by Lisa DeSelm
That night, I ignore the signaling knock from the other side of the cupboard. I can’t bring myself to open it; Bran doubted I could step into my father’s shoes and complete the work waiting for me in Curio below. How could someone who belonged from the moment he first squalled in his mother’s arms know how it feels to come from something rather than someone? How could he understand this impossible chasm between what I am and how I came to be? The distance between us wraps around me like the cold weight of a dead man’s embrace.
CHAPTER 7
THE NEXT EVENING, DESPITE MY EXHAUSTION, I ABANDON MY tools for an hour to join the Maker’s Guild at the usual place. It’s true The Louse and Flea isn’t much to look at, and neither are its regulars, but the smell of the tavern gives me a rush whenever I step in. I don’t much care for the foamy beers or dark bottles that keep men planted in front of them until their heads no longer sit upon their shoulders by their own strength, but I love the way the years of soaked barrel staves, rich hops, and laughter coat the very walls in a thick, smoky layer of comradery. Well-worn tables take up most of the pub’s dark interior, tables at which many a pair of dirty elbows have ground divots into the wood while eager hands lifted a pint of diversion with friends.
I step inside and nod to Gert, the barmaid, as she expertly wipes mugs with a damp rag and a practiced hand. I wind my way around the narrow common room, having to twist and turn to fit in between the bodies at their stools. Back in a corner, I see them gathering like a brood of hens to cluck and fuss: the Maker’s Guild.
Bran’s father was responsible for first gathering us together after he came to town, hoping that if we worked as a collective we could share the hardships of our respective crafts and generally look out for one another. If Gephardt Leiter became my father through a bit of magic and love, the Guild has become my family through a stroke of sheer luck. News of my father’s stay in the Keep already reached the Guild, thanks to the tailor.
Nan’s eyes brighten and she shoves over, making room for me by knocking right into Tiffin and spilling the contents of his mug. Irritation flashes across Tiffin’s narrow face, but he moves down and continues silently brooding into his drink. The tall, brown-skinned blacksmith-in-training is built like a marionette, all lanky limbs and loose joints.
As the blacksmith’s striker, Tiffin spends his days hefting the heavy hammers that Mort, Tavia’s blacksmith, uses to forge metal. You wouldn’t think him fit for the job by looking at him, for Tiffin appears to possess the strength and disposition of a string bean left too long on the vine. But his nimble hands work marvelous magic with metal. The young smithy has dreams of one day setting out on his own to be a traveling tinker, free from the confines of our staid village.
Nan fills my glass from a waiting pitcher of water. I shoot her a grateful look and gulp it down. I land my empty water glass on the table a little more forcefully than intended.
“Easy there, Piro, wouldn’t want to get too crocked on the first cup!” chortles Fonso, who by now already has a mug of ale too many down his own gullet. His beefy shoulders shake while he laughs at his own joke, his massive hands thrumming the table. His stocky fingers are crisscrossed with a litany of white and pink scars, remnants of blowing glass over the unearthly temperatures of the furnaces in his workshop.
“I’ll try to slow down, Fonso, so you can keep up,” I say, filling my water glass a second time. He winks.
“Long day, Piro?” Nan pipes up. The slender potter is wedged into the corner closest to the fireplace. Her dirty boots are slung up on the hearth as she leans back in her stool, exposing an indecent length of clay-spattered red stockings beneath dusty skirts.
“Long year, actually. I needed a break.”
Nan raises a pair of black eyebrows, more expressive than I could ever manage with a brush. Her dark eyes are probing and don’t miss much.
“Well, I’m tired of looking at Tiffin’s long face over here,” says Fonso. “So thanks to the rest of you showing up.” He nods to me and Nan and Emmitt. “At least I’m not having to suffer that burden alone anymore.”
Tiffin takes a rebellious swig of Fonso’s mug.
“I just got here, too. We’re all late, except Tiffin, who has an uncanny ability to be on time even though the forge doesn’t keep a clock.” Nan eyes Tiffin suspiciously.
“Mort says it would melt in the heat. Not good for the gears,” he mumbles.
“True,” Emmitt agrees. “Heat is no good for a timepiece.”
“Sorry I was late, too.” I sigh. “I’m up to my ears in wood chips and soldier parts. I can’t stay for long.”
Everyone instantly grows sober at the mention of the wooden soldiers.
“How is ol’ Gep? Have you had word?” Emmitt asks, deftly rolling a small clock gear back and forth between the knuckles of his right hand. The nimble trick reminds me of our younger days, of the way Emmitt would pluck wee gears from behind my ears as though they’d sprouted there, or conjure extra sweets to tuck into my pocket. Emmitt was always easy to love—tall, dark, and rugged, a visibly healthier specimen than his nearly translucent half-brother up in Wolfspire Hall. Foolishly, I used to wish Emmitt might become my real brother, but over time I understood Papa and Anke’s hearts are too tightly tied to their first loves to ever be anything but friends. Thankfully, Emmitt and Anke remain part of my Guild family.
“Papa will be out soon,” I say as convincingly as I can. “I’ll finish this last dozen. Then I can bring him home to rest.” Their eyes fill with hope for the puppetmaster, though the workload still lies heavy on my shoulders. Nan pats my arm and pours me another glass.
“We’re a small band tonight, aren’t we?” I ask, noting the empty places where my father, the tailor, and Bran would normally be.
“Say, where is the Golden Boy?” Fonso asks, looking to me for an explanation of Bran’s whereabouts. “And the tailor?”
“Don’t know.” I sniff, trying to act as if Bran’s location and occupation aren’t of great importance to me.
Nan’s eyes narrow. I haven’t spoken to Bran at all today, ever since I didn’t open the cupboard door. It’s killing me.
“No puppetmaster, no Bran or the tailor. This is a sad state of affairs,” Fonso grouses. “I come to The Louse and Flea to be cheered, distracted from my troubles, not to be thrust right back under a black cloud by you sorry lot.”
The glass smith scratches his chin, the bristles of his red beard gleaming like copper wire in the lantern light. Fonso is still attempting to grow in his beard and the fact that he’s managed a chin-full thus far is a point of great pride.
“It’s a black cloud out there all right,” Nan mutters, tossing a glossy braid over her shoulder. “I can hardly afford to enjoy the sun when it shines after the last set of taxes the Margrave levied. A working girl can barely make a decent living in this town!” she complains into her mug.
Nan owns the pottery studio and kiln at the end of our lane. Her small frame, black eyes, and pale skin bestowed by her ancestors in the East often lead people who didn’t know her to mistake her for a young apprentice at her own studio instead of the master that she is.
“I’ve a solution to that problem for you, Nanette Li,” Fonso says boldly.
Nan rolls her eyes. “Marriage to you isn’t the solution to my problems, Alfonso Donati.”
Fonso grins. “No? It would be a lot more fun than lower taxes or a sudden windfall of gold. I guarantee it,” he says, flirting shamelessly.
Emmitt snorts into his cup.
Nan kicks Fonso sharply under the table. “I’ll take that windfall of gold any day, thank you very much.” She sighs, tucking her small, clay-crusted hands deep into the pockets of her work apron.
I look to Tiffin, who is sullenly tracing patterns in the dew on his mug with a dirty finger instead of drinking from it. He looks particularly troubled, which is a change from his normal state of morose.
“Tiff? What’s eating you?” Emmitt beats me to the query, topping off h
is glass.
“Like the puppetmaster and the tailor, Mort’s had a bit of a windfall, too. A big commission from Wolfspire Hall.” Tiffin swallows, the sharp knob in his throat rising and falling against his collar.
All ears at our table immediately perk up.
“For what?” says Nan sarcastically. “New ironworks to decorate the Margrave’s billiards room? Life-size chess pieces, perhaps?”
The Margrave is an avid player of chess, backgammon, knucklebones, stones—any table game of skill or chance. Since the man isn’t blessed with physical prowess, he fancies using what he believes to be a great intellect to soundly beat his opponents.
“No,” says Tiffin, shaking his head and setting his tight-knit brown curls bobbing. “Weapons. And not the gaming sort.”
The rest of us sit with mouths open like the fishmonger’s morning catch of silvertail.
“Broadswords, longswords, rapiers. Knives of various lengths. One hundred of each.”
Something in my belly tightens like a screw. We’ve been commissioned now, after many months, to produce a hundred soldiers in all. Same for the tailor: a hundred uniforms, custom-fitted to my father’s creations. One hundred soldiers and uniforms, with a set of weapons to match.
“Well, throw me in the kiln and call me baked!” Nan utters.
The blacksmith has never had an order like that before and we all know it. At most, Tiff and Mort are shoeing horses, repairing farmer’s tools and working on a custom piece or two at a time. And that’s in a good month.
“Well, isn’t it about time?” asks Fonso. “The Guild is finally getting some francs from the Margrave. Heaven knows he’s as stingy as they come and it’s about time we started getting something back for all the taxes we’ve paid to cushion his overstuffed behind. Don’t suppose I could pop in to have a look?” asks Fonso. “I’d like to see what kind of armory is deemed fit to grace the Margrave’s walls.”
Tiffin chews on a worn nub of fingernail. “I’ve been pouring and striking for what feels like years, but it’s only been a week,” he says bleakly. “The only good thing is Mort is paying me overtime, to work at night. Otherwise there’s no way we’d be done in time.”
I nod. This is the way it is with the Margrave.
“I can’t wait to get my hands on one of them broadswords,” Fonso says eagerly, thrusting and parrying his mug like a blade.
“I’ll be staying far away from any establishment that gives you free reign on a pile of sharp objects,” Nan says.
“Looks are deceiving. I’m exceedingly coordinated, for one so large and strong.”
“You won’t get the chance,” Tiffin says. “The Margrave’s man comes and takes them away almost daily, when they’re barely even cooled.”
“I don’t like it,” says Nan. “Weapons make me nervous.”
“Me too,” Emmitt agrees quietly.
“Then how can you stand to be so near these?” says Fonso to Nan, flexing his meaty arms in her face.
“I barely manage,” she deadpans.
“But why so clodding many all at once?” Tiffin asks the question that rides like a phantom on my shoulder these days.
A burst of light breaks over the dark pub as Bran comes in. Something in my chest tightens. I can’t read if he’s mad at me, or hurt, or both. Maybe he regrets ever opening that cupboard door. He sits down across from me, claps Emmitt on the back, and immediately orders a drink from Gert. Seconds later she slops a huge mug before him, its contents swaying like the movement of her wide, aproned hips.
“What’d I miss?” he asks the table.
“Like the rest of us, you’re late,” says Nan. “Fonso thinks the great meat hooks he calls hands are weapons, Tiffin is drowning in a pile of molten metal courtesy of our great and lofty Margrave, and Pirouette looks as if she’d much rather be sitting next to you than me, given the way she’s been trailing you like a hawk on a mouse since you walked in.”
I blush fiercely and return my gaze to my cup.
“As for Emmitt here, well, who knows?” Nan lowers her voice. “Erundle the chromatist heard from one of the Margrave’s washerwomen, who overheard from one of the steward’s chambermaids, that the Margrave is definitely considering someone else to name as heir—someone more suited to leading,” Nan continues, tapping a fine-boned finger on the table. “You know we all have high hopes for you, Emmitt.”
The rumor that the Margrave is wavering on naming his heir still hasn’t died. Anytime the young duke appears sickly it makes the rounds at market, an undercurrent of promise.
“I can’t wait ’til that old goat is put out to pasture,” Fonso growls.
“Pure hogwash and speculation.” Emmitt shakes his head. “Such things aren’t done. Laszlo was reared at Wolfspire Hall, with the best tutors and all the lessons, breeding, and military instruction that comes with it. Much safer that way. What does a clockmaker know of such things? Forget about it. Mother and I have long put those thoughts away. The rest of you’d best do the same.”
“Rumors often spring from a kernel of truth, Emmitt! You’ve always been the first among us to speak up in the market when someone is treated unfairly or give away what you have to help someone else. Why I saw you literally give that wandering minstrel—the one who’s perpetually drunk and reeks of rotten fish—the shirt off your back just last week. Surely those things count for more than all the fine tutoring gold can buy!” Nan says passionately.
“Rumors often get the talebearer in a world of trouble,” snipes Tiffin, irritated at her for speaking of such things in public.
I sympathize with his uneasiness, especially with Papa still in the Keep.
“Fine, you dull-headed chisel of a boy,” she snaps back, lowering her voice again. “I understand it’s risky. But just think! He is the oldest of the Margrave’s sons! To have a maker ruling Tavia? Reporting to the king for us? It could change everything!”
Emmitt raises both hands in protest. “I may be the man’s offspring—unfortunately—but I’m not privy to his plans.” He fiddles with a watch on a gold chain attached to his vest. It belonged to his mother’s husband, the late clockmaker. “He speaks of nothing but clocks or the glockenspiel project when he sends for me. Fairly sure that’s all I’m good for—another tool he can use to fix something broken. And the duke?” He laughs bitterly. “He’s never even spoken to me, though I’m certain he knows who I am.”
I try to change the subject. “How is the glockenspiel coming?”
“Ach, I feel as if I will never be finished!” Emmitt sighs, rubbing the back of his head. He’s spent the better part of the past year toiling in the old clock tower among the many rows of rusty bells and gears and figurines.
“Personally, I don’t care if you ever finish it,” I pipe up, taking another drink. “I’ve never liked it.”
“Sacrilege!” cries Nan in mock horror.
The glockenspiel in the marktplatz was installed long before our time—the village center’s sole piece of architectural glory. It was supposed to be a tableau of victory from the time when wolves roamed our land and men struggled to carve out a home among the beasts, but it’s always left a bad taste in my mouth. The carousels of snarling wolves chasing farmers, the clash of soldiers at war with the wolves. The tinny, strangled sound of the old bells. Their song always sounded sad, the bells too high and haunting to be happy.
The Margrave put Emmitt to his task when the bells no longer chimed at noonday, like they always had. It’s been silent for ages.
“I’m fighting a never-ending battle against rust and damp up there. I’m doing my best to ensure the gears and cogs will last another hundred years or so, but it’s tedious work, to be sure.”
“If it’s your handiwork, Emmitt, no doubt it will last longer than that,” Bran says admiringly.
“The thing is, I keep returning to find pieces broken and missing—almost as if someone has been up there at night, messing about. I don’t understand it.”
“A cog thief?�
�� Nan asks.
“Something like that. The Margrave isn’t happy it’s taking so long, but there’s only so much one man can do in the face of such a monumental piece like the glockenspiel. It’s no pocket watch,” he adds.
“Probably just some lazy lout’s idea of a joke,” suggests Tiffin.
“Possibly,” says Emmitt, looking worried.
“I’ll come help tomorrow, if I can,” Bran offers.
“Thanks,” Emmitt says, a smile lifting the wide corners of his mouth. “Wish I could lend a hand to you all, but I’m a bit buried at the moment.”
As if she timed it just right to bask in his smile, Gert plops a fresh mug down in front of Emmitt, winking saucily.
“This one’s on the house, Emmitt Schulze. Don’t forget who never lets you go thirsty!”
“I’ll not forget you anytime soon, Gert,” Emmitt replies, winking back. He downs the entire mug in a single gulp while the rest of us admire his skill. “I’m off! Dawn comes far too soon and I’ve got more work awaiting me at home.”
Emmitt stands and slips the gear he was playing with earlier into his vest pocket. He generously slaps enough francs on the table to pay for his drink as well as everyone else’s. “Makers, I regret I must leave you so soon. Piro, send word the moment Gep is home. Until our next gathering.” He tips his hat and struts through the crowd, where he is stopped no less than seven times by folks wanting to shake his hand or buy him another mug.
Nan screws up her lips and raises her eyebrows, watching his slow drift to the door.
“Out with it, Nan,” Fonso bosses.
“Look at him! The people love him!”
“We’re aware,” Tiffin says drily.
“I’ve also heard the Margrave’s physician has been spending a lot of time up at Wolfspire Hall. Seems he’s been ailing of late.” She pauses dramatically.