Six o’clock at Bellfounder’s Court 🔍

At six o’clock in my narrow room above Bellfounder’s Court, I push open the warped shutter and find the roof tiles shining from a brief shower. The lane below smells of wet ash, horse dung, and bread beginning to brown in the baker’s oven. I wash my face from a pewter basin, pull on my brown wool doublet, and fasten the points to my patched breeches with fingers still blackened by yesterday’s ink. Breakfast is small beer, yesterday’s coarse bread, and a little hard cheese, eaten while the neighboring church bell counts the hour. As this is my first morning in this strange life, every familiar thing feels newly sharp—the scratch of linen at my neck, the rushes underfoot, and the weight of three pennies in my purse. I leave for the print shop with my cap low against the dripping eaves.

Noon at the Crooked Pica Print House 🔍

At twelve o’clock in the pressroom of the Crooked Pica Print House, the iron press screw groans while I set another line of type beneath the high, smoky rafters. Master Hales checks the forme with a squint, then entrusts me with spacing and locking it, work that makes my shoulders tighten with care. The damp paper hangs on cords like pale washing, and the room carries the thick smells of oil, lampblack, wool, and hot broth from the cookshop next door. For dinner I buy a meat pie for a penny and share a wooden cup of small beer with young Tom in the covered yard, where rain taps softly on the boards overhead. He says the lampblack is running low, so we agree that he will fetch more before tomorrow’s first bell. Before returning to the case, I turn a loose basket handle in my hands and decide to mend it tonight for Agnes, who complained of it yesterday at the conduit.

Eight o’clock by Stag Conduit 🔍

At eight o’clock beside Stag Conduit, the last warm light lies along the upper stories while the lane below has already turned blue with evening. I hand Agnes the basket with its handle newly bound in waxed linen cord, and she tests it by lifting a jug of water, smiling when the binding holds. A woman nearby calls the price of hot buns, but I keep my pennies tonight and promise myself I may buy two tomorrow if the shop pays promptly. We walk as far as Bellfounder’s Court among apprentices, water carriers, and carts creaking homeward, while smoke drifts low between the timbered houses. In my room I light a tallow candle, scrape dried ink from beneath my nails with the back of a small knife, and eat pottage warmed over the coals. When the bell sounds the late hour, I lie beneath a rough wool blanket listening to rain begin again, less frightened by this century than I was at dawn.