By Reginald Thistlewhite
In the winding streets behind Inverness’s market square, where brass shavings cling to the cobblestones and the scent of oil and pine dust lingers, one finds the small workshops that keep the Kingdom itself ticking. These are the sanctuaries of Eyehasseen’s master clockmakers, artisans whose intricate mechanisms regulate not merely hours but the rhythm of modern life.
Inside Master Ewan Drexler’s shop, the steady tick-tock of pendulums hangs in the air like a second heartbeat. Wooden cases gleam in the dim light, their brass faces polished to a mirror sheen. “A clock,” Drexler says, lifting a gear between calloused fingers, “is more than an instrument. It is a covenant between man and time.”
That covenant is central to the nation’s infrastructure. From the synchronized bells of the Royal Cathedral, which mark the Angelus across the capital, to the exacting timetables of the expanding railway system, timekeeping in Eyehasseen is no private matter. The kingdom’s factories depend upon precision to regulate shifts, and the docks rely upon it to coordinate departures with the tides. A slipped minute, one clockmaker warns, could derail commerce as surely as a loosened bolt.
At the Royal Cathedral, Chief Verger Thomas Halberg insists on monthly inspections of the bell-regulating clock, an elaborate system of weights and gears first installed nearly a century ago. “The bells ring not only for worship,” Halberg explains, “but for the soul of the kingdom. To falter here is to falter in faith itself.” That responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of the Inverness guild.
Yet in the shadows of tradition, modern anxieties creep. Imported pocket watches, manufactured cheaply in industrial foundries abroad, have begun to flood the markets. Many young professionals now tuck foreign pieces into their waistcoats, a status symbol that costs less than a handcrafted local piece. “They look fine until they’re a week old,” scoffs apprentice clockmaker Lydia Renshaw, “then they keep time about as well as a rooster.”
Still, some merchants argue that the imports serve a practical need. “A watch is a tool,” says trader Barnaby Croft, who sells both domestic and foreign pieces in his stall at the Exchange. “Not everyone can afford to pay a month’s wages for a handcrafted Eyehasseen timepiece. If the railways can run, what does it matter where the watch was made?”
For Master Drexler and his peers, the answer lies not in cost but in continuity. “Our clocks don’t just measure minutes. They carry history.” He gestures to an ornate grandfather clock built by his grandfather, still chiming faultlessly after ninety years. “Tell me if an imported trinket will last so long. Time has no patience with shoddy work.”
The Guild of Clockmakers, founded under royal charter two centuries ago, has recently petitioned Parliament for tariffs on foreign imports, arguing that domestic craft must be preserved not only for economic reasons but for national pride. The debate rages in committee chambers: should Eyehasseen embrace the tide of modern trade or shield its artisans behind protective walls?
Meanwhile, the workshops of Inverness remain busy. Apprentices file teeth into gears no wider than a fingernail. Masters etch delicate patterns into brass faces that will outlive their owners. Customers shuffle in with heirlooms needing repair: carriage clocks battered by generations, watches scarred by war, mantelpieces tarnished by time. Each is restored, polished, and wound back into the service of the living.
Perhaps the last word belongs to young Renshaw, pausing from her bench to wipe the grease from her hands. “Whether they buy foreign or local, the kingdom still runs on our hours. We’re the ones who keep the Cathedral ringing, the trains leaving, the factories shifting. If Eyehasseen is alive, it is because her heart is ticking.”
And in the twilight, as the bells of the Royal Cathedral strike the hour with mathematical perfection, one cannot help but agree: time in Eyehasseen is more than a measure. It is a craft, a heritage, and, for the clockmakers of Inverness, a calling that will not be wound down.