“And you want another?” Jacob asked in disbelief.
Kaz raised his head, eyes slits of displeasure and haughty impatience. “I amwaiting.”
“I am sorry for it,” Jacob answered gravely and gallantly, and dropped his head the pillow while he rifled through the collection of fairy tales he made up for Rennet, although there were many details he left out of Rennet’s stories. Rennet was, imp or no, still a child. “Once upon a time,” Jacob began a moment later, and delighted in the small shock of Kazimir’s laughter.
“Once upon a time…” Kaz prompted when he’d controlled himself, and his fingers were in Jacob’s hair.
Jacob surrendered his heart for the hundredth time and felt not a single twinge. “Once upon a time, there was a dancer….”
Aphrodite’s Favorite
WHEN THE INVENTOR was brought to court, Kazimir thought of him only to pity him. A well enough looking man, if small, with muscular legs that spoke of skill at wrestling or in battle, with olive skin and shining curls, and arms as strong as the rest of him. The genius Jacob, or so it was said, who had been blessed by Hephaestus himself, who could breathe life into automatons.
It was not always easy to be honored by a god. Others were also favored, sometimes by gods louder or more powerful. Beauty could not protect a man from lightning, or lustful greed, or tyranny.
Neither could invention.
Despite his brilliance, the inventor was still marched before the King with soldiers at his back. Perhaps because of his brilliance, the inventor glared when he should have smiled, but though Kazimir held his breath, the King was too distracted to notice the disrespect.
“I have brought you here to build for me, to please my pet with their likeness. For my dancer, wood and marble will not do. You will make me a figure to equal his gods-bestowed beauty. Do this, and I will let you go and praise your skill to all the world.”
The inventor Jacob made a sound like a furious horse and tossed his head before turning to follow the King’s gesture, and his warm eyes widened for a moment as they landed on Kazimir.
Kazimir held his head high, as was expected of him, the most beautiful, the most beloved by the gods and so the most tormented by them. He said nothing, because that was not expected, and he did not want to be punished. Not ever, and not now, in front of the sharp gaze of a man who must be not unlike a god himself if he created life as he was said to.
Jacob studied Kazimir, the long, leanly muscled lines of his bare arms and legs, the burnished gold of his hair, the smooth jaw and soft lips, before meeting Kazimir’s stare. For only a heartbeat and no more. Then he turned away and Kazimir was left to frown in the cold.
“He cannot be equaled,” Jacob announced directly to the King. “Certainly not by my meager talents. But I will make you something else, horses to ride or soldiers to guard your palace. A cat to twist around your ankles, perhaps?”
“My dancer,” replied the King, impatient as ever, “or your life.”
An answer that startled no one in the throne room after suffering years of the tyrant’s whims. Execution by hemlock or being thrown from one of the cliffs was the usual result of defiance.
The pronouncement did not appear to startle Jacob, either, as though tales of the King’s cruelties had reached whatever country he had been taken from. The inventor did not react except to incline his head. “I did not expect to convince you. Only those who want to see the truth will see it.”
Kazimir did not make a sound and Jacob did not turn to him again. The King sent the inventor to the workshop that had been built for this purpose when the idea of an automaton had struck him months before. Then he called for music, and Kazimir was grateful, though he could not have said why, that the inventor would not be there to witness him dancing for the King.
SHAME AND ANGER had burned from Kazimir long ago when his offerings and prayers had gone unanswered but the King remained in power, protected by whichever god favored him. This was where the gods let Kazimir stay, this was Kazimir’s supposed gift, the beauty and skill that had caught the King’s eye. Kazimir would not feel shame when this was not his choice.
But he did not want to face the inventor again.
He had no choice in that, either, though he gave wine and fruit to any god who might hear him. The automaton in his likeness would be built, and for that, Kazimir would need to be touched, studied, watched, by eyes that saw more than the King’s ever would.
The workshop was at the foot of the mountain, below the palace. It was constructed of stone to allow for a forge, and guarded by soldiers.
Kazimir’s stomach quivered as he entered the first room, where fires raged although the forge itself was empty. In the next room, full of benches and tools and one small cot, Jacob sat in front of chunks of ore, his shoulders low with despair until he saw Kazimir and rose to his feet.
“I am here to be measured.” Kazimir kept his voice even. He did not want hands on him, although he was not foolish enough to say so.
Jacob nodded, but slowly. “As is necessary for such an undertaking, though it seems easier to execute me and be done with it.”
Kazimir’s chest was tight. “You are beloved of Hephaestus. Will he not help you succeed, and live?”
“My mind will be inspired, my hands guided.” Jacob looked at Kazimir’s sandals instead of his face. “I will craft your likeness, but it cannot be your equal. For that, another god would need to intervene. Though I am often a fool, even I can tell that. So you will be the death of me, one way or the other, and I am sorry for it, if only because it pains you.”
“You know nothing of me,” Kazimir insisted, drawing his shoulders back.
Jacob’s gaze returned to Kazimir’s face at last. “As you say, Terpsichore-in-gold.”
