The Toymaker's Apprentice (11 page)

“OH, HOW THE MIGHTY
have fallen.” Ernst Listz gazed imperiously across the royal throne room of the mice of Boldavia, giving his usual speech with all the gravitas he could manage given his damp fur.

The Court of the Queen of Mice shifted uneasily, listening to their guest.

Peasants,
Ernst thought. For all that this was a royal court and the Boldavian mice seemed to have secured more of a foothold in the city than he'd believed possible, they were still bumpkins compared to the old splendors of Ratdom. They could use a history lesson or two.

Ernst knew he cut a fine enough figure before the court—his waistcoat and tails might have been slightly out of date, the sky-blue silk faded, but his fur was groomed and his tail still firm. To such country mice he must look quite fashionable. Amused at the thought, he took a slow breath, and resumed his oration.

“Before the Fall, we were royalty, three tail lengths from the skirts of the Rat King himself. We feasted on the finest cheeses in the royal cellars of Bavaria, sipped deeply of the wines found there. We feared no man, or beast. We were the rulers of the Underearth. If only we had been satisfied to remain so. But the world of Men above was rich, and we climbed too far.”

He cast a warning eye at the gathered faces. Was anyone listening? How many knew that their ascent into the human
kingdom could not last? A few traps, a few hungry cats, and all of this would be gone in an instant. He decided to put the weight of prophecy into his speech.

“What I know of that golden age is only what I've heard at family gatherings or in the old histories. I read them quite often. They remind me that what I saw as Paradise was only the fading light of a truly glorious age. The age before Hameln town and the Cursed One whose name must only be whispered . . .
the Piper
.”

A gasp ran through the room. Ernst preened his whiskers, pleased. Even here, in the backwater court of the Mouse Queen, they had not forgotten the devastation of Hameln.

Ernst puffed up and lowered his voice to a confidential stage whisper for effect. “Humans called him Pied, for the piebald outfit he wore.” He scanned the room, noting the piebald mice in the crowd. There were too many to offend, so he added to his description. “Gaily colored, they say, like a jester—black and white, yes, but also red, green, yellow, and blue. Leggings, tunic, cap, and feather, each of a different hue. A jolly figure, no doubt, if not for his cold, dark heart.”

Here, he paused dramatically.

“For that reason, and for the serpent-tongued pipe he played, all of ratkind call him Black. The Black Piper of Hameln, bane to the Kingdoms of Rodentia.”

A silence followed. Even the Mouse Queen seemed upset by the thought. Her whiskers twitched nervously, but her eyes remained calculating. Ernst waved his paw lightly in the air.

“But that was long ago, many generations by rat standards. For a while, my family used unwitting humans to buy and sell
what treasures they had hoarded over the years—grain and cheese purchased with pearls and golden buttons, those sundry riches a diligent rodent might find, lost and forgotten by Man. Sadly, such wealth can only last so long.

“Mine is a gentleman's trade. I act as a liaison between worlds. Animal or Man, if you desire to learn of either, you can come to me. Ernst Listz, Procurator, Tutor, and Scholar Extraordinaire. At your service, Your Majesty.”

The gray Queen squinted at him from her throne, a makeshift affair shaped out of tin and wire, fitted with a cushion of velvet and grass. She was no longer young, early middle seasons perhaps. One husband lost already. Probably to the traps, Ernst thought, though he'd heard whispers of darker dealings. Such rumors often turned out to be unfounded, usually planted by the subject to make themselves appear more dangerous than they really were. In this case, the Queen was said to be a witch. Leave it to country mice to be superstitious.

Ernst sucked his teeth, taking in the full length of the Queen's purple brocade gown. She was heavily pregnant and appeared huge and lumpy, even beneath the elaborate dress. At least it was tailored—not the pilfered doll clothes most mice seemed to get away with these days. But she seemed common to the rat. All in all, not much of a witch, or a figurehead.

Ernst ran a paw delicately across his black whiskers.

The Queen sat silently, studying him.
What is she waiting for?
Ernst wondered.

As if in answer, there was a commotion at the back of the hall that turned everyone's head, except for the Queen, who continued to gaze at the rat with a satisfied look.

A small, neat-looking piebald in nondescript clothes approached the throne. With an imperceptible nod, the Queen allowed him to come closer, and the piebald whispered something into her ear. The mouse court truly was a different place. Here, the piebalds seemed to be the Queen's right hand.
Spies,
Ernst thought, with distaste. But it was clever. What decent rodent would ever give a scruffy piebald a second thought?

With a wave of her hand, the Queen dismissed her agent. Her eye fell once again on Ernst, and he straightened under her gaze.

When she spoke, her throaty voice belied her size. Her accent spoke of old royalty. “Thee speak of Hameln, rat? A true failure—for your kind.”

“For all rodents, madam.” Ernst favored the Queen with a gracious bow.

“For rats
!
” the Queen said sharply, her paw squeezed into a fist. “We mice have not failed
!
You see the city above, the world around? Mine
!
Thee speak of the Piper, the scourge of ratkind. Dost thee know naught of the enemy of mice?”

“Beg pardon, Your Majesty?”

“Yes, ‘beg,'” she scowled. “This, we mice no longer do. We fight. We rule. We thrive
!
”

Ernst was at a loss. Was the old bag insane? “But, surely the legend of the Piper tells us—” The Queen cut him short with a huffed wheeze that he realized was a laugh.

“They send me an educated rat,” she said to her court. “But what does he know of suffering and survival?” Her laughter grew and the audience shifted nervously, unsure of the appropriate response.

Ernst stiffened. He'd made his way through palaces and
hovels for many a season. He would not be insulted by this little upstart. But then again, the first meal a true survivor swallows is his pride. He looked up at the Queen, innocence and confusion painted on his face.

“Your Piper, Sir Rat, was so very long ago. A tale to scare younglings, yes? Oldlings, too, perhaps?” The Queen waved her paw as if clearing the air. Her black eyes glittered, all humor gone. “A tale of defeat.”

“Apologies, Your Majesty. I did not mean to offend,” Ernst replied with a fluid bow. Not just a simple country mouse, this one. At least not one easily impressed. He held himself in that position, nose to floor, until the Queen spoke again.

“Thee speak to me of the Pied Piper to frighten me? The Queen of Boldavia?” She snorted. “We have fought and died in our own time beneath the heel of Man. Your Piper is but a fable. Our villain is real.”

Ernst slowly stood erect, but kept his eyes downcast in a show of obedience. The Queen liked that, he could tell.

Toe the line with this one, Ernst. Ego is the way in.
“Forgive me, my Queen, if I speak out of ignorance. Your kingdom is mighty. The very fields lay down their wheat for you. What ill can plague you that you have not yet conquered?”

The Queen preened before her court, drawing her whiskers through her small paws. “Drosselmeyer.”

“And what is a Drosselmeyer?” Ernst asked. A shudder rippled through the crowd of mice at his back.

The Queen grew very still. “He is the Scourge of Mousekind. Maker of Traps. Killer of Broods. Whole families, gone. Bloodlines, gone. Hope, gone.”

Ernst's mouth grew dry. They may have been a backwater kingdom with country ways, but bloodlines ended? Even in the darkest of days, they were mice. That was impossible.

“But we are many, Your Majesty,” he ventured.

“And he is but one,” she said, raising a sharp claw. “And yet . . .” She looked across the chamber and signaled for the little gray that had led Ernst here. The mouse bowed deeply to his Queen.

“Fleetfoot,” she said, “bring him to the device.” The Queen gave Ernst a considering look. “Business between us is well desired. You speak the tongues of mankind? The ones in Allemandes, Deutschlandes?” she asked. The unfamiliar names stuttered off her tongue like pebbles from her throat.

Ernst dabbed his nose with a lace kerchief, yellowed with age. “Of course. I speak German, French, and Italian.” Boldavian was but a version of German, and every worthwhile rat spoke at least two other tongues. But the lady before him was not a rat.

“Good,” she purred. “Now go. Learn of the enemy, Drosselmeyer, that you may teach us how to defeat him. And perhaps thee shall be tutor to our royal heirs.” She patted her stomach. “Kings, they will be. Among mice and men. Kings to be feared.”

Ernst sighed inwardly. Not the ideal situation. Being nursemaid was one thing, but another entirely when the mother was mad. Fortunately, mouse children grew quickly. At most, he would be stuck here for half a year or so. And being at court, even a country mouse court, was better than living on the streets.

Ernst bowed deeply. “Until the joyous event, then, my lady.”

The Mouse Queen merely laughed as her attendant led him away.

CHRISTIAN FLEW THROUGH
the streets of Nuremberg, Stefan close on his heels. They passed the flower market, bakeries, printing houses, and the guildhouses of carpenters, toymakers, leathersmiths, goldsmiths, and—

“Wait
!
” Stefan cried. “That was the toymakers' guild. I have to report this to them.”

“They can't help us,” his cousin said. “This is beyond them, I assure you.”

Stefan grit his teeth. “I was a toymaker before I agreed to be your journeyman. What sort of apprentice would I be if I didn't follow the rules?”

Christian sighed. “You're right. You must do what you think best. I'll wait outside.”

Stefan ran up the front steps to the guildhall and through the front door. The motto of the guild was painted in gold leaf on the ceiling above the double-high foyer:
Feinste arbeit, glücklichste spiel
—
Finest work, happiest play
.

Stefan raced down the hallway past glass cases, each containing the best examples of their craft. Rows of tin and wooden soldiers, clusters of porcelain dolls with muslin cloth bodies, tiny zoos, and fairy-tale castles—all a colorful smear as he rushed past. His eyes were watering by the time he reached the guildmaster's office at the back of the hall. The walk past this grandeur used to impress him, but now it was a waste of time.

“Herr Grüel
!
” Stefan called out, knocking on the massive oak door and thrusting it open.

Inside, a tiny man with a swirl of graying red hair looked up from a chart on the table. “Yes?” he said.

“Herr Grüel, forgive me, but it's urgent. My father—”

“I'll tell you what's urgent,” Herr Grüel said, coming around the side of the desk. “The layout of this year's Kindlesmarkt. Do you know we've had twenty-two applications from Munich, of all places? Munich
!
Why don't they have their own fair, I say?”

“Sir,” Stefan interrupted. “Please. My father has been kidnapped
!
”

Herr Grüel gave a sly smile. He shook a long finger and laid it aside his nose knowingly. “Ah, he's sent you to make excuses, eh? He was supposed to be here today to help me. ‘It will be fine, Hans,' he says. ‘We'll make room for everyone,' he says. Nuremberg is a great city, it's true, but do we have to let in every random peddler that applies?”

“Sir, you're not listening. My father has been
kidnapped
!
By
mice
!
”

The guildmaster continued to smile knowingly, then took in Stefan's flushed face, damp with sweat from his run, and seemed to register the fear in his voice. The smile slid from his face and he turned a surprising shade of white. “Heavens, my boy. We've heard of this
!
Journeymen on the road gone missing, turning up a day later with strange stories of whispered orders for impossible things. It's like a fairy story. They awake in a strange place, are given a task, and when they fail, they awake again in a field somewhere, miles from whence they started. Could this have happened to your father?”

Stefan slapped his forehead, yanking at his hair. He'd heard rumors of these disappearances, too. At the time, they'd sounded like tales to scare apprentices on the verge of journeying. Even if they'd been true, he would never have imagined they could be engineered by mice.

Stefan was aghast. “This is real? Why didn't you warn the guild?”

“Of what?” Grüel asked, looking ashamed. He tugged at his ginger hair. “The ravings of a toymaker or two who'd had too much ale? It's only now you say it that I give any credence to it at all
!
Zacharias is missing? It's never been a master toymaker before. Always journeymen and apprentices—rather easily led astray, I'd supposed. But a master?”

He sat down on his desk, upending the inkpot over his carefully laid-out plans for the market. Ink ran onto the floor, unheeded.

“What are you going to do about it?”

“Me?” Stefan exclaimed. “You're the guildmaster
!
”

“Aye, but my duties are clerical in nature—trade, organizing fairs, judging applicants, and the like. I deal with paperwork, not missing people.”

This was the mighty toymakers' guild? One might as well be unguilded. Random peddlers, indeed.

“Then, who do I turn to?” Stefan asked. “The city guard?”

“Perhaps . . . Or perhaps he'll turn up again, in a day or two, with a headache and nothing more, like the others.” The guildmaster shrugged weakly. “Impossible tasks often remain impossible.”

Stefan took a breath to bring his temper under control.
Christian had warned him, and he'd wasted enough time now. Hopefully his new guildhome could offer more help.

Stefan met Christian outside and told him of the other kidnappings. “Maybe they'll release him,” he said, hoping against hope.

“Not likely,” Christian replied. “Certainly not if they know he's a Drosselmeyer.”

Stefan's heart skipped a beat. The criminal Drosselmeyer had single-handedly turned their entire family into the enemies of mice.

They reached the guildhall with its simple clock face and engraved lintel. This time the motto made Stefan go cold—
Time Flees
. They needed to save his father, and quickly. He turned to go up the stairs and nearly tripped over his own feet when Christian continued hurrying down the block.

“But . . . that's the clockmakers' guild,” Stefan called. “Where are you going?”

“The guildhouse is a formal meeting place, Stefan. Display cases, offices, lodging rooms. Useless, really. Now, pay attention and keep up; you need to hear this.”

Stefan raced to catch up.

“Yes, that was the guildhouse and if, say, you were going to ask for a raise or a better spot at the Christmas market, that would be the place to go. However, we don't want to speak to clerks and doormen, do we? We want to speak to the real power.”

“The real power?” Stefan repeated. They rounded the corner at the end of the block. “The brotherhood you mentioned. They're not in the guildhouse?”

“When Napoleon was emperor of France, where would you find him?”

“In . . . France?” Stefan guessed.

“No
!
Not in Paris, nor Versailles, cooling his heels in a Louis Quatorze chair. He was at the head of his army, Stefan
!
Fighting for his crown
!
”

Of course, Stefan knew this. It had been in every newspaper, and was a common topic of dinner conversation. Napoleon Bonaparte, the little general, a Corsican who had made his name at the head of the French army and taken the crown. The world had only recently turned against him, taking back both crown and country. Now the former Emperor of France could indeed be found cooling his heels on the island of Elba.

“But we're clockmakers,” Stefan said, stumbling over a curb as they turned a corner into an alley behind the guildhouses. “And this is Nuremberg. There is no war.”

Christian turned and pinned Stefan with his single-eyed stare. “There is
always
a war somewhere. Remember that, too.”

They came to a sudden stop in front of a plain black door. Above them, the building rose three stories high. The façade tapered at the roof to form a stair-step pattern, like a jigsaw puzzle against the evening sky. A golden clock face was set into the triangular space where the roof began.

“This is the back of the clockmakers' guildhouse,” Stefan realized.

“The servants' entrance, to be precise.” Once again, Christian produced his small master key and unlocked the door. “You recall that there are different types of toymakers.”

Stefan nodded. “Wood-carvers, doll makers, automatonists—yes.”

“There are toys,” Christian said, opening the door. “And then there are
toys
.”

A staircase leading off a narrow, dimly lit hallway greeted them, along with the nearby sounds of the guildhouse kitchens preparing meals for the clockmasters in residence. Sauerbraten and roasting potatoes. Stefan's mouth watered.

“I suppose,” he said.

“Well then, you'll understand me when I say that there are clocks, and then there are
clocks
. Out front is the clockmakers' guild. But this is the way to the Brotherhood of Prometheus.”

Stefan stared into the dark passageway. “And what do pantries have to do with the Greek Titan that gave us fire?”

Christian smiled. “Fire. Light. The ability to create and destroy. So many gifts wrapped in one burning package.” He held up his little master key. “Remember what I said. This key goes to masters of the highest order. That order is the Brotherhood.”

“Is it some sort of club? Like the Freemasons?” Stefan asked. There were several levels of master in the toymakers' guild, but it had more to do with position and wealth than anything else, as far as he knew.

“The Masons are stonecutters who got into politics,” Christian said dismissively. “We're above that. We're
behind
it. Prometheus gave us fire. Fire gave Man the ability to rule the world. Clocks are the tools by which we do it, and the Brotherhood of Prometheus is the hand that winds the clocks. The rest of the guild is just . . . keeping time.”

Stefan stifled a sigh. It was guild-speak, the same bravado
every trade spouted about their own importance—toymakers were the bastions of childhood and joy, carpenters sheltered the world, ironmongers worked the bones of the earth, et cetera. There were rumors of secret societies within the guilds, the highest orders of master craftsmen. It was like any other club. After all, who didn't want mysteries and a hidden clubhouse?

“This way,” Christian said, and they hurried down the hall, past storage rooms and closets to a solid wooden door. Stefan reached for the knob.

“No, this one.” Christian turned to the last door on the right. The one labeled “Custodian.”

“We're here to see the janitor? That's your Napoleon?”

Christian gave Stefan a hard look. “Another rule to live by, Stefan. Keep your eyes open and your mouth closed.”

He opened the door and led Stefan inside.

A sudden light flared as Christian struck a match, holding it to a small lamp that sat on a shelf inside the door. He trimmed the wick and Stefan got his first look at the room they were in.

It was a broom closet. Barely large enough for two people. Lined with mops, brooms, and a rather large bucket that forced Stefan and Christian to stand uncomfortably close together.

Christian shut the door behind them, turned the doorknob, and pressed the lock.

The closet shuddered. A whirring sound rose up around them and the room shook.

“What the—
!
” Stefan hissed. “Are we . . . moving?”

Christian grinned. “Impressive, isn't it? Pulleys and counterweights. We call it a ‘descending chamber.'”

“Descending to where?” Stefan asked, suddenly noticing a
chill in the air. They were moving underground, beneath the streets. He could not say how he knew it, perhaps the sinking feeling in his stomach, or a sense of weight over his head. “Does it go up again?”

“Does it what?”

“You called it a
descending
chamber. How do you get back up?”

Christian gave him a quizzical look as the room juddered to a stop. His cousin unlocked the door and they stepped out into a clerk's office, rather ordinary-looking but for the stone walls. Windowless, furnished with a desk, a lamp, and little else.

On the far side of the room stood a man about a foot and a half shorter than Stefan. A black greatcoat was draped over his arm, as if he had just come in from the cold. He looked like a frog dressed in a bank clerk's clothes. His brown tweed breeches were wide at the thigh and tapered down to flat, wide feet. His stiff white shirt was covered by a dark brown vest, and he had a pair of spectacles perched on his nose. His brown hair was turning mostly gray. In short, he was a somewhat disappointing, if appropriately sized, Napoleon.

“Young Drosselmeyer,” he said.

Stefan started, but quickly realized the man was addressing his cousin.

Christian bowed. “You remembered, after all these years? Gullet, I'll start to think you've missed me.”

Gullet squinted in disapproval and draped his coat on the chair behind the desk. “Ah, yes, Drosselmeyer. Smart as ever around the mouth.” He sat down at the desk and pulled a ledger from the depths of his drawer, as if preparing to open an account for them. “Let's just hope the same is true for your head.”

“Then you know why I'm here?” Christian asked.

“Of course,” Gullet replied, not looking up. “When the mice started moving in Nuremberg, I assumed you were involved. We've received your reports over the years. Somehow, they never hold good news, do they?

“And now, toymakers are missing up and down the Rhine, the Danube, farther perhaps. They seem to be taken for days at a time, and then they turn up again with strange stories of darkened workshops and written instructions. Best we can tell, the captors are striving to build something, something that takes skill. If it's the mice, as it appears to be, then I was most certain it had to do with you.”