But Kazimir had seen the little dancers in clay Jacob had made. Kazimir smiling. Kazimir pulling at his hair in idleness or frustration. Kazimir’s face soft, as though whatever he thought of in Jacob’s presence had made him more sweet than bitter.
He looked to Jacob, who faced the King instead of his creation.
The King was staring.
The crowd gasped again.
Kazimir looked, too, and startled to find his likeness had opened its eyes. The King, everyone, was frozen as the likeness took its first step, its movements so light it barely made a whisper on the stone.
Then it began to dance.
Kazimir turned away, first to the King, who swayed forward, entranced by graceful, lifeless, arms, and then to Jacob, who still would not look at him.
“He is beautiful, inventor,” the King announced, trailing a few steps behind the dancer as it spun.
“It is beautiful,” Jacob said, in a funny, hollow voice that carried through the room. “Not nearly as exquisite as the real thing, and it cannot speak, but I made it with a fully functioning body, and that is all you need, isn’t it?”
“Jacob!” Kazimir reached out although he was too far away to stop him.
“What did you say?” The King turned from the dancer to Jacob, who moved his shoulders in a shrug.
“It is beautiful and you can bed it. Wasn’t that its purpose?” Jacob asked, mockery in his tone for everyone to hear.
The sting in Kazimir’s eyes might have been shame at last. It might also have been anger. But no one was looking at him. At least for one night, Kazimir was invisible beside his inhuman likeness, which continued to dance, mimicking the movements Jacob had watched dozens of times.
“All you have to do is wind it up. It will never complain, never defy you, never not want you—because it can’t want anything.” Jacob was relentless, hammering the King with his fury and disdain while the court watched and listened to every word that they had all thought but never dared to say. “It can dance all day and lie still all night. You can even—”
The King reached Jacob and shoved him to the floor.
“No—” Kazimir stepped forward, only to be knocked back by the twirling dancer.
“He’s no longer necessary,” the King shouted. It took Kazimir too long to hear the words and realize they were meant for Jacob. The King’s gaze had already returned to the dancer and the skin bared with every step.
Jacob watched from the floor, unmoving. “Just a little oil,” he said, crude and mean, and laughed when the soldiers hauled him to his feet.
“Jacob, you are drunk.” Kazimir could not raise his head, could barely even speak. “You promised me.”
“What did he promise you?” demanded the King, focused on Kazimir again but only for that single moment, and then the willing dancer was close enough for him to touch. The dancer stopped, whirring and trembling in the King’s arms, bringing an aroused flush to the King’s face. Jacob laughed again, and the King flinched.
The King would not like that to be seen, and Kazimir opened his mouth although he could not think of what to say to calm him. Nonetheless, the movement briefly drew the King’s attention.
“Remove him.”
Soldiers took Kazimir’s arms, and the shock of being touched by someone else held Kazimir still for too long. They had dragged him out of the throne room when he heard the rest of the King’s pronouncement.
“Throw the inventor from the cliff, so that there can be no other dancer but mine.”
The pain in Kazimir’s chest left him heaving for breath. He was strong, but the soldiers were stronger, and he was in his rooms, alone, shaking, as their other orders were carried out.
KAZIMIR LEFT in the middle of the night. His eyes were dry. It might have been panic, or maybe the poison of what had happened was slow to act and kept him frozen. But the strange emptiness allowed him to pack his jewelry and his finely woven clothing so he would have items to sell to fund his journey. Then he fled, while he was still forgotten and others would be too fearful to speak to him.
No one looked for him, at least, not at first, and by the time the King might have tired of a clockwork body, Kazimir was on his way across the sea. He chose to go north and east, for no other reason than he needed a direction. He had no home to go to anymore, no family. He had no one.
But he was free.
The thought shook him from a fitful sleep during his first night on a foreign shore, and he buried his head and wept for fools. The second night, exhausted from walking, he wept for the dead. The third night, looking up at the stars, he wept because he had felt the pain in his heart too late to know what it was.
After that, his tears came with no obvious cause and ended much the same. People were mostly kind to him, perhaps because he was beautiful, or perhaps because he had eyes rimmed red and had torn his clothes for mourning.
