The Emperor of All Things

9

Herr Doppler



ONLY A FELLOW horologist can grasp the meaning of such a loss. To anyone else, a clockman’s tools might seem no more than mute instruments of metal and wood, but to us they are repositories of knowledge and experience, imbued with memories, with hopes and dreams. More than mere possessions, they are expressions of who we are, extensions of our deepest selves. Some of those tools were my own inventions. Others had come to me from Magnus himself. I felt their loss most keenly. Without them, my examination of Wachter’s Folly would be perfunctory, all but useless.

So much for Inge’s assurances! And yet she’d invited me to place my valuables with her for safekeeping. Had she, then, known or suspected that I might be visited by a thief? Had she been trying to warn me?

I would confront her, of course … but shouting and accusations would accomplish nothing. I had to practise tact, diplomacy. I was a stranger in Märchen, a foreigner; I didn’t know whom to trust. The law was on my side, but that didn’t mean I could count on the burgomeister’s help. Märchen was isolated by the mountains and further cut off by the snowstorm; thus, I reasoned, the tools must still be somewhere in town, and it should be possible, with the proper inducement, to procure their safe return. A generous reward … though it galled me to think that I would be paying a thief’s ransom.

Returning to the table, I lit a candle from the lamp there and then went back to the door. To my surprise, it was locked. What kind of burglar picks the lock to an occupied room, slips inside and performs his thievery, then, upon leaving, takes the time to lock the door behind him? I didn’t see the sense of it. But for that matter, I didn’t understand why the burglar hadn’t taken the trouble to ensure that he didn’t leave a trail of puddled snow-melt behind, either. If the crime had been committed by a fellow guest at the inn, the trail might very well lead me to him.

I unlocked the door, swung it open, and stepped out into the empty passage. Then paused, the candle upraised as though I might hear better by its light. The wind howled outside, and the inn groaned around me like a ship riding out a tempest. Someone was snoring near by, but I heard nothing from the common room below. I started forward, following the watery trail, then stopped and turned back to lock the door – not that there was anything in the room worth stealing now … or that a locked door would afford any protection. Still, the sound of the key turning in the lock was reassuring. Then, feeling like a thief myself, I crept past the closed doors of other rooms to the end of the passage and descended the creaking stairs to the common room.

It was eerily like my dream; all that was missing was the fog. Aside from my candle, the only light came from the still-smouldering fire, which illuminated the sleeping form of Hesta, curled beside the hearth. I started at what seemed at first a gathering of silent, hooded figures by the door, like some grim convocation of monks, then recognized my cloak hanging in the company of several others. At least that had not been stolen.

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’re 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 bear 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.’

‘Mad? Perhaps – though the line between madness and genius is a thin and permeable one, I find. But you’re right that he did not belong to your Worshipful Company. After Wachter vanished, my father wrote to London. The guild had never heard of him.’

‘He should have written sooner.’

‘No doubt. But there was no evidence that Wachter was not exactly who and what he claimed to be. During the time he was with us, he laboured steadily on the tower clock and continued repairing our timepieces, as well as building new ones, all of which functioned perfectly.’

‘And how long was he with you?’

‘Nearly ten years,’ Doppler answered, then added defensively: ‘A tower clock is not built in a day.’

‘Still, Herr Doppler, do you mean to tell me that in ten years, no one in Märchen suspected there was anything odd about the tower clock going up right in their midst?’

‘How could we suspect? We are not experts in such things.’

‘The first true clockman to pass through town would have exposed him as a fraud.’

‘No doubt you are right, but no clockman did pass through. Those were unsettled times, Herr Gray. All of Europe was at war. Men did not wander so far off the beaten track as they do today.’

‘Yet Märchen couldn’t possibly have supplied him with all the necessary materials for such a project. Orders must have been placed, supplies delivered.’

‘Even in dangerous times, men will seek profit. Especially in such times.’

It was strange, but though Doppler’s answers to my questions were quite reasonable, I nevertheless felt myself becoming suspicious of them … and of him. His answers were too reasonable, if you see what I mean. Every objection I raised was so smoothly deflected that I couldn’t help wondering what he was hiding. ‘Go on,’ I prompted.

‘There is not much more to tell,’ he said with a shrug. ‘As agreed, we built him a fine house and provided him with everything he needed to live among us in comfort, if not luxury. The years passed as I have told you. Herr Wachter became a fixture of the town, as did his daughter, who grew to young womanhood among us – with no shortage of suitors, I might add, though she showed them scant encouragement; Wachter, like many widowers, was a stern and jealous father. Yet they both seemed content enough here. And one day, at long last, the tower was finished. A ceremony was set for the next day, at which the clock would be blessed by the minister and set to running. But Märchen was awakened before dawn that very morning by the bells of the clock, and I’m sure it will come as less of a surprise to you than it did to us that the hour being tolled so beautifully by those bells was not the same hour we saw registered upon our household clocks, many of which had been made by Wachter. A crowd gathered before the clock tower, where it was discovered that the hands of the clock were moving willy-nilly, as if they possessed a life of their own. But it wasn’t until Wachter was sent for that we received the biggest shock of all: he and his daughter were gone, vanished in the night. He must have planned their escape for a long time, using all the genius he employed in his clock-making endeavours, for no trace of them was ever found.’

‘Perhaps they perished, fell into a crevasse like Inge’s husband.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘She told me earlier that he was dead – Herr Wachter, I mean.’

‘A logical enough assumption, but not personal knowledge. Wachter was fifty-two years old when he disappeared. He would be over a hundred today. I suppose it’s possible he might still be alive somewhere, but it hardly seems likely.’

‘And he left behind no explanation for his strange actions?’

‘Only the clock itself. It explains everything … and nothing.’

‘Why in the name of heaven didn’t your father have the clock repaired at once, when the extent of Wachter’s mischief was apparent?’

At this, Doppler tugged at one end of his moustache. ‘He tried, Herr Gray. He wrote to our own Clockmakers’ Guild in Augsburg, requesting that someone be sent to us. A journeyman was duly dispatched.’

‘It proved beyond his skill?’

‘Beyond his sanity, rather. He entered the clock tower and remained inside for a day and a night. At last, the bailiff went in after him. The man was found lying in one corner, his eyes wide open and unblinking, his body stiff as a corpse. But he was not dead, merely cataleptic.’

‘My God – what happened?’

‘A significant shock to mind and body, or so said the apothecary. After a few days, the man was able to move again, after a fashion, but his mind never recovered. I won’t trouble you with his ravings. They were utterly without sense. Some time later, the guild sent a master clockmaker. The result was identical. No further attempts were made. The entrance to the tower was bricked shut; no one has entered since.’

‘Why, I suspect you are telling me a fairy tale, Herr Doppler!’ I could not forbear from exclaiming.

‘It is the gospel truth, I assure you.’

‘And I suppose you will have a ready answer as well for why the clock was not destroyed after all this?’

If Doppler took offence, he didn’t show it. In fact, he seemed more amused than anything. ‘That was supposed to happen, Herr Gray. My father received an order to that effect from the guildmaster in Augsburg; such orders, as you may not be aware, being a foreigner, carry the weight of imperial writ. He wrote back stating that he had complied. That ended the matter. As far as the Clockmakers’ Guild is concerned, Wachter’s Folly is no more.’

‘Was your father in the habit of disregarding imperial decrees?’ I asked.

‘Hardly,’ Doppler replied with a tight smile. ‘But in this case, or so he told me later, he felt that disobedience was the lesser betrayal.’

‘I’m afraid you’ve lost me.’

Doppler glanced at his pocket watch, lying open on the table. He picked it up, snapped the lid shut. ‘I will show you.’ He got to his feet, sliding the watch back into his coat. Then he lifted the candle. ‘Come with me.’

‘But where …?’

‘Not far. Come.’ He walked to the swinging door and held it open.

Intrigued, I stood. Hesta, too, bestirred herself. Toenails clicking across the stone floor, she preceded us both through the door. Doppler motioned for me to follow her, which I did, and he brought up the rear. Then, holding the candle before him, he stepped past me and alongside the wooden bar, once again motioning me to follow.

He stopped opposite the cuckoo clock that hung on the wall behind the bar. By the light of the candle, which Doppler placed on the bar, I saw that it was just shy of one o’clock.

‘In a moment, Herr Gray,’ Doppler said in a hushed voice, perhaps afraid of waking Inge, whose room was downstairs, or so I gathered, ‘you will have the answer to your question. Or the beginnings of an answer.’

I had noticed the clock earlier but hadn’t examined it closely. Now that I did, I recognized Wachter’s craftsmanship: there, in miniature, carved into the dark walnut housing, was the same hellish scene depicted upon Märchen’s tower clock. Only here the crowd of the tormented and their tormentors was roughly done, like a study for the larger and more complex composition outside. The figures were blocky, ill-defined, their faces possessing crude features, like marks gouged by a hasty knife, or no features at all. They seemed to be engaged in a struggle to keep themselves from losing definition and sinking into each other, into the wood itself, as if it were the nature of hell to dissolve all distinctions, on every level, mixing matter into a primordial soup of suffering from which, by some supreme effort of stubborn will, or an impulse of pain impossible to imagine, the old body reshaped itself for a time, to undergo again, and yet again, into eternity, the stripping away of flesh from bone, of bone from spirit, of self from self. I wondered what remained after such a scouring. Was it the soul? Or could that, too, be unravelled and reknit, broken down and built up again for ever and ever?

Across the bar, the minute hand of the cuckoo clock jerked upright. A whirring commenced within the housing. I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the bar, intent not to miss anything of whatever was about to occur.

The small doors at the top of the clock flipped open, and out popped the strangest-looking bird I had ever seen. But even as it spread glimmering bronze wings, I realized that it was no bird at all. It was a dragon.

The automaton – no bigger than my thumb – was exquisitely crafted. Its metal wings were supple in their flexing, and its barbed tail lashed from side to side in the manner of a cat’s. Arching its neck in a sinuous movement, the mechanical dragon cocked its horned head to one side and seemed to regard me with curiosity through jewel-like eyes. The craftsmanship was extraordinary; I could almost believe I was looking at a living creature. Then the mouth opened, revealing rows of silvery, needle-sharp teeth and a tongue the colour of cold iron. A loud hiss emerged, as from a boiling tea kettle, and I stepped back, reminded of my dream. Even as I did so, a jet of flame gushed from between the mechanism’s jaws. It extended no more than an inch, but so unexpected was the display that I gave a start and cried out as though I had been scorched.

Doppler laughed with childlike glee as the automaton was pulled back into the housing. The tiny doors snapped shut behind it; the minute hand jerked forward.

‘Tell me, Herr Gray,’ he demanded, ‘have you ever seen such a wonder?’

I could truthfully admit that I had not – not in all my travels.

‘Here it is no exception,’ Doppler stated. ‘Just one of many marvels left to us by Herr Wachter.’

‘I should like to examine the workings,’ I said.

‘As to that, you must ask Inge. The clock is hers.’

‘I have read of such marvels,’ I mused. ‘It is said that the court of Byzantium was filled with automatons all but indistinguishable from the birds and animals they resembled. But those secrets were lost with the city.’

Doppler shrugged. ‘Perhaps they survived. Or Herr Wachter rediscovered them.’

‘And you say there are more clocks like this one?’

‘Not precisely the same as this, no, but many others are as distinctive in their way. Herr Wachter lived among us for ten years. He was not idle.’ Doppler slipped out his pocket watch and laid it on the bar. ‘Go on, take it.’

I did so with alacrity.

‘You are holding Wachter’s personal timepiece,’ Doppler told me with pride. ‘My father admired it so often that Wachter finally presented it to him as a gift. And my father passed it on to me. Go on – open it.’

I complied. There, on the face, I saw strange and indeed incomprehensible shapes standing, as it were, in place of numbers, and hands that had the shape of a dragon. Herr Wachter, it seemed, had been obsessed with dragons.

‘Hold it to your ear,’ Doppler directed.

I did so under his expectant gaze. But I heard nothing of interest. In fact, I heard nothing at all. ‘It’s stopped,’ I said.

‘Indeed, it has not.’

‘I hear no ticking.’

‘There is none to hear.’

‘But when you wind the watch, how—’

‘It is not wound,’ Doppler interrupted. ‘The stem is merely decorative.’

I gave the stem a gentle twist. It did not budge. ‘Then how is the watch powered?’

‘I do not know. But it has never run down in all these years. My father did not permit the casing to be opened, fearing that to do so would destroy the mechanism within, and I have followed his wise example.’ He extended his hand; with regret, I laid the watch in his palm.

After Herr Doppler had put away the watch, I pressed him again for permission to examine the tower clock.

‘Imagine,’ he replied, ‘that we were in England, and thus under the jurisdiction of your guild. What do you suppose your masters in the Worshipful Company would make of our tower clock, or the other timepieces you have seen here?’

I knew the answer only too well. They would not permit such unique timepieces to exist. Every last one would be disassembled, stripped of its secrets, and destroyed. But to admit that would have been to scuttle my chances. ‘I cannot say,’ I told him.

‘You are being disingenuous,’ he returned. ‘We both know what their verdict would be. What your verdict, as their faithful representative, must be. You have already made your judgement, Herr Gray. Do not bother to deny it.’

‘How can I judge what I do not understand?’

‘You judge because you do not understand. That is the way of your Worshipful Company, and indeed of our own Clockmakers’ Guild.’

‘That is not my way,’ I insisted. ‘I left England to search out just such timepieces as these. I wish to learn from them, not destroy them.’

‘You wish to plunder them, rather, to take their secrets for your own. Can you deny it?’

‘I am a scientist, Herr Doppler. I proceed by experiment and observation. By reason. How can the science of horology advance unless such marvels as the timepieces of Märchen become part of the common stock of knowledge available to all horologists?’

He laughed. ‘Ah, so you are an altruist, then. You would share your knowledge with the world and not keep it for the advantage of your guild and country. Forgive me, sir, but I am not so naïve as to believe that.’

‘For more than two years now, I have been on a quest of sorts,’ I told him. ‘A quest that has taken me halfway around the world and finally brought me here. I had not heard the name Wachter before yesterday, and yet I have known of him – indeed, I have seen his handiwork in my travels, hints and clues that pointed towards something grander, more fully realized: that pointed, in short, to Märchen. Perhaps you will think me deluded, but I believe that someone – call him Wachter if you like – has led me here for a purpose. I am meant to examine these timepieces.’

‘So you think that Wachter is still alive, do you?’ Doppler mused. ‘You think that he has somehow been a step ahead of you in your travels, leaving behind examples of his craftsmanship like a trail of breadcrumbs for you to follow. And you accuse me of telling fairy tales?’

I confess I blushed at that. ‘I know it sounds far-fetched,’ I admitted. ‘Yet I also know what I have seen. Wachter – or some horological wizard with intimate knowledge of his work – has brought me here. There is something I am supposed to learn. Something I am supposed to do …’

‘I think perhaps it is a good thing that my daughter took your tool kit,’ Doppler said. ‘She acted rashly, precipitately, as she is wont to do, but her instincts were sound. You are a dangerous man, Herr Gray.’

‘You think me mad?’

‘Worse – sincere. You are determined to examine our timepieces regardless of the risk to them … and to yourself.’

‘Is that a threat, Herr Doppler? Am I to be arrested? Expelled from town? Or will I simply vanish, swallowed by the snows like Inge’s husband?’

At this, Doppler’s white whiskers seemed to bristle like the fur of a cat. ‘Do you think we are barbarians, criminals? We are civilized people! I am concerned for your welfare, Herr Gray. Recall the fate of your predecessors who ventured inside the clock tower.’

‘I am willing to take the risk. I would promise to touch nothing, simply to observe, if you would allow me to enter the tower – or to examine the workings of any of the timepieces here.’

‘As to the tower clock, that is off-limits. But you are otherwise free to ply your trade.’

‘You will return my tool kit, then?’

‘We are no more thieves than murderers, Herr Gray. Of course your property will be returned.’

‘And then?’

‘Why, that is up to you. By all means, advertise your services. Make your ambition known. Who can say? Perhaps one of our citizens will bring you a clock or watch made or enhanced by Wachter. Or you may persuade Inge to let you examine her cuckoo.’

I confess I blushed at that, for it seemed to me that Herr Doppler was alluding to something other than the clock whose operation we had just witnessed. I remembered the yeasty smell that had emanated from the corpulent woman, as if she were a loaf of bread freshly removed from the oven, and how that smell had stirred a hunger in me to lose myself in her flesh – a hunger that had, or so I believed, somehow transmuted itself into the succubus-like figure that had invaded my dream. I was a younger man then, and such wayward expressions of desire embarrassed me. I still had much to learn of life and of love. ‘And you will not impede me from plying my trade?’ I asked Doppler.

‘As long as you do not attempt to force the issue, no.’

‘For that I thank you.’

Doppler inclined his head. ‘I have no doubt that you will abide by our agreement,’ he said. ‘Your tool kit will be returned tomorrow. And now, Herr Gray, I must bid you good night. I do not have far to go, but the snow will make my journey home a tedious one, I’m afraid.’

‘Why not remain here, at the inn? Surely Inge has an extra room.’

‘Are you a father, Herr Gray?’

I shook my head.

‘Then you will not understand. But I find I cannot sleep a wink if I am not under the same roof as my daughter. She is all I have left, you see, since the loss of her mother.’

‘I am sorry.’

‘Ach, it was years ago,’ he said, making a dismissive gesture with one hand. ‘In truth, we were badly matched, she and I. It amazes me still to think that such an ill-suited union could have produced a treasure like Corinna. I hope you will not hold her indiscretion against her, Herr Gray. She is a good girl at heart.’

‘I have no ill feelings,’ I assured him, ‘and shall tell her so when I meet her.’

‘She will be relieved to hear it, I am sure,’ he replied and took his leave.