The Emperor of All Things - By Paul Witcover Page 0,126

portion of the contents spilling over her skirt … at which, to my astonishment, she burst into tears, twisting away from me in the chair.

‘Here now,’ I said, sitting up with alacrity, ‘what’s wrong? Are you burned?’

She shook her head.

‘Then why are you crying?’

She faced me, her cheeks rosy in the candlelight. She was like a figure in a painting, present yet remote, beautiful and sad, and I ached to know the cause of her distress, and to assuage it if I could. She wiped her face with the back of one sleeve, first one cheek and then the other, reminding me of a cat grooming itself, and gave me an embarrassed smile. ‘Because you will hate me,’ she said.

‘Hate you?’ I was flabbergasted. ‘I don’t even know you.’

Her gaze faltered at that, dropping to her lap, then rose again, resolute now. ‘I took your things,’ she said.

‘You mean my clothes …?’ But then, as her blush deepened, comprehension dawned. ‘My tool kit! You’re Herr Doppler’s daughter.’

She nodded, fresh tears welling in her eyes. ‘You do hate me!’

I assured her I did not. ‘I’m just glad to have my tools back,’ I said. ‘You did bring them back, didn’t you?’

She nodded again, sniffling. ‘They’re in your rucksack, where I found them.’

I heaved a sigh of relief, sinking back against the mound of pillows. ‘Thank God. And thank you, Fraülein.’

‘Then … you’re not angry?’

‘Your father told me that you took my tool kit to keep me from destroying the tower clock or any of Herr Wachter’s other timepieces. Now that I’ve seen them for myself, or a number of them, anyway, I can appreciate your concern – not that I approve of what you did. Nor was there ever any danger of my doing what you feared.’

‘My father doesn’t understand anything,’ she confided with more than a hint of bitterness, her eyes shifting towards the closed door as if she expected him to come barging in at any moment.

‘Then I’m afraid I don’t, either,’ I said.

‘Clockmen never stay in Märchen for long,’ she said. ‘They arrive one day and leave the next. I thought that if I stole your tools, you’d be forced to stay.’

‘I would have been forced to stay in any case, thanks to the blizzard.’

‘But I didn’t know that. When I came to your room, the snow had only just begun to fall. I saw you lying there in bed, sound asleep, and I thought you looked so young, not much older than me, and kind, so that you wouldn’t mind if I sneaked a peek at your tools. Once I had the kit in my hands, I couldn’t stop myself from taking it. I know it was wrong, Herr Gray, but I was afraid you’d leave the next morning if I didn’t do something.’

‘But why should it matter to you whether I go or stay?’

‘Because’ – and her gaze went to the door again, or perhaps to my rucksack, which was no longer on the floor but hanging from a wooden peg on the back of the door – ‘because I want to be like you. A clockman.’

So unexpected was this answer that I burst out laughing. ‘A clockman? You?’

The look she gave me was not tearful but angry; my laughter shrivelled in the fierceness of her gaze. ‘Why not?’ she demanded. ‘Do you think me too dull to understand your arts?’

‘No,’ I answered, drawing out the word as I considered how best to proceed. I recalled how Herr Doppler had spoken of his daughter’s mercurial nature, and the way she was clutching the bowl in her lap made me suspect that my next words would determine whether or not I received a faceful of hot broth. ‘It’s just that neither my guild nor any other of which I am aware accepts apprentices of your sex.’

‘Yes, that’s just what Papa says. But I don’t need to join a guild. You could teach me, Herr Gray!’

I would have liked to dismiss it all as a joke, but there was no mistaking the girl’s seriousness and determination. ‘Look, Fraülein,’ I began.

She interrupted. ‘Please, Herr Gray. Call me Corinna.’

‘And you must call me Michael,’ I said, ‘for I hope that we can be friends.’

Her face lit up in a smile, and I felt a stirring in my heart.

‘Then you’ll do it?’ she demanded. ‘You’ll instruct me?’

‘Why are you so interested in clocks?’ I asked in turn.

She laughed. ‘Living in Märchen, how could I not be?’ She seemed to take belated