Having never been to even a humble country fete, Rossamund would not have minded one jot to be an ornament at a rout, however small or tawdry. He wisely kept this to himself.

Europe picked up another card.This was smaller, a sedate gray with scant decoration beyond finely formed writing. "Fortunately," she said after a quick reading, "some are worthy of an answer . . ."

From out in the yard came the grinding of feet on the gravel. After a gentle knock and a murmur of greetings in the vestibule hall beyond the solar door, Mister Kitchen eased himself in to interrupt their breakfast.

"Lord Finance, m'lady," he offered in the tone of an apology.

"Of course it is." Europe sighed heavily, waving her hand like a capitulation and allowing in a well-fed, smartly dressed man of later middling years in the almost feminine curls of a natural wig of pale blond and a frock coat of magenta silk.

"My lady! My lady!" he declared with all the vigor of a cheery spring day. Possessing a particularly long and narrow nose, rouge-rosied cheeks and wide, sparkling, cheerful eyes of the thinnest blue, he was the very picture of the perfect grandsire.

Europe regarded the man with curiously candid fondness. "Finance, dear fox, you come to me so soon, sir," she said. "Are there not more pressing wants of state to occupy you?"

"No need of our state is more pressing than the well-being of its next d.u.c.h.ess, n.o.ble lady," Mister Finance returned with unfazed and frank affection. "And slander's wings are swift!"

The heiress of Naimes peered down her shapely nose at him.

"I am beginning to apprehend the most peculiar reports of you, gracious lady, of sedonition, QGU and the taking of a child in replacement of dear departed Licurius . . . And here I find that at least one portion is true and now wonder upon the rest." He looked askance at Rossamund and then abruptly bent to him half a bow. "h.e.l.lo to you, sir. I must say, your arrival brings complexity."

With a clatter of chair legs the young factotum stood and simply said, "Good morning, sir."

"Rossamund Bookchild," Europe made introduction. "Here is Lord Idias Finance, the Baron of Sainte, Captain-Secretary and Chief Emissary of my mother's diplomatic mission here in Brandenbra.s.s."

"A society child." The Baron of Sainte seemed to beam, yet regarded Rossamund narrowly. "Delighted. You must possess remarkable parts for my lady to take you on, sir . . ."

"I-uh . . ."

Europe intervened, a wily glimmer in her eye. "He is everything I require, Baron."

The man smiled warmly. "Of course, of course." He became quickly grave. "The d.u.c.h.ess has expressed most pointedly her regrets at Licurius' pa.s.sing-"

"I am sure she has," the fulgar said heavily. "Enough with your subtleties, fox! Out with it now; why have you come to me so promptly?"

The Baron dipped his head obediently. "I have come so that I might give your mother, the d.u.c.h.ess Magentine, a better report of your wielding of quo gratia than the worrisome distortions that bruit and rumor will bring."

Europe blinked slowly at him. "You may tell my mother that its use was just and apt and done in the defense of the defenseless."

"It is said, gracious d.u.c.h.ess-daughter, that this defense was done for a . . . a sedorner . . ." The barron's voice dropped ever so slightly.

Sitting once more, Rossamund felt the man's regard turn to him and kept his attention on his porridge.

"A flimsy pretext devised by dastardly men of creeping ambition," the fulgar declaimed, "seeking only to magnify themselves at others' cost and so cover their own scheming."

"Ahh, the fall of Dido writ small," Finance murmured, his bright, unconvinced eyes belying his smiling mien.

"Indeed." The fulgar's tone was frosty, yet her own gaze glimmered with amus.e.m.e.nt.

"That is all, gracious lady?"

"That is enough . . ."

The Baron drew a highback out close to Europe and sat. "You must know that unkind eyes are upon you, that your application of QGU weakens you, especially under such . . . confused circ.u.mstances."

Weakens? Rossamund repeated inwardly, innards sinking in dismay. What trouble have I brought?

"I know it, sir." Europe's hazel eyes became genuinely hard.

Standing, the Chief Emissary conceded with a gracefully extended bow.

An inordinately loud pounding at the front door was soon followed by the reappearance of Mister Kitchen bearing offers of coursing work delivered directly by scopp from the knaving house. Come as a parcel, the offers were covered in black leather and bound with black ribbon.

"And timely too!" Europe p.r.o.nounced, and immediately sent summons for Mister Carp. "You must excuse us, my Lord Finance. I have work of my own, as I am sure you do too."

"Absolutely, m'lady!" Finance proclaimed, and stooped once more.

Rossamund smiled to himself. He certainly likes a good bow.

"My role is ever a restless one and I must be away." The Chief Emissary bent in the middle one final time. "Good day to you . . . and to you, Mister Bookchild," he said with a last skeptical glance to Rossamund, and left the way he had come.

Climbing after his mistress as she proceeded to her file, Rossamund peered uncertainly at the offers, seltzer-light gleaming dully on the binding ribbons.

Taking a seat by the fresh-stoked fire under the painted gaze of her child self, Europe undid all the ribbons and wrappings and drew out a card paper coverfold fat with individual handwritten sheets.

Sitting meekly upon a low soft turkoman beside her, Rossamund watched intently as the Branden Rose read through each doc.u.ment and placed it either on a low table before her or-the smaller pile-on the seat beside her. Soothed by the hearth's warmth, Rossamund began to read.

"The only Imperial Forms offered are those seeking aid for your old masters at Winstermill," the d.u.c.h.ess-in-waiting said finally with slow distraction and abruptly reviving him. "They are very much the same as the one I responded to some months ago when I met you there."

Rossamund nodded glumly. Whatever ruin the despicable wiles of the Master-of-Clerks had achieved, the young factotum still held a deep connection to the beleaguered lamplighters of Winstermill themselves.

"As for singulars . . . ," Europe continued, "they have sent a goodly many-the Idlewild is not alone in its troubles-but most are too far or pay too little. I think one or more of these will answer . . ." From the small collection beside her she placed three writs on the floor before Rossamund.

A curiously grim excitement knotting in his gizzards, Rossamund bent over them to see.

The first read: Only for the fittest and most thewsome teratologist ~ A necrophagous seltling by reputation named as the Swarty Hobnag is pestering the parish tombs about Spelter Innings in the Polder Nil. This vile blight on the innocent lives of men has already slain two boundary wardens and keeps all peltrymen, gentry spurns and labouring hands frighted away. The mayors and notables of the parish offer two sous for each day's journey there, twenty sous for driving the thing off and a further twenty for proof of its destruction.

"Excuse me, but a necrafugous who?" Rossamund quizzed.

"A necrophagous seltling-a corpse-eating nicker." The fulgar sounded jaded. "A monster that eats the dead."

"Oh."

The second went: A pastoralist of substance and situation with vasty properties in the north-o-west meadows of the Hollymidden between Broom Holm and Hollymidden, and along with his neighbours, men of the same n.o.ble stripe, seeks a.s.sistance to rid his flocks and fields of a tenacious tribe of murderous blightlings. He has exhausted all personal and local solutions and seeks for a doughty city knave to clear his lands of threat. All billet and board will be provided at his own expense and a single generous prize of one hundred sous is guaranteed for evidence conclusive of the plaguing beasts' destruction.

The objects of both these jobs sounded foul enough; though it was a higher prize for the second contract, each could be any kind of hungry bogle simply seeking sustenance and not necessarily a true wretcher.

The final singular was the highest paying: A chance for extraordinary renown in the green beauty of Coddlingtine Dell and Pour Clair! The Gathephar, a locally famous nicker long thought destroyed by the region's ancient forebears, has arisen and will not be shifted. Families devoured hand and foot, remote high-houses found smashed and bereft of their dwellers, hams and villages starving for lack of regular supply-the complete tale of a most thorough haunting. An opportunity for memorial deeds no mighty catagist worth their fame should pa.s.s over. Eight sous a day alone for time spent traveling there and fro, a return of fifty sous simply for taking the work and making the journey, plus collected prizes from a gathering of interested parties to the total of two hundred sous. Arriving enquiry can be directed to the masters of either munic.i.p.ality.

Two hundred sous! A lamplighter would take a decade to earn as much. More than forty sous, one hundred sous, two hundred sous! With such vast amounts offered for a single job it was little wonder people risked wind and limb to turn teratologist.

Attached to the final singular was a covering notion, evidently added by a third party. It read: OFFER OF CORPORATE GLORY ~ A pistoleer, a skold and a laggard have entered pact together to rid the world of this historied beast, the Gathephar. In such capacity they now require a fourth member in their undertaking to ensure its complete success. Expenses and Energies will be shared. REWARDS will be divided equally at the antic.i.p.ated triumphant completion of the accompanying singular work-bill. Panegyrists and pens also welcome for a set fee. All enquiring parties to refer aforementioned work-bill to the underwriters at the Letter and Coursing House, the Spokes, else seek Aristarchus Budge, Gntlmn & Lockstrait, at the Laughing Spectioneer hostelry, Saltenbrink Street, p.a.w.nhall.

"If this is such a chance for extraordinary renown and corporate glory-and pays so well," Rossamund wondered aloud, "why is this Mister Aristarchus Budge fellow looking for help? Why has no one else taken it before?"

"In part I would surmise for its location," Europe said matter-of-factly. "Some would have it that the marches of Coddlingtine Dell and Pour Clair are too near the Pendle Hill-a place where people are held to be a touch, shall I say, insular: backwoodsmen-all cousins and next of kin and wonderfully cross-eyed. False-G.o.ds are said to be worshipped there by folk hidden away so deviously my cousin duke's most cunning servants rarely reach them, and if they do, seldom return alive."

False-G.o.d worshippers? The young factotum could bare reckon it. Fictlers, they were properly called-bloodthirsting souls who gathered together for perverse reasons not clearly fathomed, seeking to summon up their chosen false-G.o.d, thus bringing the destruction of all land-born creatures, whether everyman or unterman. Despite such dark repute, most city folk held fictlers to be nothing more than a puzzle-headed nuisance.

"More the likely though," the fulgar continued, "is that the beast itself is too much for most.This Gathephar is of notorious antiquity, and the greater the prize, the greater the chance of an untimely conclusion to your days.Yet, what other hands avoid, I seize . . . Besides which," she finished with a wry look, "this singular offers the kind of traveling I desire."

"Would you join with this Gentleman Budge fellow and his pact, Miss Europe?"

She looked up at him sharp and quick, a mild frown rumpling her forehead, holding his gaze for a moment before returning her attention to the remaining doc.u.ments in her hand. "No, I would not," she said.

With a disconcerted blink, Rossamund read the job-bill again. The Gathephar . . . He felt as if he might have read of it once in some obscure pamphlet footnote. It certainly sounded terrible enough: a creature emerged straight from the rumors of history.

"Tell me, little man, which would you take?"

He stared at the three papers, willing one of them to give him the right response. I don t want men to die, but neither do I want nickers needlessly ended . . .

Europe shifted in her seat.

"The third job," the young factotum declared without certainty. "That Gathephar basket sounds nastiest, the people the most needful if their prize is anything to go by, and . . . and nothing can stop the Branden Rose," he finished a little lamely.

"Hear, hear," Europe concurred with bland irony.

In truth Rossamund had no notion which nicker was worst; he would simply have to make the best of the course once it had begun.

The fulgar peered at him. "I think that we shall actually take all three."

Rossamund's innards sank.

This was going to be harder than he thought.

"The path they make will lead us in a circle of sorts out of Brandenbra.s.s and back again," Europe continued, "if we take them in the order you have read them. A fine spell of coursing. It will keep us out for a fortnight or even a month, which shall be timely given the current fuss." She paused, almost pointedly. "So, Rossamund, you will need to take our selections to the knavery-and return these," she said, indicating the pile of unwanted writs. "Tomorrow you will set to work with Mister Kitchen to ready the landaulet and its stores. This coming Domesday you may have as a proper rest-I am not so severe as to deny you a chance to take your ease-yet I will have us on the road by Solemnday."

Upon returning with Mister Carp to the Letter and Coursing House knavery, Rossamund was dismayed to discover that the Singular Contract for the corpse-eater at Spelter Innings had been filled that very afternoon by-on Carp's inquiry-a certain wit by the name of Flabius Flinch. The man-of-business quietly recommended that the other two jobs would do, and Rossamund followed his advice. So, to the clerical music of turning pages, of paper shuffled, of quills licked, the knavery count was marked, two representations were made, a pair of bills of attainment were filled, the attainment-money was paid-the mighty sum of fifty sous!-and a single certificate of recompense was franked.

An obstruction of wagons on the Dove slowed them on their way back to Cloche Arde, forcing them to go one leisurely clop upon another beside the city-bound wood-lands of Moldwood Park, brooding, quiet and impossibly threwdish.

How can such land stay like this in a city as old as Brandenbra.s.s? Rossamund marveled. Continuing the thought aloud, he said, "Don't powerful people want to build tenements and mills and foundries on it?"

Carp blinked at him. "Build tenements and foundries on what?"

"On the Moldwood."

"Oh." Carp smiled stiffly. "Spoken like a true Brandenard," he said dryly. "A permanare per proscripta is a powerful thing, Master Bookchild. Besides such, we greatly esteem our broad garden s.p.a.ces here; it is a mighty city indeed that can waste ground in such a pretty fashion."

Indistinctly from somewhere within the trees, Rossamund was certain he could hear distant music.Volume ever shifting, it seemed a peculiar, tw.a.n.ging, crashing tune, wild and rolling, the vague hints stirring his soul at turns with grim earthy excitements or foreign, sorrowful longings. "What is that music?" he asked, leaning out of the dyphr to hear more.

To this the man-of-business gazed absently for a breath at the slow pa.s.sing park and simply shrugged. "Brandenbra.s.s is a puzzling place for those not acquainted with her," he concluded unsatisfactorily, and flicked his horse to pick up its pace.

Reentering the gate of his new home, Rossamund pa.s.sed a lank-haired fellow exiting the grim town house wearing a cingulum of black edged with white and a look of scarce-contained dismay. By the calibrator in one hand and the thick book in the other, the young factotum recognized the man as a variety of concometrist. As Carp pa.s.sed him without the merest acknowledgment, the fellow gave Rossamund a brief and mournful glance, a worldly weight heavy in his gaze and a hungry hint of envy too.

"Hallo, sir," Rossamund greeted him, wondering how it was that a person of such n.o.ble profession should look so careworn.

"Well-a-day," the concometrist replied without conviction, going on and out of the gate.

"Oh, he was a simple ill.u.s.trator" was Europe's explanation of the stranger, when Rossamund returned to her file. "One of the many mendicant freelancers who seek me out for my patronage. The fleas take scant time to infest the new-washed dog. This fellow was the second imagineer to come in as many days, asking if I had need of a fabulist to prepare etchings of my travels. Our course will be crowded enough without some inky b.o.o.by slowing me up to scribble all and sundry too."

Carp sn.i.g.g.e.red.

"He looked sorely hipped, Miss Europe," Rossamund uttered before thinking. "You might have let him draw you something for a fee. Concometrists are n.o.ble fellows," he concluded.

The fulgar, who had been scribing in her ledger, looked up at her factotum slowly, fixing him with a steely inspection. For a long moment she held him so. Then, eventually looking down to her book again, she said, by way of shifting subject, "What of my submissions to the knavery? They proceeded simply?"

"Aye, Miss Europe, though the . . . the singular for the corpse-eater was taken."

"Who took the contract?" she asked "It was Flabius Flinch," Mister Carp interjected, his tone weighty with meaning. "Filled at one of the parish knaveries."

"Hmm," Europe murmured, with a slight curl of lip and a contemptuous cluck of tongue. "That oily toad still lives, does he . . ." She picked at some spot on her coat hem. "Too bad for you, little man: it was my intention to let you receive the entirety of the prize for that writ, but now I guess you must forgo the forty sous."

"I guess I must, Miss Europe," he replied in honest indifference. "It does not worry me."

"Truly . . ." The Branden Rose looked long at him again with feline calculation. "An easy boast for you, Rossamund, when it is another who puts the food on your table and a roof above your sleeping head."

Stung and painfully aware of the man-of-business standing only a pace to his right, Rossamund could conjure no answer. Instead he looked determinedly at a silk painting immediately behind his mistress-a twisted, strangely posed heldin aboard a flimsy curricle spearing a sea-nicker through the cranium-and kept black thoughts at bay.

"So we are off to remote adventures again, little man!" Europe spoke into the uncomfortable moment with a sudden and strange lightness that Rossamund did not recognize.

Keeping check of his soured temper, he placed all the knavery doc.u.mentation and the fifty-sou folding note in her expectant palm.

"Before I forget it, Mister Carp!" The fulgar shifted subject as rapidly as she took the papers. "Write up a presage exemption for our young extravagant here-I do not want the best treacle-tester this side of the Marrow to be suddenly bundled away into naval service by some uppity press gang or a short-listed arming contractor."

In a moment she had taken Rossamund to the depths of shame and then lifted him to a bliss of gratification. The best treacle-tester this side of the Marrow . . . , he repeated to himself glowingly as Mister Carp obeyed, rummaging the lock-safe bureau at the near corner with silent efficiency.

A knock at the door brought with it the arrival of Kitchen at the head of another guest: a moderately tall man in long black soutaine, his short, equally inky hair slicked and sleeked back over the dome of his slightly flattened skull. Europe rose and stepped out from behind her marvelous desk, greeting the somber fellow and introducing him to Rossamund as Mister Oberon, Companion of the White, eminent surgeon and examining transmogrifer. "He has come to make sure my innards have stayed in their proper trim after my excursion to Sinster."

The serious transmogrifer gave a gracious nod to all three. "Ut prosim-that I might be useful."

Rossamund returned a gracious bow of his own.

A real and living transmogrifer!

"Allow me to name my factotum, Mister Rossamund Bookchild." The fulgar completed introductions, to which Mister Oberon let slip only the mildest surprise before returning to a fixed, opaque expression. "Mister Bookchild," he intoned with an oddly deep voice, gray eyes searching the young factotum's face, as if seeking to know him entirely by sight alone.

"I thought it was illegal to transmogrificate in the Empire, sir?" Rossamund asked a little carelessly, to distract this untoward inspection.

Europe gave a laugh of open delight.