The Puppetmaster's Apprentice

by Lisa DeSelm

  “Surely it’s not that difficult to talk of your past? I have it on good authority you learnt your sorcery from your father, a man beloved and trusted by many here. A man who, behind closed doors in his workshop, practiced those old spells which long ago wreaked havoc upon our law-abiding society. Spells that go against the very laws of nature!

  “You have a choice here: speak now and tell us the truth, or go to the Keep. Did your father use magic to bring his creations to life? Were you not only his apprentice, but his accomplice?”

  I refuse to answer. Laszlo grips my jaw tightly, mashing my cheeks in with his fingers, willing me to speak.

  “I am not uncharitable. I’m willing to make concessions for the truth, if you are capable of telling it. I’ll have the guards release you now if you’ll only answer me honestly. So what shall it be? Your freedom? Or your dark secrets?”

  I look around at the blur of faces through my tears, the saboteur still poised and waiting behind me. I wish I knew the words to send her barreling into the duke, to rip the smug conceit from his face.

  I will not give the new Margrave nor the gawkers the satisfaction of seeing my splinters. It’s better that I resort to my old standby: silence. I will go silently to the burn pile if I must, in honor of my father. I won’t betray him by bellowing the truth. He gave up his strength and life to make me; this last stand of silence is all I can do to protect his good name.

  The crowd hushes, waiting, while the makers look on, urging to me to speak up. But I cannot. I tear my face from the duke’s pincer grasp.

  Laszlo sighs, looking pained on my behalf. “I am afraid you must accept the consequences of your father’s actions, and your own folly. It’s necessary to protect the people. Take her away.”

  “No!” Bran screams, this time having broken free from the guards, running up to Lazlo, kneeling below us on the steps. “No! Her father did practice the old magic, I saw him. Why, I overheard it myself, one day in his workshop.”

  I look at him, horrified.

  “Pirouette is innocent, she was just his apprentice. She didn’t know what he was doing; how could she? It was all her father’s doing. And he’s gone now. She has done nothing wrong! Please, let her go!”

  My heart snaps in two, split by a stroke of lightning, hot and searing. Laszlo looks triumphant. The crowd murmurs and rustles, the trees at the edges of the marktplatz reprimand Bran.

  “She’s clearly not innocent,” Laszlo says victoriously. “See how she refuses to speak up, to defend her honor or explain her father. I have no choice but to interpret her silence as guilt. We are fortunate she hasn’t taken control of the dark assassin creature, and turned it against more innocents here in retribution. Fear not, good people! I will protect you. I possess the remedy to her dark spells.”

  With a flick of his wrist and a few more muttered words, the saboteur falls to the ground, lifeless, no magic strings tugging at her. The crowd inflates in awe. Guards come to drag her away, an ungainly rag doll in their arms.

  “As long as you serve me and our great territory of Tavia, and shun the dangers that bespelled our forefathers, you will be safe. Take the puppetmaster’s apprentice away!”

  “No!” Bran yells indignantly. “You said you’d set her free if the truth was told! Let her go!”

  Baldrik grips me under the armpits, hauling me toward a waiting wagon. Low in my ear he croons, “We had our suspicions about you, little wench, after your father’s deluded tales spilled in the Keep. But I wasn’t expecting that double-cross from the tailor’s boy!” He laughs savagely.

  I can’t hear Bran’s voice above the fearful tumult of the crowd; I only see his mouth as they pull me away, performing an agonized litany.

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

  As if those were magic words that could ease my pain or stop what is to come.

  Strangely, all I can think of as I am carried in through the Commoner’s entrance at Wolfspire Hall are the new Margrave’s hands. Those marble-white hands caressing the saboteur’s cheek when I first delivered her, the fine bones fanning protectively across the marionette’s face. I’d never seen their like before, pale and smooth, devoid of hair or calluses. Hands that knew no labor, hands that had never seen dirt. Hands that would be like ice to touch. Hands that convicted me and controlled the saboteur with equal power.

  I expect to be taken straight to the Keep, but instead I am shuffled along by Baldrik and delivered deep inside the estate. Fear and curiosity wrestle in my chest like a pair of writhing vipers.

  Why weren’t they shutting me in a cell? How could Bran have betrayed me? Betrayed Papa? His lies were intended to save me, but they only placed me in greater danger.

  We reach the landing where the floors bleed from stone to lush carpet; my feet scuffle as I endeavor to keep up with Baldrik’s loping gait. We pass the doors of the great stateroom and continue down another ornate hall whose walls drip with ancestral portraits and cloying paintings of fruit in bowls. Every open door I pass reveals more opulence: fat, overstuffed sofas and chaises trimmed in velvet and golden braid, followed by entire rooms tiled in marble just for bathing.

  At a turn in the hallway, I’m startled by a row of my father’s wooden men lining the hall, the life-sized soldiers propped up against the tapestried walls like fence posts in between mounted suits of armor. These particular soldiers are all clean, looking just as new as when we delivered them. Cold unrolls itself across my scalp at the sight.

  They haven’t been used yet, not like the ones I saw in the wood.

  We stop short at a set of doors painted a deep, glossy black, across which are inscribed two words in gold I don’t recognize: LECTORI SALUTEM.

  The steward knocks on my behalf and a voice calls from within. “Enter!”

  I stiffen at being shoved inside. The door closes soundly behind me. I find myself in a large room paneled by bookshelves that overflow with books. It’s dim, lit entirely by daylight streaming from floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a courtyard.

  Avoiding fire, I muse. The slightest drip of hot wax or tip of an oil lamp could cause the whole room to go up in flames. Thousands of books of varying thicknesses and colors are stacked to the ceiling like pieces of scrap wood back at Curio.

  I step farther inside, my eyes drawn to an open book illustrating the full phases of the moon, beautiful ring-shaped sketches marking the phases of waxing and waning.

  “One never knows what mysteries and treasures one will find in a book,” a voice says from a shadowed corner. Laszlo von Eidle, the man who just condemned me, emerges from beneath a ladder with a thick stack of books cradled in his arms. In here, he looks almost benign; far less threatening than he did an hour ago, raking me across the coals from the front steps of the rathaus.

  “Lectori salutem, Pirouette Leiter.”

  “What does that mean?” I ask flatly. He’s ruined my reputation in front of the whole village; I am in no mood to bow and scrape.

  Laszlo drops the heavy stack of books with a thud on the round wooden table at the center of room. It’s strewn with papers, writing utensils, measuring instruments, and a hoard of books open and layered one upon the other.

  “Greetings to the reader,’” he says matter-of-factly. “The old masters used that term to greet their pupils when they entered training.”

  “What if they couldn’t read?”

  “Can’t you read?” Laszlo asks incredulously.

  “Of course I can read,” I say indignantly. “But surely not everyone can. Sounds presumptuous.”

  “Then I assume you’d hear the master deliver a different greeting. Perhaps nil volentibus arduum, in your case.”

  “What’s that supposed to—”

  “It means ‘nothing is impossible for the willing.’” A pale eyebrow arches sharply over glittering eyes. Their color reminds me of a watery blue paint we keep in stock at Curio.

  I stare at him coldly. “Speaking as someone who is here against her will, I wouldn’t know what th
at’s like.”

  Laszlo smiles. “Yes, well. I have high hopes for you. The proclamation you just witnessed was only the first step in my plan. Your complete humiliation was necessary, I’m afraid.”

  “Necessary! How dare you blame me for how you’re using the wooden soldiers. And the saboteur! We made them at your request! And to suggest that I used them to kill the Margrave! And the clockmaker,” I rage, dropping my voice low, “is another matter entirely. He didn’t even want your bloody position, wouldn’t think of it. He wanted nothing from you or the Margrave, though we all know who was more deserving. Yet you destroyed him anyways, using one of my marionettes!”

  “One of my marionettes. And you may address me as your Margrave now, apprentice,” he says icily. “The clockmaker’s death was necessary, I’m sure you understand. Though he may not have had any designs on ruling Tavia, I had to be sure. Death is truly the only method of being sure. I’ve waited long enough for my father to die, I wasn’t about to waste any more time wondering about his other filthy progeny.”

  “Why would you accuse me like that, in front of the whole village?” I continue railing. “I did not animate the saboteur or the soldiers, I did not send them under the cover of night to harm or frighten people.”

  “Because I am in need of a maker—you, in fact. I had to make an example of you. It’s far better for me if you are reviled and feared by the common folk. Your creations will hold much more power in their eyes when I put them to work.”

  I stare at him aghast. “You need a puppetmaster? At a time like this?”

  “I do,” he says, dropping to a stuffed chair at the table, ready to conduct business.

  “But, you already have so many … marionettes.” I stumble on the word. “What could you possibly need another for? Especially now? You’ve raised taxes until the people hardly have anything left to give, let alone eat. You’ve been buying up most of their food! It’s monstrous!”

  His lips press together, the pale pink leaching from them. I’ve disappointed him.

  “I’ve brought you here today, Pirouette, instead of straight to a cell or a burning heap like you deserve, because you are a puppetmaster, quite possibly the best our lands have ever seen. Now, your father was excellent.” Laszlo moves smoothly past my bristling at the mention of my father in past tense, “But there’s something to your work—a realness to your figurines—I’ve never seen before. That saboteur is outstanding. And I am, as you noted, a connoisseur, a curator, of marionettes and figurines.”

  The surge of pride his praise evokes burns my throat like solvent. He rises and comes around the table, his fingers grazing the moon book as he walks closer. In his eyes, I read a dangerous mixture: greed and desire.

  “Now I need something more; something real.”

  I edge back toward the door. Even with nary a flame to be seen, the library feels hot and close, void of air.

  “I want someone, to be precise. And if you’d like to live, you are going to make her for me.”

  CHAPTER 19

  “YOU WILL MAKE ME A BRIDE. A WIFE.”

  My mouth hangs open. He’s completely unhinged. Off his anvil, as Tiffin would say.

  “Urn …” I clear my throat, scrambling for some semblance of sanity. “My lord, you are aware that I am just a puppetmaster’s apprentice. Surely I cannot create an actual wife for you—”

  “Oh, but I think we both know that you can,” he says with a cold smile. “You created the saboteur, and she has far exceeded any of my wishes. Not a bad beginning. Not bad at all.” His blinding mouth is all teeth.

  “But even if I created such a marionette, you do understand that she would not be … real? Alive?” I say, grasping for words to explain reality to him. “Surely you cannot marry a marionette!” My mind spins. The same nausea that overtook me upon discovering the dead soldier in the woods begins to rise in my throat.

  His eyes shift to a cloudy gray. “No, surely not.” He steps even closer, too close, one hand reaching out to trace my cheek. The marble touch I imagined earlier is not far from the truth. A chill snakes its way across my shoulders as he cups my chin and tilts it, examining my face, this time far more calculating than his performance for the crowd. My whole body goes rigid; I gnaw at the inside of my cheek.

  “But then, I don’t intend to marry a marionette. You are an excellent example of what I intend, aren’t you? You’re extraordinary, Pirouette. The craftsmanship … it’s truly astonishing.”

  My lungs tighten like corset strings.

  “Now, naturally I will want something with more exquisite features, more of an elegant beauty, you understand. And,” he looks critically down at my slim chest and narrow hips, “more of a womanly figure to suit my royal personage.” He claps his hands together, as if the matter is all settled. “We’ll work the details out as we go—I’ve been preparing sketches.”

  My tongue seems coated with iron from Tiffin’s forge. How does he know?

  “What do you mean, my lord? That I am an example of what you intend?”

  “Besides what your friend out there confirmed for me, I had your father here for a little visit to the library recently, while he was staying in the Keep.” Blood floods my face. “He wasn’t entirely … sober, shall we say. Poor man was definitely suffering from some malady, but I brought him up to probe him a bit about his work. To learn from him. It isn’t every day you have a great puppetmaster staying in your house. I intended to take advantage of it.”

  My anger flares to hear of my father’s “stay” in that vile dungeon talked of as it were a cordial visit for tea.

  “While he wasn’t lucid, he really was very descriptive, you might say, about his techniques and his most special projects. I’ve always been fascinated with figurines, you see, and the process of making them. I have quite a few books here,” he says with a sweep of his hand, “that detail the history and lore of puppetry. It’s as old as humankind. But there are some gaps. Some things I didn’t know. I needed your father to enlighten me.”

  “And … did he?” I whisper, fearful of the answer.

  Laszlo picks up one of my arms, scrutinizing the joints at my elbow and wrist, bending them this way and that, inspecting the delicate skin between my fingers. A memory flashes at me, from when I was newly made: a boy toying with a dead sparrow in the gutter. It petrified me then, seeing the soft, vulnerable under feathers of the tiny wing spread out and contracted over and over again, for sport.

  “He told me one very interesting tale in particular, a tale some might consider too fantastical to be true. But I, unlike some, have spent the last twenty years honing my ears.” His eyes lock on my own. “When you are a duke who isn’t allowed to do much more than sit in the shadows and appear ornamental—a result of my previous constitution, which I assure you is now quite sound—you find ways to pass the time. Me? I’ve made a habit of listening.”

  I wrench my arm from his grasp. He still hasn’t answered my question.

  “What did he tell you?”

  “That his prized possession was a child, a daughter made by his own two hands from the very woods surrounding Tavia. That one night, nearly seven years ago, the light of the blue moon brought her to life.”

  “My father was very ill, my lord. The pressure of keeping up with the Margrave’s unreasonable deadlines and the filth he contracted in your Keep destroyed him. You would be foolish to trust whatever he might have rambled in such a state.” I lift my chin in defiance.

  “Perhaps. But I am not just any fool,” he says smugly. “Though, according to the records, you could be, couldn’t you, Pirouette Leiter? Look here,” he says, reaching for a bound stack of papers from the desk, labeled with the year I came to be with Gephardt. “See,” he points with a flourish to a scripted entry that he ruffles in my face, “it’s as if you magically appear to exist in the village census. You truly are a girl who came from nothing. One year poor Gephardt is alone and widowed, then suddenly, out of the blue, he has an eleven-year-old daughter
and the two of them are thick as thieves. Back at the rathaus, I was only attempting to bring the truth to light. I’m sure most people have wondered about you and Gephardt for ages!”

  “I lived—” I begin to spout the lie about my grandmother and stop short.

  “With an elderly grandmother, is that right? Yes, I see that recorded here, too. What was her name, Pirouette? Did you have a lovely childhood, growing up in the bucolic village of … what was it called again? This entry just lists the location as ‘far away.’”

  Anger and fear vibrate through my body. “You know nothing about me!”

  “I know more than enough,” he says confidently, dropping the stack of census records and picking up the thick book of moon phases. He thrusts it into my hands. “And the tailor’s boy confirmed the rest.” He grins, pouring salt into the wound of Bran’s betrayal. “Now, I need a wife, Pirouette, a duchess built like a royal princess; a Margravina befitting the Margrave I am now.” He stands tall, tugging at the lapels of his jacket. “Hopefully, soon I will rule all of Brylov and Tavia, if the stars align. So she must be magnificent.

  “I need her built and ready by the blue moon, to take advantage of its power. I’m not waiting another seven years. And it is coming soon, but you’re already aware of that, I wager. How lucky for you to get to experience the awakening power of two blue moons in your lifetime. I’m almost jealous,” he purrs. “I’m quite sure it will be one of the most exquisite things I’ll ever experience.”

  He talks about the blue moon’s power as if it will be a grand spectacle, a show to be put on for his pleasure.

  “I can’t possibly … do you understand what you’re asking of me? Surely there’s some great lady of Elmslip or Kirkeglenn who would be overjoyed to wed the new Margrave of Tavia?” I stammer, though in the moment I can’t name one. “A political or military alliance that would be of great benefit to you? A real noblewoman, someone of proper … stature?”