Firenz would have liked to slight the performance, but he was enchanted despite himself by the artistry, and he let Pauli bask in his warm praise instead.
‘Wherever did you have such a thing made, my friend?’ he enquired, but the other nobleman, knowing full well the source of his current high standing, demurred.
Firenz was not without resources, though. He travelled everywhere with his bodyguard and servant, Sardos, a former soldier from one of the southern city-states – foreigners being preferred for such sensitive positions because a nobleman was always in more danger from his peers than from his nation’s enemies. Sardos was a broad, bluff man who had a girl in most townhouses who told him secrets over the pillow, and in due course he reported back to his master.
‘There is a new artificer’s in the Dock Quarter, sir,’ he explained. ‘Inside are all manner of wondrous diversions, they say.’
The Dock Quarter was a place of foreigners, transients and merchants of the bizarre, where the wealth and wonder of foreign shores was inextricably entangled with the coarse lusts of seafarers with scant days to spend their pay and their loins before taking ship once more. Firenz strode through the press with the expectation that it would part to allow his progress, and in this it obliged him. Even laying an uninvited hand on a nobleman was a crime that would see that hand and its arm part company, and Sardos followed his master with a sword at his belt and a cudgel in his hand. He did not need them. Leintz was a city of well-maintained law, at least for men like Firenz.
‘Filigree Emporium’ was stitched in gleaming threads of many colours in the hangings that swathed the front of the shop, artfully placed so that, no matter where Firenz placed himself, the folds and swathes of cloth still revealed those same two words. The doorway was hung so that one entered through a cut in the fabric, as though the stone and mortar of the building had been transformed to a nomad’s tent.
Within, the illusion was continued. There was not a span of wall to be seen, for silk fell in flowing liquid cascades on every side and the very ceiling was blanketed by multi-coloured folds of bright cloth, an uneven, many-layered busyness of material like the inverted landscape of some distant, hilly country. The breeze from the open doorway kept everything in constant, subtle motion, so that Firenz could almost believe that he had stepped into some other place, where no man ever built in stone, and where the world outside might stretch to the horizon without any knowledge of cities or noble estates.
Within those silk bounds the interior was crowded with marvels – the rumours had been unable to exaggerate the sheer range of intricate wonders on display. Despite himself, Firenz found himself simply gazing with childlike fascination at tiny guardsmen made of silver with enamelled livery, or a spiralling, impossible castle carved from coral with a dozen infinitesimal servants poised about their tasks. With a hesitant touch he opened the lid of an intricately carved box and watched, delighted, as a dancer sprang up, with a body of pale-varnished wood and a gown of spun gold, pirouetting on one toe for an implausible number of revolutions before springing into a sequence of leaps and darts whilst ethereal music played.
‘My lord?’ came a woman’s voice, ‘may I assist you?’
He straightened from the dancer quickly – he had just been about to touch and he felt a moment of childish guilt before he remembered who he was. At the back of the room, where the silk hangings gave onto further chambers, was a girl.
She had skin like honey, and gleaming dark hair that fell in a single braid past one shoulder. Her almond eyes were the colour of copper, vivid and lively in her face. She wore a gown of patchwork, perhaps even offcuts from the walls and ceiling, and though it was fitted modestly enough, it could not keep the curve of her breast or hip from Firenz’s eyes.
She bowed, a little nervously, and he concluded that, of all the exquisite sights in the emporium, she certainly ranked highly. With that thought, he called up his favourite smile and gifted her with it.
‘Sardos,’ he prompted, and his servant sketched a short bow and informed the lucky girl just who had decided to grace her establishment.
‘My lord,’ she said again. ‘My name is Amaria and I bid you most humble welcome. I had hoped that word might spread of our meagre accomplishments.’ Her voice was curiously accentless – not local and yet of no particular place. ‘It would be my pleasure to demonstrate any of our wares for you, and explain their workings.’
The words could have hidden a more intimate invitation, but nothing in their tone suggested it, and Firenz found himself disappointed by that. Giving his eyes their rein, he could not but admit that she was a fine piece of work herself as she stepped lightly between the counters on which her wares were displayed, almost dancing each time she moved, and with none of that coquettish self-knowledge he was used to from noblewomen or ambitious servants.
‘Show me these fellows.’ He indicated a pair of miniature duellists, frozen in mid-strike, their tiny blades like stiff little wires of gold.
‘Our little belligerents,’ the girl said fondly. Her smile, even reserved for her toys, was sweet as sugar to him. ‘They are one of my latest, my lord, you have a good eye. I spent the best part of a month refining their mechanisms.’ Her talk was far more familiar than the fawning that Firenz expected from merchants, but her voice was soft and musical, so he forgave it.
‘Surely it is just a matter of thrust and parry, a pattern that you build into them,’ he suggested, trying to find his usual arch disdain.
‘Oh no, my lord.’ She crouched down by the little antagonists. ‘After all, each must have a motion to determine where his opponent is, and where the sword is, and then a cascade to know what move is best to make, and which will leave the little warrior defended from the riposte. I had to study several texts on swordsmanship. I was surprised at how difficult the work was.’ She smiled up at him from sheer enthusiasm, and he felt the expression impact on him, mind and body.
She set the little men in motion, and he watched them strut and posture, laughing despite himself as they exchanged threatening gestures and taunted one another in mime, then drew their tiny blades. He was not sure whether he believed what she had said about their manufacture, but if the automata followed some pre-set pattern then it was a fearfully complicated one, and at the last, when he had watched absorbed for two whole minutes, one of them angled past its opponent’s guard and touched the other figure in the chest with the blade, and it froze, sword out of line, the other hand held up in an arrested posture of despair.
‘No death throes?’ Firenz asked her.
She looked down at the two motionless toys. ‘It seemed cruel to fashion them so. They fight, but only to the touch.’ She was at his shoulder, although he had been so absorbed in the warring automata that he had barely realized. Now he breathed in the scent of her, sandalwood and rose.
‘Your sentiment does you credit,’ he allowed. ‘You make all these treasures yourself?’
‘My lord, most of them, though some of the older pieces are my mother’s.’ Her eyes flicked to the silks covering one of the further rooms. If Firenz squinted hard he could just make out a form there, perhaps a dark shape huddled in a chair. He had heard no movement, nor had any sense that there was another person present. Perhaps the old woman was asleep.
‘I am of a mood to make a purchase,’ he told her. ‘Show me your most complex device, if there is one greater than these two.’
‘Oh there is, my lord,’ and she was plainly delighted to show off. ‘Please, let me show you our wood-carver.’
‘Wood-carver?’ Firenz echoed, disappointed, but she was pushing forward a larger figure, formed like a man sitting on a stone, almost a foot in height. The craftsmanship was impeccable, as though some living homunculus had been transformed to precious materials where it sat. Firenz could plainly see the weathered old-man face of dark wood, the beard and straggling hair of delicate silver thread, the clothes of copper and malachite and mother of pearl, each faintly incised with weave and folds to
make it seem as cloth.
Amaria placed a block of wood in the figure’s hands and set it going, and Firenz watched as the automaton deftly whittled and cut and carved, turning and turning the wood until a miniature goblet was revealed from the parings and shavings, perfect in its smooth finish.
Even so, this seemed far less a marvel than the duellists. ‘Surely this is not your greatest wonder,’ Firenz suggested.
‘Ah, but…’ and Amaria opened a compartment in the figure’s back and produced a second little goblet, this one cast of lead. ‘So he will fashion the wood into whatever he is given. Let him make a whole dining service for you, my lord, or a regiment of soldiers. So long as he has the exemplar, his mechanisms shall feel out its shape and he shall recreate it more perfectly than any mortal artisan.’
‘This does not seem any great matter,’ Firenz said slowly. ‘After all, this is a task any peasant can accomplish. Your duellists go about the business of a nobleman or soldier, and surely that must be a more complicated task to fashion them for.’
She looked as though she would contradict him directly, which would have been unthinkable, but instead she said, ‘It is the greatest achievement of any artificer, my lord, to make a machine that is itself a maker. The dream of every artificer since my craft began is to make a machine so cunningly wrought that it might reproduce itself, but not even the greatest of us has come near to accomplishing such a thing. Our wood-carver could conceivably make each little cog and lever of himself in wood, but he could not put such myriad parts together, alas. It is our sadness, that our little children can never have children of their own.’
Her expression was so mournful that he put a hand to her cheek and she froze, her wide eyes flicking to him, startled as a deer.
‘I will not deprive you of your wood-carver,’ he told her kindly, ‘as you are plainly attached to the industrious old fellow. However, if you have some little manikin that engages in more noble pursuits, tomorrow evening I have some fine friends attending at my townhouse and I would have something special to show them.’
In the end he bought a falconer, whose swung lure was shadowed by a bird of brass that circled and swooped about him, tethered to the metal man by a thread so fine that Firenz could barely perceive it, even knowing it was there. When his peers gathered, he unveiled the little wonder to the amazement of all, and they watched for minute after minute, never seeing bird or lure repeat the same exact motions. At the back, Pauli skulked, disgruntled and displaced. The evening was a grand success.
And yet Firenz was not content. Unhappiness was an affliction that rarely touched his life, and when it did there was always the one same cause: there was something in the world that he desired, and had yet to enjoy.
‘Sardos,’ he told his servant, ‘I am of a mood to return to that artificer’s in the Dock Quarter,’ as though it was just one of many such places he had visited recently.
He was lazing in his morning room, reclining on a couch in the sunlight that splashed from the tall windows. He had sent for two of the most attractive maids the townhouse had to offer, with the vague idea of honouring the pair of them with his attentions, to take his mind off other things. They were well used to that side of their duties, and presented themselves immaculately, pale and elegant and made-up, necklines cut to show the swell of their breasts, girdles cinched to show the narrowness of their waists. The townhouse’s steward knew well his young master’s tastes, and a nobleman of Firenz’s status should want for nothing, after all.
Now, though, he stared at them listlessly, and found them over-prepared and artificial. A very different manner and complexion was hanging about his mind.
‘What value is our patronage there, remind me?’
Sardos gave a figure for the purchase of the falconer, which would have bought a well-trained warhorse or a profitable inn.
‘And she seemed grateful, did she not?’
‘I am sure she was glad of the coin, lord.’
‘That’s not what I meant, Sardos. You saw her, she was glad that her little toy had found its way into such discerning, appreciative company. These artificers, more than gold to them is that their cleverness is seen and admired. And to have secured such as I for a client, what a coup for her! Yes, she was duly impressed. I read it in her face.’
Sardos said nothing, but Firenz reviewed his meeting with Amaria and knew it to be true. Besides, he was fully aware of what a fine figure he cut, from his aquiline features and the flawlessly fashionable pallor of his complexion down to his lean swordsman’s physique displaying immaculately sculpted calves. No wonder the girl’s head had been turned by him. Besides, he was not like Pauli, to jealously guard the source of his new toys. The whole of Leintz would know that the Filigree had his personal approval, and then the girl would not be able to make her little devices fast enough to satisfy demand. That was ever the contract between artisan and a noble of such elevation as Firenz, and such contracts should be properly sealed and concluded.
It was, after all, a matter of entitlement.
The expression on Amaria’s face when Firenz pushed his way into the emporium a second time was gratifying. His satisfaction was only a little dented when her questions revolved around the operation of the falconer rather than he himself. Had it functioned correctly? How had his guests reacted? Still, Firenz could turn raconteur when the mood suited him, and so he regaled her with a suitably extravagant telling. She hung on every word as though the success of his diversion was life and death to her, and his words made her so happy that he was struck by a moment of uncharacteristic uncertainty. Seeing that guileless joy there, that her little automaton had impressed, he felt an unfamiliar emotion briefly struggling with his desires. For a second it seemed that he felt a fondness for the girl in a sense that was not proprietary or sexual, and that actually making her happy might have some merit in and of itself. The curious, uncomfortable moment passed.
‘I am minded to tell my fellows where such a marvel came from,’ he let slip idly, examining the intricacies of a little gilded hart which came with jewelled hounds to chase it. ‘You shall not lack for patrons, Amaria.’ It was the first time he had addressed her by name, and he relished the feel of it on his tongue.
‘My lord is very kind.’
‘You are grateful.’
‘Exceeding grateful, my lord.’ She was at his elbow, reaching for the hart, perhaps to set it in motion to be tracked across the tabletop by its miniature hunters. Before she could touch it, though, he put his hand on hers, feeling the perfect smooth softness of her skin. She had frozen but did not pull away, and surely she had deciphered his meaning and had acquiesced to it. Perhaps it was not the first time her body had become consideration when bartering for custom and patronage. She would know the way of the world as well as Firenz.
‘I am of a mind to see your emporium’s greatest treasure, Amaria,’ he breathed in her ear. Her eyes flicked to him, those exotic features caught between expressions, unreadable.
‘My lord?’
‘Come now, do not pretend that you don’t know the honour of having the son of the Count of Morelle at your door,’ he said softly. ‘Who else but I, in all the world, can appreciate just how lovely are your wares? I swear, Amaria, that when I stepped into your domain here, the beauty I found quite made a captive of me. You have chained me here, Amaria.’
‘I…’ Her hand moved again towards the hart but he recaptured it and brought it to his lips. Her eyes, when he met them, were wide with an emotion that he decided was excitement.
‘My mother…’ she began, voice shaking. By that time Sardos had already moved to the curtain beyond which that hunched figure appeared to slumber. His instructions had been simple: that the old woman would not spoil Firenz’s moment with a parent’s complaints, if she lacked a commercial mind so much as to make them. In Leintz, most who had a daughter knew that a purse of coin to add to the dowry was worth more than any lost virtue. These artificers were foreigners, though, and hence Sardo
s had been instructed to be firm.
Firenz had previously spied out another chamber off the shop, and now he encircled Amaria in his arms, pressing her warmth against him, guiding her towards that further room with a nod at Sardos.
‘My lord,’ said the girl, sounding confused and a little fearful, ‘is there some other work you wish demonstrated?’
‘Oh, there is,’ he confirmed. ‘I wish you to show me the most hidden workings of the artificer, for I have seen you take so much pleasure in the demonstration of your art that I know you shall have far more joy showing me the innermost secrets of yourself.’
Sardos watched his master step past the curtain, ears pricked for any motion from the room at his back. There was nothing, and curiosity sparked in him. How oblivious could the lass’s mother be to these goings on?
Sardos considered himself a failed man of principle. His home, and his history, had given him a sense of right and wrong and yet, to serve the nobility, such a sense must be laid aside for a while. This current venture was just one more similar business, and he had to comfort himself with the knowledge that the girl would be well rewarded for her time and, after all, what else but that was the primary difference between nobles like Firenz and the lower orders? True emotions – the right to be hurt, offended, outraged - these were noble privileges. For everyone else there was no wrong that sufficient coin could not compensate.
He pushed past the drape and hooked his head around, starting back when he saw her. Yes: there she was, the old woman in her chair, head down as she slept. He was about to draw back, but he had a bodyguard’s instincts for the out of place, and he held on, staring. True he saw a human form bundled in heavy black cloth, two withered hands resting on the creased lap, a head nodding over them. Yet there was no motion at all, no rise and fall or whispered murmur to tell of breath. Cat-footed, Sardos crept forwards, frowning.
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