The Sleeper. Part One

Prologue

Silver snowflakes graze the gilded curves of the old Baroque palace where the Prince still slumbers, dreaming a century of dreams whilst his sister rules in his place. She is twice the Prince, so the people say, than any Prince who came before her. Still she has an unquiet mind. Even now in the dead of night, she walks the halls and galleries trying discover, amidst her sea of thoughts, the secret which will wake her brother for it is she who set him sleeping. Oh, but for the best of reasons. She is possessed of magic more instinctive than skilled. The books she has read and the witches she consulted are in complete agreement; he will only be awakened by a true lovers kiss. Sadly she has found that his true love is slow in coming.

She pauses at the long windows of the hall of glass now and draws the furs she wears high around her golden neck. Her dark hair tumbles like a waterfall and merges with the furs in one great breathing swathe of silken spears.

Still the snow falls. No longer just a few dancing flakes the snow grows thicker all the time. In the house of the Duc Du Murelle, the Duc’s brother Louis creeps from his bed. He shivers in his light silk night robe but he does not pause to wrap himself against the cold. His heart beats like a bird at his ribs as he tiptoes down the passageway, down the great spiral staircase. He is spurred on by feelings which transcend the momentary discomforts of cold. A few mice that have clawed their way through the rotten skirting boards of the kitchen seeking sanctuary from the snow scatter as he approaches. From the shadow of the clock, they watch him with their dark bead eyes. It is just striking midnight. Although it should be noted that this clock may not be accurate as it is wound so irregularly.  Nevertheless, midnight or not it is a magical hour. Louis finds his way through the labyrinth of the library without light, just by the touch of the volumes against his fingers. He sees a flicker of golden candlelight ahead. His lover, the librarian Jon, is waiting for him. He has scattered rose petals on the pillows of his bed. Who knows where he found rose petals on a night like this. The cold has chilled so many roses; frozen them like elaborate glass ornaments. One brush of the finger and they will shatter and fall in a shower of confetti knives.

How warmly these two lovers’ lips touch sharing the flavours of wine and coffee and sleep. Louis knows that, as the Duc’s younger brother, should his love be discovered he will be disowned, and dishonoured. A lowly librarian people will say, can you imagine it? Louis does not care. Love holds his heart more strongly than can be imagined and his only thought as his hands embrace the scarred flesh of his love is contentment.

Still the snow falls. As it does so it wraps conspiratorial fingers of silence around the library.

Still the snow falls and fills the streets of the old town. Wood frames sag and lunge out over stalls and shop fronts in alleyways built to accommodate butchers and bakers amidst a labyrinth of red brick and faded play bills. Where the snow is thickest the only markers of a street lying beneath come in the form of bottle necks and battered hats pushed hard against the wall. Does the snow hide some drunken tragedy? Only the thaw will tell. Until then people will conspire not to see as they hurry past. For now the winter provokes that strange reaction, eat, drink and be very merry. Hold back the cold and the darkness with cheer. Fissures of golden light spill out onto the snow here and there. Shadows dance and sway behind the drawn shades of bar rooms. Notes of music come and go like dream snatches.

 Snow falls at the doorstep of the clock makers shop and greys a little from the sooty footprints which have accumulated there. The wind blows and the lantern above the doorway swings on its chain giving out a strange funereal creaking.

The clockmaker, Camille, still works. Though it is late, she sits by the fire. Tiny cogs spread glinting on the dark blue of her skirts. It is not a clock upon which she works now. All the clocks are finished and set on their shelves. They all tick at once, in one voice they cry out the hours with a thousand chimes. Once, twice, again, again, twelve times they cry. It is definitely midnight now for the clockmakers clocks are, without doubt, accurate; that is why they sell so well. The witching hour truly has arrived; the hour when spirits creep and tug the corners of the night. In the far off sea a silvery tail lashes the waves and laughter cries out, unseen and unheard. Translucent figures pass each other in the streets and cellars dancing ancient minuets around the dust laden barrels and the forgotten trunks. The dancers are still as nimble as ever and always will be so long as they glide back to their tombs before dawn cracks the horizon.

The clockmaker pauses in her work. The tiny tools of her trade in her hands, oil stains on her fingers. Is that a mouse she hears tiptoeing behind the wall, bedding down in the darkness? No doubt it is. The mice are not afraid of the ghosts. They are used to them. They are no longer disturbed by their revels. She should go to bed herself. She makes one last alteration so slight another might not even notice it but she is a magician of her trade. Besides precision is wanted here for this is not a clock. This project is her dream, her life. She has worked on it every evening since the idea first came to her as a girl. She was already in love with clockwork then. She fashioned toys that ran about the house on little metal wheels or ground out tinny tunes. Marvellous things which never seemed to wind down (ah the magic of a child’s memories where time is not itself at all). Now her great work is nearing completion. Ready, in fact, to be unveiled to a paying public. It is worth considering that the mouse behind the skirting board may not be a thing of flesh and blood at all but one of her first creations. Is this a wind up mouse that went tearing off into the darkest recesses of her workroom? Did it escape into the mechanical wild? In a few months it may have picked up the quirks of its living fellows along with their scent. Now accepted and indistinguishable from its fellows (for they have conspired to ignore the key which sticks from its back) it has begun a new life with a new family. Its brood of infants only differentiated from the others by a curious clicking noise when they turn their heads or stretch their legs and a tendency to choke hungry cats to death.  What would such a creature survive and thrive upon? Scraps of iron and shavings of steel perhaps?

The snow is still falling as the clock maker climbs the stairs. For a few minutes she watches from the window which looks out over the courtyard between shops. Everything is so still. A slender fire bright cat pads across the snow leaving tiny heart shaped marks.

Tomorrow, the world will be unrecognizable; a dream world beneath which the familiar will slumber.  At least, it will be fitting weather for an ice fair.