The Toymaker's Apprentice

by Sherri L. Smith

  “And you were in the oak tree,” the man said. He bowed by way of introduction. “Christian Elias Drosselmeyer at your service.”

  “Samir abd al-Malik,” said the swarthy man with a similar bow.

  “Cousin to the toymaker, your master, Zacharias,” Christian Drosselmeyer said. “May we come in?”

  “My master . . . ?” Stefan couldn’t see a resemblance. This man was thin and pale, where his father was plump, broad chested and dark haired. Besides, the only family he had was at the graveyard. “I’m sorry, but I was just stepping out.”

  The self-proclaimed Drosselmeyer looked him over. Stefan wanted to hide his reddened eyes, and the huge bag hanging over his shoulder. He pressed his lips into a thin line and hoped the men would leave. Instead, they brushed past him, crowding into the workshop. Stefan’s protests fell on deaf ears.

  “Samir, what do you think? Is he ‘just stepping out’?”

  The Moor remained silent.

  “Running away from your apprenticeship while the master is at a funeral!” Christian clucked his tongue. “I can’t believe it’s all that bad. Zacharias is the best man I know.”

  Stefan’s face grew hot. “I’m not running away. I’m—”

  “Stepping out, yes, yes,” Christian interrupted.

  Now Stefan really did want to run away. He tried to step around the unwanted visitors.

  “Whose funeral?” Christian asked. “We passed by but didn’t want to intrude.”

  Stefan’s jaw stiffened. To these men, the procession in the graveyard was nothing more than a curiosity. To Stefan, it was the end of the world.

  “My mother,” he said, jaws clenched to bite back his grief.

  “Your—” Christian paled and collapsed against the door frame. “Elise? My dear, sweet Elise . . . ?” His single eye grew bright with tears. “You’re not the shop boy, you’re her son. My little cousin, Stefan.” He faltered for a moment. “I . . . I am so very sorry for your loss. What happened?”

  Stefan’s own eyes begin to sting. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat. “Scarlet fever. Really, I must ask you to step aside. I have a coach to catch,” he insisted, racing against his grief.

  “Of course,” Christian said, his voice softened in sympathy. “You were just stepping out.”

  Stefan shoved past, afraid he would burst into tears in front of these strangers. His bag swept the workbench, and the half-finished sign, Drosselmeyer and Son, slapped to the ground with a clatter. The letter to his father drifted to the floor beside it.

  All eyes were on the sign now. Stefan grimaced, wishing he could sink into the earth and disappear.

  The dark man grunted. “Running out seems more like it. A family trait, I suppose.”

  Stefan gasped, surprised by the man’s bluntness. He scrambled to pick up the fallen note, and shoved it into his pocket to hide his embarrassment. Christian bent beside him and picked up the sign. “On the day of his mother’s funeral, too.”

  Stefan sputtered, embarrassment turning into anger. But with whom was he angry—them, or himself?

  “Quite heartless,” Christian murmured. Dusting off the sign with a gloved hand, he placed it back on the workbench, upside down once again. “Or, perhaps the boy feels too much?” He stepped back, clicking the heels of his black boots together. “Don’t let us keep you. We’ll just wait inside for your father and explain when he gets here. Unless, of course, you left a note.” He scanned Stefan’s reddening face. “Ah, you did leave a note. You’re not cruel, then. Just restless, eh? I was the same at your age.”

  “You can’t just stay here,” Stefan said.

  “Why not? You’re leaving. It’s nothing to you anymore.”

  Not true, Stefan realized as this infuriating man sat on the stool before one of the workbenches—his workbench! The one his father had built just for him when he could barely see over the top of it. His chest swelled at the offense. If only his tongue would untie itself long enough for him to respond.

  “Your mother was a wonderful woman, Stefan,” Christian said suddenly. “You must miss her terribly.”

  Stefan blinked away more tears. “I’m trying not to look back,” he said stoically.

  “We all try,” Christian replied. “Now, before you’re off, would you be so kind as to help my man with our luggage?” He indicated the open doorway.

  Stefan gave up. He left his own bag by the door and stepped outside to find Samir closing the latch on one of two large black suitcases. Leather saddlebags lay against the side of the house. The horses were nowhere to be seen. At least he wouldn’t have to play stableboy, too.

  “Charmed you, has he?” Samir asked.

  “More like confused and surprised,” Stefan said. “But not charmed.”

  “Then you would be the first. I see he has managed to keep you from leaving?”

  “I’m just here to help with the bags. I still have manners. And you have odd ones, for a valet.”

  Samir raised an eyebrow. “Valet?” He shook his head and broke into a white-toothed grin. “I’m no manservant.”

  Stefan flushed. “My apologies. He called you his ‘man.’ You are friends?”

  “No,” Samir replied. “I am his jailer.” He tossed the saddlebags effortlessly to Stefan, who staggered under their weight.

  “His jailer . . . ?”

  The Persian or Moor or whatever he was stepped back, bowed deeply, and said, “Samir abd al-Malik, formerly of Arabia, Royal Astrologer of Boldavia and royally appointed jailer of the criminal Christian Elias Drosselmeyer, formerly of Boldavia, formerly of Nuremberg, at your service.”

  “Criminal?” Stefan repeated. Something tickled the back of his mind. He had heard of a cousin in royal service somewhere to the east, but not one that was also a criminal. “Isn’t he a royal clockmaker?”

  “Indeed,” Samir said.

  “But . . . if he’s done something wrong, why isn’t he in jail?”

  “All the world’s a prison when you are not free to choose your own road,” Samir said obliquely.

  Stefan shook his head. “I don’t understand. Is he a thief?” The Arab remained silent, so Stefan’s mind filled in the blanks. “He’s a thief, and he’s alone in my house!”

  Stefan raced for the shop door and threw it wide, banging it against the wall.

  “Aha!” he said, leaping out of the way as the door bounced back and slammed shut behind him. Across the shop, Christian closed the door to the bedrooms, unruffled.

  “Aha, yourself,” he said calmly.

  Stefan blinked. The man seemed quite composed for a thief caught in the act. “What have you taken?” Stefan demanded.

  Before Christian could answer, the front door burst open again.

  “Herr Abd al . . . Samir,” Stefan called, “contain your prison—”

  But it wasn’t Samir standing in the doorway. It was his father.

  Home from the graveyard, his mourning clothes still damp with drizzle, Zacharias Elias Drosselmeyer stared back at his son. And then he saw the man with the white hair.

  “Christian?” he said. “You came!” And he collapsed into the open arms of the criminal who shared his name.

  IT WAS A ROUGH PLACE, this Underwall. Like most rodent taverns, it was nestled beneath the cellars of an ancient Man-built edifice. A sign swinging from an iron bracket above the doors marked the human building as an inn. A much smaller sign hung low to the ground, depicting a hole in a wall— indicating the entrance for a different crowd.

  Inside, wharf rats and a few scraggle-coated mice huddled around low tables, drying their fur by the chimney that ran down from the ovens in the human kitchen overhead, heating the room to an almost intolerable degree.

  Ernst stretched luxuriously in the welcome heat, cracking his knuckles and neck. It was good to be out of the cold. Gossip rose and fell ar
ound him. His sharp ears flickered back and forth, getting a feel for his audience. News of the richest crops, which ships were leaving soon, the latest sites of human battles—Men were always going to war. Armies made for good pickings, but troops and artillery were a plague to the field mice who lived beneath them.

  He heard rumblings of some nonsense about a mouse uprising in a place on the Black Sea. That would be crushed soon enough, Ernst thought, and the rest of the gossipers seemed to agree. He detected a wistfulness from a few of the rodents. It would be a quiet night.

  Brushing his whiskers into shape, he sidled up to the bar and presented himself to the proprietor.

  “Good evening, Master Barkeep. I am Ernst Listz, at your service,” he said with a slight bow.

  The old mouse looked him up and down. “At my service? What are you, then? A bard? A scribe?”

  Ernst preened his whiskers. “Which do you have most need of tonight?”

  The barkeep looked around the room. A few tired mice were finishing their meals; some were already rising to head home. In the darkest corners, wharf rats hunkered down over hard crusts.

  “We could use a bit of song,” the barkeep decided. He was a stout little mouse, more muscle than fat. “Nothing rowdy, though. Don’t like the look of them sailors.” He nodded toward the rats. Ernst did not take offense. He didn’t care for the look of them either.

  The mouse gave Ernst a considering look. “Tell you what, sing a song or two to get them in their cups, and do what letter writing there is, and there’s a meal in it for you.”

  “Plus my writing fees,” Ernst added.

  “Aye, plus whatever you can glean from these stingy vermin. There’s a table there with reasonable light.”

  Ernst thanked the mouse and made his way to the table by the fireplace. There, he set down his satchel, brushed the last of the night’s dampness from his fur, and moved to stand beside the fire. No one seemed to notice this newcomer silhouetted against the flames. The murmur of gossip continued, the saying of farewells, the rustling of coats. Ernst smiled. The mention of the mouse uprising had inspired him. Orange flames lit his hoary fur, glinting silver and copper in the warm light as he cleared his throat and began to sing.

  I travel the long way home

  Although it leads nowhere

  O’er track and field and stone

  Through cold and bitter air

  Still I go on

  Through field and farm

  To where my darlings lie

  T’was only the weight of bitter Fate

  I lived while they did die

  Soft at first, his voice rose until it seemed to fill the room, silencing tables, mice pausing halfway to their feet. Ernst sang in a sweet, clear tenor, the ballad of Hameln town. It was a song every rodent knew, of the death of the rats in the hamlet that had once been their kingdom. Mouselings learned it in the nursery, a cautionary tale to never stray too far into the realm of Men. Every rodent, beast, and blade of grass had its place, and nature kept the balance, no matter how cruel or kind. Rats knew the tale from late nights at family gatherings, when the old ones got in their cups and longed for the lost days of yore. Every mouse and rat in Underwall knew this folk song like the beat of his own heart.

  But not the way Ernst sang it.

  The tune he followed was as old as the hills, raw and sad, weirdly familiar yet strange. He added verses long forgotten by other rodents, words that gave voice to the cruelty of Hameln. His was the original song, the melody of a time long past. It thrummed deep and rose high, tugging at ancient memories. The wharf rats were the first to rise to their feet to join him, adding their baritones to the old tune.

  When Ernst reached the chorus, every mouse, rat, and mole in the bar joined in, singing the simple verses alongside his heartbreaking melody.

  Hameln town is a long way down, a long way down.

  The walls hummed in resonance until the last note faded away to bittersweet silence.

  Before the fire, Ernst bowed his head.

  No one spoke. In the corner, someone sobbed.

  The rats raised their claws to the barkeep and a plump mouse maid rushed a tray of tankards to their table in the corner. Mice that had been about to leave sat down again and ordered a round for their fellows. Better to be among friends than alone in the cold night just now. Soon the buzz of conversation returned, but it was soft with nostalgia.

  Pleased, Ernst took his seat, ears twitching at the snippets of conversation. There was talk of another uprising in the east of France, where a war amongst Men had caused damage. Some mice argued in favor of pressing back against the driving force that was Man. Rodent populations tended to grow whenever there was a human war, since shooting each other made them forget to set traps for mice. And then there was the Black Death. Bubonic plague always brought rich days for the rodent kingdom. When all the humans were sick and afraid, rats and mice could run rampant through the streets.

  Ernst shook his head at the dreamy nostalgia in the speakers’ voices. Every rat worth his salt knew a plague would sweep whole villages of men away, and leave no one to fill the larders or till the fields. No, he thought, now was not the time for plagues or uprisings. Famine always followed. And Ernst, for one, did not intend to starve.

  He opened his satchel and pulled out the wares of his second trade—a sheaf of paper, an inkwell, some quills. But before he could attract his first customer, the barkeep approached.

  “Put that away for now,” the stout mouse said gruffly, shoving a warm bowl of seed and nut porridge with a bit of cheese across the table. “You’ve earned a hot meal, I think. And a glass or two. Rare form,” he said.

  He waved away Ernst’s thanks and hurried back to the bar, where the tears in his eyes would be less noticeable.

  Ernst ate his meal with less relish than he had intended. The ballad of Hameln town was effective, to be sure, but even he was not immune to the sorrow it conjured. He had been a wanderer for most of his life. The thought of a homeland, no matter how long ago, affected him deeply. But the road was his lot in life. To hope for something more was like building a castle on a cloud.

  Nursing a headache and a growing sense of melancholia, Ernst finished his meal and the first glass of beer. Then he rearranged his papers and ink on the table, signaling that the scribe was open for business.

  His first customer of the night was a love-sick sailor hoping to win his sweetheart back with a poem. Ernst rolled his eyes as he took down the would-be poet’s composition.

  Many rats spoke a minimum of two languages (not including Mouseish or Volean or Mole—Rattish was the root from which they all sprang). But few could write, and even fewer could manage it in another tongue. And so, acting as scribe for the riffraff of Vienna, he earned himself a sip of ale and a place to sleep the night. The melancholy of his song soon lifted as he went about his letters and gossip.

  He wrote three apologies to worried mothers from wayward sons, an inquiry to a distant relative for a city mouse looking to move back to the country, one will, and three birth announcements (those were the most tedious—so many babies, such long names!).

  The scents of wet rodent and ink filled the room as he wrote and chatted with the sailing rats and dock scavengers that were regulars whenever their ships had come in. Scribes and information rats such as Ernst were expected in these parts of town, just as a storyteller might be, or a bard with songs to sing. The barkeep seemed pleased that Ernst could offer all of the above.

  The room was cozy enough, and the supper had been filling. He even bartered for a lovely fish and beetle custard for dessert. Ernst would write until his wrist grew tired. Another day’s honest work for the rat. Tomorrow would bring its own worries, but for now, he felt very fine indeed.

  Until the piebald mouse stepped up, anyway.

  EVERYTHING HAD GONE WRONG. Stefan should have been miles away by n
ow. He edged toward the door and reached for his duffel, not sure if he should make a run for it or simply hide the bag, when his father released Christian and caught Stefan’s eye.

  “Yes, put their things in the little bedroom, Stefan, thank you. We’ve scrubbed and aired it quite well . . .” He faltered. “But . . . of course, take my room. I’ll—”

  “Father, no,” Stefan interrupted. He couldn’t believe he would be willing to sleep in his mother’s deathbed.

  The gorge rose in Stefan’s throat. He left the bags and stepped outside into the street, where the rain could hide his tears until he had them under control. He squeezed his eyes shut.

  “You’ll catch your death out here, child, dressed like that,” a woman said in a sugary voice. Stefan kept his eyes closed. Talking to Christian had been a mistake. One he would not repeat with whoever this newcomer was.

  “Come inside, Stefan,” another voice said. Someone tugged at his shirtsleeve.

  Stefan opened his eyes to find the local mourning committee, a collection of five widows and spinsters, all looking for a husband. Stefan had heard rumors of their ability to quickly find guildsmiths in mourning—in one fell swoop their children could gain both a father and an apprenticeship. Stefan’s mother used to laugh when she saw them. The Wild Hunt, she’d called them, after the Welsh tale of gods that hunted the souls of men.

  If the women in front of him had their way, his father would be remarried within the year. Stefan refused to be a pawn in that arrangement. He didn’t want a new mother, just time to properly mourn the one he’d lost.

  “I’m fine, Mrs. Waldbaum.” He plucked his sleeve from her grasp and gave the women a slight bow. Mrs. Waldbaum was an apple-cheeked older woman with three children, two of them boys just about apprenticing age. Behind her, Drusilla Prue, a dour stick of a woman who had never married, stood with a basket on her arm. The rest of the committee looked much the same. Plump or thin, short or tall, they were all draped head to toe in black gowns, overcoats and bonnets, with baskets of food and drink on their arms, and a feverish gleam in their eyes.