Obediently, the young factotum unwound his ersatz dressings to reveal the raw weeping mess of his palm and fingers.

"Ahh, me lad!" Fransitart commiserated.

"That is why most skolds throw their potives," Europe remarked drolly, standing near, her scrutiny never leaving the ministering nuglung.

The ex-dormitory master snorted a slight laugh.

Rossamund looked bemusedly at them both.

Taking a choice of bonny weeds and luridly blotched bulbs from his pockets, Cinnamon began to masticate them together with p.r.o.nounced clampings of his bill. Gently, the nuglung took Rossamund's hand in his own, the ashen skin cool and strangely calloused, its touch a comfort, and spat a gray-green ma.s.s directly onto the blistered flesh. Wherever the salivary poultice touched, the pain was immediately balmed.

"This is how you mended Numps," Rossamund observed frankly, refusing to be disgusted as he watched the bogle-prince's careful tending.

"Such and more, yes," Cinnamon agreed. "The utterworsts might have slain him else. Those vile festermen have brought as much misery to everymen as e'er they have to us."

The young factotum watched the ancient nuglung in patent wonder, struck by Cinnamon's incongruous proportions and queer alien beauty and the fragrance of feather and blossom mingled with that of fresh-turned loam that surrounded him. The nuglung bound Rossamund's hand, palm now covered with the physicking spit, in thick weeds-weevil lily, he called it-all fixed with a final binding of more usual bandage from the stoup. Cinnamon did not offer such aid to Europe, and the fulgar did not seek it.

"That's what caused yer blast," Fransitart called over the din of frogs that had begun to croak and trill all along the drain. Musketoon in hand, the old salt was hobbling beside the large elliptical crater. Abruptly, he kicked at an oddly bent plate of metal half buried in the upheaved soil, the iron piece torn and jagged as if mere paper. "A belch pot!" He spat and muttered something foul. "Breech-full o' cannon char . . ."

Rossamund's eyes went round.

"If it weren't for them poor daft horses halting short an' liftin' their heads when they did," the old dormitory master went on in wonderment, "I doubt we would be about this world any more . . . A miss is as good as a mile, 'ey, lad!" He smiled ruefully, forgetful of his wound and stretching the gash in his lip. "Oh . . ." The ex-vinegaroon hastily stanched the flowing wound with a wad of weeds he had in his hand. "They were a right parsthel of blackheartsth!" he declared bitterly through the leafy m.u.f.fle.

"Blackhearts, indeed, Master Vinegar," the fulgar returned flatly.

"Are you hale for the walk, Master Frans?" Rossamund inquired of the old salt, who looked a little heartier with levenseep fortifying his humours.

"I have some wind left in me yet, lad, afore ye send me off to the tumblehome." The old fellow grinned wanly. "Lead on, Master Sparrow, sir. I'd rather a hard stroll to a better harbor than an easy sit here out o'doors vulnerable to any wild body."

As a final provision for their departure, Europe produced her small black-lacquered whortleberry box and offered one to Fransitart, then to Rossamund.

"For Cinnamon and Freckle too," the young factotum said bluffly as the cheerful vigor of the dried berry swelled within.

Even in the dimming day he could feel his mistress' incredulity. "Do nickers and bogles gain benefit from them?"

A little offended, Rossamund answered softly, "Well, I do ..."

To this, the fulgar smiled the thinnest curl of a smile.

"Chortlingberries!" Freckle called them with equal delight, not even pretending to chew.

Despite his expressionless beak, a kind of grin seemed to light Cinnamon's face when the morsel was offered. "Periachares!" He gave a very bright birdlike chirp as he eagerly snapped down the withered thing, Darter Brown joining him in happy mimicry. With a tweet! Cinnamon gathered Craumpalin in his arms like a baby, the little nuglung's great strength clear as he shouldered a man twice his size on his back. His large bird's head bobbling as his regard twitched from one sight to the next, the bogle-prince set off, a slouching, tiny-legged lump with the dispensurist sagging on his back, looming over the little bogle and looking ready to tip to the road at any breath.

To the clamor of raucous frog song, the six of them made their way out from this terrible place, the most bizarre caravan surely to ever have wended the world.

Well ahead, Freckle and Darter Brown took turns to look farther, the sparrow streaking off and winging back to mutter in Cinnamon's hidden ears. At times the bogle-princeling would reply, uttering inexplicable phrases in sparrowlike song. Mists of minuscule bugs surged across the road, spinning about them in celebration of the arbustral evening, flying into eyes, up nostrils, into mouths opened to breathe.

A little way about the ever-bending path they found the curricle used as part of the trap set against them, its wheel still off, dragged no small distance in fright by the stolid gray pony still in its harness and gnawing ruminatively at the roadside herbage.

Putting Craumpalin ever so carefully down upon the weedy verge, Cinnamon stepped to the pony, reaching out for it to nuzzle his small black palm. "Meadows now thy stall shall be," the nuglung crooned, a strange flutter of authority stirring about him as, surprisingly familiar with carriage quipage, he unharnessed the poor beast. "And cloud and star thy stable. Make wild gra.s.s and unplucked weeds your fodder. Be wary now of men and blighted things and dwell untrammeled by thy former burdens."

At this the pony started, nostrils flaring, eyes rolling nervously. With a whinny and a kick, it galloped off down the road and away.

"No more heave and haul for her!" Freckle gurgled. "No more switches switching or bindings binding."

"A clever trick, Master Bogle," Europe offered wearily. "Might it not have been wiser to keep it for our own use?"

"We have limbs enough to hold our loads, oh Lady Lightning, and need not burden a beast," said Cinnamon, hoisting the senseless dispensurist once more onto his shoulders and walking on without a backward look.

As the leaden western sky trans.m.u.ted to sullen crimson, and the east waxed brooding dark out over the pallid waters of the distant Grume, the nuglung took them deeper into the jagged shadows of the wood hill.

Patently untroubled by the dark, Freckle kept well ahead.

Yet stumbling over roots and rocks, Rossamund, by all evidence, did not share such a sense. For his more human eyes-and for Europe and Fransitart too-he fetched his limulight from pocket and gave it to the ex-dormitory master to let the soft blue yellow effulgence guide their questing feet.

"Now, that's a handy article," the old salt whispered.

"Mister Numps gave it to me." Rossamund spared a thought for the poor seltzerman hidden in the slypes and undercrofts of Winstermill's ancient foundations away from the conspiracies and schemes of Podious Whympre.

"The one named Numps does well enough in his hiding holes," Cinnamon declared, startling Rossamund with his sudden proximity. "The clerking-master thinks him beneath his thinking, but I and my lord keep our watch on him. Many are the sparrows of Winstreslewe . . ." The saucers of his black eyes glittering in the gloaming with occult primordial thoughts, the nuglung raised his heavy beak to sniff at the air.

Rossamund opened his mouth to speak, to dare to ask what he feared was the unaskable. "Lord Cinnamon, why did you have me live with everymen? Would I not be safer with the sparrow-king?"

Head now turning to him, those eyes regarded the young factotum blinkingly for several breaths. "Safer? Why, yes, thee would certainly have been safer . . . and more so should you choose to retreat to him now that men hunt thee." Cinnamon paused as if this was actually a question that needed answering.

Here once again Rossamund had a choice amid all the go and the do to pick his own path, to live with the Duke of Sparrows, removed and untouchable.

"We have wanted thee to learn of love for everymen," the bogle-prince continued candidly. " ' Twas a gamble, 'tis true, yet the lessons of the blightlings-if they were to find thee and keep themselves from eating thee-would have been for nought but malice, for cruel destruction and all frames of sly-born misery. With my lord, the Sparrowlengis, thee might neither find love nor hate, but learn only of the everymen from afar as thoughtless and brutal and best to be avoided." Cinnamon stopped and turned to face him fully. "There is much mischief and violence in everymen-as you know right well," the nuglung said solemnly, with the merest flicker of a glance to Europe not far behind.

Rossamund heard the fulgar sniff in objection.

"Yet they are loved and there is hope, so we defend them ..." Though there was little change in his face, Cinnammon seemed to brighten. "And now too do thee, little Rossamund.You see! Our gamble has been worthy. The everymen need all the friends they can against the sunderhallows and falsely G.o.ds." He gave a sharp chirrup! that ended conversation and set Darter Brown to expectant twitching. "Walk on, walk on," he declared, setting off again to lead them up an avenue of old conifers. "Thee and thine are close to succor now."

Wending about every fold and spur of the steepening combe into the round hills, they kept course beside a murmuring waterway, invisible in the dark to their left. Gully breezes stirred fitfully about them, rousing soft creakings and rattlings on either hand, bringing with them a profoundly earthy smell that hung heavier and heavier in the shifting valley air. By dim limulight Rossamund found that the meager cart trail became a channel through thickly knotted thorns, a soughing briar grove tingling with a subtle threwdish caution-not unfriendly, just waiting. Beyond the spiny writhen boughs and thickset trunks he glimpsed lights. It seemed to him that one glow was brighter and swung more freely than the rest. It was a lantern. Someone was coming out to them.

"Ahoo! Ahoo! Prince Cannelle?" a man's voice called, husky with caution.

Cinnamon halted, giving a birdlike chirrup! as reply.

The lantern light approached, resolving into a bright-limn lifted now in the hands of a slight young fellow with dark, intelligent eyes, a broad round nose and curly black hair tied back. Dressed in a heavy coat with a white stock about his neck, the fellow had a stylus secured behind his ear. Beside him was a heavier gent in a properly proofed jackcoat, wearing an anxious face with a nigh absent chin beneath white scratch wig and broad-brimmed catillium. He bore a brace of unfriendly two-barrel hauncets.

With them came Freckle, looking powerfully pleased with himself.

Both men were goggling saucer-eyed from Cinnamon to Craumpalin hunched upon his shoulders.

"My dear Prince Cannelle," the slender young man said with a gracious bow to Cinnamon, his words having the tone of formula. "May the earth heal beneath your feet, and peace guard you-and ah . . . your companions wholly." He straightened.

The bogle-prince, still bearing the insensible dispensurist, bobbed his own curtsy and replied with a formula of his own. "May your days be long and you ever tell blight from blithe."

"Yon Lentigo near gave us all a chordic failure with his hammering at our door!" the older, bulkier fellow grumped, the slightest northern accent in his words. He added under his breath, "If it weren't a-troubling enough ter have hob-thrushes come by at all hours unannounced, our fellow brings comp'ny . . . and hurt comp'ny at that."

Freckle grinned ever more broadly.

"Yes, thank you, Spedillo." The young man cleared his throat and returned his attention to Cinnamon. "You well know that you and little Lord Lentigo are welcome to Orchard Harriet at any juncture. I see tonight you have again brought us guests . . . ," he continued with polite understatement, bowing to the strangers. His astonishment broadened in realization at precisely who stood before him.

Europe stepped forward and introduced herself bluntly, bundling Rossamund and Fransitart and Craumpalin together as her "staff." Waving aside the two fellows' evident bafflement-Just what is Lord Cannelle doing with a fulgar!-she continued with rare urgency. "I am in need of your hearth or stove, sir, so please, lead us on."

"Ah, yes, certainly." The young man floundered for a moment, half turning, then turning back. "Yes, certainly, indeed, our stove . . . and mayhap a bath too . . . I shall present your need to Fabia, our housekeeper. Come along, please, good Lady Rose." He bowed again, handing the bright-limn to his hefty companion, who huffed grumpily as he took it and led them.

Soon the thorn grove gave over to honey-perfumed blossoming thickets of low ornamental trees.The party breathed its corporate relief as the dark ramshackle bulk of a fortified house hove into view, only three of its myriad window-lights lit and the front door open in welcome.

"Orchard Harriet," the young man proclaimed of the spreading structure with clear pride. "And if I may, I am Amonias Silence, poet and amanuensis, and my surly compatriot is Mister Spedillo, gardener, provenderer, nightlocksman."

The other fellow went on without acknowledgment toward the house of Orchard Harriet. Unclear in the darkness, it appeared an inky conglomeration of oddly placed turrets, high-pitched roofs and craggy battlements. A short projecting wing stood out from the building's upper story, making a porch over the foremost entrance, the arched s.p.a.ce overlit with a friendly lamp, its seltzer clean and clear. Taken to this door, they were ushered into a narrow hall, long and doorless, walls souring white, smelling of the slate that made its floor. It was a kind of obverse, a coat stand and boot-sc.r.a.per its only furniture.

Still bearing Craumpalin slumped insensible on his back, Cinnamon looked odd in such a domestic frame, yet past the sparrow-headed bogle another more disconcerting sight arrested Rossamund's attention and stopped him smartly. At the far end of the hall stood an enormous looking gla.s.s, fixed to the wall, showing a ghastly reflection. Spreading out from his nose, his lower face, neck and a good portion of his quabard were dark with old blood; his left eye was already blackened and his fringe partly singed away; much of the thread-of-silver embroidery on the arms of his coat was charred. Turning his head left, then right, he found a clotted trail of blood from his ears. With such an appearance it seemed astonishing he was walking at all!

Europe caught a view of herself too, and even she betrayed shock seeing her dangerously pale, b.l.o.o.d.y, green-streaked face so starkly.

Mister Silence went hastily down the hall ahead of them, calling with all the gusto of a faraday as he went, and obstructing the shocking reflection.

Merry loud replies and heavy footfalls on rug and stone resounded from around some corner down the pa.s.sage, and a middle-aged man with a shock of prematurely graying hair wearing a brocaded silk dressing gown of red and orange strode into view.

"Hulloo, hulloo, Master Sparrow!" the man cried to Cinnamon without the least shock at such an unlikely creature in his house. "Master Pococo!" he heartily welcomed Freckle in his turn.

Rossamund looked quizzically at the little bogle jostling beside him. Pococo? How many names can one creature have!

Freckle just squinted a grin at him and shrugged. "Many names from many namings of many peoples past ..."

The man drew close, a cloud of consternation fleeting across his merry visage as he saw his more human, bedraggled and bloodied guests. "The embattled party arrives, beset but unthwarted and bearing the crimson trophies of victory!" He peered at Europe with cautious recognition. "You keep strange company these days, Master Sparrow!"

"h.e.l.lo to thee, Master Mattern," the nuglung chirruped as Fransitart gave an almost self-conscious bow. "Wounded souls need needful rest and a hearth for heating."

"Rest and hearth they shall have, sir!" the fellow responded heartily, inviting them in further with a sweep of his arms.

Cinnamon carried Craumpalin down the pa.s.sage, Fransitart hobbling after. Freckle helped him in his weariness, the glamgorn's bare feet going slap-slap on the cold slate.

"Good-eve-of-night to thee, Branden Rose!" The fellow addressed the fulgar cheerfully despite their intrusion. "You are the last manner of soul I would expect to find gracing our threshold. Needs press as the nicker drives, hmm?" He touched his nose knowingly. "City whispers of your change of heart bear out, I see."

"Should I know you?" Europe's eyes narrowed.

"Ah-not directly perhaps, gracious lady, but you may have chanced to read my works; Gaspard Plume, gentleman, historian and metrician, at your convenience." He bowed.

Even in his exhaustion, Rossamund realized he had knowledge of this fellow, had read articles attributed to him in the better quality of his pamphlets.

"Indeed. Your kitchen, sir," Europe said, a hard edge to her voice.

"Ah. Absolutely . . . Fabia!" he suddenly hollered, a shrill edge in his voice. "FaBIA!" he called again as he took them down the right-hand junction at the end of the obverse hall.

With the attendant rustle of skirts, a woman joined in step, her small brown face and dark and intense eyes startling among the general white of her high bonnet.

All the way Gentleman Plume called directions to staff somewhere in the house about them-and to anyone else who might be listening-for linen, blankets, tubs, hot water and towels. ". . . And some nice saloop and spiced toast to warm their gizzards and console their wind!"

Suddenly, through a short, pale green pa.s.sage and up stone steps, they were in a long and rather antiquated kitchen. Surrounded by st.u.r.dy timber beams and immemorial stone, on a chest-stove stoked and hot for dinner, Rossamund tested the much-desired plaudamentum in a great pot ready for some other task.

Rossamund was only dimly aware of Europe leaning in fatigue on a highback chair behind him. When the treacle was done and poured into a side-handle soup bowl, his mistress barely waited for the thick black draught to cool before consuming it in one single unending swallow.

"My, my, that good, is it?" their gentleman host marveled. He took them now up some narrow backroom stairs to a broad landing of dark-paneled walls, the flapping of Freckle's wide feet sounding somewhere near.

Bearing a steaming pitcher together, the maid, the nightlocksman and several other serving souls hurried past.

In the simple comfort of the large room granted him, Rossamund found Fabia about to pour him a bath.Too tired for proper washing, he asked instead for just a basin.

His leaden eyelids becoming irresistibly heavy, he managed only a perfunctory scrub of his face, quickly turning the water brown, before he could resist fatigue no longer. Curling himself, proofing and all, on the spongy rug beside the bed, he fell fast asleep. In his slumber he had a dreamy notion of Freckle coming into the room to coo peaceful words as the glamgorn covered him with a blanket . . .

20.

ORCHARD HARRIET.

fistduke(s) common corruption of the Heil word "viskiekduzar"-p.r.o.nounced "viss-KYK-doud-saar" and meaning "vicious souls"-troubardierlike soldiery who will happily turn sell-sword and often serve the darkest causes. Braving the crossing of the Gurgis Main, they are hardened fellows and a favorite among the black habilists of the Soutlands, serving as spurns and bravoes or in whatever capacity money's hand might prompt them. Though they are not regarded as true lesquins, neither are they of the mercenary foedermen rabble, but have their own ghastly and well-earned reputation.

ROSSAMuND did not return to the waking world-he learned soon enough-until the middle of the morning two days later. Vision swimming and rebellious, his first focus was the wide, somber red canopy of a bed. The last he had known was the rough comfort of the floor. Someone must have put me here. Tipping his head back, his sight quickly resolved on Darter Brown settled on the post of the headboard above him, the faithful sparrow's eyes half closed.

"h.e.l.lo . . . ," Rossamund composed with sluggish tongue. "How did you get in?"

The sparrow's eyes went swiftly wide. He gave a joyful chirrrup! and circled twice under the ruby-hued canopy before alighting on covers spread over Rossamund's chest, fluttering and blinking happily.

Smiling, the young factotum dozed for a moment, unmindful of where he was or why he was there, staring absently at the slot of sky and thickly lichened tiles glimpsed through broad wooden window frames. Large clean clouds scudded across the gap of blue. Cooing dove-song soothed his soul fraught with adventure, and for a time he just wallowed in the forgetfulness, sliding his limbs under the cozying touch of the crisp bed linen and breathing in deeply on the peculiarly tangy yet musky woody aroma that permeated the room . . . Only when he went to rub the tip of his itchy nose did he rediscover the odd leafy bandages that bound his hand and remember all the whys and wherefores of his current comfort.

Europe's treacle!

He sat up quickly, giving his side a sharp tweak and launching Darter Brown from his chest, fluttering just below the canopy and chirping in fright. It was then that he became aware of someone sitting in the corner of his vision by his bed: Europe, arms folded and legs crossed, reclined on a tandem. She was dressed not in her telltale red or magenta, but in a peculiar long-hemmed gown of deep green, collared with thick black feathers and figured with vines of lighter hue. With deft applications of rouges and creams from her fiasco, she seemed fresh and well. Faint amus.e.m.e.nt played across her mien as she regarded him serenely.

"Yes, I did make it myself, if that is what troubles you ..."-Rossamund knowing full well she meant her treacle-"Many times . . . ," she added archly as she pulled a bell rope that hung between her and the bed, her eyes glittering with more than she said.

Rossamund eased himself back down. "How is Master Pin?" he asked as Fabia entered with a rattle of crockery, bearing a late breakfast tray: steaming dollops of porridge, brooded new season rhubarb and a pitcher of fresh juice-oforange-a drink he would forever a.s.sociate with Europe and convalescence.

"He will mend," the fulgar sighed as she smoothed the unfamiliar folds on her lap. "And despite catching a cold-what he calls a blighted catarrh-Master Vinegar fraternizes with the residents when he's not watching over you or Master Salt or blowing his ever-running nose . . ."

"And . . . and Cinnamon?" Rossamund asked carefully.

Darter Brown gave a cheep!