The stranger was wearing high cordovan boots, a soft velvet beret and a short cloak over a leather jerkin fastened with numerous brass buckles. Slung from his shoulder was a large travelling bag. All in all, he resembled a wandering trouveur rather than a scholar—the only thing that indicated his university connections was a wide Nuremberg dagger, a weapon popular in all European academies, among both students and academic staff.

Not waiting for Schottel to introduce him, the visitor began, “I am a bachelor of the University of Erfurt, and my name is Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg. I know it’s a little overlong, which is why I usually shorten it to Gutenberg. Johannes Gutenberg.”

“Greetings,” replied Scharley. “And owing to the fact that I also favour shortening needlessly long things, let us get to the point at once. What does your invention do, Master Johannes Gutenberg?”

“It prints. To be more precise, it prints texts.”

Scharley casually rummaged through the prints lying on the bench, took out and presented one, which, below the symbol of the Holy Trinity, bore the inscription: BENEDICITE POPULI DEO NOSTRO.

Gutenberg blushed faintly. “I understand your point, m’lord, but please observe that it would take a cutter two laborious days of carving in order to include even this rather short inscription on your woodcut. And should he make a mistake with one letter, all the work is fit for nothing; he’d have to start over. And were he to make an engraving for, let’s say, the entire Sixty-Fifth Psalm, how long would he have to work? And if he wanted to print all the psalms? Or the entire Bible? How long—”

“All eternity, for certain,” interrupted Scharley. “Your invention, my good sir, I imagine, eliminates the disadvantages of working in wood?”

“To a considerable extent.”

“Fascinating.”

“If you permit, I shall demonstrate.”

“Please do.”

Johannes Gutenberg opened his bag, emptied the contents onto the table and began to demonstrate, describing his actions as he did so.

“I made hard metal blocks inscribed with the various letters,” he said as he demonstrated. “The letters on the blocks are, as you can see, carved convexly, so I called them the patrix. By pressing the patrix into soft copper, I obtained—”

“A matrix,” guessed Scharley. “It’s obvious. The convex one fits into the concave one like a papa into a mama. Go on, Master Gutenberg.”