The Toymaker's Apprentice (18 page)

“TWO INCHES, SEVEN EIGHTHS,”
Zacharias said aloud to himself. He had risen this morning (or this evening, it was impossible to tell) to discover that the table in his cell now held two candlesticks, a box of matches, and a sheaf of paper with ink and pen.

He lit the candles. His cell was every bit as awful as he had imagined. Even the door—a great solid thing, charred as if from a fire—was exactly as foreboding as he had imagined it would be.

He cleared the straw away from around the table, lest the candles catch it alight. And then he unrolled the paper. Here were his blueprints, drawn aboard the ship that had carried him here. And a note, written in fine cursive hand.

If you wish to see your son again, you will build what you have designed.

The note was unsigned.

Zacharias cleared his throat.

“You expect me to make toys without tools, I suppose
!
” he said aloud. If they were listening, perhaps he could engage them. If not, it was at least nice to hear a human voice again—even if it was only his own.

“I'll need an awl, for starters, and good wood . . .” He spoke a list of items required and wrote them on the back of the sheet
of paper for good measure. Then, afraid to waste too much of the candles, he snuffed them out, and eventually fell asleep.

A scratching sound woke him. He sat up in his rickety chair and lit the candles once more.

There, by his straw bed, lay an awl, a small carving knife, and several large blocks of cured wood.

Like Beauty and the Beast,
he thought to himself. But what unseen monster did he serve?

As there was little else to do, he began to carve.

HIDDEN WITHIN A CRACK
in the stones of the castle, Arthur and his brothers pricked up their ears. They were eavesdropping on two mouselings gathering water from the trickling rain gutters above.

This particular rainspout was a vein of gossip the princes could mine without fear of being seen. The mice of Boldavia were chatty about their ruler, the Queen. But when the princes were about, they barely raised their eyes to them, let alone spoke in their presence.

Arthur sighed. He was tired of being a prince. Wouldn't it be more fun to swap stories with friends in the marketplace?

“They have one
!
” the first mouse said.

“One what?” asked the second.

The first mouse's voice trembled with a mixture of glee and awe. “They have a . . . Drosselmeyer
!
”

A shock ran through Arthur from tip to tail. He knocked heads with his brothers as each recoiled from the news. In silent agreement, Arthur and his brothers crept forward, all ears tuned to the conversation beyond the wall.

“Impossible
!
” said the second mouse. He was clearly older, his tone one of authority, his voice less squeaky. “There is only one Drosselmeyer and he was cast out of Boldavia.”

“Not true
!
” the first mouse insisted. “The Drosselmeyer has
a family. There are more of them
!
I heard it from my mother's cousin in the Queen's guard. Well . . . my mother heard it from him. They didn't see me under the table while they were talking, or I'm sure they'd have never let me stay. They've got one and they've brought him here.
Here
!
In the castle
!
”

Arthur gasped. A Drosselmeyer
!
The most dangerous of all things. And to bring him into their home?

“I think you're lying,” the older mouseling sneered.

“Am not
!
”

Arthur withdrew into the chamber beyond his listening post, wringing his paws.

“It can't be true
!
” Genghis whined.

“Why not?” Charlemagne countered. “It's a brilliant move. We have a hostage now. Drosselmeyer will stay away or risk his kin's life.”

“Or he'll come all the sooner,” Alexander said. “To save him.”

The princes fell silent at this sobering thought.

“Mother will kill the prisoner before Drosselmeyer has the chance,” Roland decided. He looked side to side at his brothers for agreement.

Hannibal growled deep in their belly. “Revenge,” he rumbled. “Then he'll come back for revenge.”

Arthur felt sick. Their history lessons agreed with Hannibal. Nothing good could come of this. He wanted to sit down and be comforted, but by whom? His mother barely even stroked his ears, and the few times she had, it felt more like she was shopping for apples than showing tenderness. What would she want him to do?

“We need more information,” he surmised.

“Yes, let's talk to Mother,” Genghis agreed. “Or Herr Listz. He'll know what to do.”

“If they wanted us to know, they would have told us themselves,” Arthur said. He swallowed the lump of fear threatening to choke him. “No. We'll go and see the prisoner for ourselves.”

The other princes fell silent. Arthur took a steadying breath and led the way to the damp dungeons.

• • •

THE PRINCE OF MICE
peered out from their second hiding place of the day. Charlemagne snorted. He didn't think it seemly that the future ruler of Boldavia should skulk between walls, and said as much.

There was a general grumble of agreement.

Arthur shushed his brothers. “There's a spy hole in the wall,” he said. “If you ever listened in our lessons, you would know that.”

One of their mother's piebald spies had given them a quick education in espionage—spying—in the mouse world. Back when Boldavia was a rougher place, an ancient mouse king had ordered spy holes and hidden doors carved into every dungeon cell. Even then they knew that if they hoped to hold sway in the world above, they would need the help of men.

“Hands,” they were called—humans who did the bidding of mice in the world of Men above. Before they had amassed enough gold to buy human assistance, they'd offered other things—comforts of food and blankets brought in by hidden ways. In exchange, the prisoners performed certain tasks upon being released. More than one wayward Boldavian had
complied with their requests—drown a few kittens or unlock a granary door, wedge a window open in the scullery. By these means, cats grew scarce and mice more abundant over the years. King Pirliwig himself had done them a favor when his sneezing led him to banish cats from the kingdom entirely.

It was likely a gang of hands who had brought Drosselmeyer's kin to this cell, Arthur thought. He rested a paw against the stonework. A small panel slid aside, offering a wide view of the room from halfway up the wall. Pressing his face against the opening, he could see that the small damp chamber held an old table and chair, but little else. He waited for his eyes to adjust.

There. On the floor, strewn with old hay, a shape lay, its broad back to the room. Its shoulders quaked beneath a thin blanket, and it muttered softly to itself like a bedraggled old hen.

This was the Drosselmeyer.

“Let us see,” hissed Roland. Arthur pulled away from the opening to give each brother a turn at the peephole. A sense of dread built in their stomach.

“He looks . . . small,” Genghis said. It was the wrong word, but the brothers knew what he meant. After a lifetime of cautionary tales about the Mousekiller, here was his closest kin, huddled like an old maid. Neither fiery-eyed, nor breathing poison. He reminded Arthur of the aged deaf mouse that guarded the door to his mother's chambers when he was very young. A sad old creature, not made for the damp beneath the castle.

This Drosselmeyer was no monster to be feared.

Alexander was the first to smile. And then Hannibal. Then
Genghis and Roland and Charlemagne. A wave of relief washed over them. They had faced their enemy and survived.

“A dog with no teeth,” Alexander said.

“A cat with no claws,” Roland agreed.

“A victory,” said Charlemagne.

And the Prince of Mice laughed.

Except for Arthur. He had listened well at the spy hole and knew that the Drosselmeyer in the chamber was calling for his son. Had his own mother ever done such a thing? Worried over him, maybe, but wept for him? And his father? He didn't even know the mouse who had helped give them life. The prince consort had died before they were born. A victim of the Drosselmeyer, some said, or the horrid mechanical cat he'd left behind.

For a moment, he leaned against the damp stone wall, disturbed in a way he could not define.

“What's the matter with you?” growled Hannibal.

“N-nothing,” Arthur stammered. He knew what he was feeling was dangerous.
Pity
, for the man in the prison. Something he had only ever felt for himself.

BULGARIA MIGHT HAVE BEEN
beautiful. It might have been vast, wild, and green, or drab, treeless, and gray. Stefan did not notice. He concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, his cousin's bag slung across his back, his own bag swinging from his shoulder.

Samir carried the black cases along with his own luggage. The Arab hid his grief behind a wall of calm. Stefan had no such defenses.

They had left the river men to their work dismantling the
Gray Goose
, which was to be sold for her wood. The current of the Danube did not allow for a return trip. The captain and his crew would travel overland back to Germany, where they would build another barge and set sail again.

Stefan and Samir now followed a narrow road that wound its way through a scant forest. Stefan watched the ground, his boots taking one dusty step and then another. The rhythm was steady, plodding. It helped him stop thinking for a while. About his cousin, and the river, and his last glimpse of Christian's face.

His father standing by his mother's coffin in the rain. The empty toy shop, ransacked by man or mouse.

His coat was too warm, his feet sore, his legs weak from their days on the river. Still he walked, and the shade of the trees gave way to dappled sunlight. He could feel it on his neck, but
he would not look up. Because then he would have to face the future. One in which he was alone.

When they were through the trees, Samir stopped and put the two cases on the mossy ground. Stefan dropped his bags and stretched. Walking might be peaceful, but it was impractical if they were to have any chance of saving his father.

“What are we going to do, Samir?”

The astrologer sat down on the grass and folded his legs in front of him. “I am ashamed to say I do not know. For too long, I've been led by the beard, following Christian, searching for the nut. It is as if I am looking up and seeing where I am for the first time.” He gazed out at the peaceful countryside, empty but for the hum of insects and the sigh of the wind in the trees. “I am at a loss.”

Stefan sat down beside the Arab and lay back on the grass. His head hurt. He tried not to think.

“There was a plan,” Samir said at last. “We will follow the plan. Go to Boldavia, bring the nut to the king.”

“But we can't open it,” Stefan sighed.

“King Pirliwig has a kingdom of men, as you said. Men who might succeed where we have failed. We will trade it for help finding your father, and get you home to Nuremberg. That is what your cousin wanted. I promise to see it through to the end.”

“Promises,” Stefan repeated, remembering. “Just before . . . before Christian . . .” He swallowed and began again. “He told me to remember my promise and he said he would keep his.”

“What did you promise him?” Samir asked.

Stefan sat up. “I don't know. Nothing that I can remember.
He said I looked like my mother, and she'd be proud of me. It was strange.”

“Anything else?” Samir asked intently, as if there were clues in the memory.

“Nothing. He said it was a beautiful day.” He collapsed back to the ground and sighed. “Christian was the master clockmaker.
He
was the one with the plan. I'm just . . . a toymaker's apprentice.” Without a master, he could no longer be a journeyman. He'd been orphaned yet again.

“And I am no longer a jailer,” Samir said. “So, what can an astrologer and a toymaker's apprentice do?”

Stefan recalled the blueprints of the City Clock, layer upon layer. Even the smallest cog fit somehow to make the whole mechanism work. When one cog was removed, another took its place. But he was too young to fill the gap his cousin had left behind.

“‘Promise me you won't quit,'” Stefan whispered. There was something else Christian had said days ago, after their argument about cracking the nut.

“What's that?” Samir asked.

Stefan sat up and dusted himself off. “Did you know that too many clockmakers can spoil a clock?”

“What nonsense is that?” The Arab's patience had worn thin. He rose and began fiddling with his bags.

“It's true. Christian told me. Once a clockmaker has begun work, only he can finish it. Another hand might throw off the rhythm.”

“What's that to do with us?” Samir demanded.

“Don't you see? Christian was my master, but he's gone. The work is unfinished. Unless I finish it for him.”

Samir stopped his fiddling and gave Stefan a confused look.

Stefan rose to his feet. “Christian said he knew of someone who'd eaten a
krakatook
. Who was he?”

A vague look crossed Samir's face. “Allah be praised. He must have meant the Pater.”

“We have to go see him. He's our only hope.”

Samir shook his head. “Not in this instance, I am sorry to say. The Pater is a squirrel.”

“A squirrel.”

“A wise squirrel. But the
krakatook
is a religion to such creatures. Like your Holy Grail. If he knew we had it . . . No, we must find some other way.”

“There is no other way
!
” Stefan cried. “We have to go to the squirrels.”

“Did you not hear me? They will
take
the nut from you.”

“They'll
try
. But I won't let them—” Like a lens throwing everything into focus, the wheels of his brain were starting to turn, making his path clear. “If the mice succeed and spread out into the world, men will rise up to stop them. Then where will the squirrels be? Hunted alongside the mice, maybe, or driven to starvation by their excess. Professor Blume said the
krakatook
imparts longevity and wisdom. If there is a squirrel who has eaten one, he'll see I'm right. He'll be sensible where kings and queens might not. Please take me to the squirrels. For my father's sake.”

Samir regarded him for a long moment. He reached for the satchel that held his telescope and star charts. He spread the charts on the grass, weighing the corners down with rocks, and read the strange series of circles and lines.

“How can star charts possibly—?”

The Arab held up a finger for silence. Stefan paced impatiently, but Samir paid him no heed. Instead, he muttered under his breath, pulled out a small instrument, and made some measurements. Using a tiny pencil, he jotted a few notes, nodded, and stared at the result.

Stefan stared too, clueless.

At last, the astrologer slowly rolled up his charts. He carefully packed away his instruments and closed his bag. “All right.”

Stefan scrambled to his feet. “All right? You'll take me there?”

Samir shrugged. “Yes. It seems I am fated to travel with one Drosselmeyer or another. I cannot argue with the stars.”

Stefan took a deep breath, filling himself with purpose. “Right. Then we'll have to get horses,” he said. “I don't see us carrying all of this for more than a mile or two.”

Samir knelt beside his case. “Well, these are yours now. It's time you learned how to use them.”

He opened the first case. It collapsed into two neat rectangles. “Help me with the legs,” the astrologer said.

Stefan stared at the box. “Legs? We've been carrying around picnic tables?”

“Not that kind of leg,” Samir said, and unfolded a section of the box. It was sleek, black, and curved, and ended in a hoof.

“What the devil is that?” Stefan asked.

Samir scowled. “Pay attention. Legs
!
”

He bent to the task of unfolding two more legs while Stefan, a bit belatedly, addressed the fourth.

“There. Now help me turn her over.” Squatting to get their fingers beneath the rest of the box, they gently rotated the
whole affair so that it sat on top of the hooves, looking for all the world like a tall, unattractive desk.

“Oh.” The puzzle clicked into place. Stefan shook his head in admiration. “Very clever.”

“‘Magnificent' was the word I used when I first saw them,” Samir said. He helped Stefan open the second box. When both “tables” were set up, Samir pulled a winding key from along the inside of the box, adorned with a long plume of horsehair.

“If you would?” He indicated Stefan do the same. Stefan hurried to the end of the second box and found his own plumed key. “Insert here and twist like so . . .” Samir demonstrated.

Stefan pushed the key into a waiting slot and gave it a twist. The crank of gears increasing in tension greeted him and he grinned. It was like his little wind-up bird, on a much grander scale.

The “tabletops” accordioned upward, like a bellows filling with air.

“Now counterclockwise,” Samir said. Stefan followed along, twisting the key three times in the opposite direction. “Now, step back.”

Stefan did as he was told.

The cases bloomed into horses. The tails, for that is what the keys resembled, unwound slowly and a series of hydraulics and hidden gears lifted each box, plumping it up into the shape of a body. A head cleverly unfolded from the front of each case and flipped itself forward onto a neck that extended to the correct length and height. The mane fell over the neck in a cascade of black. The horses appeared to breathe as the bellows that opened them filled out the lines creased into their sides from
storage. Each animal snorted a fine puff of dust and stamped experimentally on four metal hooves before coming to a rest.

Two black stallions, as real to the eye as any horse, stood before him. Their unnatural stillness was the only sign that they were not real.

“Incredible,” Stefan said. He circled the horses. “And they run on . . . steam?”

“Perpetual motion and winding. Christian can . . .” Samir faltered and cleared his throat. “Could have . . . explained it to you better than I.”

Stefan's eyes stung as he blinked away sudden tears. “Well, I'll have to teach myself. I hope I do as well with my own inventions someday.”

He secured his bags across the back of the nearest horse and mounted. He smiled as the stallion gave slightly beneath his weight. It was soft but firm, like sitting on a cushion of air.

Samir beamed back. “You did not think we could ride the world for seven years without
some
comforts, after all?”

Small comforts were all they had left.

Stefan settled gratefully into the saddle and experimentally kicked his heels. The horse responded as naturally as a real one might, striding forward at his touch. The beast was guided by slight pressures on the reins and withers.

Samir assured him they could go at greater speeds than the best horses, as long as their gears were maintained.

“In that case, lead on, with all speed.” Another click of his heels, and they were on their way, to seek fortune or ruin among the squirrels.