The Toymaker's Apprentice (4 page)

Stefan felt a spark of surprise. She used to brush his hair back and kiss him on the forehead. Even if he didn't wake up, somehow he knew she was there.

“How do you know that?” he asked. “Did she tell you?”

Christian winked. “Clockmaker's secret. Anything to do with time . . .” He tapped the side of his nose. “It's part of my craft.”

Against all odds, Stefan laughed. It was less horrible than he'd expected, sharing this spot with an uninvited guest. He remembered what Samir had said: “Charmed you, has he?”

It appeared that he had.

“Now tell me, why are you leaving?” his cousin asked.

The subject had changed, and so had his tone. He hadn't said “running away,” Stefan noticed. Christian was no longer judging him.

“Unless, of course, you'd rather explain it to your father over dinner?” his cousin said slyly.

Stefan blanched. “No, I was just . . . I've completed my apprenticeship. I was always supposed to leave home afterward and find a new master to journey with.”

“And have you found a position?” Christian asked.

Every toymaker in Nuremberg followed the same path—apprenticed to a master toymaker, three years in their shop,
and then seven years at home or abroad as a journeyman before creating a masterpiece and joining the guild as a master themselves.

“Not yet. I had a list . . . I was writing letters of inquiry when Mother got sick. And now, I just want to see what's out there.”

“Well, I'm afraid the West is no place for a young man alone just now,” Christian advised. “Napoleon is once again in exile, but until the Congress of Vienna is settled, the chance of misadventure is grave. Highwaymen are bad enough. Add a few hungry armies and their deserters, not to mention anarchists, loyalists, and opportunists, and the roads between here and France become much too dangerous for even the experienced traveler.”

“So, no Paris, no England,” Stefan said, absorbing this information. It was the first time someone had spoken to him about his journeyship like an adult. If only this conversation brought better news. “I had hoped to see the automatons made for the king of France, and the tin clockwork androids of Henri Maillard in London.”

“And you will, in another year or three. But the courts of kings are always tricky places,” Christian said. “It would be wise to get a bit more road beneath your feet before facing them.”

“Then what should I do?” Stefan asked, afraid his uncertainty would make him sound too young, as his father believed.

“Well, if I were you, I'd secure a berth with a master for, say, the next three years. Get your footing, and then move on to France and England. Ours is an old family name, Stefan. Surely your father's connections can find you such a place.”

Stefan shook his head somberly. This had been a bone of
contention with his father for the past few months. “Father is a carver. He believes in simple toys. ‘Real' toys, he calls them, made of wood, a bit of porcelain and glass. When it comes to movement, joint work is as far as he's willing to go.”

“And you?” his cousin prompted.

“Clockwork,” Stefan gushed enthusiastically. “It's the future of toymaking. Windups and moving dolls. I've read all about them, studied the drawings. I'm trying to make one, but Father doesn't approve. He says such toys are for royals and we're ‘humble toysmiths.' That even our wealthiest customers are too practical to squander money on a ‘passing fashion.'”

His cousin chuckled.

“No insult to my father,” Stefan said quickly. “But we could do so much more.”

“Then why not switch trades and join the clockmakers' guild?”

“I'm the son of a toymaker,” Stefan said. “I was
born
to make toys.”

“I see your point,” Christian agreed. Folding his hands behind his head, he looked as relaxed as Stefan was agitated. “Well, you could always apprentice again.”

“And live with kids half my age?” Stefan cringed at the thought. Apprentices often slept in the shop with their work. The boys he knew complained of having to bunk with sniffly, homesick first-years who couldn't tell a chisel from an awl. Stefan had been lucky to apprentice alone. “That's not what I had in mind.”

“Perhaps a clockmaster outside of Nuremberg, then?” Christian persisted. “One who wouldn't mind taking on a well-read young man with some wood-carving skills who can count. The
sort of situation that allows for travel, excitement, and even an introduction or two to royalty.”

Stefan laughed gloomily. “Sounds perfect. Where do I sign?”

“No signature required, just a handshake.” Christian held out his gloved hand.

Stefan stared at it. After a moment, Christian removed the glove. “Sorry. There. What do you say, cousin? Want to be journeyman to the Royal Clockmaker of Boldavia?”

A surge of relief crashed through him. A royal appointment
!
Or, at least, as close to it as a journeyman could get. It wasn't Paris or London, but it was a start. He couldn't believe his luck.

Then doubt set in, like a worm gnawing through a frosted cake. Cousin or not, Christian was a criminal he knew very little about.

Stefan studied the clockmaker's face before asking, “What do you suppose my mother would say?”

“She'd tell you, ‘Wolfie, say yes.'”

And, somehow—with the exception of “Wolfie”—Stefan knew that it was true.

He grasped the offered hand in his own. “When do I start?”

“Today, of course,” his cousin said, and moved to climb back inside. Stefan gripped his hand harder.

“Wait
!
I mean, thank you. But . . . are you sure?”

“Of course I'm sure. Travel with us and I'll teach you. Not much in the way of room and board on the road, but you'll receive the same accommodations as myself and Samir. And your own chambers in Boldavia, once a few matters are settled there. Might I have my hand back now?”

“But, how can a clockmaker teach a toymaker?”

“Presumably we're both speaking German?” Christian gently reclaimed his hand and reapplied his glove. “Besides which, I
am
the Boldavian guild. I say what is and isn't to be done. Remember that, Stefan.”

There was a hard glow in Christian's eye that made Stefan's mouth go dry. He recalled Samir's words.

“But . . . you're a criminal,” Stefan said hoarsely. “An outlaw.”

“Does that frighten you?”

Stefan suddenly wanted to look away, to not be tied to this strange man. But his longing outweighed his caution. “No,” he said. “It doesn't.”

“Ah. Then you
do
have much to learn. Give it time, Stefan. Truth be told, I sometimes scare myself
!
Any other reservations?”

Stefan's stomach slumped. “My father. He needs me here.”

“What every father needs is a son with a future.” Christian pursed his lips in thought. Stefan could only guess at the calculations going on inside that head. Then the pale forehead cleared. “I shall have to convince him that I need you more. Now, let's get in from the cold and have some of that food those ghoulish ladies brought.”

He flipped open the trapdoor and scuttled inside, pausing to take a final look at the view.

“Nuremberg,” Christian said, with a smile.

This new cousin was undeniably strange, but interesting all the same.

He caught Stefan's eye one last time. “I see Elise in you, young man. This is going to be fun.”

ERNST DID NOT
turn around. He sniffed the air, catching the distinct scents of river water and powdered lavender. This was a mouse that had traveled in diverse circles.

“Please, have a seat,” he told the shadow at his elbow. The slightest movement, and the shadow sat across from him, resolving into a scarred mouse of middle years with an old cloak that did nothing to conceal the fact that he was a piebald.

Ernst resisted the urge to recoil. Piebalds were the lowest of the low in the rat world. Usually slow to move and slower to think. The Piper's Children, they were called. But a rat of business could not afford to choose his customers. Even if they were piebalds.

“Well met, good sir. And how may I assist you this evening?” He twisted his wrist in a circle, prepared to write yet another love note, another map to a hidden wheel of cheese.

The piebald twitched a whisker and gave Ernst an acknowledging nod. “Well done,” he said in a gruff voice that had seen more than a few winters. “Not many know the full verse of Hameln town.”

Ernst nodded. “Not many mice, perhaps, but every rat knows the tale through and through.” Once upon a time, rats had ruled Rodentia. Smarter, stronger, and superior to common mice in every way, it was rats who brought the great plagues that laid humans low. Man slipped a few rungs down the ladder of dominance when the rats were on the rise.

But Hameln . . . Hameln had shown all of Rodentia, down to the smallest shrew, that rats were mere vermin after all. Such a fall leaves a bitter taste, even generations later. Ernst smacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, and reached for his cup.

From within his coat, the piebald withdrew two wheat stalks that looked as sweet as the day they were cut.

Ernst's mouth watered. Too much time in cities had deprived him of such luxuries.

The piebald offered him a golden stalk.

“I hate to chew alone,” he said, placing a crisp shoot comfortably between his back teeth. Chewing slowly, he surveyed the room.

Ernst accepted with sincere thanks. He slid the stalk between his teeth and nibbled ever so slightly. A sweet rush of nutty sap tickled his tongue and he sighed. “Like country sunshine,” he said.

“Indeed.”

The two chewed in silence for a moment, warming themselves by the heat of the chimney. And then the piebald spoke.

“You are a rodent of languages?” he asked.

Ernst shrugged. “Most. Not Chinese, nor Russian,” he admitted regretfully. “Some things are best left to the squirrels.”

The piebald laughed. “And the rapier?” He glanced at where the slender blade was concealed beneath Ernst's coat. This mouse was a soldier, then. Only a trained weapons master would have noticed the gleam of silver in the dim light.

“Recently used to persuade a cat to turn the other cheek,” Ernst boasted.

The piebald pulled the wheat stalk from his jaws and grinned. “Very good. We've had our eye on you, Herr Listz.”

“We?” Ernst asked, scanning the room for compatriots.

The piebald merely smiled. “Suffice it to say you've been noticed—here in Vienna, and in Hamburg, Munich, Düsseldorf. A rat from a good, if impoverished, brood. Classical education, etiquette, swordsmanship. You've made an impression.”

Normally, Ernst would have preened at such a compliment. Instead, his fur crawled. Being watched
!
By piebalds, no less
!

If the mouse in front of him realized how disturbed he was, he gave no sign. Instead, the piebald said, “I have a proposition for you.”

The rat watched the piebald reach into his coat, fascinated by the way the firelight made the black and white markings on the mouse's face dance like sunlight and shade.

“You've heard of Boldavia? And the ambitions of our queen?”

Who hasn't?
Ernst thought with a nod. It had been the talk of the tavern. But what did a suicidal bunch of mice matter to him?

“Do you know where it is?” the piebald asked, dropping a small sack on the table.

Distracted by the promise of payment, Ernst had to think a moment. He sifted through the gossip he'd heard. “On the Black Sea. A mighty mousedom, as I understand it.” A provincial backwater was more like it. Remote and stupid, he presumed, if the lesson of the Piper had taught them nothing.

“We're soon to have need of a royal tutor,” the piebald explained. “My mice have heard about you.”

“Good things?” Ernst wondered aloud. Despite his misgivings,
a spark fluttered in his chest, like a match sputtering but not yet catching light.

“The right things,” the piebald said.

“Thank you.” Ernst inclined his head.

“Are you interested?”

The match inside him caught fire. A roaring inferno of relief. Ernst tried to play it calm, but he was already reaching for the sack. A royal commission, life in a palace once again. Music. Refinement. Food, clean clothes, and a warm bed . . .

Or coddling a brood of royal brats in whatever drafty pile of rocks country mice called a castle. A hopeless uprising against the humans, defeat, embarrassment, and possibly death.

But he could always leave before it came to that. Let the mice have their revolution. He'd take the commission and run.

“I accept.”

“Well, not so fast. The seed in that sack will get you to Boldavia. What's between your ears will get you past the Queen. Be prepared. She's a sharp one and wants only the best for her mouselings.”

Ernst bowed, even though he was still seated at the table. “I shall endeavor to do my best, sir. I shall give her my all.”

The piebald smiled.

“Pretty manners. You'll do very well at court. Just make sure the Queen likes you first. In my experience, compliments never hurt.” At long last, he offered a mottled paw. “They call me Snitter.”

Ernst accepted, noting the calluses on his benefactor's paw. “A pleasure to meet you,” he said. His eyes were on the piebald, but he was talking to the sack of seed.