The Toymaker's Apprentice Page 3

  “I’ve brought knockwursts fresh from the butcher,” Miss Prue said proudly, “and a bottle of my elderflower cordial. It will settle your father’s stomach. Grief causes such indigestion!” She forced her pinched face into an expression of sympathy. “You poor, dear boy,” she cooed. Coming from her, the sound was as jarring as hearing a stork meow.

  Stefan made no move to open the door.

  Finally, Mrs. Waldbaum brushed him aside. “I’ll just let your father know I’m here . . . that we are here, all of us, in his time of need.” She bustled through the door, the rest of the Wild Hunt following in a rustle of skirts and coats.

  Stefan waited outside a moment longer. It was cold today. His arms were goose-pimpled and his nose had gotten chilly. Dragging his feet, he followed the ladies inside just in time to hear Mrs. Waldbaum screech, “Oh! A Moor! In your very house! How unexpected!”

  Stefan bit his lip to keep from smiling. Laughing, even at the startled Mrs. Waldbaum, felt disrespectful to his mourning. The thought of more people patting his head and cooing over him was even worse. He escaped up the ladder to his sleeping loft. Pulling on a too-small coat from last year that hadn’t made it into his duffel bag, he clambered through the trapdoor in the roof and left the murmur of the adults behind.

  The rooftop of his father’s shop was pitched to keep snow from piling up dangerously in winter, but if you sat with your knees to your chest, you could perch comfortably for hours. It had been his mother’s favorite spot, and now it was his.

  Before him, slate and shingled roofs stretched to the horizon like a sea of frozen waves dotted with church steeples. The drizzle had stopped and the sun shone pearl-like above the town’s distant clock tower. Stefan’s jaw unclenched and sorrow flooded in.

  His mother was dead and buried. And he had failed to leave before his father came home. Stefan had watched him age years in the past few days since her death. To have to look him in the eye and tell him the last of his family was leaving—Stefan could never do that.

  And so, the future stretched out before him as monotonous as the rooftop sea. He had outgrown the rooms downstairs. Next, he would outgrow the city, and then, like a dog chained too long to a house, he would grow until the shackles cut into his ankle and crippled him for life. Painful, yes, but the hurt he would cause his father by leaving would be far worse. Stefan sighed. He would stay in Nuremberg and help his father. He would fend off the Wild Hunt for at least a year, until his father could decide for himself if he wanted to marry again.

  The thought made him queasy. But he would feel differently in a year, he hoped. In fact, if his father remarried one of those nosy women with children of her own, then maybe Stefan would be free to leave.

  “One year,” Stefan said out loud.

  There was a rustle as the trapdoor opened. A shock of white-blond hair emerged. His criminal cousin climbed out onto the roof like a spider emerging from a crack in the wall. The likeness made Stefan’s skin crawl. No one had ever invaded his sanctuary before.

  “Ah. I knew you’d be up here,” Christian said, arranging himself into a sitting position next to Stefan. “This was Elise’s favorite escape, and that flock of biddies deserved a good escaping from.” He smiled easily, folding his long legs to his chest and leaning back on his palms. “I’ve missed this city,” he said.

  “Why are you here?” Stefan asked. His father had been delighted to see this stranger, leaving Stefan even more alone in his misery.

  “It’s a long story and I’d rather not tell it twice. I think the ladies will be leaving soon and they’ve left a nice spread for supper. Come down and I’ll tell you both over a glass of elderflower cordial.”

  “No,” Stefan said. “Not why are you here in Nuremberg. Why are you here now?”

  His skin prickled at his own rudeness, but he didn’t care. Mysterious criminals with eye patches and royal jailers didn’t get to just show up and have polite conversations on other people’s rooftops. Stefan stiffened his jaw. “You turn up and act as though you’re part of the family. My father seems to adore you. But I’ve never even heard of you, apart from a few stories about ‘our cousin at the royal court’ of wherever. If you knew my mother well enough to sit on this roof with her, then where were you when she got sick?”

  Christian’s easy manner grew solemn. “I loved your mother, Stefan. Had I known she was unwell, I assure you I would have come.”

  “But why have you stayed away all these years?”

  Christian’s mouth twisted in consternation. “Have you ever wanted to impress someone? I mean, really show them that you’ve done well?”

  “Yes,” Stefan said. Every apprentice strove to impress his master. That his master also happened to be his father made it both better and worse. There were days he thought his father was too hard on him, and days he was too easy. Stefan often wondered if his work was as good as his father sometimes said, or as bad. The only way to be sure was to always do better.

  “Then you’ll understand,” Christian said. “I wanted to impress your parents. Zacharias is one of the best toymakers in the city, and your mother was the best woman I’ve ever known. I was a bit big for my britches when I left. It’s hard to come home in chains. Especially to the people you admire the most.”

  “But you’re here now,” Stefan said.

  “Precisely. As the clockmaker said to the clock, better late than never.”

  “And you’re not in chains, exactly,” Stefan noted. “If you’re a criminal, why aren’t you in prison?”

  Christian smiled wistfully. “Like I said, it’s a long story.”

  Everything was a long story when it came to adults. They muttered and murmured to each other all the time, but rarely shared any of the conversation. It was a wonder Stefan ever heard anything of use.

  “Where is Boldavia? Or is that a long story, too?” he asked.

  “As a matter of fact, it is,” Christian replied.

  Stefan rolled his eyes.

  “You know, you won’t remember this, but I used to visit Nuremberg every year at Christmas,” Christian said. “The last time, you must have been five or six. Elise was very proud of you. You had just learned how to count to a hundred. And you wouldn’t stop doing it. She said you might make a good clocksmith someday. You know . . . because of the numbers.”

  Stefan shrugged. “I don’t remember that.” Which wasn’t exactly true. He remembered the counting, and his mother calling him “regular as a clock.” The image of her smiling down at him rose from a place buried deep inside him. His stomach ached, missing her. But he didn’t remember Christian being there.

  “You’re right, of course. I’m a stranger to you and I haven’t been around,” Christian said, echoing his thoughts. “We shall have to get to know each other. If you are willing.”

  They sat in awkward silence, watching the sun make a fiery path across the tiled sea.

  “I lost my own mother when I was less than half your age,” Christian said quietly.

  Stefan’s stomach curdled. He would not wish such a thing on anyone, especially someone so young.

  “But I was lucky, as far as orphans go. I have a foster family, here in Nuremberg. Good people. Better than I deserve.”

  Stefan faced his cousin in surprise. “But what about your father?” For their differences, Zacharias would never send Stefan to be raised by strangers. The thought brought another twinge of guilt for wanting to leave.

  Christian shrugged eloquently. “I don’t remember my father. It was always just my mother, me, and a name. Drosselmeyer.” He smiled sadly. “I’ve had to make of it what I could. With mixed results.”

  Stefan swallowed the lump in his throat. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. You have enough loss of your own to deal with. And mine’s an old sorrow.” He clapped a hand on Stefan’s leg. “It makes us who we are.”

  Ste
fan nodded, though he didn’t quite understand. If sadness shaped people, how was there ever joy in the world? It was the sort of conversation he would have had with his mother, sitting on this very rooftop with the promise of hot chocolate waiting in the kitchen below. A new wave of grief, cold and sharp as ice, splashed through him. He reached for a distraction to keep him afloat.

  “Tell me something about my mother,” he said.

  Christian shifted on his perch. “I’ll tell you three things. One, she loved Mozart—”

  “I know that. I do, too.” Stefan recalled the afternoon concerts his mother would take him to at the university. They would sneak pieces of candy from her pocket while the music students played. To Stefan, Mozart was the sound of happiness.

  Christian held up a gloved finger. “Ah, but she loved Mozart so much that she wanted to name you Wolfgang in his honor.”

  “Wolfgang!” Stefan blurted. The only Wolfgang he knew was a snooty boy who couldn’t play a triangle, let alone a piano, but still insisted on calling himself “Maestro.”

  “Fortunately, your father changed her mind. Still, as long as she carried you, she referred to you as ‘Wolfie.’”

  Stefan pursed his lips. “What if I’d been a girl?”

  “Brunhilde, of course,” Christian said. “A solid German name.”

  Stefan held back a snort. He refused to laugh but, strangely, he felt a bit lighter. As if the story held some of his mother’s glow. “All right. That was one.”

  “Two. Your mother loved pickles and won a pickle-eating contest at Oktoberfest one year. That was the day your father decided he wanted to marry her.”

  “That’s not true. I know this story,” Stefan protested. “He fell in love when he saw her making pickles for the fair.”

  “Ah, so they’ve whitewashed it,” Christian said. “Maybe Elise didn’t want you to know her full pickle-eating capacity. I believe it was twenty-seven in all. And they were very large.”

  Now Stefan was struggling in earnest not to laugh. “She never touched a pickle in all my life. Said they made her ill!”

  “And they did, after that day. Somewhere between the end of the contest and a very upset stomach, your mother managed to charm my cousin completely. She was quite a woman, Elise.”

  “Yes,” Stefan agreed. This time, he didn’t try to hide his smile. Remembering his mother felt a thousand times better than mourning her.

  Again they sat together in silence. But this time, it was more companionable.

  “You said you’d tell me three things,” Stefan said eventually.

  “Ah yes, the third is this. Every morning at precisely four a.m., your mother would wake up and look in on you sleeping.”

  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 kn
ew 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.”