Ezra Emmett's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

By first light Ezra had the satchel on his shoulder and the shop key in his fist. Forty pages sat inside the leather, and the plates weighed down the bottom. He could not print the rest here. The constable would come back tonight, and any lit window would draw him to the door. Ezra needed a room with no street to watch and no neighbor to hear the press pull. He locked the shop and walked out into the alley behind the market, where the hooded figure who ran errands with him sometimes waited by the water pump. Alex was already there, back against the bricks, hood up. Ezra told him about the pages, the name on them, and the constable at the shutters three nights in a row. Alex listened without moving. When Ezra finished, Alex said, "You cannot go back tonight." Ezra asked where he could go. Alex said, "I know a place. You will not like the stairs." He led Ezra through two lanes and stopped at the back of a boarded chandler's shop. Alex knelt, lifted a flat stone from the yard, and pulled up a trapdoor Ezra had walked past a hundred times. Cold air came up from below. Alex went down first. Ezra followed, satchel banging his hip on every step. At the bottom stood a small press, older than the one in his shop, oiled and set square under a stone arch. A tray of type sat ready. A candle in a tin box threw light only on the frame, not on the walls. Ezra set the satchel down. His hands shook as he lifted out the plates. Alex watched him a moment, then said, "Whose press?" Ezra asked. Alex said, "Mine. For three years. I have been waiting for a page worth pulling." He would not say more. Ezra fed the first sheet by feel, pulled the lever slow, and a clean impression came off the roller with the magistrate's name black across the middle. He printed through the morning. By the time he stopped, two hundred pages lay stacked on the stone. The plates were safe under the floor. The shop above was still boarded, still quiet. Ezra had a room the constable did not know, and a partner he did not yet understand.