Out of reverberant tin I shaped its throat, broad enough for Andale's pipes to lie abreast, deep enough for a bonded-air sac to squat above its heart and breathe life across them.
Lastly, from an ancient block of pounded balsa, I carved its head, larger than a helmet, that Aspidarci's abacal brain might fit, with five palanca, or levers, worked through the back of its neck, that its locomotion might be controlled. For a week I toiled, until the shell was complete, and hung on a frame before me. It seemed monstrous. It was nothing like the toys I had built before; it was a mad thing, a thing not meant to be, conjured from a mad child's mind, and I deplored it for that.
The week ended, and the others came; Caliarch with his heart, Aspidarci with his mind, Andale with his voice, Gregorii with his locomotive force. I greeted them at the old abbey's gate, and exchanged small pleasantries that held no pleasantry for any of us. Gregorii's wife was well, Caliarch's boy was off to fight the Kaiser, Andale's work was to be featured in the grand halls of the English King's palace. The words were empty beside their sallow cheeks and hunted eyes. Even fat old Aspidarci seemed pinched somehow, his jovial flab turned pasty and stretched.
"Let us begin," Andale said, after only moments, the fear plainly greatest in him. "Let us not tarry further."
I enlisted the aid of the abbey monks to winch their creations up to my garret. Together we pulled their varied contraptions to stand beside my puppet body, and consider how the impossible might be attempted.
Gregorii had brought with him something resembling a taxidermied midriff, a rough leather skein standing in for a man's innards, with hanging catgut straps emergent from the four points where limbs would emerge. From its back jutted a large hump of slowly rotating cogwheels like some hideous mechanical cancer. This was to be the means of locomotion.
Caliarch's offering was a large ovum of moulded iron hung by a thick wire of zinc coiling, along which bright Teslic sparks of light crackled and hummed. At times it flashed with a sputtering inner light, and from within its casements issued a deep rumbling burr, as of distant thunder.
Aspidarci's creation was a simple excavated head, resplendent upon a large wooden wardrobe, from within which came a ceaseless clanking of steam pistons revolving and abacal beads clanking back and forth, the noise of thought realized.
Andale had prepared a delicate array of miniature air bladders bundled as though faggots of wood, set beside a waxy leathern bag I took to be a cured sheep stomach. He demonstrated the use of it by triggering a valve and squeezing the air bag, which blew a thin stream of compressed air over the finely tuned accordion pipes, producing a ghostly high music.
The innards that rested beside my puppet shell were large enough to fill it three times over. We stood together and surveyed the impossible task before us. Andale began to softly weep.
"We have yet three weeks," I said to them, perhaps hoping to buoy myself in speaking, though the edge of fatality was clear in my voice. "If it can be done by any, it will be done by us."
I didn't believe it. I am sure the others did not either. Yet to work we bent.
* * *
We worked through the month, and when our time came to an end, we returned to the palace, pulling our puppet on a cart. Its heart had been installed, and its voice, but much of the cogwork of its locomotion had yet to be fitted, and rested in a wooden casement by its side, along with half of its abacal brain. It was heavy as an ox, and even with its skeleton torqued rigid could barely stand under its own mass. The palanca-levers in its skull were operative, but controlled only the pipes in its throat, and the fingers of its left hand.
It could sing, and stand alone, as the Queen had specified. Neither was it short, nor too stout. But it was not authoritative, nor civilized. It was far from finished.
As we walked across the Savinci bridge, over the moat towards the gates, I spied something strange hanging from the central castle turret high above, like a dark rag.
"It is Antonio," said Andale, his voice high and afraid, "on display. For shame."
I realized it was true. The jester hung naked down the turret wall with a rope about his neck, his skin rotten from a month's corruption.
"Don't look at him," I said, turning my eyes away, focusing on the rumble of the cartwheels as we pushed our failure closer to the Queen. "Do not think of his fate."
Andale began to breathe in fast little pants. I glanced in his direction and saw the sweat pouring down his cheeks, though it was but early spring.
* * *
The throne and court hall had changed. In place of Antonio there hung a pale-skinned girl, her body covered in welts and weals, strung to the Queen's hand like a marionette, just as Antonio had been. I could not imagine what sin the poor creature had committed, to find herself fated so.
Before the throne stood two Balustrone guards, long swords held unsheathed in their hands. Beyond them lolled the little Queen, spooning tapioca curds into her mouth with one hand, rippling the puppet-strings with the other, so the puppet-girl beckoned to us awkwardly.
"Levetti, bring my father closer," she said, her voice thick and glottal with the syrupy curds.
I bowed, and advanced. We stopped before the Balustrones, and waited as she surveyed our work. It did not take long.
"This is it, Levetti?" she asked. Flecks of thick spittle spat from her lips. "This is your best work, and you bring this to me with no shame?"
She pushed herself to her feet. In the month since I last saw her she had grown even colder, a mask of cruelty hiding better the child that she yet was. A dangerous glint shone in her eye, as she looked from me to the other four around me.
"This is high impertinence, Levetti. Do you think me a Queen worthy of so shabby a thing as this?"
Andale's panting grew more rapid. He was near entering a fit with fear, his eyes fixed on the still bleeding wounds of the puppet-girl strung up by the throne.
The Queen saw his terrified gaze.
"You, Andale," she snapped. "Does my father have the fine voice I requested? Did you at least follow my command, and build it to rival the Mellorvici cathedral?"
Andale gulped, and jerkily moved to the puppet. He reached to the back of its head, and tugged the first palanca.
The puppet's mouth open, and it sang. The sound was high and sweet, a simple ditty of four pipes played in turn. For a moment the Queen's anger softened, and I again saw her as she had once been; lonely, afraid, overwhelmed by the loss of her parents, lost in the creeping tendrils of courtiers worming themselves around her.
"Very good," she said. "You have done well." Then the angry mask slotted back into place, and she turned to the man by Andale's side. "And Gregorii, can it walk?"
Gregorii shook his head, sweating profusely. "The weight, majesty," he answered, turning his eyes to the ground. "It can stand, but should it walk, it crumples under its own mass."
"I should like to see that for myself."
"To see it collapse, my Queen?" he asked. The Queen gave no reply, and after a moment Gregorii turned to me, as though for confirmation.
"Why are you looking at him, Gregorii?" The Queen asked in soft, brittle tones. Gregorii's eyes widened as he realized his error. He turned quickly back to face her.
"It will break if it falls, Queen," he said in a quiet voice. "All our work will be undone."
The Queen ignored this. "That does not answer my question, Gregorii. Why do you look to Levetti, do you think him your Queen?" He shrank before her, but gave no reply. "Answer me, man! Do you think him the Queen?"
"No, majesty, no."
"Then show me! Have my father walk. Show me his strength."
Gregorii stepped forwards uncertainly, and unclasped the supports holding the puppet rigid. It rocked as it found its own balance. He pulled the second palanca, and its left leg lifted up.
The Queen's eyes opened with excitement, again that expectant joy, but the footfall didn't land. Rather, the puppet began to lean to the side, thrown by the impetus of the raised leg
. It canted further until its tilt became a fall, then crashed against the stone flags. The clacking of its pistons from within stilled. Its throat gave a last warbling breath, then it was silent.
"Pathetic," snarled the Queen. I could feel the anger boiling up in her, and remembered how she had once raged at the death of her parents to the plague, how the only thing that had stilled her was the gentle touch of my puppets on her face.
I had failed again, and this time my failure would kill us all.
"Your majesty, we had not time," Gregorii implored. "If we were given but a month longer, I know it can be done. Your father will walk again, I know it."
The Queen ignored him. "Pathetic, I say. You have disobeyed a command from your Queen. You, Levetti, I expected better of you. Why have you not done as I asked?"
I heard through the anger a plea. I heard it even as I had no answer for her. I was only a man. I was not a God, to breathe life into dull wood. I wanted to take her anger and gentle it away, but she was the Queen, and I was but a puppet master. I could do nothing. I cast my eyes down.
"You asked the impossible, Queen," I answered. "Any man would fail."
She hawked and spat. She would have never have done such before, and the impropriety of it startled me.
"I expected so much more of you, Levetti. For my favor, I grant you one more chance. Only tell me which man here failed you. Tell me which man you are shielding, so that you could not obey my command?"
I heard the yearning in her voice, but I could not give her what she asked.
"Blame me, my Queen," I said, "for you gave charge of the task to me. I alone failed you."
She shook her head, smiling cruelly. "I am not yet done with you, Levetti." She turned her gaze. "What of you, Gregorii, what say you? Are each of you equally responsible? Should I punish you all?"
Gregorii gulped, but said nothing.
"Aspidarci, what do you say? I am the Queen, and I must have order. No secrets shall be kept. Which man disobeyed, tell me."
Aspidarci did not speak, nor did any of us. The Queen simply stared. The moment stretched, grew pregnant, until at last the Queen broke it with a flicking of her pinky finger.
The female puppet by her side beat herself across the breast. The poor girl cried out. I watched a fresh welt rise across her sternum, a thin bead of blood inching down.
"Answer me," said the Queen, so soft now she was barely audible over the heavy breathing of her doll. "Unless you wish to all hang as she hangs, answer me."
Still none of us spoke. The Queen flicked her finger, and the woman lashed herself once more, screamed piteously.
"Answer me! Or would you have your wives hang here, and your children?"
I could stomach no more. My Queen, once such a sweet and lonely child, had become a monster in the hands of the court.
"Stop this, Majesty," I demanded. "You are better than this."
But she did not stop, forcing her puppet to beat herself again. I started forward, but a Balustrone held out his blade to bar my path. I pushed it away and continued on. A flash of surprise ran across the Queen's face, then my head was abruptly jolted forwards and I was falling. I hit the floor face first, unable to pull my hands up before me in time.
Pain burst in my face and the back of my head, and I wondered if this was my end, to bleed to death at her feet. I wasn't ready. Wild thoughts rushed through my mind, visions of the Queen as she once had been, as she was now, and a hopeful voice told me that perhaps the Balustrone had hit me with the flat of his blade, had not cut open my skull.
The screams of the puppet woman pushed into my ears, ringing with the pain in my own head, rising and rising.
At last Andale's clear voice rose through the furore. "Gregorii!" he cried. "It was Gregorii." The cries of the puppet woman calmed away, like a swelling of tides. "He failed to locomote your father, Queen. Hang him!"
Gregorii's protests rose up like grace notes on the Mellorvici pipes, but to no avail. I watched the Balustrones stride towards Gregorii as ripples ran in the grey. The last thing I saw before darkness fell was them leading him pale-faced and resisting to the Queen's side, where they cut the puppet woman down, and began stringing Gregorii in her place.
* * *
I woke to the cool balm of a healer's poultice, lying abed in a spartan antechamber. None spoke to me. A day later I was dismissed from the palace, with the broken body of my puppet on a cart before me. I pushed it out. While crossing the Savinci bridge, I saw an extra body hanging beside the black smear that was Antonio; the puppet girl. Soon Gregorii would join them. Soon I would join them too.
The others were waiting for me in the abbey, vacant-eyed. They had watched Gregorii dance for the Queen, beat himself bloody to the tune of her strings. We had been granted five days to make the puppet walk, but without Gregorii we did not know where to start. We sat in silence in my garret, condemned men serving out their time.
* * *
That night I dreamed of other times. The Queen and I were within the folds of my puppeteer's screen, all the toys I had built for her scattered around us, lit by the warm flicker of a single candle. We had played with the puppets for hours, had given a show to several ladies of the court together, and now she was falling asleep, wrapped up in the thick velvet screen-cloth.
I rose and began to pack the puppets into their chest quietly.
"Daddy?" she whimpered, eyes half-closed.
"No, it is I, Levetti," I answered softly.
"Levetti, don't go," she mumbled. "Don't leave me."
"I must go, Queen," I answered. "It would be unseemly for the puppeteer to overnight in the Queen's chambers." She smiled, though her eyes were closed. It was a jest she first made herself, but one that had grown heavier in my mind. I was a man of toys, of childish things, and she was now the Queen, soon to be a woman. It was no longer fitting for me to be in her chambers at all, even to be in her court. I knew nothing of state or governance.
"Stay a little while longer," she whispered. "I won't tell."
I smiled down on her. I thought to stroke a lock of hair from her face, but stopped myself. She was the Queen.
"Soon," I whispered, as I packed the last of the puppets into the chest. "You'll see me tomorrow, if you like. We'll play again."
I stepped out from within the velvet tent we had created, and stood in the cool and dark space of her chambers. Once her mother and father had called this regal place their home. Now it was cold, and smelled of polish and ghosts.
I thought then that I would see her the next day. I thought she would summon me in the morning and together we would bound through the lands of knights and maidens once more.
But she did not call the next day, nor the day after that. I continued at my business, and began to hear whispers of the grudges being enacted within the palace, the stories of old scores being lanced, with the little Queen wielded as the cutting blade. I wondered that she was young to be so involved in court gossip and politics, but I put the thoughts from my mind. She was the Queen now, and had no need of her puppeteer.
* * *
I woke in a sweat despite the chill air. Around me were the three others, sprawled in their sacks. We had worked late into the night, but without Gregorii's expertise we could not even make the figure stand.
I thought back to what the Queen had said, of Antonio. I had failed her far more surely than he ever had. It was my fault, and no more of these men deserved to die. With that, the decision was made.
I dressed myself in my finest puppeteer's garments, gathered up my whittling blade, display table, and left the garret. The abbot was in the grounds, raking sand. He saw me and nodded gravely. I nodded back, and walked from the place for the last time.
Florence was quiet in the pre-dawn, and I sensed it as though a man moments before his death. Every sound, smell, and sight was heightened. As I crossed the Savinci bridge to the palace my heart leapt that Gregorii was not yet strung up beside the other two rotten bodies. Perhaps there was hope for
him yet.
Balustrones saw me to the throne antechamber, and I stood before the closed doors and waited, table by my side. She kept me there until noon, but the time seemed to pass quickly, as I relived again all the moments we had shared, every one of them a betrayal. At last the Balustrones admitted me, and there she was, upon the throne, Gregorii by her side. His tunic was ripped, his face bloodied, but he lived.
"Where is your puppet, Levetti?" called the Queen imperiously as I approached. "I had not thought you impudent enough to return without it."
I approached the throne, to the point where the Balustrone had struck me before, and stopped. I laid down my display table, and bowed deeply.
"I will be your puppet, Majesty."
The Queen looked at me for a long moment, then laughed. "You presume too much, Levetti. I have a puppet of flesh already." She made Gregorii dance. He seemed barely conscious. "You were bid to build a father for me, and you can not fill that void yourself."
"I should have tried," I said, and felt the words catch in my throat. Before me was a child who had tortured and killed, who had hung Gregorii the master by her side like a puppet clown, but I sought to see past that. These were only layers, piled upon her by the whisperings of those in the court, those who had used her as their puppet, those who had taken an innocent child and made her something filthy and dark.
I held in my mind the last image I had seen of her, that had broken my heart even then; a child wrapped up in velvet, surrounded by toys, begging me not to leave her alone. And I had left.
I drew out the knife.
A Balustrone sword was at my throat immediately. The Queen flinched.
"What is this, Levetti?" she asked, some of the haughtiness in her voice rubbing out, replaced by surprise, perhaps even fear. "Do you seek to kill your Queen?"
I shook my head, and held the knife out between finger and thumb. Strangely, I felt tears well to my eyes.
"Never, your Majesty. I am first and always your most loyal servant. I am here because I have failed you. I cannot replace a dead father of flesh with a dead one of wood and clockwork."
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