The Time of the Clockmaker

by Anna Caltabiano

  Introduction, then curtsey, I thought.

  I took a few steps into the room before I bobbed down to the ground. I tried to remember to lower my eyes.

  Okay, so far so good, I thought. Now ‘Your Majesty’ before ‘sir.’

  I looked up to see that I was in a room filled with maps. There were maps on the long table in the middle of the room. There were maps rolling off the red chair in the corner. They were all hand drawn and looked antiquated to me, like the globe teetering on the edge of the table, but I knew they must have been the finest modern technology of the time.

  There was a figure with his back to me, facing the window. I would have said that he was looking out of it, except the curtains were drawn, making it look like he was staring into the fabric of the curtain.

  “Your Majesty,” I mumbled. It looked as if I had interrupted something, but I reminded myself that it was he who had called on me in the first place.

  There was no immediate response, but the king did turn to face me. I was already up from my curtsey, and with my eyes no longer trained demurely on the floor panels, I looked him in the eye.

  What I saw was a handsome young man with the gaze of someone far older. He stared back at me, unflinching. It wasn’t that his gaze was open and frank with me, it was that he didn’t see the need to hide anything. There was nothing that he thought I shouldn’t see, and that was rare.

  I was the one to look away.

  “The feast,” he said.

  “Yes. I know that surprised many people.”

  To my great astonishment, the king roared with laughter.

  “Surprised? It’s not every day that you get a supper guest like that.”

  I looked down at the edges of my skirts, not sure how to answer any questions he might have.

  He drew nearer. “It’s not every day that an angel comes to the aid of your supper guest either.”

  “I don’t know what to say, sir.”

  “I know it must be confusing.” He took me by surprise with his gentle voice. “But how did you do it?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know what—”

  “Was it prayer? Did you pray before?”

  “No—”

  “Leave an offering?”

  I was starting to panic from his direct questioning. “It just happened. I really don’t know why it did, but it just happened,” I said. “I swear it.”

  The king took a step back, still locking eyes with me. I wasn’t prepared for what I saw on his face; it wasn’t anger, or even annoyance—it was awe.

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry I can’t be of more help, sir.”

  He ignored me. “Was that the first time something like this miracle has ever happened to you?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “Don’t you see what this means? God favors you.”

  My palms sweated and I was uncomfortable with the situation, but I knew it was far better than Henley being discovered. I was fairly sure there wasn’t anything they could do to him, but I didn’t want to find out—especially if there was another immortal in court.

  “You’ve been blessed by the Lord himself, and that was a sign of having his favor. Now tell me, have you seen any visions lately? At night, maybe?”

  “No, none,” I said, truthfully.

  The king ran his thumb across his closely shaven jaw. It was a movement I had seen Richard do, and it reminded me of him suddenly.

  “What do you think about a cure to death?” he asked, taking me by surprise yet again.

  “A cure? For death?”

  “A potion for immortality,” he said.

  I felt a cold sweat drip down my back. “I’m not quite sure what to think of it.”

  “Do you think it’s possible?” he asked.

  I wondered if he knew anything I didn’t. What did he know about immortality?

  I answered carefully, “So far, there hasn’t been cause for me to think immortality possible.”

  “And what if there was?”

  “I don’t—”

  “I believe it to be possible.” He said it so easily I didn’t know what to make of it.

  “H-how . . . ?” I stuttered.

  “We’ve come up with cures for so many diseases. I have my physicians—the best in the country, and everywhere else—working on cures to things like the sweating sickness. Similarly, I have my alchemist working on coming up with a way to attain immortality.”

  Hearing the word “alchemist,” I automatically thought of Richard. Wasn’t he an apprentice with the alchemist? Would he know about this research?

  The king gave me a dazzling smile, making me pause. “But you would tell your king if you found a cure for death, wouldn’t you?” His voice, which had sounded so earnest a few seconds ago, turned cold. “If you were told the secret by someone . . . or something?” He took one large step to come face-to-face with me. “People never have the one thing they want. That’s my one desire. That’s the one thing I need to secure a dynasty.”

  “Immortality?”

  “It’s even better than having an heir. Think. Ruling yourself. For all of eternity.”

  My breath drained out of me. “For all of eternity . . .”

  “You may leave.”

  I gathered myself up, and managed to remember to curtsey before I stumbled out the door.

  Immortality. It was on everyone’s lips. I had to track Richard down.

  “How was meeting the king?”

  The countess was standing in the middle of the room when I came in. It was as if she hadn’t moved since I had left for the king’s chambers. Knowing her and how she worried about these things, she probably hadn’t moved.

  “Well?” she asked. “Do speak up. It’s rude to keep anyone waiting.”

  “It went well,” I said.

  “That’s it? He asked about last night, did he not?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “Did he say anything in particular?” I could tell that the countess was trying hard not to pry like Lady Sutton would. “How was his mood?”

  “He was very pleasant.”

  “Just very pleasant? Or very pleasant?” she asked. “You do realize there’s a difference.”

  “The king seemed to be in a fine mood,” I said. “Do you know anything about the alchemist he employs?”

  “The royal alchemist? Did he say something about that?” She frowned. “For shame. Did he ask you if you were involved in some sort of alchemy?”

  “No, he did not. What do you know about the royal alchemist?”

  “Good. Thank the Lord. Alchemy is not something a well-bred woman should get involved in, or any woman, really. Alchemy is too controversial. Too close to the Devil’s work, if you ask me.”

  I wanted to tell her that I wasn’t asking her, but I knew that I wouldn’t get the information I wanted by irritating her and having her clam up. I just had to let her go on.

  “The royal alchemist, you say?” she said, more than a few minutes later, after she had extracted as much about the king’s mood from me as she could. “I tend not to keep his company, but Lady Sutton certainly does. I believe Lady Sutton mentioned that he’s Venetian, when she was gossiping about something or other. They met during her time in the Venetian court. His reputation preceded him, and the king had to have him for his own. Venice has too much gold, anyway.”

  “So the alchemist primarily works on making gold out of nothing?” I asked.

  “Never start your sentences with ‘so.’ It makes you sound absolutely boorish. I don’t know what his primary job is, but yes, I imagine trying to make gold is a large part of what he does. I try not to make a habit of knowing too much of what he does. He’s not the sort to get mixed up with.” The countess cocked her head. “Why do you want to know? The king must have mentioned it if you’re so curious about alchemy.”

  “He did mention it,” I began. I wanted to tell her the truth, but without telling her about immortality. That was a complication I could live without. “But n
ot for me to get involved in. He called me to his presence simply to ask about the feast last night. The king wanted to know if I had been praying. He wanted to know things like if something like that had ever happened before.”

  “And has it?” The countess looked at me through big eyes.

  “No, it hasn’t. You would be the first to know about it, if it did.”

  Seemingly pleased with my answer, the countess bade me to go on.

  “That was it,” I said. “That’s more or less all he said.”

  “Hmm . . . I suppose he was just ensuring things were all right,” she said slowly.

  “I suppose he was.”

  I took the lull in conversation to go back to my room. Internally, I was a mess and needed some quiet to sort out my thoughts. I knew the countess wouldn’t be able to provide me with that unless I closed my door.

  I sat on the edge of my bed. It seemed this was the spot I was doing most of my thinking—not to mention panicking—nowadays.

  I just didn’t know what to think. More and more, things were starting to look interwoven. If there was a court alchemist looking for the secret to immortality, did my attacker know about him too? What if the immortal murderer who killed Miss Hatfield was also a part of this? What if Henley was right and they were the same person? Did Richard know more than he appeared to? Was he tangled up in this too?

  The more I thought about it, the more afraid I grew. Immortality and time itself used to be my only enemies. It used to be simply a race against the discomfort I’d begin to feel when staying in one time too long. Now it was more than that. Now there was someone after me. And if time didn’t get to me first, I knew he would.

  Immortality is complicated, but once you figure out the rules, it leaves you alone in peace, more or less. You need to know your limits: Don’t stay in one time for too long. Don’t make connections with people. Certainly, don’t fall in love with someone. I had broken so many of these rules, and I knew where it had gotten me. I had to live with the consequences every day.

  But this was different. This situation had no rules that I could follow. I didn’t know who this killer was. But more importantly, I didn’t know why he was after me. That made things almost impossible. I knew I couldn’t do anything until I could get my hands on the clock.

  EIGHTEEN

  SITTING IN MY room, I wished Henley would say something to me. Anything. We hadn’t talked since we had argued the day before, and so far, it didn’t seem as if that would change any time soon. I couldn’t stand knowing that he was there but out of reach.

  “Henley?” I called out into the empty room. There was no reply.

  So that was how he was playing it now? Outright ignoring me?

  I didn’t call again. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that I needed him.

  The clock, I told myself. That was what I had to concentrate on.

  It had been a couple of days since I had dropped off the countess’s clock to be fixed, so I figured I could pick it up today. It wasn’t as if anyone needed me, anyway.

  When I retraced the steps I had taken with Richard, for the first time in a long time I felt truly alone. Miss Hatfield was still dead, the countess was probably with Phillip, and Henley was gone.

  My chest hitched as I tried to take a deep breath. I went through the motions to retrace my way back to the clockmaker’s rooms. When I found the right door, I shook my head and tried to clear my mind. Just as I raised my hand to knock, the door swung open.

  “My dear, come in.” It was the old man. “You look distressed.”

  I suppose I did look a bit upset, but I brushed it off. “Oh, it’s nothing. I’m just having a difficult day.”

  “To some, a difficult day can be an apocalypse, while to others, a difficult day can be a torn dress.” The old man waved me in.

  I followed him through the gray storefront to the back room, where I saw the clockmaker’s young girl sitting on a workbench.

  “I suppose you’re here for your clock?” she asked.

  “Yes, I am, if it’s ready,” I said.

  “It is. It wasn’t anything much to fix up.”

  As I watched the clockmaker rummage around behind her, I wondered how to breach the topic of the clock. Luckily, I didn’t have to. The girl did it for me.

  “The clock you commissioned,” she started.

  “Yes. . . . Is there any issue with getting it made?”

  “No. I just wanted to let you know that it will be ready in a week’s time.”

  I knew a week was fast for something so intricate and complex, not to mention larger than a normal clock, but this was urgent. Day after day, I was starting to feel the effects of staying in one time too long. The nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach had turned into something more.

  “Is there any way to speed the process up? Money wouldn’t be an issue.” I thought I would charge it to Lord Empson’s account. They must have things like that in this time period. I could say the money was for the countess’s clock. I felt guilty, but this was something that had to be done. “A week just might be a bit—”

  The girl cut me off with a solid and resounding “No.”

  I hoped I had that long to spare.

  The clockmaker handed me the countess’s clock. Sure enough, the shattered glass face was replaced, and the metal backing was once again without a scratch.

  “I presume his lordship will take care of this?” the girl asked.

  “Lord Empson? Yes, yes. That will be fine.”

  I thanked both of them, but the old clockmaker was the only one to give me a small smile as I left.

  I practically ran down the corridor with the clock in hand. Passersby looked at me strangely and turned to watch me go. I was eager to see the countess. I felt like I needed to make it up to her.

  Swinging open the doors to the countess’s chambers, I waltzed in.

  I walked with purpose to the table in the dining room on which the small clock had sat, before I had bumped into it and sent it off the edge. I stopped when I saw the countess sitting in the room.

  “My lady.” I dropped into a curtsey.

  The countess didn’t take her eyes off the sampler she was working on in her lap.

  I placed the clock carefully on the table. When the metal hit the wood, I looked for a reaction from the countess. Nothing.

  Even when I excused myself, the countess didn’t look up at me or the clock on the table.

  I left the room but promptly returned to ask her about dinner. Were we dining with someone else again?

  But the question never left my mouth as I caught the countess fingering the engraved case of the clock. I don’t know exactly what went through her mind in that moment, but it was a familiar sight. Her lips were tightly pressed together. Her eyes were shut.

  It was the face of someone wishing for a different world and a different life. I knew that expression, because I often wore it.

  I tried to creep back out of the room, but the countess turned and caught me.

  “Eleanor.”

  “Yes?”

  “Stay with me?” she asked.

  I couldn’t decline. I didn’t want to either. And so I spent the rest of the afternoon with the countess, watching her work on her sampler.

  Though it wasn’t as exciting as the rest of court, there was something about spending time with the countess that I enjoyed. She wasn’t any real relation of mine, and we had no formal connection, but there was a part of me that strove for her approval.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to start a sampler while you’re here?” the countess asked.

  “It’s fine. I’m enjoying having some peace.” Truthfully, I didn’t know how to sew, but I wasn’t about to let the countess figure that out.

  “I hope you’re contemplating something worthwhile,” she said. “An idle mind is a greater sin than an idle body.”

  Ever since Miss Hatfield had come into my life with a vial of the Fountain of Youth’s waters, I
was never at a loss for things to contemplate. There was always the fact that my life—if I could call it that, since I would never die—would never be the same again.

  “I have a confession to make,” she started.

  Those were the oddest words I had heard coming from the countess’s mouth, since it seemed she never did anything wrong.

  “Lady Empson invited us for dinner at noon, and I declined on behalf of us both.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t mind.”

  “Thank goodness,” she said. “I’m sure Lady Empson means well, or Lord Empson put her up to it, but in either case, I can’t put up with an hour or so of her not talking, or worse—talking but blandly not having an opinion.”

  I tried not to laugh at how much the countess hated Lady Empson’s shrinking violet act.

  “If she were a wallflower, you could paper the walls with her,” I said.

  The countess furrowed her brow, and I immediately saw my mistake. Did they even have wallpaper yet?

  “Tapestries,” I sputtered.

  “What is a wallflower?” she asked, slowly.

  I guess that word hadn’t been invented yet either.

  “Oh, nothing. Slip of the tongue,” I said. “Just a word we use back home.”

  She nodded, returning to the sampler on her lap.

  A week went by quickly in this way, the pain in my stomach getting more and more intense. The pain caused me to retire to bed earlier and wake up later, as it seemed only during sleep did it become tolerable.

  Henley didn’t talk to me. I admit it was in part because I avoided being alone with him. Though I didn’t go to any feasts or dinners with Lady Sutton or Lord Empson, I spent my waking hours looking busy with the countess, or Helen, or Joan. I threw myself into social situations during which I knew Henley could not talk to me.

  I avoided Richard too. I knew I should have been spending time with him to see if he would say anything about the alchemist’s plans, but I just didn’t want to see him. I stayed in, where I knew he would not try to visit. He still sent me a pastry each night from the court feasts, as if to remind me he existed. Every night, when Joan helped me undress, she would mention that Richard had brought a pastry for me and inquired after my health. Joan even thoughtfully set the pastry on a platter in my room, but seeing it was untouched the next morning, she would whisk it away. It was on the fourth night they suddenly stopped coming. I didn’t want to ask Joan, but I knew Richard had also stopped coming.