Armand’s First Letter. Amelia’s First Letter. Cathy’s First Letter.

27 February 1024, L’Isle du Grand-Blaireau

Amelia,

To answer your most urgent question first, no, I have not gone on another sleigh ride with Lt. Harkness; the weather this past Monday was frightful. Nor has he come to dine at the Sloops this past week. Now that he has learned that I will make time for him outside of my working hours, at least on occasion, I fear that he has found a new reason to save his pennies toward his captaincy.

It is heart-warming, I admit, to have caught the attention of a gentleman—and rather bemusing, for I had not thought ever to do so. But enough about the lieutenant, for I will freely tell you that I don’t yet know what to think about him.

Last week, while I was picking up supplies in town, Amelie handed me a note from your cousin. The substance of it was as follows:

Your brother John has to come to a standstill. He has retired to his room, coming out only for meals; and he will not answer Master Luc’s questions. I hate to ask it, but could you speak to him, perhaps, and find out what is going on?

I’d been expecting something of this sort. It is has always been the way: John arrives at some insurmountable barrier to completing with his current project, and is of no use to anyone until he is inspired to work towards some new, different project. I had hoped that he would get farther than usual with Master Luc’s help, but it seemed not.

Still, I resolved to make the effort, owing your cousin as I do, and so after loading up the supplies I stopped by John’s house to see what was what. I confess I was surprised by what I found.

He hadn’t failed, Amelia; he had succeeded. He had surmounted the ridge…and found a yet higher ridge-line blocking his way.

I found him sitting in his room, huddled in a blanket by the fire. He had not shaven his face in days, and—but I shan’t distress you. He did not notice when I opened his door.

“Hello, John,” I said, as warmly as I could manage.

“Cathy?” he said, looking up. “Cathy! I—” He broke off, and looked down again.

“You’ve had a reversal, I know,” I said. “Will you tell me about it?”

“It’s so stupid!” he said, bitterly.

“Your reversal?” I said in wonderment. It was, in fact, stupid, but his saying so implied a greater degree of self-knowledge than I had ever seen him exhibit.

“No, no, my automaton!“

Ah. This was more like it. When I left Cumbria he was been working on a device with head, arms, legs designed to move of their own; at that time it could only move when he applied his magic directly to it. His hope had been that one of your cousin’s formers could supply that lack, so that it could work on its own.

“Still working on that?” I said. “What seems to be the problem? Has Master Luc not been able to help you with it?”

He growled in exasperation and pulled the blanket more tightly about his shoulders. “I already told you what the trouble is,” he muttered. “It’s stupid! It’s an imbecile! An idiot! A mechanical cretin!”

“Your automaton is…stupid? I don’t understand. Does it not move properly?”

Another growl. “Oh, it moves, all right. It moves just the way I wanted it to. It will move exactly how I tell it to move. But it won’t do anything useful!“

I was at a loss. “Show me,” I said.

“Oh, very well.” John hurled his blanket to the floor, and stomped out. I folded up the blanket and put it on the bed, safely far away from the fire, and followed him to his workshop.

The automaton looked very much as I expected: a vaguely human-shaped object assembled of bits of metal and wood, with all of its innards, if I may call them that, on the outside. It was standing facing a workbench, which was strewn with small tools and other oddments.

“Now watch!” he said, moving to stand behind the construction. He began pressing this and that on the thing’s back, and as I watched its arms reached out and began to rearrange the items on the workbench. It moved deftly and precisely.

“I’m not using any magic,” he said. “The magic’s all done, and powered by these blocks, here, here, and here.”

“I’m impressed, John. That looks like complete success to me.”

“You think so, do you,” he said, scowling. He stepped back from the automaton. “Watch this.”

He pointed at the door to the workshop and said, “Automaton, close the door.”

I gasped. “Can it do that?”

The automaton didn’t move, and John exploded. “No, of course it can’t do that! It’s stupid, I tell you. Got no ears to hear with, got no eyes to see with, got no mind to think with! I don’t need to feed it magic anymore, but it can’t do anything on its own. I still need to stand by it and make it do every little thing!”

Oh. Of course. Yes, it could now move without magic, but it still needed an intelligent mind to direct it. John and Master Luc had achieved a great thing, but it was a limited thing. How one would give an object a mind, I couldn’t say; and, manifestly, John couldn’t either.

John slumped, resting one hand heavily on the workbench. I went to him and took his arm.

“Come, John. Let me make you some tea.”

He followed me to the kitchen and sat down, still morose. I put the kettle on and went through the motions of making tea, thinking madly all the while, and finally brought the teapot and biscuits over to the table.

“John, I have had a thought,” I said as I poured out. He looked over at me, still scowling. “I know you were wanting to create a kind of magical servant, who could do all the things a human servant could do. You haven’t, and I quite see the problem now that you have explained it. But consider: someone needs to direct your creation’s motions, but it doesn’t need to be you. Surely anyone could learn to do it?”

He shook his head and said fiercely, “What good is a household servant if you have to direct its every smallest motion?”

“Do you remember Bosworth the footman? He wasn’t much better, as I recall.”

John grimaced at the childhood memory. “No, I suppose he wasn’t.”

“But you’re right, what you have is no good as a household servant at all. But perhaps you could design a different kind of automaton to do simple tasks: sewing a seam, or sawing wood, as directed by a workman. You should talk to Mr. Tuppenny. It could help with simple tasks at the wagonworks.”

He stared at me for a long moment, then leaped from his chair. “Paper,” he muttered, “I need paper.” He dashed from the room.

I finished my cup of tea, ate a meditative biscuit, and then, to the sound of John shouting, “Cathy? Cathy!” I returned to my sky-chair and flew off to the wagonworks to find your cousin.

“He’s working again,” I told him. “You’ll want to have Master Luc give him a tour of everything that goes on at the wagonworks, or who knows what he will come up with. But with proper direction, I think he might have something useful for you.”

He thanked me most graciously, and I returned to the Sloops and His Napes.

Amelia

Next letter

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