Chapter 5
Isa held her hands steady, slowly counting to seventy as she applied gentle pressure on the thin square board in front of her. She stood up on tiptoe, leveraging her body weight over the solid wooden desk.
Wrapping the wooden panel of a book cover in soft seasoned leather was her favorite step in the bookbinding process. She loved the tart smell of the wet glue, the crinkling sounds of the parchment, the soft texture of the leather under her fingers, and the finished look of the pressed cover in perfect alignment. The row of books on her father’s shelves looked so modern and elegant compared to the stacks of parchment and scrolls that littered the rest of the library.
“Fifty-three, fifty-four, fifty-five...” Isa whispered her slow count into the empty room around her. She was in a small study directly attached to the large library in the Bielsa Villa on the western side of Allys. Unlike the library with its crowded but orderly shelves, her father’s study resembled that of the absentminded Brother Elias. It was a chaotic jumble of loose parchments, treated leather, various colors of inks in bottles or jars, wooden tools, and engraving implements. However messy it might look to an outsider, Isa never had a problem finding any item she might need.
At the moment, she was using a new type of glue her father had developed. It was safer for the delicate parchment of the interior pages, but it dried very quickly and thus required close attention during its application.
The door to the studio opened, distracting her count as Macklin entered the room.
Isa bristled at the interruption, attempting to keep her focus on the task at hand. “Sixty-seven, sixty-eight, sixty-nine... seventy.” She exhaled, slowly lifting her hands from the board in front of her. It remained in place. Not that it was completely dried yet—that would take two full days if it did not rain again—but the paste had set, which meant she could move on to the next step.
That was, she could have moved on to the next step if she had not been interrupted.
“Miss Isa.” The young tutor announced his presence when she finally looked up to acknowledge him. “Is it not a little late to be working?”
“It is not work when one enjoys it.” Technically, she was a higher rank than he was, yet he addressed her with the patronizing “miss.” There was something about the way he said it, as though he were trying to look more impressive by making her appear less important.
She reached for a pile of blank parchments she had stitched together to form the pages of the book.
Macklin stepped farther into the room, a pleasant smile on his face as he watched her movements. “Practicing your father’s craft?”
“No,” she replied.
She was not practicing. She was binding.
She was not a novice who needed to practice with blank parchments. She was a skilled artisan. Even her father, who had worked with the most renowned binders in the kingdom, said she was one of the best.
“I am testing a new iteration of the gum paste my father created,” she explained, “and I do not want to risk harming a valuable scroll if this experiment turns sour.” A vast majority of the works in the family library were written on scrolls. Isa and her father had set themselves the lofty goal of binding every one of them in a sturdy hard cover. However, they wanted to ensure the glue they used would not accelerate the deterioration of the ancient parchment. “This new mix of the paste has a higher degree of resin—”
“I know,” Macklin interrupted. “I studied that type of paste under the monks at Chendas.” He picked up the clay jar and delicately sniffed its contents.
“That’s not—” She started to explain it would have been impossible to study this type of paste because her father had just invented a new variation on the formula, but Macklin was already moving on to a different topic.
“I imagine there are many other occupations a beautiful young woman such as yourself would be interested in on a fine greenreign evening such as this one?”
“What does it matter what season it is? If I prefer to be working, I shall work.” Isa kept her focus on her hands in front of her. She carefully lined the stitched parchments against the spine of the drying cover to double-check the width. It was perfect.
“How can you keep yourself cooped up indoors when the nights are growing warmer and the flowers are blooming?” He moved around the table toward her.
Isa had the distinct feeling that this was less about her enjoying the positive aspects of greenreign and more about her enjoying those positive aspects with him. “I happen to already enjoy what I am doing.” She could not resist adding a final word. “Alone.”
“Of course.” The smile remained on his face, though it no longer reached his eyes. He stepped to her side by the desk and picked up the cover she had been working on.
“Don’t touch that,” she cried. “The glue has only just begun to set.”
He dropped it quickly at her reprimand.
Her heart flew into her mouth at the sight of her hours of precious work, falling without a thought. She gently picked it up, checking the edges to see if the pieces had slipped. Fortunately, the glue looked to have set properly.
“But it appears,” Macklin said, not noticing her concern, “that you have tucked the corners too tightly to fit over the stack of parchment properly.” He pointed to the corner of the cover in her hands. “This angle here needs to be at a precise crossover from that one there in order for the two sides to match perfectly in alignment.”
Isa stared at him in disbelief. Was he seriously explaining the most basic principle of the process? The process her very own father had created?
“Don’t feel aggrieved. A girl as pretty as you doesn’t need to worry about doing things right. Let me show you how it should fit together.” Misreading the shocked look on her face, he picked up a finished book from the shelf behind him—a book she herself had bound—and opened it to the first interior page. “See this corner here needs to match with that angle. To get the right margin you simply mark the fold in the leather by lining up the interior fold of the parchment with this side here.” His voice was kind and explanatory, as though he were doing her a favor.
How stupid did he think she was? “Unless,” she said, as she moved back to where she had been standing and carefully placed the drying cover on the table, “you are experimenting with a new type of oleoresin that requires a larger margin to properly set and thus reduces the potential contact that might deteriorate the parchment.”
