Thief of Time Read Free Page B

taken it with them when they died and probably could afford a coat like that.
    “A beetle clock?” she said. She had turned away from the glass dome.
    “Oh, er, yes…the Hershebian lawyer beetle has a very consistent daily routine,” said Jeremy. “I, er, only keep it for, um, interest.”
    “How very…organic,” said the woman. She extended a black-gloved hand, palm down. “We are Myria LeJean. Lady Myria LeJean.”
    Jeremy obediently held out a hand. Patient men at the Clockmakers’ Guild had spent a long time teaching him how to Relate To People before giving it up in despair, but some things had stuck.
    Her ladyship looked at the waiting hand. Finally, one of the trolls lumbered over.
    “Der lady does not shake hands,” it said, in a reverberating whisper. “She are not a tactile kinda person.”
    “Oh?” said Jeremy.
    “But enough of this, perhaps,” said Lady LeJean, stepping back. “You make clocks, and we—”
    There was a jingling noise from Jeremy’s shirt pocket. He pulled out a large watch.
    “If that was chiming the hour, you are fast,” said the woman.
    “Er…um…no…you might find it a good idea to, um, put your hands over your ears…”
    It was three o’clock. And every clock struck it at once. Cuckoos cuckoo’d, the hour pins fell out of the candle clock, the water clocks gurgled and seesawed back as the buckets emptied, bells clanged, gongs banged, chimes tinkled, and the Ephebian lawyer beetle turned a somersault.
    The trolls had clapped their huge hands over their ears, but Lady LeJean merely stood with her hands on her hips, head on one side, until the last echo died away.
    “All correct, we see,” she said.
    “What?” said Jeremy. He’d been thinking: perhaps a vampire, then?
    “You keep all your clocks at the right time,” said Lady LeJean. “You’re very particular about that, Mr. Jeremy?”
    “A clock that doesn’t tell the right time is…wrong,” said Jeremy. Now he was wishing she’d go away. Her eyes were worrying him. He’d heard about people having gray eyes, and her eyes were gray, like the eyes of a blind person, but she was clearly looking at him and through him.
    “Yes, there was a little bit of trouble over that, wasn’t there?” said Lady LeJean.
    “I…I don’t…I don’t…don’t know what you’re—”
    “At the Clockmakers’ Guild? Williamson, who kept his clock five minutes fast? And you—”
    “I am much better now,” said Jeremy stiffly. “I have medicine. The guild was very kind. Now please go away.”
    “Mr. Jeremy, we want you to build us a clock that is accurate.”
    “All my clocks are accurate,” said Jeremy, staring at his feet. He wasn’t due to take his medicine for another five hours and seventeen minutes, but he was feeling the need for it now. “And now I must ask—”
    “How accurate are your clocks?”
    “Better than a second in eleven months,” said Jeremy promptly.
    “That is very good?”
    “Yes.” It had been very good. That was why the guild had been so understanding. Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.
    “We want much better accuracy than that.”
    “It can’t be done.”
    “Oh? You mean that you can’t do it?”
    “No, I can’t. And if I can’t, then nor can any other clockmaker in the city. I’d know about it if they could!”
    “So proud? Are you sure?”
    “I’d know.” And he would. He’d know for certain. Thecandle clocks and the water clocks…they were toys, which he kept out of a sort of respect for the early days of timekeeping, and even then he’d spent weeks experimenting with waxes and buckets and had turned out primitive clocks that you could, well, very nearly set your watch by. It was okay that they couldn’t be that accurate. They were simple, organic things, parodies of time. They didn’t grind across his nerves. But a real clock…well, that was a mechanism, a thing of numbers,