by Lisa DeSelm
I look nervously from father to son. Did I hear him right? My father can come home with me! My relief is palpable. So is my curiosity at what the duke could possibly wish for that he doesn’t already have.
“Thank you, my lord. What is it to be?” I ask, praying it is something small. My father will be too weak to do much besides lift his head from his pillow once I get him home.
“The soldiers the puppetmaster built are brilliant,” Laszlo says, blue eyes gleaming. I have a sudden vision of what he must have been like as a little boy, never allowed to go outside and play with other children, knocking about in vast rooms with only his toys for company. Only his toys. Perhaps all of these soldiers truly are for Laszlo’s amusement.
“They are not enough. We require one more. A special kind of soldier.” Laszlo watches me carefully.
“One more … soldier?” I swallow, feeling a rising dread that I will never be free of the horrid things.
“Yes. Not a foot soldier, though.”
“I see,” I stutter. What other kind is there?
“What I need next, Pirouette Leiter,” Laszlo says, drawing my name out, “is a saboteur.”
I blink, wondering if I’ve heard him correctly. “A saboteur, My Lord von Eidle?”
“Remind me again, lad, why we need such a thing?” the Margrave whispers none too quietly beside him.
Laszlo ignores his father. “Yes, a custom-built marionette, made in the same manner as the foot soldiers of course, life-size, with the utmost care given to the nimbleness of arm and leg. For this one, I desire it to be everything a saboteur should be: all in black, fully masked, sleek and light as a panther.” He sits back and waits for my response.
A saboteur is a night shadow. A killer.
It is the strangest request I have heard in all my years at Curio, and I am oddly grateful my father isn’t present to hear it. I hate the thought of him groveling at the feet of men like this, being asked to create the wooden form of an assassin. It is far better that it is asked of me.
“Do you agree, apprentice?” Laszlo asks, the tilt of his chin reminiscent of an owl swooping in to devour a field mouse.
I understand that ‘no’ is not an answer to be spoken in this room without consequences.
“Can you do it?” Laszlo asks, sitting forward on his chair, his eyes wide and expectant, his grin a twist of challenge and allure. Strangely, I get the impression that he believes I can. And though my tongue longs to make excuses, to shout “No! I am not good enough. I am only an apprentice!” I know I only have one choice.
I cannot lie.
“Yes,” I say, the grit in my voice surprising us all. “I can.”
“Magnificent,” says Laszlo, leaning back in his chair with a satisfied smirk, his shoulders relaxing into mirrored slopes of braided gold. “You have ten days, Pirouette Leiter.”
“Fifteen,” I retort, before my brain knows what my mouth is doing. “I cannot possibly create something so … so unique in so short a time.”
Laszlo bites his lower lip, chewing on my answer.
“Fifteen,” he says, nodding slowly. “I will give you fifteen days for fifty francs.”
“Yes, My Lord von Eidle,” I reply, knowing deep in my heart that this is one “yes” that will return to haunt me. The money will be useful, but in the moment, the price I’m to be paid barely registers; something in me senses the actual cost may be much greater.
“Perhaps we can have all of these trifles of yours finished up by the time the glockenspiel is complete,” the Margrave murmurs to Laszlo. “Emmitt assures me he is working on it day and night. Soon the bells in the rathaus will ring again, reminding all within our borders of the greatness of Wolfspire Hall’s legacy. Then, I shall be ready to make my fall proclamation and settle the matter of my will—it can’t be done properly without the glockenspiel at the ready, to signal the turn of the season! It’s tradition!”
“Yes, of course, Father,” Laszlo says, patting his father’s graying hand with a glint of steel in his syrupy voice. “The clockmaker will surely be finished by then. He’s never failed you yet, has he?”
The duke turns his patronizing tone on me. “And neither will you, apprentice. I have grand designs, a whole body of work that is waiting to be done, if you meet this order to my satisfaction.”
I choose my words carefully. “Just as the clockmaker served you, I will make what you ask.”
The duke’s nostrils flare at my praise of Emmitt, but he waves me away with a flick of his hand, clearly done with me. Baldrik’s meaty claws clamp down on my shoulders again and I am ushered out in haste.
A guard loads my father’s wasting frame into the back of the wagon, tossing him in with no more care than was shown the wooden men we just exchanged for him. I hold Papa’s hand and speak to him, trying to make him comfortable, but he just shivers, eyes tightly closed against the starkness of daylight, now used to the gloom of the Keep.
As Bran drives us home, I leave burdened by more than just my father’s health. I roll away in possession of a commission I have no choice but to complete, both to feed us and keep the Margrave and his son satisfied. The old tinker’s tale weighs on me, crystallizing into one simple truth: sometimes not even magic is required to turn a gift like bread to stones.
CHAPTER 10
“HE KEEPS MOANING ABOUT THE MOON. DO YOU KNOW what troubles him so, dear?” Gita asks, a cool hand laid to my father’s forehead, her fingers draped like strips of pale muslin across his sweaty brow.
“Short of a horrible stay in Wolfspire Keep?” says Lottie from the corner.
Fear shoots through me like a well-aimed stone through a window. Since we brought him home, Father has remained in bed, in a terrible state of groaning incoherence. I sit with him every free moment I can spare from the dark soldier I’m building in the workshop below. Gita and two of Bran’s sisters, Lottie and Inga, have been taking turns planting themselves like concerned gargoyles at Papa’s bedside.
“I’m not sure,” I say carefully, because I can only speculate, and of course I have my reasons to keep such speculations to myself.
Father’s body was severely weakened by creating the Margrave’s soldiers, followed by his internment in that fetid cell. I fear his once clear and swift mind has suffered the same fate. I only catch garbled phrases whose meaning I have yet to parse out, such as, “We are not ready,” and “Afraid it’s rotting,” and “Hardly twice in a blue moon.”
I simply haven’t the time to solve his riddles. Every spare second I have is devoted to the making of a new marionette that both frightens and fascinates me. The puppetmaster in me delights in the challenge of bringing shape and form to a figurine as grand as the saboteur. Currently, I’m shaping the hands. I asked Bran to create a custom pair of sleek leather gloves the color of coal, to slide over fingers so tapered and slight they’ll appear more like claws than squared human bones.
I have five days left to complete Laszlo’s request and deliver the marionette to Wolfspire Hall. Baldrik made it painfully clear upon my departure what the consequences will be if I fail to comply with this most recent order. This time, if I don’t finish by the Margrave’s appointed hour, my father will return to Wolfspire Keep and he won’t be alone. I will be joining him, in my own cell.
But I refuse to dwell on the harsh reality of those bars, and am only living and breathing in Curio, in the magic of my craft. My work is the only thing getting me through these long days.
“You’re looking peaked yourself, Piro,” Gita says thoughtfully, now brushing cool fingers across my forehead. “You are going to wear the flesh from your fingers as well as your poor nose if you aren’t careful. Be sure to eat before you go back down.”
“I will.”
“Mhmmm,” she mumbles, looking unconvinced.
After scarfing a hunk of bread and a piece of chicken in the kitchen, I find that I am eager to return to my work. I left the shop front open, hoping that we might gain a little sympathetic business during
these difficult weeks as word of the puppetmaster’s release trickles about the village. But there are no customers this morning, and so, despite only a few coveted hours of sleep, I set my hands to completing the next phase of the saboteur.
I have enough halsa left from my last trip to the wood, so all my time has been spent shaping what will eventually, I hope, become a saboteur—a saboteur from a hearth tale never seen or heard of before. I pick up a block of wood Papa had wrapped with sanding paper, and using short, practiced strokes, I apply pressure to the jointed fingers. Though it will be as tall as the previous soldiers, this body is being born in an entirely different way than the stiff regiment we previously constructed.
The limbs I’ve sketched on sheets of onion-skin paper are thick and strong in the haunches and lean in the seams, the torso curved instead of ramrod straight. The muscular chest curls elegantly down to a pair of strong hips, joined by legs that could spring from a window or high ledge at the slightest provocation.
I’ve made many marionettes; some large, some miniature, some charming and some intended to twist the audience’s guts at the very sight of them. This saboteur is one of the latter.
The wood speaks as it takes shape beneath my fingers, a blurred, questioning voice that seeks to know the future. “Where shall I find my place of honor?”
I hope and pray that I will do this piece justice, giving the wood the honor it deserves. In the days that follow, I labor over smoothing every angle, refining every curve and ligature so that its stringed movement will be a thing of beauty. Of feline grace. Of terror.
If it were alive, of course.
I no longer have time to linger at The Louse and Flea, no time to sit and gossip over pitchers with my feet up. The Maker’s Guild knows that if we are to gather together, the closest we can get these days is the workshop at Curio. At least those of us that can; Emmitt has nearly completed the glockenspiel, but is sleeping and working by nights in the tower to protect against further thievery.
I’m grateful for my friends’ presence, for the eager hands that long to help, for their laughter and their gifts. Each has brought me something special tonight to cheer me: Fonso a new lamp for the workshop, Nan a fresh jar of olive oil, and Tiffin a specially forged rack I requested from him, just for the saboteur.
“Looks like some kind of primitive torture device,” Fonso remarks, his hefty shoulders cringing at the metal frame conveying a series of hooks and loops.
“Primitive!” Tiffin grouses. “I’ll have you know that rack is as sturdy and strong as it is elegant. Designed it myself,” he mumbles. “Didn’t even need Mort to help me.”
“It is rather … unique,” agrees Nan, gazing at the bars of metal Tiffin fabricated, on a platform bolstered by small wheels. The whole thing does give the impression of a cage for a beast rather than the simple frame on which a marionette will hang.
“It’s perfect, Tiff,” I say with a tired smile.
The soldiers we could pile in a heap and deliver via wagon, for they were without strings, and had sturdy bodies which could stand at attention like statues with wired armature. But the saboteur requires a full range of movement, and is constructed with strings flying out like spidery threads from every joint, suspended above and behind with sets of crossbars. Though this marionette is made of light halsa wood, because of its size, it will still take someone of considerable strength to stand above and manipulate the body. But the noble son of Tavia requested it be made this way, and my father’s life depends on it.
So here it is. The grandest piece I have ever built, though at the moment the entire body is scattered about in pieces. I was joining limbs to torso when the makers invaded my workshop.
Fonso lights his lovely new lamp for me, while Bran rebuilds the fire in the wood-burning stove nestled in the corner. Goodness knows there is always plenty of kindling scattered about. Nan bustles here and there, pouring everyone a cup of tea from a pot Gita sent down, the tea tray laden with scones plopped right down among the glue and mess. Tiffin skulks about, looking out of place and anxious among the marionettes. For a time, the workshop swells with laughter and our inside jokes and jabs, the air fragrant with the scents of freshly hewn wood and scones—two of my favorite things.
“Enough about me.” I shove a hot scone into my mouth. “I’m eating, sleeping, and breathing nothing but marionette dust.” I lick a drop of raspberry jam clinging to my knuckle. “What’s happening out there? How’s business?” I ask, looking around, noticing each familiar face appears a little more drawn than usual.
Fonso crosses his colossal arms over his chest and sighs. Nan picks at her nails. Tiffin chews his lip. Bran pretends to study a curl of wood just discovered on the floor. I know them each too well, their eyes, their grim expressions.
“Tell me,” I say, swallowing the remaining bite of scone. It slides down my throat in a dry lump.
“You’ve been so busy,” Nan leaps in, “no one wants to worry you.”
“Well, now I’m worried.”
Silence settles like a stiff sheet as I search their faces.
Fonso clears his throat. “The Margrave isn’t just busy conscripting marionettes from you for his son, Piro,” says Fonso. “He’s raising taxes—again. People will scarcely be able to afford to buy a new lamp or a piece of glassware for their table by next month if it keeps up.”
“Just last week people started hoarding food,” Tiffin says contemptuously. “The steward is forcing farmers to sell Wolfspire Hall a huge portion of their meat, bread and vegetables from the market at very low prices, next to nothing. That means the rest of us are left to argue over what remains. It’s going to be a lean winter.”
I blanch. The Sorens have assumed the care and feeding of me and my father these last few weeks, and I had no idea about the growing scarcity, for I’ve scarcely left the workshop.
“The Margrave’s guards are on daily patrols now,” Bran says quietly. “Not just positioned at the gates of Wolfspire Hall or at our borders. They sweep through the village daily. People feel they’re being watched, more closely than ever before.”
I stare at them, experiencing a sensation I recognize faintly from years ago when I woke from a body of wood to find myself inside one of muscle and bone—a feeling of being shocked awake in my own skin.
“What? Why?” I whisper in outrage.
“Dunno,” says Fonso, turning up the wick on the oil lamp he’d placed near my workbench. “But it’s not good.”
“Something is coming,” Nan prophesies, her inky eyes glittering. “I don’t know how to name it or explain it. But all these strange orders the Maker’s Guild has received from the Margrave …” She trails off, looking around to the rest of us. “I think those are just the beginning.”
“A spoiled brat always wants what they don’t have,” says Tiffin. “Just think about it. What does the duke not have yet? He has every bloomin’ toy a fancy boy like that could want. But what about more territory? There’s always Brylov. They are much richer than we are.”
Where Tavia has farmland and craftsmen, Brylov, our larger neighbor, has that and more: rich timber and mines. Situated in a sunny valley several days away, our Margrave’s older sister, Emmaline, was made Margravina of Brylov many years ago, a move which no doubt pierced Erling to his shallow core. He was left holding the smaller share of the pie.
“What if Laszlo wants an empire here in the south, not just a territory?” Bran poses. “Like his father, his aunt is aging and close to the end of her margraviate. With both the elder von Eidle’s nearing the end of their reign, it creates the perfect opportunity for him.”
“Even so,” I say, confused, “why tax us to death, or hurt the people’s livelihood?”
“I think he prefers us weak and desperate.” Nan’s words slice like cutting wire extracting a pot from her wheel. “So we’re easier to control. Hungry people do whatever is necessary to eat—even take up arms.”
“Yeah, I think he’d rather us be puppets,” says
Fonso, absentmindedly fiddling with the saboteur’s shoulder joint, flexing it back and forth.
Indignation rises in my chest. I am no one’s puppet, no one’s toy. Neither are my makers. Even if this saboteur is the last thing my hands ever make, I am determined to do better than merely giving the duke what he thinks he wants. I’ll give him what he deserves.
The hour is late. My father is no better than he was fifteen days ago. It’s torture to think that bringing him home has no more cured or healed the fever ailing him than weeks in the Keep, so I try not to think about it, and have taken to staying away from the damp, sweating figure twisting the sheets in his bed. He frightens me.
Bran no longer waits to knock at the cupboard, for he knows he’ll not likely find me there. Despite the unexplained matter of my battered nose, he visits daily, entering from the door closest to Burl’s stable.
Tonight, he surveys the cluttered workshop, appraising the completed dark-clad figure lying in wait on the work table. Usually, displaying my marionettes and seeing others marvel at the visions I’ve sculpted from wood and paint and wire is one of my greatest joys. But this time, I realize, wiping the final layers of dust from the saboteur’s body, it’s different.
For the first time, I feel a pang of regret for making a marionette. Not because I have failed, for the creature on the table is anything but a failure of craftsmanship. I regret it because it’s so marvelous. I feel like a desperate mother, forced to abandon my greatest creation to the doorstep of wolves.
“Is it everything they are expecting?” Bran asks carefully.
“Exactly to their specifications,” I reply sharply, a defensive vein splitting open in my voice.
“Well,” he says, clearing his throat, “the gloves and clothing are a perfect fit.”
“I do have an excellent tailor.”