City of Secrets by Mary Hoffman

stalled or crashed the gears once,’ said Brian, ‘and that’s very good for a first lesson. I’d like you to look in the mirror more though. Spend just a second or two longer assessing the situation before you give the signal.’
    Story of my life, thought Matt. He still didn’t know what he was thinking of, telling Ayesha that he was going to apply to do a Computing degree at Cambridge. It was only a matter of time before she told his parents. He thrust the idea to the back of his mind. He had to hurry to fit in his homework before bedtime now that he was having driving lessons as well.
    He had to consider seriously whether or not to stravagate that night. He was already short of sleep and feeling knackered. But the strange things that were happening to him were becoming addictive. He still had no idea why he had been chosen to go there, why the talisman of the leather spell-book had chosen him, as Constantin put it, but he wanted to see Padavia again.
    He was a bit in awe of Constantin – and of Luciano too – but he felt that the city held the key to a secret that had eluded him all his life.

Chapter 7
    Against the Law
    When Matt arrived in the studio, he was greeted heartily by Professor Constantin.
    â€˜Welcome, welcome,’ he said, beaming. ‘We are going to start teaching you the craft of printing today.’
    Matt was surprised. ‘I thought that was just a cover story,’ he said.
    â€˜Well, if it is to be effective, you must know what we do in the Scriptorium and learn how to do it yourself. The men are already suspicious because you aren’t related to any of them. There’s a tradition in printing that sons follow fathers into the trade. I’ve told them you’re an orphan and that your father was a printer in Bellezza. That’s why I’ve taken you on.’
    Great, thought Matt. They don’t want me here and they’ve only got to start asking me questions to find out that story’s full of holes. And as for spending all my time working with words . . . He remembered that the letters all had to be put together back to front and groaned.
    Constantin clapped him on the back. ‘Don’t look so worried. It will be fine. I’ll be teaching you myself when I’ve got the time. And you won’t start by setting type. That’s a very advanced skill. You’ll begin by sweeping the floor and making ink, that sort of thing.’
    So you read minds too, was Matt’s reaction. But he followed the Professor into the Scriptorium and looked at the room with a fresh eye now that he knew he really had to work there.
    There were five wooden presses, each one being operated by two men. They were all in action today, making the creaking sound that he had noticed before, which sounded a bit like an old sailing ship. Alongside each press, another man worked sitting on a high stool in front of a wooden case holding letters.
    â€˜Those are the compositori,’ said Constantin. ‘They really do have to have a way with words.’
    Matt saw that they were working incredibly fast, rapidly picking metal letters out of the cases with their right hands and putting them into wooden sticks in their left. They were consulting sheets of paper, which were covered with loopy black handwriting – the original manuscripts he supposed.
    â€˜Yes,’ continued Constantin under his breath. ‘They are the aristocracy of the print room. What the others do is hard work – some of it dirty – and it requires precision and skill. The pressmen don’t even need to be able to read. What they do is mechanical. The compositori have to be almost as learned as scholars.’
    Around the sides of the room sheets of printed paper hung from ropes, like lines of washing. Matt could tell that they were there to let the ink dry. And at the far end of the long room two more men sat at either end of a long wooden table, reading through more