Salamander by Thomas Wharton Read Free Book Online Page B

That is how it works in theory, she said with a smile. In fact, my father inspects everything that gets done here, even down to how many mice the cats are catching. Nothing escapes his notice for long.
    – Does he ever sleep?
    – He does. He says sleep has its uses too. Dreams give him some of his best ideas.
    She turned to examine the press, and he knew somehow that there was more she wished to say. He wondered how he might encourage her to speak, and drew closer.
    – Don’t worry, Mr. Flood, I wasn’t going to touch anything.
    – I didn’t think –
    – I wondered, she said, if I might be allowed to watch you at work from time to time. I read a lot of books but I’ve never seen one being made.
    As he quickly consented, the great clock struck the hour. Irena looked up, the eagerness fading from her eyes.
    – I must go, she said, stepping away from the platform. I will return tomorrow.
    – Wait, he said, suddenly remembering something that had been nagging at him all day. Now he hesitated, confounded by the delicacy of the question.
    – Yes?
    – I’m not. I don’t. Could you tell me how to find my bed?

    The next morning she brought the assistants the Count had promised him.
    One was from the Count’s collection of human puzzles, a nine-year-old boy named Djinn, who had six fingers on each hand. Even discounting the extra digits, Djinn was the most exotic creature Flood had ever seen. Kinked African hair of a blond hue, coffee-coloured skin, almond-shaped eyes with blue irises. He could speak several languages, some from as far away as China, as well as Arabic, Spanish, and what Flood at first thought was Greek but turned out to be Gaelic. The Count had acquired the boy as a present from a Turkish envoy who visited the castle with a troupe of strolling actors. The Castle Ostrov, as the envoy had guessed, proved to be ideal for the performance of a play involving trapdoors, ghosts, and descending gods. The Count was most impressed, however, with this twelve-fingered boy who plucked a haunting melody on the lute at the play’s close. The troupe reluctantly surrendered Djinn to the Count, at the envoy’s insistence. The actors themselves had found him in the streets of Constantinople but guessed that he was from somewhere much farther away.
    – My father, Irena explained, thought Djinn’s fingers could be usefully applied to some aspect of printing.
    The boy kept his gaze fixed on her, his mute despair palpable. She was going to leave him here.
    The other assistant was an automaton of milky
blanc de Chine
porcelain and joints of bronze that, when wound with a key, nodded its head, moved its arms, and took a few halting steps. The automaton, clean-shaven and sporting an apple-bright spot of red enamel on each cheek, was dressed in the uniform of a cavalry officer. Kirshner, the Venetian metallurgist, had fashioned the inner workings and installed them in a porcelain body that had been cast at Meissen by the wizard Kaendler.
    Ludwig, as Irena called the automaton, was originally designed only to march a few steps and brandish its sword. When her father saw what the machine’s creator was capable of he had him add other functions, and now the automaton could dance a stiff minuet, write a few words with a quill pen, and drink a glass of wine. Ludwig’s limited movements, the Count had thought, might be adaptable to some of the more mechanical press operations. Flood admitted his doubts.
    – It can’t respond to my commands.
    As he spoke, a bell-like echo of his voice seemed to rattle around inside the automaton, reemerging at last in a buzzing string of words.
    –
Can tress tomb man
.
    Flood stepped back, startled.
    – Someone’s in there.
    Irena shook her head.
    – He repeats what you say, but he leaves parts out.
    –
Reap you tea
, the automaton buzzed.
Eve arts out
.
    Irena handed Flood a large brass key.
    – The metallurgist was very clever. Certain sustained tones move sensitive weights inside