“Are you a Sorcerer?” Persephone whispered, because the instructions suggested experience.
The old woman nodded.
“Once,” she said. “In the past.”
With her pencil-knife she continued. She made two swooping smile lines, again very deep, running from the sides of the nose. This addition gave the impression of cheeks. Of all the lines the woman had made, these were the first to be curved, not angular, and they brought a humanity to the face.
“I must add a mouth.” The woman made a horizontal cut in a straight line. That interested Persephone, because when she drew a mouth on a piece of paper it was always u-shaped, and it occurred to her for the first time that nobody’s mouth was shaped that way.
A second line, beneath the mouth, made a lower lip.
“Let’s give her a little shave. Yes? Let’s shave her little chin.” The woman rolled the knife around the bottom corner of the soap, paring papery flakes away. Once she was satisfied with the chin she defined the nose more clearly and cut deeper into the eyes, to create shadows.
She took a second piece of soap from her shawl. This one had already been cut into a torso, arms, and legs. The torso did not look like any other doll Persephone had seen from the shop; the soap breasts were unmatched sizes. The stomach was marked with small, wriggling lines like the ones Persephone had seen on her own mother’s belly, the marks she said came from growing Persephone inside her. Now the old woman licked the base of the soap head – Persephone shuddered in sympathy at how bitter it must taste – and sealed it to the neck.
Distantly, Persephone saw one of the Sorcerers, Barnaby Sabin, running across the muddy turf towards them.
“Oh no,” groaned the old woman. She handed the knife and doll to Persephone. “Take these. Hide them in your pockets.”
Barnaby’s face was very red when he reached them.
“Hester,” he scolded. “What are you doing wandering off?”
She said nothing.
“Augusta’s been worried sick.”
“Goodbye,” Persephone said, sensing that the old woman was in trouble. Barnaby seemed to register she was there for the first time.
“Why didn’t you let us know, Seph? We’ve been looking for her everywhere.”
Persephone bristled. “I didn’t know who she was.”
At this Barnaby’s face softened somewhat. “No. No, I don’t imagine you would. She mostly has to stay indoors these days.”
“How old is she?” Persephone asked.
“One hundred and eight,” and then he was preoccupied with cajoling Hester from her seat, so Persephone left, half skating, half wading her way home through the mud. She sat on the front doorstep to remove her skates, and took the knife and doll surreptitiously from her pocket. The doll had the slightest undertone of an enchantment. Maybe soap didn’t hold enchantments well. But it was definitely there. Courage, the doll evoked in a whisper. Persephone knew the Sorcerers had lied when they said it wasn’t a woman’s job.
6
In his first few weeks, Larkin made good progress in Kendricks Workshop. Each morning he arrived at seven for a twelve-hour day. Making dolls was hard on the eyes, the fingers and the spine; Larkin took solitary walks round the eyot at lunchtime, to allow his bones to decompress. But he was always eager to return to his workbench. The world outside, and the people that walked upon it, with their hidden thoughts and inclinations, seemed insubstantial compared to the small figures forming beneath his chisel. Most of the time he made wooden maquettes. These practice pieces, Dennis told him, were appropriate for an apprentice, as he could learn without the pressure of making dolls for sale until otherwise instructed. Larkin didn’t protest that he was a practised, and nuanced, whittler. He obeyed; he perfected the exact angle of a doll’s nose, the slenderness of her eyebrow, the curve of her ear. So absorbed was he in this work that when, one Friday afternoon, Dennis approached Larkin’s workbench, Larkin twice failed to respond to his name.
He apologised for his inattention, and asked: “Am I needed?”
“The workshop’s ahead of schedule. The other chaps are finishing early for the weekend. You can go with them if you like. But if you’re tiring of maquettes, I can guide you in a new skill this afternoon, while things are quiet. Do you have a preference for what you learn next?”
Larkin sensed, in the offer, an implicit approval of his good work. He thought he could lose nothing by being bold.
“Enchantments,” he said. “Teach me how to lay enchantments.”
Dennis laughed uneasily. So far they’d adhered to Conrad’s edict that the Sorcerers mustn’t share their enchantments with Larkin. To maintain their secrecy, the six men carried out this aspect of their work after Larkin left the workshop each night.
“You can learn enchantments when you’re more settled in,” Dennis said. “For now, let’s test your mettle in another material. Is there any medium besides wood that you’d like to try? Ceramics?”
Larkin brushed sawdust from the maquette, taking his time to reply because he feared his disappointment would show. He had applied himself these past weeks to show he was settling in. And Larkin was sure he’d told Alastair he already had some skill with porcelain; he was no more a novice with ceramics than he was with wood. But perhaps Dennis didn’t know that – and in any case, he mustn’t think Larkin was petulant.
“Might we try iron?” Larkin asked. Since seeing the Paid Mourner at close range – or rather, the guards that stood on the latch – Larkin had been intrigued by the possibilities of iron dolls, and particularly what Hedwig Mayhew said about the intensity of feeling they allowed. Larkin knew the basics of smithing, but so far hadn’t been shown the forge. If Dennis agreed then Larkin would at least see some more of what Kendricks had to offer.
“Iron’s a niche market,” Dennis said, his eyebrows raised in surprise. “But if you’d like to learn more about it… I don’t see why you shouldn’t.”
They went together to the small brick forge that stood behind the workshop. Dennis explained that the forge was run on coal. He demonstrated how the fire was lit and controlled, before urging Larkin to take a long rod of iron and heat the tip till it glowed white and amber. Silently Larkin accepted the instruction; a refresher did no harm.
“Now place it on the anvil,” Dennis said. “You need a good strong surface to work upon.”
He handed Larkin a hammer – more of a mallet, to Larkin’s thinking – and encouraged him to strike the iron flat with repeated blows. Larkin weighed the hammer in his hand before beginning, judging it to be at least two pounds. He swung it with satisfaction.
“You need to work quickly,” Dennis explained. “Quick blows, in succession, before the iron cools.”
The heat from the dwindling forge and the exertion of striking made Larkin’s skin itch beneath his cotton overalls. Dennis produced a series of additional tools, each secured through a hole in the anvil and designed variously to curl, pierce or twist the iron into the desired form. Eventually a flat, but undoubtedly human figure took shape upon the anvil.
“She has a truculent set to the shoulders,” Dennis observed. “And her fists are up.”