Endymion Spring by Matthew Skelton Read Free Book Online

answered his mother, more evasively.   "He believed there was some truth to the legend and thought he could prove it."
    Blake's heart was pounding fiercely inside him.   Perhaps his dad had hoped to find the forbidden book?   Perhaps he knew where it was hidden?
    "And did he?" he asked breathlessly.
    "He never got the chance."   His mother snorted contemptuously.   "Sir Giles saw to that."
    Blake kicked at a twig that had fallen to the ground.
    "It would have made his reputation had he been right," his mother added regretfully, "but... " Her voice broke off and she gazed at the scaly branches of an overhanging tree.   "But he was probably wrong."
    Blake blinked in surprise.   He wanted to know much more about his father's ideas, but Duck was more interested in Sir Giles Bentley's collection of books.
    "Like, how much do you think Sir Giles's books are worth?" she asked.
    Her mother shook her head.   "No one knows precisely what Sir Giles paid for the Ignatius manuscript, not even where he found it," she said, "but his private library is rumored to be worth more than a million pounds."
    Duck whistled.   "What does he do with all his books?"
    "He's a collector," responded her mother.   "He doesn't necessarily do anything with them."
    Blake glanced at Duck, appalled.
    "It's the thrill of the chase that excites him," their mother continued.   "He hunts down rare books like endangered species and exhibits them on his shelves.   They're like gold in the bank."
    Duck's eyes lit up greedily.   "Do you think we can see his books, if we ask nicely?"   She was proud of her collection at home and probably wanted to compare notes.
    "You can ask him whatever you like," said Juliet Winters, glancing at the invitation in her hands.   "He's giving a special lecture this week.   But I wouldn't waste your breath:   he doesn't share his collection with anyone."
     
    A
     
    They came to a broad street interspersed with stone-fronted colleges and tall tilting shops, all selling the same merchandise:   Oxford jerseys, Oxford scarves and Oxford teddy bears.   Tourists flocked from one to the other, shepherded by guides with colorful umbrellas.
    Even though Blake knew his way around the city now, he still felt like a foreigner himself.   His accent made him stand out like a flag.   Nevertheless, he was beginning to appreciate life in Oxford.   Inside each tawny college lay a forgotten world of libraries, chapels and dining halls.   It was like stepping back in time.   He kept expecting to bump into people with powdered wigs, silk stockings and dark robes — like caped crusaders from long ago.
    Unexpectedly, his mother stopped.   She was standing next to a secondhand bookshop, staring at a display of fine leather books and novels in torn dust jackets.   Before he could prevent her, she had gone inside, telling him to look after Duck.   There was something she wanted to look at.   "I'll only be a minute," she called out over her shoulder as the door jangled shut behind her.
    Blake rolled his eyes.   He'd heard that one before.
    Annoyed, he wandered over to the curb and started swinging round an old-fashioned lamppost, letting the city swirl past him in a   blur of sensations.
    It felt liberating to be outside.   During the previous weeks, he'd seen mostly dun-colored museums and waterlogged statues from the misted heights of a double-decker bus.   This afternoon, however, the city blazed with life:   colleges glowed under an azure sky and pigeons spiraled round the towers on whistling wings.   Golden clock faces, scattered around the streets, told a multitude of times.
    And then he saw him.
    The man was sitting close to the bookshop, reading what looked to be an old battered book.   Blake slowed to a crawl — then stopped completely.
    The stranger was dressed in a brown leather robe and had an unfashionably long, scraggly beard.   Despite the heat, he was wearing a peculiar hat that looked like sort of like a