The Emperor of All Things - By Paul Witcover Page 0,141
Gray. He, I feel sure, will know his duty.’
‘No,’ she said, seeming to dry her eyes, though she would not meet Adolpheus’s demanding gaze – or my own uncomprehending one. ‘I will tell you. I promised him … a kiss.’
Now, indeed, a cry escaped my lips, but of surprise rather than pain. Yet I don’t believe Adolpheus heard it, for he had thrown back his head and was roaring with laughter. ‘A kiss!’ he managed to gasp out. ‘Bless you, a kiss!’
This response provoked Corinna to anger. ‘Yes, why not a kiss? What is so funny about that, I should like to know! Am I so hideous, that no one would want to kiss me?’
But Adolpheus did not reply. Still laughing, he turned and continued towards the inn.
He paid her no heed. As for me, I was at a loss to explain why she had concocted such a story to account for my presence upon the proscenium. Adolpheus might find it amusing, but I felt sure her father would have a different reaction. That she had some scheme in mind was obvious – but what? I grasped that she had not wanted me to reveal what we had seen, yet I could not guess her reasons. Indeed, I could scarcely credit my own eyes. That the automatons should resemble the townsfolk of Märchen seemed possible – though it meant Herr Doppler had been less than truthful when he’d told me that no one had touched the inner workings of the clock since Wachter’s day. But that someone could have prepared an automaton to resemble me in the relatively short time I’d been there – why, that was beyond credulity. I supposed a skilled craftsman working diligently from the moment I’d set foot in town could have made such a thing, but why? For what purpose? Howsoever I racked my brains, no answers came – at least, no sane ones.
My return to the Hearth and Home was a humiliating one. Corinna, looking daggers at Adolpheus, held the door open for him to carry me through. The taproom was crowded and noisy, much as it had been the night of my arrival. And, as had been the case that night, all conversation ceased at my entrance. But unlike that night, the silence was followed by raucous laughter as the spectacle of a dwarf carrying a full-grown man in his arms registered on the patrons.
‘Behold,’ shouted one wit, ‘the watchman bears the clockman!’
‘Got too much time on your hands, Dolph?’ contributed another.
‘Quiet, you dolts,’ Adolpheus roared. ‘Can’t you see the man’s been hurt? Someone fetch the doctor!’
At that moment, Inge entered from the kitchen with a tray of glasses. Seeing us, she gave a little shriek and dropped the tray. The sound of shattering glass provoked greater mirth from the denizens of the taproom, which in turn set Hesta, already roused from her slumber by the hearth, to barking.
With a growl of annoyance, Adolpheus carried me across the room and up the stairs. Inge, recovered from her surprise, bustled after us, bombarding Adolpheus with questions that, for the moment, he ignored. Corinna followed her, and, last of all, came a still-barking Hesta. I had the uncanny sense that this, too, was but a grouping of automatons. Shakespeare wrote that all the world’s a stage, but at that moment it seemed to me a clock.
The door to my room was locked, and though I had the key in my pocket, I could not get to it easily from my current position, and so Adolpheus stood to one side as Inge used her master key. The dwarf’s arms were like bands of iron; despite the distance he had carried me, I could not feel even a tremor in his muscles. It seemed that he could bear my weight for hours more if need be.
‘Ach, Herr Gray,’ Inge said as she pushed the door open, letting a heavy exhalation of heat roll from the room, ‘what have you done to yourself now?’
‘The fool climbed the clock tower,’ Adolpheus answered as he shouldered his way past her.
‘Lord bless us!’ Inge responded, entering the room behind him. ‘Did he fall?’
‘I simply wished to examine the automatons more closely,’ I explained, tired of other people speaking for me, ‘and my boot became caught in the mechanism.’
‘You’re lucky to be alive,’ the landlady stated. ‘That clock has ways of defending itself.’
‘That’s ridicu— holy Christ in heaven!’ A wave of pain overwhelmed me as