“Why,” said she, “your good work might put out the eyes of that they are selling.”
Gerard sighed. “Alas! dame, you read folk on the ill side, and you so kind and frank yourself.”
“My dear little heart, these Romans are a subtle race. Me? I am a Siennese, thanks to the Virgin.”
“My mistake was leaving Augsburg,” said Gerard.
“Augsburg?” said she haughtily: “is that a place to even to Rome? I never heard of it, for my part.”
She then assured him that he should make his fortune in spite of the booksellers. “Seeing thee a stranger, they lie to thee without sense or discretion. Why, all the world knows that our great folk are bitten with the writing spider this many years, and pour out their money like water, and turn good land and houses into writ sheepskins, to keep in a chest or a cupboard. God help them, and send them safe through this fury, as He hath through a heap of others; and in sooth hath been somewhat less cutting and stabbing among rival factions, and vindictive eating of their opposites' livers, minced and fried, since Scribbling came in. Why, I can tell you two. There is his eminence Cardinal Bassarion, and his holiness the Pope himself. There be a pair could keep a score such as thee a writing night and day. But I'll speak to Teresa; she hears the gossip of the court.”
The next day she told him she had seen Teresa, and had heard of five more signors who were bitten with the writing spider. Gerard took down their names, and bought parchment, and busied himself for some days in preparing specimens. He left one, with his name and address, at each of these signors' doors, and hopefully awaited the result.
There was none.
Day after day passed and left him heartsick.
And strange to say this was just the time when Margaret was fighting so hard against odds to feed her male dependents at Rotterdam, and arrested for curing without a licence instead of killing with one.