands in a pewter basin, and ate pottage with leeks by the light of a tallow candle. The flame guttered whenever air slipped through the shutter, making the coarse plaster walls seem to breathe. I laid out my pennies, binding tools, and the heavy iron key to the loft, trying to learn my possessions before darkness swallowed their shapes. When the distant watch called in the street, I resolved that tomorrow I would follow the river road carefully, remember every turning, and find out what sort of man Jay Lee is expected to be here.