Foundling

by Cornish, D. M.

  There, in the obscure gray of a new day, he found what they sought: a long, heavy stone wall of great height on the left, protruding from the thinning trees. In a gap about two thirds along this wall and crowned with a modest arch was a solid ironwood gate. Above it was a post fixed horizontally from the apex of the arch, a bright-limn lantern at its far end, shining orange. Dependent from this post was a gaily painted sign. It showed what looked like a woman running or leaping and beneath this the barely legible letters:

  . . . It was the wayhouse. They had arrived at last.

  10

  AT THE HAREFOOT DIG

  wayhouse (noun) a small fortress in which travelers can find rest for their soles and safety from the monsters that threaten in the wilds about. The most basic wayhouse is just a large common room with an attached kitchen and dwelling for the owner and staff, all surrounded by a high wall. Indeed, the common room still forms the center of a wayhouse, where the stink of dust, sweat and repellents mingles with wood-smoke and the aromas of the pot.

  THE entrance of the Harefoot Dig would not open when Rossamünd pushed upon it with his shoulder. Undaunted, he carefully lay Europe’s feet down. Without quibbling over whether it was polite at so early an hour, he hammered with the wrought knocker of the ironwood gate as loudly as his exhausted arms would allow. Indeed, he could only just lift them to grasp the knocker.

  Eventually a round grille high in the gate emitted a gruffly quizzing voice. “Whot’s this ’ere, then? Whot’s yar business at this throodish hour?” It was a strange accent Rossamünd had never heard before—a little like Poundinch’s yet different again. It was hard to understand.

  “I have a . . . a friend who’s hurt!” Rossamünd called up to the grille in his deepest, most certain-sounding voice. “We have escaped an attack in the Brindleshaws! We need help!”

  There were slidings, there were scrapings. There was a muffled conversation.

  “I see . . .” the grille returned eventually. “An’ whot’s a scamp like yarsalf doing up so late—or so eerly, if yar’ll ’ave it at that—in risky places an’ with no hat on his noggin?”

  Rossamünd sighed. “I lost it in the river. Please, sir, my friend is very, very ill and she needs a physician quickly!”

  “A lass, yar say? We cain’t have a sickly lass stuck out there. Stay yar ground.”

  One of the gates opened and a short man came out. He was almost as broad across the shoulders as he was tall, and wearing, of all things, a chain mail shirt over the top of longshanks and jackboots.

  “Let’s ’ave a look at ’er, then,” this stocky gatekeeper said as he stepped onto the road. He glanced about with a quick but shrewd eye and then down at the stricken fulgar. “Blast me! That won’t do at all. Pretty lass too.”

  The stocky gatekeeper picked the fulgar up under her shoulders, as if her weight was of little consequence. She stirred, but little more. He directed an “Oi . . .” over his shoulder. This prompted another person to move out from the shadows of the gateway. It was a woman, a dangerous-looking woman glowering into the dark spaces all about, ready for a fight. She was tall and wore a strange-looking coat-of-many-tails. She looked to the other gater, then at Europe in his arms and, with no further prompting, stepped over with swaggering grace and took the fulgar by the ankles. As this woman obediently hefted Europe by her boots, Rossamünd saw that the backs of her hands were marked in strange brown filigree. It was the quickest glimpse but it fixed his vague attentions. Monster-blood tattoos! She was a monster-slayer too. Beneath her left eye was a line of spikes, spoors of some unknown profession.

  Not too gently they carried Europe through the gate, the short fellow saying over his shoulder, “’Ere, grab ’er chattels an’ all, an’ follow me. I’m the gater,Teagarden—I look after the gate, see—at yar service. Whot’s yar name, boy’o?”

  “Rossamünd,” he answered simply as he gathered up Europe’s fallen saddlebags. He could barely grip the straps. His hands cramped, neither shut nor open.

  He was vaguely aware of a brief but pronounced pause.

  “Oh. Yar pardon, lass. Mistaked yar fer a lad in this darkling hour.” This Teagarden fellow actually sounded embarrassed.

  Rossamünd did not quite know what to say. His exhausted mind offered no assistance. “I, ah . . . that’s all right, I am a boy.”

  Another pause, even more uncomfortable than the first.The woman bearing Europe’s legs gave Rossamünd an odd look.

  Teagarden coughed in a perplexity of even greater embarrassment. “Ah yes, right you are, and I knows it too, boy’o. ’Tis the paucity of light, methinks, playing tricks. This lass with me be Indolene—she’s me fellow gater.”

  Rossamünd, too wayworn to care, offered only what he hoped was a smile.

  Behind the gate was a dim, confined coach yard. A yardsman hurried over with a lantern, his feet crunching noisily in gravel. The light was shone in Europe’s face while the two gaters took her to an entrance in the large, low house before them.

  She still breathed! Rossamünd could see her cheeks puffing as he followed closely. However, her skin was a ghastly pale green, showing the deep blue spoor vividly. Great bruised rings sunk beneath each eye, while sweat ran freely from her brow and hair. She was unrecognizable. She was getting worse.

  The yardsman gasped, ever so quietly. “Oi’ll be! She’s a lahzar!”

  The lady gater seemed to scowl but continued in her work.

  Teagarden whistled softly. “Upon me ’onor! Yar keep yar comp’ny strangely, boy’o. Still, thass neither here nor there—get her inside sharply, she looks fit to expire!”

  The door they approached opened, casting an oblong of light on the scene. A lanky man in a maroon powder jacket and stocking cap stood there, looking tight-faced and beady-eyed. “What is all this huff and scuffle?” he demanded tetchily.

  “We’ve got two new arrivals, sir,” Teagarden offered respectfully, “an’ this lady is poorly. Physic-needingly so, sir.

  She also be a lahzar, sir, so I’d thunk it best we come through the back ways to avoid raising an unnecessary alarum.”

  “Well, good, good, Teagarden, no need to wait for my permission, man, if you see a physician is needed.” The lanky man, who was obviously of some importance at this establishment, seemed the type to be peeved no matter how he was answered. “Bring them in, man, bring them in. Don’t wait for me to invite you. Hello there, my boy—you look most weary. Welcome to the Harefoot Dig. I am Mister Billetus, the proprietor.We will do all that we might for your mother, and for yourself too.”

  Mother?

  This Mister Billetus, the proprietor, took Rossamünd by the hand and gave it a stiff shake. Europe was carried on within and down a passage of white daub and many doors. It looked very much like a servants’ entrance.

  “Now, fellows,” Mister Billetus continued, “take the boy’s poor mother to the Left Wing, Room Twelve.” He addressed Rossamünd. “’Tis the only room we have left for persons of quality as yourselves. Quality which, if I may be so bold, I can see you have in spades. Will it do?”

  Rossamünd had no idea if the room would or would not do. Any room was good as far as he thought. “Any room will do, sir. I just want her to be seen to by a physic . . .”

  “Excellent, excellent. Of course, certainly. Go on, fellows,” Mister Billetus said, turning to the gaters and yardsman, “the mother needs seeing to—get her to her room! Properato!”

  Teagarden seemed reluctant, but said, “Right you are, sir. Ah . . . ?”

  “Yes, Teagarden?”

  “Like I said afore, sir, she be a lahzar.”

  The proprietor’s eyebrows shot up. After brief reflection he recovered. “Well, I didn’t make her that way, man. Money is money. Keep her hidden from my wife for now. What Madam Felicitine doesn’t know won’t hurt us! I’ll sort the rest. Off to their room, now, now!”

  Holding a pale bright-limn, Mister Billetus led them through a labyrinthine confusion of dark passages and darker doo
rs.

  A boy joined them and Mister Billetus said to him, “Ah-ha! Little Dog! There you are, you scamp! Now hurry and quick to Doctor Verhooverhoven’s estates and bring the good physician back with you. No dawdling! Lives are in the balance.”

  Despite his fatigue, Rossamünd thought it mightily untoward to send such a little fellow out while it was still dark. Little Dog did not seem happy about it either. Nevertheless he dashed off stoutly.

  “The physician should be here within the hour,” Mister Billetus said with open satisfaction. “Good, good, to your room we go.”

  Mister Billetus stopped by a door and looked at Rossamünd just as a cat might coolly regard an agile mouse. “You, er, can afford these lodgings, can’t you?”

  Rossamünd’s heart skipped a beat. He thought on the expensive foods and fine upholstery of the landaulet—all of Europe’s flaunted wealth—and declared, with a quick-witted rattle of his own purse, “Absolutely.”

  Billetus looked powerfully relieved. “Wonderful! So you won’t object to settling a portion of your board in advance, then?”

  “I, ah . . . no.” The foundling hoped he was doing the right thing.

  “Good, good. One night’s billet, board and attendance for a room of such elegance—and I do believe, by the cut of your clothes, that elegance is in order—the board for such a room is six sequins, paid in advance for two nights. If you leave after the first night, then we happily reimburse you. So, we should count this as your first night—since indeed it is not over yet—and say, with a carlin and a tuck, that you will be paid up to the morning of tomorrow night. Agreed?”

  Rossamünd’s overtaxed mind cogitated the sums: There’s twenty guise to a sequin and sixteen sequins in a sou. So—two lots of six sequins was twelve sequins. A carlin is a ten-sequin piece and a tuck a two-sequin piece. Ten and two makes twelve—twelve sequins, again. I reckon it’s right—sure is a lot, though . . . He thought his head might burst. “Aye . . . I think. Uh . . . thank you.”

  Mister Billetus held out his free hand, palm uppermost.

  Rossamünd looked at it dumbly for a while, then realized the proprietor was wanting payment now. The foundling fingered about in his purse, finding only the gold Emperor’s Billion coin he had received on entering the lamplighter service, three sequins and a guise coin. He frowned, thought for a moment and then handed the gold billion to Billetus. The proprietor looked down at his payment with astonishment.

  “Does—” Rossamünd’s voice caught in his throat. “Does that cover it?”

  “Um . . . it’s a little . . . irregular, but yes. It’s certainly legal tender and covers the fare amply. It will even buy you breakfast for the mornings.” Billetus pocketed the coin while he opened the door.

  The room beyond was large and of a luxury the foundling did not think possible. There were two beds, their highly decorative heads against one wall, billowing linen and eiderdowns of the softest cotton. The floor was wooden boards polished till they were slick, the white walls and high ceiling—richly decorated with flutes and twirls—made buttery yellow in the lantern’s glow. In the foundlingery a room of this size would have been used to bunk twenty, where this was meant for just two. Europe was being laid on the farther bed as Rossamünd and the proprietor entered. A worn-looking blanket—looking out of place in its fine surroundings—was stretched upon this bed to stop the coverlets from being ruined by the fulgar’s travel-grimed gear.

  A maid, two tubs and several pitchers of steaming water arrived.

  Mister Billetus excused himself and Rossamünd bathed behind a screen while the maid attended to Europe behind another. He almost fell asleep in the tub, but the maid, finished with her attentions on the fulgar, woke him with an impatient cough. Before too long he was clean—cleaner than he had ever felt in his whole life, dressed in a nightgown and lying in a bed, the very softness of which swallowed him whole. Europe lay, much like he, bathed and in her bed, in a borrowed nightgown.

  “Is she better?” Rossamünd managed, vaguely aware that the maid was hovering about doing who knows what.

  “She fares as well as she may, considerin’ . . .” she hushed. “You can sleep, little boy—her state won’t change just on your attentions.”

  Lamps were doused. The maid left. In the dimness of a growing dawn Rossamünd watched the feverish Europe. He could not tell when or how, but in that soft, warm bed of the smoothest cotton, sleep finally took him.

  He awoke with a deep fright, released at last from churning nightmares of Licurius’ bloody end. The room was too white, too bright, the ceiling too florid and the bed too strange. Then he realized where he was. Rossamünd was beginning to tire of waking in strange places. Some comfort it was then that the bed was so soft and so warm. He stretched luxuriously, wrapped in its wholly unfamiliar feeling, then sat up and looked about. There was a tall window at the far end, its two panes flung open, letting in cold air and the birdsong of late afternoon that had brought him to reality. The world beyond it, of straight trunks and bare, tangled twigs, was wintry but golden with afternoon sun. The choir of birds—the soft, insistent cooing of some type of pigeon, the twitter-twitter of many small beaks and an unusual call going warble-warble-warble-chortle—was strangely loud and altogether foreign.

  The room itself was empty, inasmuch as there was no one else walking about in it. However, the bed near him, on his left, before that open window, was occupied.

  In it, of course, lay Europe.

  He clambered out of his own and went to her side. She lay on her back, her head cushioned upon many marshmallowy pillows, the covers tucked right up under her chin. Her long hair had been gathered under a maid’s cap just like one Verline would wear. Shivering as cold air blew in through the open window, bringing with it the smell of mown grass, he reached out, touching her smooth forehead with his forefinger.

  The fulgar did not stir.

  She felt cool now, in contrast to the feverish heat she had boiled with so recently. His curiosity mastering him, Rossamünd cautiously stroked her spoor, the small diamond drawn so neatly above her left eye. Every side was straight and of equal length, the corners clear points, its bottom just meeting the hair of the brow. He had heard—he could not remember whether it was from Fransitart or somewhere else—that these spoors were made by using some acidic substance which left a permanent, yet somehow scarless brand. Why anyone would want to do something to themselves that sounded so painful was very puzzling: was it just vanity, or was it a warning? As far as he was concerned, the next time he saw a mark like this upon someone, he would be very wary of them. He stared at her blank, sickly face, hugging himself in the insufficient warmth of the borrowed nightgown, rubbing one foot against the opposite shin, then the reverse, to relieve the chill of the floorboards.

  Suddenly he decided it was time to be dressed. He found his clothes in the cupboard, cleaned and pressed. Everything was there but his shoes. Rossamünd got dressed, searching quietly all about the room as he did.

  Where are those shoes?

  Under his bed? No.

  Under Europe’s bed? No.

  They were not in his closet, and so he went to the one that held Europe’s effects. Her clothes had been washed too, and the cupboard was filled with the odor of the aromatics used to clean them. With this hung a sharp, honeylike scent he was beginning to recognize as Europe’s own. He was sure he was doing something quite rude by even thinking of looking through the fulgar’s belongings. He closed the closet quickly.

  The door at the farther end of the room, of a wood so dark as to appear black, opened. In breezed a maid with a flurry of swishing skirts. When she saw Rossamünd standing by the fulgar’s bed, she seemed uncertain. She curtsied expertly, despite her burdens. “I’ve brought the doctor to see you, young master.”

  Rossamünd ducked his head shyly.

  A very serious and surprisingly young man entered the room. He was richly attired in a wonderfully patterned frock coat, flat-heeled buckled shoes known as mules, and
a great white wig that stuck high in the air and left a faint puff of powder behind it.

  “This is Doctor Verhooverhoven, our physician,” the maid said, indicating the young man with a tray she carried, a tray holding two bowls of pumpkin soup that smelled so delicious Rossamünd was immediately distracted by it. “And this, doctor, is uh, is . . .”

  “Rossamünd,” said the foundling matter-of-factly.

  “Ah . . . right you are, my . . . boy,” said Doctor Verhooverhoven, squinting at him. “Delighted. How are you feeling?”

  “Good, thank you.”

  “As it should be. I want you to have some of this soup that Gretel has kindly brought you,” the doctor said as the maid placed the two bowls on a small table by the fire with a simpering blush. “I have fortified it with one of my personal restorative drafts, so it will see you righter than ever.” He half turned to the maid. “You may leave now, Gretel. If I need anything, you will be the first to know.”

  The maid ducked her head, grinned at Rossamünd and left again.

  Doctor Verhooverhoven ambled over to the sickbed, hands behind his back. He stood over the unconscious lahzar and rocked back and forth on his heels. He checked the pulse in her neck, felt the temperature of her forehead, hmmed a lot and scrutinized her closely through a strange-looking monocle.

  Rossamünd sipped at his soup, which right then was about the sweetest thing he had ever had, and watched Doctor Verhooverhoven watching Europe.

  At length the doctor turned his shrewd attention to the boy. “She is not your mother, is she, child?”

  About to help himself to a mouthful of wonderful soup, Rossamünd stopped with a slight splutter and fidgeted. “I—ah . . . No, sir—I never actually said that she was, though, sir. Others did . . . How did you . . . ?”