The Clocktower
A tale of the nocturne · in which punctuality is a battlefield.
The trouble began, as so much trouble in the Vale does, with a letter. It arrived at the Velvet Manor on a Tuesday — or what passes for Tuesday when the sun is a rumor — sealed in grey wax and written in Warden Ilsa's immaculate hand:
"My dear Lucien, I trust the night finds you well. It has come to my attention that your manor's clocks strike midnight a full four minutes before the tower. The tower, as you know, is the Vale's time. I remain, etc."— Warden Ilsa of the Clocktower
Lucien read it twice, smiled the particular smile that Madame Solenne had learned to fear, and dictated his reply before the ink of hers was dry:
"My dear Warden, how kind of you to write. I confess I had not noticed the discrepancy, being so rarely in a hurry. Perhaps the tower might consider striking earlier, that we might all be fashionably late together. I remain, etc."— Lucien
What followed was six weeks of correspondence that the Vale still talks about. Each letter was a masterpiece of courtesy and a declaration of war. Ilsa proposed a calibration. Lucien proposed a dinner to discuss the calibration. Ilsa declined the dinner and sent a horologist. Lucien sent the horologist home with a cake and a revised proposal involving the moon.
It ended, as these things do, at midnight. Lucien climbed the clocktower — all four hundred and eleven steps, in full evening dress, carrying a lantern and an apology he had been composing for a week. Ilsa met him at the top among the gears, in her oil-stained coat, unimpressed.
"Four minutes," she said.
"Four minutes," he agreed, "and a cake, which your horologist informs me you never ate."
"It was a bribe."
"It was a very good bribe."
She almost smiled. Almost. Then the great bell above them drew its breath, and struck — once, twice — and Lucien, who had spent a century being early to everything that mattered and late to everything that didn't, stood beside his rival in the cold machinery of midnight and counted the chimes aloud with her, all thirteen of them.
There are thirteen chimes at the Vale's midnight. Everyone knows this. No one knows why.
When the last one faded, Ilsa said, "Your clocks may keep their four minutes."
"And the tower?"
"The tower," she said, "will learn to be fashionably late."
They never spoke of it again. But the manor's clocks and the tower's bell have agreed ever since — and once a year, on the anniversary, a cake arrives at the clocktower with no card. Ilsa eats it alone, at midnight, counting chimes. She has never once admitted to enjoying it.