The stately master of Brandenbra.s.s took Europe for a stroll back into the gloom of the indoor forest, down an artificial avenue. Walking with the ducal attendants-several servants in tow of an intense clerical-looking fellow all flanked by a quarto of Grognards-the young factotum kept a handful of paces behind, head ducked respectfully, watching the two mighty folk through his brows. Materializing from the gloom, two conspicuously bald-headed lifeguards followed again beside them in the adjacent avenue.

Hands behind back, the lord of Brandenbra.s.s set a leisurely pace.

"I hear your new factotum was expensive to obtain," he began.

Rossamund concentrated on keeping step.

"His salary is no greater than any other aide's," the Branden Rose answered evenly.

"For truth?" The Archduke smiled a serpent's smile. "You do not think quo gratia a high price?"

The fulgar sniffed an odd, dismissive kind of laugh.

Unfazed in his turn, the mighty man's smile remained. "The use of our ancient right for such a purpose-as you can well imagine, my dear," he returned in fatherly tones, despite his near-equivalent age, "would do great dishonor to us all"-by which Rossamund could only a.s.sume he meant the rulers and heirs of state-"and greatest of all to the one so misusing it . . . Though ..." He gestured easy with his hand. "I need not tell you that, of course."

Half a smirk fluttering on her rouged lips, Europe simply looked at him. "You are direct indeed, cousin duke"-her words were heavy with irony-"and sound much like my mother."

Rossamund's nape p.r.i.c.kled with fright.

Here they were before one of the few souls in the Empire second only to the Emperor in power-who commanded armies and navies and could call for your death without any recourse-yet Europe bantered and cogged with him as if he were a senior member of her staff or some haggling high-street shopkeeper.

Yet the Archduke did not take umbrage but kept a steady, careful tone. "Even a beautiful untameable heir of state must explain herself once-of-a-while . . ."

"Such an untameable heiress might have much better uses for her time, sir."

"It might appear needless, I grant, but I hear such disconcerting reports about the novelty of your new factotum's origin." He glanced over his shoulder to give Rossamund a sidelong inspection.

"What, pray, is novel about a marine society child from Boschenberg?" Europe countered in easy tones.

"Why nothing, little cousin Naimes. But a child that is actually a monster in a child's form? Now that is an innovation!"

A great lurching like guilt twisted in Rossamund's gut, making his brow clammy. He judiciously scrutinized the sentinel wits from the corner of his sight; the severe fellows seemed solely intent on Europe.

The Archduke of Brandenbra.s.s c.o.c.ked his head congenially at her. "You were ever the vanguard of fashion, my dear."

"I wonder at you, cousin," the fulgar declared with quiet poise, "for putting so uncommon a trust in such dangerous and idling twitter. Such stuff I would expect to be believed by those in possession only of ears with little else than mouths between."

Now it was the Archduke's turn to chortle. "An Imperial Secretary is no simple ruffian come to complain about pigs in his 'taters; nor, my dear, is his power some overreliance on the pleading claims of ancient blood."

Rossamund knew enough to recognize this as a slight against his mistress, and an angry heat surged around his neck and scalp.

"It might serve you, cousin"-Europe's tone was didactic, as if scolding a simpleton-"to make a more thorough inquiry of the virtue of those bringing such accusations, and their a.s.sociates. Investigation of the deeper cellars of their bastion might turn over good reason to discredit these ambitious colleagues of yours."

"You speak of course of the sanguine cause of the obscure and previous marshal of Winstermill," the lord of Brandenbra.s.s purred ever so smoothly. "Sad, so sad . . ."

Rossamund bridled silently at this slur upon the n.o.ble Lamplighter-Marshal.

"From what I know, he too has made such a claim," the Archduke was saying. "Yet extensive searches made by the current marshal have yielded nothing . . ."

"Possibly a proof in itself, I would have thought ..." Europe smiled in queenly repose. "It strikes me, cousin, that if you have such d.a.m.ning testimony, such witnesses, such potent friends, you do not summon your lifeguards and your clerks to prosecute me and my novel staff here and now and bring satisfaction to all your complaints."

Half in expectation that this might indeed occur, Rossamund reflexively reached for absent digitals.

Yet no one moved. No order came.

"Ha ha, my match is met!" the Archduke suddenly exclaimed with perfectly pitched mirth, his laughter strangely flat in this weird faux-forest. Yet his gaze was glittering as he stopped and turned to his guest, a conflict of choices wrestling in his twitching gaze. "Regardless of how you dodge and hide, sister, it must be said that if these proofs bear out, it would be a perverse turn, even for you, m'dear." He smirked. "I recall only last year at one of your rare appearances at an evening conversational with the Marchess of Pike, where I heard you say to Lady Madigan and the Reive of Lo that . . . What was it again?" He hesitated, relishing the moment as he leaned toward one of his secretaries as if they might remind him. "Oh, yes . . . that monsters were only good for sport or slaughter . . ." He watched her as if to observe the fall of a well-aimed shot.

Unmoved, the fulgar's diamond-spoored brow rose slightly. "And here was I, thinking you were too interested in the Baroness of Pike's much celebrated bosom to hearken properly to decent conversation."

The Archduke colored just slightly. "There now!" He smacked his lips. "How clumsy of me to speak of such triflings with you, the great teratologist who has performed such services for my humble state and for which I am forever grateful."

"And your return to flattery, cousin, heralds the end of our conversation," she returned mildly. "I go to knave. Good day." Without curtsies or niceties, the heiress of Naimes turned on boot-heel and strode boldly down the nearest avenue and out from those oppressing trees.

Hastening after, Rossamund did not dare a word, aware of the shadowy escort of the two wits keeping pace nearby. Collecting his digitals in the obverse, he exited that ill.u.s.trious menacing court pregnant with malignant suspicions in mighty relief and clambered back into the day coach waiting faithfully for them out on the Florescende.

"A wanton waste of a day's travel . . . ," Europe said quietly as Latissimus took them home.

"Might he have had us arrested?" Rossamund asked carefully.

The heiress of Naimes fixed him with hard eyes. "He has not the stomach to risk a brawl with me in his own courts, nor to upset the delicate humours of my mother and all the states in between should a b.u.mp even come upon my crown in his city." She settled in her seat and stared at the pa.s.sing world with its simpler cares. "No, he will set a watch on us if he has not already; have all his earwigs and peterpeepholes ogle us . . ." She smiled thinly. "Watch as you will, cousin gapeseed," she suddenly spoke to the air, "there is little enough to see."

For a time there was tight, vibrating silence, Rossamund's thoughts pivoting rapidly about the meeting with the Archduke. Soon his deliberations spiraled inward to one painful point. "Miss Europe?" he tried.

Her chin resting with light and practiced poise upon gracefully bent knuckles, the fulgar peered at him, her expression beckoning him to continue.

"Do ... Do you truly believe that monsters are only good for sport or slaughter?" he managed.

The fulgar's eyes narrowed, and Rossamund wondered for one astounded moment if he had achieved the improbable and confounded the impenetrable fulgar.

"Can you imagine me holding to a different thought, little man?"

Rossamund blanched and looked to the floor of the landaulet.

"What might you have me say?" his mistress insisted. "You have seen for yourself the wickedness that a handful of nickers might bring."

He nodded, the violent end of Wormstool clear in his mind.

"Without me and all the teratologists, monsters would rule supreme." Europe's voice remained frighteningly steady. "I can hardly conduct my necessary labors fussing over whether one hairy brute chewing on a child might be in a better frame of mood on some other, sunnier day! Or if a ravening bugaboo ruining some rustic gent's life and future really might prefer to sip sillabub with demented old eeker ladies out in the swamps!" She took a breath. "You might meet some soft-headed teratologist who is prepared to ponder the motivations from one tribe of bogles to another-and I know such as they are about-but occurrence enough has taught me that such flimsy souls soon come to surprised and nasty ends." She stared hard at him. "Would you rather that I grow philosophical and let the next murderous monster we hunt rip me and you and the world about us asunder just for the sake of a few felicitous feelings?"

Rossamund shook his head, but this time held her gaze. "No . . . Yes . . . I ..." He paused to collect himself, then chose each word with care. "Where-where do I figure in your reckoning of things? Don't I change your mind in some part?"

Her stare hardened to a glare, anger flashing in her eyes. "You figure very much in my thinking, Rossamund! Of that you may be certain."

In deep confusion he said nothing more and watched the city pa.s.sing.

They returned to Cloche Arde and the final preparations for departure, neither speaking again that day upon the meeting with Maupin or Swill or the Archduke.

In the deep hush of night Rossamund stirred and lay for a moment in his downy bed tracing the whorls in the ceiling and wondering in frustration why he was awake when he so dearly wanted sleep before the early start. He could hear the careful rasp of cautious carriage wheels and m.u.f.fled hooves came from the Harrow Road below.

They slowed . . .

... then stopped.

Instantly every fiber within him imploded with pain, the drawing, agonizing scathing of a wit doubling him over in its excruciating grip.

Through his anguish he heard a shocked cry come from somewhere within Cloche Arde, quickly followed by a woman's shrieking.

The whole house is under a.s.sault!

He clutched at the pain, trying to fight off the silent, pulsing torment that pinned him. For a moment he was master of himself, yet this served only to tumble him in a tangle of bedclothes onto the floor.

Immediately below was a racket of thumping footfalls on carpet and board and stone. The front door slammed open and boot steps ground speedily on gravel. The flat pop! of one-two-three firelocks sounded from the street, immediately followed by the deadened fizzing thump of a detonating potive. A shout. A sudden crack of a whip and the answering snorts of frightened horses set carriage wheels in more hasty motion.The scathing abruptly ceased, leaving ears ringing and a m.u.f.fled clamor of distress elsewhere in the house.

With but a breath to right himself, Rossamund s.n.a.t.c.hed up his digitals on their thin belt, clumsily slid on soft slippers as he left his room and fairly leaped the flights down to the front door. Out in the chill yard he found Europe wrapped in a thin seclude but heavy-booted, standing at the locked gate and speaking with hushed agitation to someone beyond on the street, her unbound hair fine fluttering gossamer on the nocturnal currents. Rossamund could make little of the dim figure standing in the shadow of the wall except that he was rather thin. Another similarly reluctant companion stood across the other side of the Harrow Road. He wore a device of pewter and enamel and lenses strapped to his head-a sthenicon, Rossamund supposed, though of a kind he had never seen-and bore heavy pistols in hand.

"She departed in haste once we fired on her cart," Europe's interlocutor was saying as Rossamund hurried to see who it was. "They were not expecting a repulse from the flank." His voice held a subtle note of amus.e.m.e.nt. "Just a common takeny, nothing especial to pick it out . . ."

"Of course," Europe replied. "They do not want to spell out their deeds too simply ...Your a.s.sistance and the aim of your shooting irons were as timely as they were unsought, Mister Slitt."

The fellow moved a little into the gate's light to reveal himself as the man who, with the Baron Finance, had intercepted them that very morning. "I-and Mister Camillo with me," he said, gesturing to the pistol-wielder behind, "are in your service, ma'am . . . and yours too, Mister Bookchild," the rather una.s.suming fellow said to Rossamund in turn as he drew close.

"Was that Anaesthesia Myrrh?" Rossamund asked in reply.

Turning suddenly at her factotum's approach, Europe replied rather curtly, "I am reckoning it was, yes . . . Unless Maupin has an entire hand of wits at his beck."

The two obscure guardians chuckled.

"Apart from the one he lost so recent," Elecrobus Slitt elaborated, "I know of no others in his service, good lady ... Else Pitter-Patter has himself 'come a wigbold."

The Branden Rose smiled darkly. "There is scant we can do about it tonight, and I have a knave to begin tomorrow," she declared with the tone of conclusion. "So I thank you again, Mister Slitt. Be sure to thank your master for his motherly care."

With humble nods the two men returned to the shadows, and Europe and Rossamund to the violated safety of Cloche Arde.

13.

THE KNAVING BEGINS.

pipistrelle light onsh.o.r.e winds that make for good sailing of small-sailed vessels such as sloops or brigantines. Their presence is seen as a sign of favor by all seafaring folk, but they are known to be fickle benefactors, turning all too quickly into mortal tempests.

DESPITE the attack in the night and the buffeting winds coming up from the gulf of the Grume the next morning, they departed very early and one day later than planned.

No serious hurt had come from the carriage-borne witting. One of the maids had become hysterical, needing a soporific-brewed by Rossamund himself. Nectarius the nightlocksman took a tumble under the frission and upset some valuable and precariously perched item, smashing it. Beyond aching heads, Craumpalin and Fransitart were unharmed, the old dispenser griping about "blighted three-bell scoundrels" ruining his "sounded sleep."

Fitful for the remainder of the night, Rossamund began the new day keen to be away from this troublesome city. Rising before the sun, he went forth wayfarer-ready in full harness, baldric and knife, satchel and salt-bag, stoups and digitals, completed by black thrice-high. About his throat he had knotted a white silken vent, loose enough, he hoped, to be easily pulled over mouth and nose. Bought at Pauper Chives', it was guaranteed by the salt-seller as being the best potive-resisting neckerchief he owned. He had arranged all scripts and parts-checked and rechecked-in their proper containers ready handy in order of importance and frequency of use.

"Catch an eye of ye, fitted with all yer saltoons!" Fransitart said as they collected out in the yard. "Ye look ready to repel a whole maraude, like Harold hisself."

Rossamund grinned gratefully.

Wrapped in a thick pallmain and a gray woolen scarf, the ex-dormitory master bore a modest satchel filled with wayfoods and useful things, and the same stocky musketoon he had leveled on Pater Maupin two days ago. "Borrowed it from a mate o' Casimir Fauchs," Fransitart declared, lifting the firelock confidently. Its metal coated in stickbrown, this was obviously a naval weapon. "He has a chest full o' them from our time a-sea together, fine fellow." A bent and stained tricorn sat jauntily on his h.o.a.ry head, and a heavy naval hanger was strapped to his hip.

Pink-faced and puffing, Craumpalin wore the frock coat and longshanks he always did, a drab woolen wrap wound warm around his shoulders, and an old capuche-or cap of wool-of the same covering his crown. He bore a cudgel in hand, and his own stoup of potives hung at his side.

Against the cold Europe set out in a sumptuous scarlet fur-hide coat-a flugalcoat-and fur-trimmed boots. Once more her hair was knotted and held in a pointed comb and crow's-claw hair tine. Streaming out from about her throat into the bl.u.s.ter was a silken scarf of dark olive broidered with trails of wind-dancing birds. Ledger under arm and peering confidently up at the cold dome of morning, she seemed greatly improved in mood from the angry impatience of yesternight. She even offered a smile at the dim day.

Darter Brown too turned out, perching upon the head of a dog statue, ruffling himself impatiently and clearly aware that travel was afoot.

With the household staff arranging themselves in neat quasi-military order on Cloche Arde's front steps for the farewell, Latissimus brought a pair of st.u.r.dy young horses stretched now and ready for harness. Rufous and Candle, Rossamund heard a stableryhand call them, the first dull russet, the other soap-white. Both were partially shabraqued in petrailles of black lour thoroughly doused in sisterfoot, a nullodour that Rossamund had himself made in the restlessness of the previous afternoon from the pages of the compleat.

"Fine-stepping horses for town, cobs fo' the country," the gentleman-of-the-stables had explained. "Though you are going out into caballine lands where horses ought to be safe," he explained, patting the beast's proofing, "there's still wisdom in keeping them from harm's chances."

The young factotum grinned at the beasts and fancied they grinned at him too.

"Back to simpler lives now, Mister Kitchen," Europe said in goodbye as Rossamund handed her aboard. "You may drop the flag; I leave you to peace and routine."

"Farewell, my gracious lady," the steward returned. "Return to us hale." He bowed, a long stoop, and the household did the same, openly displeased to see the fulgar depart.

"Drive on, Master Vinegar," the fulgar called to Fransitart's back.

"Aye, aye, ma'am. Drivin' on!" With a flick of reins and a click of the tongue, the old vinegaroon started the horses.

The knaving was begun.

Obedient to Europe's laconic directions, Fransitart proved-to Rossamund's enduring satisfaction-that handling a two-horse team was within his grasp; he humored the reins with surprising subtlety.

Out beyond the substantial suburbs they went, through mighty curtain gates, by row on row of cheap half-houses that coagulated about the stacks of tall isolated mills or long work halls, through markets already teeming with dawn-risen custom.

Looping along beside the landaulet in that hurried, dipping way such birds do, Darter Brown shot from fence-spike to red lamp-crown. Rossamund looked kindly at his little escort.

Progress became spasmodic as eager early traffic-farmers' wagons, firewood drays, stinking night-soil carts-crammed the highroads.

A smartly clad figure stepped out of the disorder and made directly for the landaulet. Before a warning was properly forming on Rossamund's lips, this impertinent fellow sprang up and, grasping the sash of the door, stood upon the side step to pinch a ride.

"Good morning, Lord Finance," Europe said in quiet greeting.

"A hale morning to you, Lady of Naimes," the importunate side-step coaster returned between heavy breaths, miming a bow with his free hand. "Not as spry as I once was."

"Have you taken up cadging as your latest sport, good baron?" the heiress of Naimes asked mildly. "Is my mother not giving you enough to do . . ."

"No fear, gracious lady." Finance took a breath. "Could I by some trick of habilistic conjury live three times over, I should still be hard pressed to complete all the labors you and your most estimable and Magentine mother provide."

The fulgar smiled slightly. "I thank you for the service of your Mister Slitt last night-he is a very useful fellow."