In spite of their meaning, the words fell on Giuseppe like a warm rain. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back and just soaked them into that part of him that could still remember what it was like to be home. His whole body responded to the rhythm of the words; the sounds seemed to settle in his bones, giving strength and a voice to his memories, as if he had to hear the language of his past to remember it.
“Me dispiace, Pietro.” Giuseppe sighed. “Lascia che ti racconti della mia casa.”
The words came haltingly at first. Giuseppe told Pietro of his father, a mountain shepherd. He described the sharp, earthy smell of matted wool shorn right from the sheep, and the smooth crumble of a fresh sheep’s milk cheese in his mouth. He told of his mother and the blue handkerchief she always wore over her hair, the soft strength in her hands. He told of summer nights, when the open door let in a breeze, and his father played the fiddle while the family sang along.
After that, they both wept, and Giuseppe put his arm over Pietro’s shoulder.
Pietro sniffed and asked what was going to happen to them.
“Non so,” Giuseppe said. He did not know.
Pietro asked if Stephano was going to hurt them.
“Sì,” Giuseppe said. Yes.
Pietro asked if Stephano was going to kill them.
“Non so,” Giuseppe said.
CHAPTER 23
The Solving of Problems
FREDERICK AND HANNAH RUSHED UP AND DOWN BASKET STREET, calling for help. Curious pedestrians stared at them until Frederick made eye contact, and then looked away as if they had not heard him. Frederick and Hannah tried approaching a few men, but received tight-lipped dismissals in return. Some acknowledged Frederick and listened for a moment, but ended up shaking their heads and walking away.
In their search for help the two finally ventured down onto the Quay. Frederick had not been down there since the day he had sneaked into the coal yard weeks ago, and it had been much busier then.
Now, with the last glow of the sun an orange smudge over the river and the trees at the Quay’s far end, the commotion of commerce appeared to be slowing, and more men and women were leaving than were entering. Only a scattering of barges and boats floated on the river and the livestock pens were empty.
To the east, close to where the river turned foul and met the bay, a new building struggled up from its foundations, half-constructed amid the tanneries and butchers. Scaffolds and supports bolstered incomplete walls, mortar still wet between the red bricks. Masons cleaned tools and hollered at one another, while a heavy crane lifted a load of bricks up to the top.
A policeman stood watching, hands behind his back. Hannah and Frederick hurried over to him.
“Excuse me, sir,” Frederick said, out of breath. “We need your help.”
“Yes?” The policeman looked them over. “What is it?”
“Our friend was kidnapped!” Hannah blurted out.
“Kidnapped?”
“Yes, sir,” Frederick said. “Just now.”
“Tell me what happened.”
Hannah began. “We were walking down the road, and these two older boys snatched our friend and beat him and tied him up.”
“What manner of boys were these?”
“Buskers,” Frederick said. “They’re going to hurt him.”
“Street musicians?” The policeman put his hands in his pockets.
“Yes, sir,” Hannah said.
“And your friend, is he a busker, also?”
“He was,” Frederick said. “I think they’ve taken him to Crosby Street.”
At the mention of the name, the policeman frowned and swallowed. “Crosby Street?”
“Yes, sir,” Frederick said.
The policeman adjusted his cap. “This sounds like a matter between an employer and his employees.”
“What?” Frederick was aghast. “His employer?”
“Yes,” the policeman said. “Your friend’s padrone is his employer and guardian. It’s a legal arrangement, and I can’t interfere.”
Hannah stamped her foot. “But they’re going to hurt him! Don’t you care?”
The policeman leaned toward them and raised his voice. “Watch your tone there, lass. Do you have good evidence that his life is in danger?”
“Yes,” Hannah said.
“Tangible evidence?”
Frederick and Hannah looked at each other. “No,” Frederick said. “But we know it’s true.”
“Well, I can’t lead a cavalry charge into Crosby Street on a whim. Not without good, sound evidence. Your friend and his padrone will have to work things out between them. Good evening to you.” With that he tipped his cap, executed a marching turn, and walked away.
Hannah watched him with her mouth hanging open. Frederick’s shoulders sagged in defeat. Who could they turn to if the police would not even get involved? There was nothing an old man like Master Branch could do. Frederick thought about Madame Pomeroy and that Russian, but would they help? Stephano probably had Giuseppe by now, and Frederick shuddered to think what could be happening to him.
“We have to do something,” Frederick said, but he did not know what.
“Frederick?”
“Yes?”
“Look!” She pointed.
Frederick followed her gaze and saw a man standing down by the river where a large pipe ran from the water up to the new brick building. He had on a cloak, with the hood pulled up. It was hard to tell in the mud, but it looked like he was wearing metal boots.
“Could it be?” Hannah asked.
The man’s chest and shoulders bulged oddly, and Frederick’s heart began to thump. “I think it is.” He knew how strong the clockwork man was, and he knew how badly it would go if the automaton attacked him, or worse, Hannah. But he also did not want to risk it escaping again.
He took a step toward the riverbank, and Hannah grabbed his arm.
“Wait. What are you going to do?”
Frederick stopped. “I’m going to try and sneak around and turn it off.”
Hannah looked skeptical. “How?”
“If I can get close enough, I can hit the button at the back of its head.”
“Be careful, Frederick,” Hannah said, but did not let go of his arm.
“I will.” He stepped away from her, hunched over, and loped down to the river. The oily water foamed against the rocks and mud along the bank. The sour smells of acid and decay bit into his nose, and his feet slipped on unrecognizable, gelatinous lumps. The clockwork man had its back to him as he crept along the water’s edge.
The heavy crane hoisted another load of bricks and lumber up into the air, and the clockwork man seemed to be watching it.
Frederick slowed his steps when he was a few yards away from the automaton. He reached out his hand and inched up behind the clockwork man, breathing as shallowly and quietly as he could. He took another step, and his foot sank in the mud, up to his ankle, with a loud gurgling sound.
The clockwork man spun around. Frederick saw the bronze arm flash and then his eyes filled with bursts of white and black. Then sky and the arm of the crane. He was on his back, the clockwork man leaning over him.
“No!” he heard Hannah screaming.
The clockwork man reached for him, and Frederick held his arms up feebly like a shield. But the metal hands grasped him gently and merely lifted him back to his feet. One of his socks felt cold and wet, and Frederick looked down. He had lost his shoe, the one stuck in the mud.
“Frederick!” Hannah ran up to his side.
“I’m fine,” he said, and rubbed his chest.
The clockwork man stood there, watching them both.
Frederick hopped over, one-legged, to his lost shoe and tried to pull it out. The mud sucked on it and refused to let it go. Frederick almost lost his balance, but the clockwork man came over and lifted the shoe out, easy as plucking a dandelion. It presented the shoe, and Hannah helped Frederick keep his footing while he put it back on.
&nbs
p; “You were sneaking,” the clockwork man said in its bell voice.
Frederick and Hannah stared at it.
“You speak English?” Frederick said.
“I have learned it.”
“How? When?”
“I listened. It is not an efficient language. It is more concerned with individual expression than with clarity and understanding.”
Frederick was still a little stunned from the blow that had knocked him on his back, and ran his fingers through his hair. “Why did you run away?”
The automaton was quiet. “I do not understand your question.”
Hannah tapped Frederick’s arm. “You asked it why.”
Frederick rephrased. “Did you have a reason for running away?”
“No,” the clockwork man said. Then it turned back around and looked up at the crane. “Much time has passed since my last memory.”
Frederick did not know how to respond to that. “You seem very interested in that building.”
“I have never seen one like it before,” the automaton said.
Frederick looked again. From this riverside view he was able to see into the building where that large pipe led from the River Delilah to a series of gigantic boilers. It appeared that water would be pumped from the river and then heated in the building. Aside from the pipe and boilers, the building did not seem remarkable to him. “What makes it unique?”
“The purpose for which it is built.”
“What’s its purpose?”
“It will supply Edison electricity.”
“What’s electricity?” Hannah asked.
“Uncertain. Possibly fuel. It shares properties with oil or coal, but it is invisible and flows along wires.”
“You mean pipes?” Frederick asked.
“No. Wires.” The clockwork man lifted its hand up before its eyes and inspected it, flexing its fingers. “There is something different.”
“Your body is all new,” Frederick said. “I built it.”
“No. There is something else.”
Hannah spoke up. “Will you come back with us? To the shop?”
The spinning eyes rested on her, then on Frederick. “There were three of you.”
Hannah looked down, and Frederick cleared his throat. “Our friend was kidnapped.”
“Is he in danger?”
“Yes.”
The clockwork man began to shake. All the metal plates that made up its body rattled together.
“Are you all right?” Frederick asked.
“There is something different,” it said. “Do you wish to aid your friend?”
Frederick nodded. “Yes, we do.”
The intensity of trembling built so that Frederick worried about the mechanisms breaking. But the shaking climaxed when the clockwork man stomped one of its feet deep into the mud. It stared at it as if confused how it got there, and then it looked up. “I will assist you.”
“You’ll help us rescue our friend?” Hannah asked.
“Yes,” the clockwork man said.
Frederick thought about the blow that had landed him on his back, the strength he had built into the heavy arms and legs. “We’ll have to wait back at the shop until dark.”
Frederick bunkered in the cellar with the clockwork man, in silence. Night had fallen thick and deep around the shop. Hannah had gone home to check on her father and let her mother know she was all right. The automaton idled, standing upright, eyes appearing fixed on nothing in particular.
“What are you thinking about?” Frederick asked, awed by the machine he could ask such a question of, and also afraid of the answer.
“I am cataloging.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I observe something, I will either a) use it to affirm my existing knowledge, or b) attempt to incorporate any new information within my existing categories of recollection.”
Frederick had to take a moment to think about what that meant. “So, you’re trying to see how things fit with what you already know?”
“Yes.”
“What happens if it doesn’t fit?”
“I create a new category. I have created many new categories today. It has been difficult.”
“Why — I mean, what causes you difficulty?”
“I have space for only a finite number of categories. Today, I have had to discard many obsolete categories in favor of more relevant ones.”
Frederick could not imagine having to choose between the things he knew, and suddenly felt sorry for the clockwork man. Or more specifically, for the Magnus head. How much time had passed since it had last been in working order? How much had changed since then? Frederick likened it to falling asleep for years and years, only to awaken and find the world a different place, everything he had known dead and gone, replaced by things he could not understand.
“I’m sorry,” Frederick said.
“You are in error. You are not the cause of the difficulty.”
Frederick understood that he was not directly responsible. Albertus Magnus was the creator, and the limitations of the creator had become the limitations of his creation. But how could Magnus have prepared the clockwork head for a future he could never have anticipated? Perhaps the clockwork head was never intended to exist for so long.
“I am going upstairs,” Frederick said.
The automaton did not respond, and Frederick left it to its clockwork business. He went upstairs to the shop, and then up to Master Branch’s apartment. The old man sat staring at a mumbling fire, a book closed in his lap, a cup of coffee untouched by his side. Frederick sat down in the chair opposite him.
“I never heard you come in,” Master Branch said.
“I thought you might be sleeping.”
“I’d rather you woke me to let me know you were home safe. Where have you been all day?”
“Out with Giuseppe and Hannah.”
“What were you doing?”
Frederick chewed on his lower lip. “Have you heard anything new from Mister Diamond?”
“No. Should I have?”
“No.”
“I suppose he might simply be watching us.” Master Branch took a sip of his coffee and frowned. “Cold.”
“Would you like me to heat it?”
“What I would like is for you to be honest with me.” Frederick heard pain in the old man’s voice, and it shamed him. “What were you doing today?”
Frederick remained silent.
“Lad, I feel certain the time is swiftly approaching when you will have no choice but to confide in me whether you are ready or not. One way or another you will learn you can trust me.” Master Branch rose and left his coffee on the side table beside his chair. He crossed to his bedroom and closed the door without saying good night.
Frederick returned to the cellar and found the clockwork man in the same attitude as he had left it. He sat down on the cellar stairs, elbows on his knees, clutching his head. It was all too much for him, an unbearable weight. Giuseppe kidnapped, the stolen bronze head, Hannah’s treasure. And now he had hurt Master Branch, and had probably done so all along. And beneath all of that, thoughts of his mother surged like a cold, underground river.
“My cataloging is finished,” the clockwork man said. “Can I assist you?”
“No.” The pressure seemed to squeeze the air from Frederick’s lungs. “I can’t …” Frederick tugged on his hair. “I can’t bear it.”
“Let us analyze your problem.”
“There’re too many.”
“Let us order your problems. Which is most concerning to you?”
“Giuseppe,” Frederick said.
“Then let us assist Giuseppe. After that, we will address your next problem.”
The clockwork man approached him, and Frederick looked up at the bronze face. It appeared blank, placid, and strong.
Frederick heard a rap on the shop door upstairs.
“Hannah,” he said, and jumped up.
The clockwork man moved to follow h
im.
“Wait here,” Frederick said, and rushed up to the shop. Hannah was pecking on the windowpane as Frederick unbolted the front door and opened it. She stepped through, ashen and wringing her hands.
“The police were there,” she said.
“Where?”
“At my apartment! Miss Wool lied to me.”
“Lied about what?”
Hannah proceeded to tell him all that had happened in Mister Stroop’s suite, of the will and Hannah’s deception, and Miss Wool’s threat.
“You think she realized you made up the will?”
“She must have. Oh, Frederick, what am I going to do? They’ll arrest me!”
“No, they won’t,” Frederick said. “We won’t let that happen.”
“How?”
“As soon as we’ve helped Giuseppe, the three of us will go up to Mister Twine’s mansion, just as we planned. He can stop Miss Wool. We’ll explain everything to him, and it will all work out. You’ll see.”
Hannah took a deep breath. “I hope you’re right.”
With Hannah there to sharpen his purpose, Frederick found he was able to ease out from under the weight bearing down on him to plan their next step. They went down to the cellar where the clockwork man waited, patient as a mantelpiece.
Frederick leaned forward, his hands on the worktable. “Crosby Street is the roughest neighborhood in the city. And from Giuseppe’s description, Stephano’s lair is at the back end. But I don’t think it’s safe for us to go into Crosby Street through the main entrance. We’ll have to use an alley off the Cottonway.”
They cloaked the clockwork man and ventured out into the street. For the length of their journey across the city, the automaton remained silent, almost grim. Frederick wondered along the way about clockwork emotion, and whether there could be such a thing. Could mankind’s most ephemeral, most varied expressions be tamed within the predictable turning of gears? The regularity and constancy of clockwork seemed fundamentally at odds with human feeling. But in spite of that, there were fleeting moments when the clockwork man appeared to be expressing something like an emotion. Perhaps imitation had been built into the design.
They made good time to the Cottonway. Crosby Street butted up against it at a perpendicular, with buildings separating the two roads. They found an alley, a narrow break in the brick expanse. The sound of metal scraping followed them down its length as the clockwork man found it more difficult than Hannah and Frederick to squeeze through. They paused when they reached the end.
The Clockwork Three Page 27
