The Clockwork Three (21 page)

He listened. “I don’t know.”

“It was nothing,” Frederick said. He bent down close to the bronze head, squinting into the clockwork brains. “I can’t see a thing, I need light.” He reached for one of the oil lamps on the table and a box of matches near it.

“Frederick,” Hannah said.

“It’s fine,” he said, and struck a match. He lit the oil lamp, which smoked and cast a pale light over the table. “There, that’s better.”

Giuseppe stepped out of the lamp’s reach and stared off in the direction of the noise.

“This is incredible,” Frederick said. “It’ll take weeks to sort this out. The level of complexity is beyond anything I’ve seen.”

Giuseppe noticed that Hannah was watching him with a concerned look on her face. “I think we should go, Frederick,” she said.

“I’m not ready,” he said.

There was another noise, a cough. This time it was much closer. They all froze and listened.

“I think Hannah’s right,” Giuseppe whispered. “We should go.”

But none of them moved.

Someone shouted from the shadows, “Take them, now!”

Then the sound of a stampede rushed toward them.

“Go!” Giuseppe shouted. He grabbed Hannah and pushed her toward the ladder.

“You two run!” Frederick snatched the bronze head. He tucked it under his arm and dove away in the opposite direction.

Giuseppe watched him go for half a breath. What was that fool doing? He ran after Hannah and caught up with her just as she reached the ladder. “Climb,” he said.

“Where’s Frederick?”

“Just climb!”

Moments later a boulder of a man rolled out of the darkness at the foot of the ladder and grabbed it like he was about to rip it from the wall. Then the thug heaved himself up to the first rung.

“Faster!” Giuseppe shouted, Hannah’s skirts in his face.

They reached the top, and Hannah pushed the trapdoor open. She scrambled through, and Giuseppe followed her up onto the roof.

“What about Frederick?” she said again.

Giuseppe looked down the ladder into the boulder’s face. His square jaw was clenched tight, his nostrils flared. And he climbed faster than anyone his size should have been able to.

“He’s not even breathing hard,” Giuseppe said. They had to run. Fast. “Come on!”

He seized her hand and yanked her away from the trapdoor. They fled across the roof, past the skylights, and around the museum dome.

“But Frederick!” Hannah shouted.

“He knows what he’s doing.” Giuseppe hoped that was true.

The Bronze Head

F
REDERICK CROUCHED IN THE GAP BETWEEN TWO CRATES,
watching. The huge man chasing Hannah and Giuseppe reached the top of the ladder and squeezed through the hatch. Frederick wiped sweat from his brow and waited, the sound of heavy boots and whispered voices reaching him in his hiding space. More than one of them still prowled the museum floor. A moment later, the huge man poked his head through the trapdoor and shook it.

They had escaped.

“Then get back down here!” someone shouted nearby. A man’s voice, sharp and nasal. “There were three of them. And the one that’s left has the head.”

Frederick slunk back farther into the nook.

“You hear me, whoever you are?” the sharp voice said. “I know you’re in here. And I’ve got two brutes who’ll tear you apart without flinching if I order them to.”

The huge man climbed down the ladder halfway and then simply slid the rest of the distance to the floor, landing with a boom that shook the air.

“Stay there by the ladder, Mister Clod,” the voice said. “Make sure he doesn’t try to escape the way his friends did. Mister Slag, stay with me.”

Frederick looked behind him. The crates came together at an angle, but he thought he might be able to slip between them out the back.

“So the guild thought they could steal from me, eh?” the voice said. Frederick could tell the man was moving, searching, trailed by heavy footfalls. “You took the Magnus head, so I assume the clockmakers sent you.”

Frederick swallowed. The man had figured him out.

“So which one are you? Frederick or Giuseppe?”

Frederick covered his mouth.

“I listened in the darkness till I learned your names. Any sign of him, Mister Clod?”

Frederick heard a distant grunt, a deep rumble, as if the building were shifting in that corner.

“Well, keep your eyes open.” The voice was closer now. “Frederick, Giuseppe, whoever you are, I am Reginald Diamond. The Archer Museum is mine to care for, as sacred to me as my own flesh, and I treat your thievery as an assault on my person. But if you give yourself up, and restore the Magnus head to me, you will leave this room intact. If not, then Mister Clod and Mister Slag will have their way with you. And they so enjoy having their way.”

Frederick scooted backward as silently as he could, on his fingertips and the balls of his feet like a crab. He reached the gap in the crates, and had to turn sideways to slip through. The space behind the row of crates was only a couple of feet wide, running the length of a wall that kept Frederick from retreating any farther.

“I heard something, Mister Slag,” the voice said. He seemed to be standing just on the other side of the wall of crates.

Frederick had to move. He turned to the right, away from the ladder, and crept along the wall, putting distance between himself and the voice.

“You don’t even know what you have stolen,” the voice said, and then broke off in a fit of coughing.

Frederick pressed on, leaving the voice behind. He reached the end of the crates, the end of the wall, and could go no farther. Around the last stack he spied a door, leading who knew where. But it was the only way out. He would have only one chance, but if his pursuers had locked the door on their way in, he had no chance.

Frederick hunkered down, ready to spring.

“Leave the Magnus head here, where it will be safe,” the voice said.

Frederick leaped from behind the crates, his feet pounding. He reached the door.

“There!” shouted the voice.

Frederick heard an instant thunder, like trees falling toward him.

He grabbed the doorknob. It turned. Frederick shouldered the door open and ran.

There was a long hallway, and then another door, and then Frederick burst into the museum. It was as quiet and dark as the storeroom had been. High windows admitted failing moonlight, and the glass cases all around him caught slivers of it. Frederick took a few steps around the nearest display, unable to see what it was. He had been to the museum several times and knew the layout, and if he could identify a display he could orient himself and try to escape through the front entrance.

The door flew open behind him, and Frederick bolted, bumping into panes of glass and ropes in the darkness. He heard something shatter over his shoulder, and a curse from the nasal voice.

“You imbecile! That urn was Mayan! Irreplaceable!”

Clod and Slag were having trouble, too.

As he moved, Frederick kept one hand out in front of him, with his body turned sideways to protect the bronze head in his other arm. The museum wings all pointed at the central rotunda under the dome, and Frederick ran in the direction he guessed it to be.

Then he tripped into a roped-off display. The impact knocked his breath from him, but he ducked and kept the bronze head safe at the expense of his shoulder. He jumped to his feet, gasping, and banged his head on something metal. Above him, an empty suit of armor charged on an invisible horse, arm outstretched. Frederick knew right where he was.

“He’s up there!” the voice shouted.

Frederick hopped over the rope and sprinted for the rotunda. Moments later he raced into its open space, feet clacking on the stone floor. He slowed as he approached the front doors. Bolts at the top and bottom locked them fast from the inside. Frederick hopped up and stooped down to pull them open, and then threw himself out onto the square.

The door banged shut behind him, and then open again. Frederick took the museum steps four and five at a time, landing on the cobblestones in a stumble that almost sent him sprawling. He sprinted over the square, the bronze head under his arm. A quick backward glance and he slowed down. His pursuers had stopped chasing him.

Clod and Slag hulked at the top of the museum steps, expressionless mountains, and in the valley between them Mister Diamond shook his fist. He had wild gray hair, and a face red from running.

“Believe me, you will regret this!” Mister Diamond shouted.

He motioned with his hands, and Clod and Slag turned away from the square. They lumbered back inside the museum, and after a final sneer Mister Diamond followed them, slamming the door behind him.

Frederick wiped sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. Why had they stopped? They could have overtaken him in the open square.

He felt his heartbeat slow from a gallop to a trot. He looked down at the bronze head and wondered what he was doing with it. What had possessed him? He should have left it and followed Giuseppe and Hannah up the ladder. They could have all escaped together. But instead he had reacted on impulse, without forethought, and now Mister Diamond knew his name and where to find him. He had to return the bronze head.

But not tonight. It would have to be done in a way that would avoid coming into contact with Clod and Slag, or Mister Diamond. Frederick dropped to his knee and set the bronze head on the ground. He removed his coat, and bundled the head inside it.

On his way back to Master Branch’s shop he saw a little street musician playing the flute. Trying to play the flute. And it looked like the people out at that time of night were not the sort that spared a coin. The boy’s cap was nearly empty. Frederick thought of Giuseppe and felt bad for this tiny busker. He wished he had money to give him, or some way to help, but could only smile and nod.

“You’re out pretty late,” Frederick said.

The boy stopped. “I no can go back.” He looked down at his cap. “I no have money.”

“Maybe it’s the song you’re playing.”

The boy looked at his flute.

“Try this one.” Frederick hummed the melody his mother used to sing to him, the melody Giuseppe had played earlier that night. “It’s pretty simple, isn’t it? Can you play that?”

The little boy pinched his brow and closed his eyes. He lifted the flute to his lips, and played the song with several missteps the first time
through, but he corrected them and got through the tune. When he opened his eyes, he smiled.

“That a good song,” he said.

“My mother used to sing it to me. And I heard it from … another busker who played it.”

“Who play it?”

“Uh …” Was there harm in telling him a name? “A chap by the name of Giuseppe.”

The little boy looked suddenly stricken. His shoulders fell and his eyes welled up.

“Hey,” Frederick said. “Hey there, it’s all right. What’s wrong?”

The little boy shook his head and started to pack up his things.

“Do you know Giuseppe?” Frederick asked.

The busker nodded. “He dead.”

Frederick wondered if he should say anything, but the boy looked so despondent. “No, he isn’t.”

The boy’s eyes opened wide.

“He’s alive and well.” But Frederick thought better of telling the boy that Giuseppe was hiding in Master Branch’s cellar. “What’s your name?”

“Pietro.”

“Pietro, play that song I taught you, Giuseppe’s song, and I bet you get money by the fistful.”

“Thank you,” Pietro said. “Thank you.” He turned and ran off.

Frederick walked the rest of the way to Master Branch’s shop. He hoped that Hannah and Giuseppe would be there waiting for him, and they were, in the alley behind the shop. Both of them seemed relieved when they saw him, but then they became angry. Giuseppe just stood there with his arms folded, and Hannah came up and hit Frederick on his shoulder.

“What were you thinking?” she said.

“I’m sorry,” Frederick said.

Then she noticed the bundle under his arm. “You didn’t!”

Frederick averted his eyes. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“You didn’t have a choice about whether you stole that creepy head from the museum? Whether you almost got us caught?”

It was
not
stolen. “I’m borrowing it. And no, I didn’t really have a choice. I’ll return it when I’m done studying it. Besides, you stole Madame Pomeroy’s necklace.”

Hannah snorted, and threw up her hands.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Frederick said. “I didn’t mean to get you into trouble.”

“It’s fine, Freddy.” Giuseppe stepped toward him. “But next time we stick together. Got it?”

Frederick nodded.

Giuseppe pointed at the shop door. “I need to get inside off the street.”

“Of course,” Frederick said, and reached into his pocket for the key.

“I’m going home,” Hannah said. “It’s late.”

“You don’t want to come inside?” Frederick asked. “To see the head?”

She raised an eyebrow. “No, Frederick. Good night.”

“Good night,” Giuseppe said.

Frederick watched her stalk off down the street, feeling a little embarrassed, but the moment did not last long. He looked at Giuseppe and shrugged.

“I can’t wait to get inside. Would you mind holding this?” He handed Giuseppe the bundle and unlocked the door. A few moments later they
were standing in the cellar, the bronze head propped on the workbench next to the clockwork man.

“Hannah seemed mad,” Giuseppe said.

“She’ll be fine.”

“So what are you going to do now?” Giuseppe asked.

Frederick flexed his fingers. “I’m going to figure out how it works. What it does.”

“Will that take a long time?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Then I’m going to sleep.” Giuseppe swiped the sheet from the clockwork man and bunched it up. He lay down on the floor with the sheet under his head for a pillow. “Wake me up when you’ve got it all sorted out.”

Frederick ignored him. The clockwork head, the Magnus head, rested peacefully. Whether the name was accurate, and this was indeed the lost bronze head created by Albertus Magnus, was irrelevant. The clockwork inside was all that mattered. Frederick pressed on the button at the back of the head, and the forehead opened up.

Even though he had already seen it once before, the staggering workmanship drew a sigh out of Frederick. He took several minutes, and just admired it without touching, without sticking his fingers in it. The skills required to create such a clockwork were beyond any that Frederick possessed, or had read about, or heard of, even in the most grandiose boasting at the guildhall.

The Magnus head showed its age. Inside it, tiny dings and dents, speckled tarnish, and a buildup of black grime in the cracks and corners all spoke to its origins in antiquity. Frederick assessed the tools and
materials he would need to disassemble and restore it, and retrieved them from the workshop upstairs. By the time he returned to the cellar, Giuseppe’s chest was rising and falling in the slow rhythm of sleep.

Frederick went to work with deliberate reverence, refusing to allow his excitement to rush him. The entire skull came off in sections, which Frederick polished inside and out, restoring shine to the wire hair. The density of the exposed mass of cogs and gears brought a shiver of fear and awe. Frederick studied every piece before he removed and cleaned it, until he was sure he could replace it when he went to reconstruct the head. A sheaf of loose pages bore his scribbled notes and a few sketches in case he forgot some of the more intricate connections.

After some hours he was able to deduce how small regions of the bronze head worked, but regions only. The jaw, lips, and leather tongue, the ridged bells in the throat. The delicate filaments attached to a vellum drum in the ear. In isolation each area seemed to perform an obvious if limited function, but how all the different parts worked together eluded him.