Someone had taken a mop to the floor, splashing water about … and covering the thief’s tracks. So much for my hopes of following the trail to his door. Meanwhile, though, I was hungrier than ever. I crept towards the kitchen, not wanting to awaken the dog, who would in turn awaken the rest of the inn with her barking. But it was no use; her ears pricked and her head came up, followed by the rest of her. She yawned, shook herself from nose to tail-tip, then ambled over to me, toenails clicking across the stone floor. But she did not bark or growl. Instead, tail wagging, she looked up at me, seeming almost to grin.
‘Poor old Hesta,’ I whispered and reached to scratch behind her ears. ‘Not much of a watchdog, are you, with just one eye? Are you hungry , girl? Let’s see what we can scrounge up to eat around here.’
The dog followed as I slipped behind the long wooden bar, past the cuckoo clock, and through a swinging door that led, or so I assumed, to the kitchen.
It did. The floor had been mopped here as well, and the smooth but uneven stones held pockets of water that glittered like scattered coins in the candlelight. The tables were clear and clean; metal pots hung from hooks in the walls and in the beams overhead. Dishes, glasses and silverware had been set out to dry beside a sink that was larger than some bathtubs I have seen. A huge black cast-iron stove radiated a moderate heat, while orange coals glowed like watchful eyes in the depths of a fireplace that dwarfed the one in the common room. Suspended there by thick chains was a cauldron from which savoury aromas of stewed meat and vegetables spilled.
‘Looks as though we’re in luck, old girl.’
Hesta wagged her tail, eye bright with anticipation.
Setting the candle on a table, I took a bowl from the dishes laid out to dry. Then I crossed to the fireplace, Hesta at my heels. The cauldron was covered, and the heat rising from the lid discouraged me from removing it with my bare hands. But after a moment’s search I found a rag that provided sufficient insulation for the task. A steamy exhalation of mouth-watering odours accompanied the lifting of the lid. I set it down, leaning it against the stones of the mantel. I took a copper ladle from a hook near by and filled my bowl; then, after replacing ladle and lid, made my way back to the drying dishes and silverware. All the while, Hesta’s eye was fixed upon me, as if she hadn’t eaten in days, and though that was plainly not the case, I was moved to set the bowl down on the floor for her. Magnus’s weakness was cats, but I confess I cannot resist the importuning of a dog, provided it is politely done.
‘Ladies first,’ I told her. As she dug in, I fetched a spoon and another bowl, which I filled and brought to the table where the candle was burning. I pulled up a stool and followed Hesta’s example, albeit in a more civilized fashion.
The stew was delicious. I do not think I have ever tasted better. There were chunks of tender beef, potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, peas and chopped onions, as well as an array of spices that ranged from the recognizable to the mysterious, all blended with sublime skill. Almost as miraculous as the use to which they had been put was the mere fact that fresh and exotic vegetables should be obtainable in Märchen at this time of year. I wolfed down the contents of my bowl nearly as fast as Hesta did hers, then went back for seconds.
After another spoonful, it occurred to me that a bit of ale would not come amiss. I pushed back the stool, picked up the candle, and left the kitchen through the swinging door. When I returned a moment later, it was with a foamy moustache affixed to my upper lip and a mug brimming with ale from the tap behind the bar.
I stopped short at the sight of a stranger sitting at the table and eating from a bowl of stew. My bowl of stew. The man must have entered through a back door, though I had heard no one come in and Hesta had raised no alarm. Snow clung to the contours of his cloak and, melting, dripped to the floor around the stool on which he sat. His boots, too, were shedding puddles. A large tricorn, capped with snow like a miniature model of the glacier that presided over the town, lay on the table beside a pair of yellowish leather gloves. A lantern had been hung from an iron hook on the wall beside the fireplace, and it shone with a buttery yellow light. As for Hesta, she was stretched on her side next to the fireplace, soaking up its heat; the dog lifted her head as I entered, then lowered it again, unconcerned. I confess I did not share her equanimity.
The stranger appeared to be in his mid-sixties or so, but robust. Despite the inclement weather and the lateness of the hour, he wore a silver club wig whose long tail reached his broad shoulders. With his bristling white moustache, mottled red complexion, and fierce dark eyes, now glaring over the top of the wooden spoon raised partway to his lips, he put me in mind of certain old soldiers I had encountered in my travels, men unable or unwilling to relinquish the habits of military life long after their separation from the service.
‘So,’ he said in heavily accented English, ‘you are the thief who has been making himself at home in Inge’s kitchen.’
I replied in German. ‘I am a guest at the inn. Who are you?’
The man smiled, but did not appear any less menacing on account of it. ‘Who am I?’ He, too, spoke in German now. Setting down the spoon, he removed a white handkerchief from within his left sleeve, dabbed the ends of his moustache, then tucked the handkerchief back in place. ‘You say you are a guest; that makes me your host.’
My confusion deepened. ‘You’re Inge’s … husband?’ A shiver ran through me, as if I were conversing with a ghost, a revenant crawled from out of an icy tomb.
He laughed, and Hesta’s tail thumped at the sound. ‘His successor … though not in the matrimonial sense. I am Inge’s business partner, co-owner of the Hearth and Home. And you are Herr Michael Gray, journeyman of the Worshipful Company.’ Seeing my surprise, he added, ‘There are no secrets in our little town, Herr Gray!’
‘You have me at a disadvantage, Herr …’
‘Doppler.’ The man rose, stepped to one side of the stool, and clicked the heels of his boots together while inclining his torso in a crisp, fractional bow, eyes never leaving my face. His movements shook the last clumps of snow from his cloak. ‘Colonel, retired. I’m the burgomeister here.’ He gestured towards a nearby stool. ‘Please, join me.’
This, I perceived, was not a request. Herr Doppler was a man used to being obeyed. Nor was I, as a stranger precariously situated, inclined to challenge his authority. I settled my candle and mug on the table, pulled up the stool, and sat.
Doppler remained standing. He gazed down the length of his nose at me, a sardonic gleam in his eyes, which I saw now were of a strikingly deep blue, almost purple. ‘I apologize for poaching on your supper, Herr Gray. I’m afflicted with insomnia, and when I cannot sleep I like to walk about the town, making sure everything is as it should be – even on a night like this. Inge knows of my nocturnal perambulations and will often leave me a bite to eat, so when I saw the bowl of stew, I assumed it was intended for me.’
I did not believe he was sharing the entire truth. It seemed to me that it would take more than insomnia to send a man out into the middle of a blizzard. Had I interrupted a tryst? Was the setting out of food a prearranged signal between Inge and Doppler, alerting him that the door to his business partner’s bedchamber would be unlocked? ‘You’re welcome to the stew,’ I said. ‘And I was stealing nothing, by the way. I would have told Inge in the morning, so she could add it to my account.’
‘No doubt, no doubt,’ Doppler said dismissively. He flipped up the back of his cloak and resumed his seat. ‘I was speaking in jest when I called you a thief. I knew who you were the instant I laid eyes on you, though I confess I didn’t expect to have the pleasure of meeting you tonight.’ As he spoke, he produced a silver pocket watch from within his coat, glanced at it, and placed it beside him on the table with the lid open. ‘Or this morning, I should say.’
My gaze was drawn to the timepiece; it seemed ordinary enough, the silver case monogrammed with a design I could not make out in the candlelight: Doppler’s initials, perhaps. ‘While we’r
e on the subject of thieves, Herr Doppler, I’m afraid I’ve been the victim of one.’
The spoon halted halfway to Doppler’s mouth. His gaze turned hard – or, rather, harder. ‘Go on,’ he said.
‘My tool kit was stolen as I slept.’
‘Are you sure you did not simply mislay it?’
‘Quite sure,’ I told him and explained the circumstances, though I said nothing of my dream. ‘I hate to accuse anyone, but the locked door, the trail of melted snow …’ I shrugged and took a sip of ale.
‘Yes, yes, it’s all very suggestive,’ Doppler agreed. He pushed the half-finished bowl of stew to one side as if disgusted by the taste of it. ‘Damn her eyes!’
‘Are you referring to Inge?’ I asked.
‘Inge?’ Doppler plucked at one end of his bristling moustache. ‘No, not Inge. My daughter, Corinna. I’ll lay odds on it, the incorrigible minx!’
‘But why should your daughter want to steal my tool kit?’ I asked in perplexity. ‘And for that matter, how could she have done so? My door was locked. Is she an accomplished burglar, Herr Doppler?’
He chuckled and shook his head, his anger as swift to wane as it had been to wax. Now he appeared amused, flush with a father’s indulgent pride. ‘The how is easy enough, Herr Gray. My daughter helps out here at the inn. She has access to all the keys. As to the why, well, I’m afraid she was present when Adolpheus came to tell me of your arrival. Corinna is quite attached to our wayward clock. All of us are, but my daughter especially so. She sees it as a kindred spirit. Certainly, she can be equally mercurial in her moods and actions, as this latest misadventure demonstrates only too well.’
‘But I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘Does she think I mean to harm the clock?’
‘Do you not?’ Doppler demanded. ‘Can you deny that the journeymen of your Worshipful Company are charged with the collection and, if need be, suppression of horological curiosities?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
Doppler’s wolfish smile returned. ‘Please, Herr Gray. Do me the courtesy of an honest reply. I have been to England. I know the ways of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers.’
‘I won’t deny that we must sometimes take action to protect the patents of our guild,’ I admitted, choosing my words with care. ‘We have every lawful right to do so. Our authority in these matters, as you must know, derives from the king himself. However, we are not in England, sir. I am a visitor to your country, bound by your laws and the obligations of a guest.’
‘Yes, but you remain an Englishman for all that. You do not change loyalties, I think, as easily as you do languages. And old habits, so they say, are hard to break. Harder to break than clocks.’
‘But your clock is already broken, Herr Doppler. I have seen it but once, briefly, and from the outside only. It is undeniably impressive: a masterpiece, without question. It would be a crime to destroy such a clock. A sin. Once my tool kit is returned, I should like to try my hand at repairing it.’
‘The clock does not require repair. It is in perfect working order.’
‘I would hardly call it perfect, Herr Doppler! I realize I haven’t been in Märchen very long, but all the same, I have not heard it strike the correct hour once in that time.’
‘I would be surprised if you had,’ he said. ‘As far as anyone knows, Herr Gray, not once in all the time the clock has been running – more than fifty years now – has it indicated the correct time, either by peal of bells or position of hands. That is a record of perfection as extraordinary in its way as a clock that has never once been wrong, for as you know, a timepiece that runs slow or fast will eventually mark the correct time , if only briefly and, as it were, in passing. Even a stopped clock tells the correct time twice a day. But our clock, to the extent it has been observed, has never, ever been right.’
‘Not once? For that to be true, the hands would have to move backwards as well as forwards!’
‘And so they do, back and forward and back again, as if time were as capricious as the wind. The minute and hour hands often move in opposite directions, at disproportional rates. Have you ever encountered such a marvel, Herr Gray?’
‘I confess I have not.’
‘Surely you can see that to repair such a clock would be tantamount to destroying it.’
‘I don’t agree. To impose order upon this chaos would be—’
Doppler interrupted, leaning towards me intently. ‘But there is already order here, Herr Gray.’
‘If by order you mean the clock’s record of being consistently and invariably wrong, I suppose I must grant you the point in a philosophical sense. But it is an impractical sort of order, to be sure.’
‘Are all things to be judged by their practicality? What about a painting, a statue? Does not a different standard apply to such works of art, one of beauty rather than utility?’
‘Even beauty has its uses, Herr Doppler, if only to give us pleasure. But the highest art unites beauty and utility. What, after all, is more beautiful and useful than a well-made clock? An accurate clock is beautiful in its functioning, regardless of the trappings in which it is set. A timepiece that embraces inaccuracy, however beautiful in appearance and impressive in design, is a perversion of the true clockmaker’s art, which, after all, seeks but to reflect with ever-greater precision the divine ordering that men call time.’
‘A pretty speech,’ Doppler replied. ‘But have you considered the possibility that this clock reflects that divine order more accurately than any other?’
I laughed. ‘Now you are being absurd, Herr Doppler!’
‘To human senses, time seems to flow in one direction only, by a progression of discrete intervals, like grains of sand through an hourglass. But to the Almighty, whose senses are infinite and omnipresent, surely time is something quite different. An eternal instant in which past and future are equally perceptible, equally accessible. Equally real. Have I shocked you?’
‘The concept is interesting, but hardly shocking,’ I replied. Yet in truth, my hand trembled as I raised the mug to my lips and took a deep swallow, though less from shock than from excitement. I remembered how everything had shone with a peculiar blue light in my dream, and how I had associated that radiance with the sacred essence of time. What Herr Doppler was saying resonated with that dream epiphany, confirming my intuition that the clock had much to teach me, if only I could examine it.
‘No doubt you are well versed in all manner of horological speculation,’ Doppler continued. ‘Like Papist Inquisitors, the journeymen of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers are more knowledgeable about heresies than the heretics themselves, eh?’
‘Are you a heretic, then, Herr Doppler?’
‘One can hardly live in proximity to Wachter’s Folly without developing a unique perspective into the nature of time.’
‘That much I’ll grant you. Who was this Wachter? Did you know him?’
‘I was a boy when he disappeared.’
‘Disappeared?’
‘Herr Wachter was not a native of Märchen. He arrived one day with his daughter. No one knew whence they had come. He was a clockman, a master of the Worshipful Company, or so he said.’
‘You had reason to doubt him?’
‘Not at first. He took rooms here, at the Hearth and Home, and began to ply his trade with such skill that no one thought to question his claims. He did not merely repair the timepieces that were brought to him, Herr Gray: he improved them. So it was that when he approached the burgomeister – that is, my father – with plans for a tower clock that would make Märchen famous throughout the empire, a monument to the piety of our town, he was listened to with respect and, finally, refused with regret, for he was an eloquent and persuasive man. My father allowed me to be present, and believe me, when Wachter spoke of the clock he had in mind to build, it was as though your own Shakespeare had penned the words. But Märchen was then just as you find it today: a humble town, prosperous enough but far from wealthy. We could not b
ear the financial burden of such an ambitious project.’
‘And yet the clock was built,’ I observed.
‘When my father conveyed his refusal, Herr Wachter made a generous counter-offer. In retrospect, suspiciously so. But at the time, we thought him merely eccentric. We had ample proof of his genius; we had no reason to doubt his sincerity.’
‘What was the offer?’
‘If the town agreed to provide for all the daily wants of his family, he would pay for the clock himself out of his personal fortune, for he was – or so he said – a wealthy man.’
‘And you believed him?’ I laughed outright. ‘Did your father not stop to wonder why a rich man would require the support of the town?’
Doppler gave me an angry scowl. ‘As I said, we thought him eccentric. Wealthy men often are. And so, for that matter, are clockmen.’
‘I suppose we clockmen have a certain reputation for eccentricity, not entirely undeserved,’ I was bound in all honesty to admit. ‘But we have no great reputation for wealth. A tower clock is a huge expense, as you know. I doubt even the grandmaster of my guild, by far its wealthiest member, could finance such a project.’ This was of course not entirely true. My own fortune, for example, was and is sufficient to build a hundred such towers. But that Herr Doppler did not need to know.
‘Even assuming Herr Wachter possessed sufficient funds,’ I continued, ‘why should he dip into his own pocket? The services of a master clockman are widely sought after and well recompensed. If Märchen could not afford to finance the clock, surely there were other, wealthier towns and patrons to whom Wachter could have applied with every expectation of success, whether here in Austria or in some other country – France or Russia, for instance, if not in England herself, which perhaps more than any other nation holds horology in high esteem. A man with Wachter’s talents could have won the patronage of kings and emperors … if, that is, he was what he claimed to be: a master of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers. But I’m afraid this Wachter of yours was nothing of the sort. His actions prove it. I suspect he was an amateur, immensely gifted, to be sure, but also – if, as you say, the clock was intended to function in the manner that it does – more than a little mad.’
The Emperor of all Things Page 26
