by D M Cornish
Even with the fulgar's rapid lift in spirits they continued the rest of that day's journey in silence and in the rain, Rossamund taking the opportunity to read his already well-thumbed almanac. It said very little about the region they were in except that it was called the Sough, that it was very fertile and that it was famous for its lettuces and strawberries, though he had so far seen few of either. In the early evening, when they stopped for the night, it was still showering. Gaps in the cloud showed the glorious golden orange of the sun's late light reflected off enormous cumulous columns. In the strange yellow gloom Licurius tended to the pony, hobbling it and attaching a feed bag to its bridle. He then set small cones of repellent in a circle about their temporary camp, scratching strange marks in the soil with a stick at the intervals between each cone. He set a modest fire with wood they carried with them and, when it was burning merrily, put some kind of small cauldron in its midst. All this done, the leer finally prepared his bed beneath the landaulet.
From under the canopy, with the rain going patter, patter upon it, Europe called softly to him, "I'll be wanting the brew in about twenty minutes, I think, but be sure it has mixed well and is the right temperature."
With a quick, resentful glare at Rossamund she took out the nondescript black box that had caused such tension earlier and handed it almost secretively to Licurius. Then she lit an oil lamp with deft strokes of a flint and steel, and, opening a compartment beneath her seat, pulled out a great clothbound book. Producing a pencil, she began to scratch and scrawl in the book, humming or tch-tch-ing in turn. After a while she looked up sharply and quizzed Rossamund flatly, "You know what I am, don't you, child?" She waggled the end of her pencil in the vicinity of her left brow, indicating the small blue outline of the fulgar's diamond above it. "What this means?"
Rossamund had no idea what to say. "I uh… uh…" He suddenly felt embarrassed to talk about her occupation, as though it was a private, even a shameful thing. In the end he nodded. Her expectant gaze was even more terrible than Madam Opera's.
"And what is that?" she persisted.
Rossamund flushed and wished he was a thousand miles elsewhere. "You're a lahzar," he mumbled.
"I'm a what?"
Rossamund almost rolled his eyes, but thought better of it. "A fulgar-a monster-fighter. You make sparks and lightning."
Europe gave a chuckle, then sat back, her chin stuck out pompously. "I prefer the name teratologist or, if one must be vulgar, pugnator. But yes, my boy, you have it in two. No doubt you have heard of my kind-how we are spooky, how we are scary, how you common folk couldn't live without us? Hmm? Well, it's all true, and worse. Mine is a life of violence. Would you like a life of violence, little man?"
Rossamund shook his head cautiously.
"What about a life of adventure, then? Is that where you're bound? To begin some adventurous life in High Vesting?"
The boy thought for a moment, bowing his head under her beady hazel-brown gaze, and eventually shrugged.
"Hmph!" Europe pursed her lips. "What I'd like to know is this: when does adventure stop and violence begin? Answer me that and we'll both be wiser."
Fransitart had been right after all: lahzars were strange and discomfiting folk. Rossamund regretted accepting this one's assistance. Once more he had no real idea of what she was talking about, and certainly no idea how to reply.
At that moment Licurius stepped up holding a pewter dish full of what looked like steaming black oil, gluggy and evil-smelling. The foundling almost gagged at the stink of the stuff, but Europe put down her large book, took the dish gratefully and drank the filthy contents in a manner that Madam Opera would have declared sternly was "very unladylike!" A tingle of disgust shivered down Rossamund's ribs as the fulgar drained the dregs and sighed a contented sigh.
"Many times better," she smiled, showing teeth scummed with black as she handed the dish back to the ever-patient Licurius. She took out her crow's claw hair-tine and comb, letting silken, chestnut locks free; then she dimmed the lantern, lay back, wrapped herself in a blanket and without another word fell asleep.
It was then that another stench assaulted Rossamund's senses: the leer had lit the cones of repellent, and their exotic fumes were now drifting over the camp. It was like nothing Rossamund had ever encountered before and it made him feel wretched. His head began to pound and his very soul was gripped by an urgency to flee. His discomfort must have shown, for he was sure Licurius was regarding him closely beneath that blank box of a face. Wrapping his scarf about his nose and throat as if to keep out the cold, but rather to muffle the reek, Rossamund tried to show that nothing was wrong. Nevertheless the leer paused and leaned closer.
The boy was sure he heard sniffing: the faint but definite snuffling of smells.
Then, for the first time since their meeting, the leer spoke. "Do you fare well, boy?" The voice came as a wheezing, hissing whisper, strangely unmuffled despite the impediment of the sthenicon. "You look like you've had a nasty turn there. All's well, is it? D'ye not like the stink of our potives?"
Feeling a greater threat under the blank gaze of this man than in the manic ways of the fulgar, Rossamund cowered in his muffle. He did not know whether to nod or shake his head, and just wobbled it in circles vigorously.
"You smell funny to me. Did you know that? Wheeze… you smell funny to me…" The leer leaned yet closer. "Answer, boy, or do you want of a man's courage with such a pretty name?"
Momentarily speechless, the foundling blinked several times, completely baffled. What harm is there in smelling funny? "I su… suppose I do, sir," he started. "I haven't had a bath for well over a week now. I reckon the river has made it worse."
"Hiss! I know river-ssmell, upssstart," Licurius returned, shaking with inexplicable rage. "And unwashed bodiess too. You are neither of thesse.You ssmell wrong! Wheeze…"
"I…" When would this fellow just leave him alone? Who cared how he smelled? For the first time since he had left the foundlingery, Rossamund thought about the knife Fransitart had given him, still in its scabbard at the end of his baldric, thought whether he might be forced to produce it as an aid to his defense. What a strange and terrible notion-cudgels were one thing, but knives and other slitting-slicing tools quite another. "Master Fransitart told me that people from different cities eat different foods, that each would make them smell funny to other folk."
"Of courssse." The leer stroked his throat with a hand gloved in black velvet. He sounded less than convinced.
Europe shifted restlessly, then turned to her side and intervened with a soft voice as she did so. "Leave him be, Licurius. Everyone has their secrets. Perhaps he should ask you, oh great leer, about a certain Frestonian girl…"
At this Licurius stepped back and away from Rossamund with an odd gurgle, to the boy's great relief. Shortly after, the leer doused the fire, crept to his cradle beneath the landaulet and bothered the boy no more. Even so, eyes wide in the dark, Rossamund stayed awake for a long time, well into the small hours, feeling more unsafe than he ever had when he had bunked by himself in the haystack or the boxthorn. Not even the happy appearance of Phoebe as nighttime clouds blew away east cheered him.
He felt terribly alone. The next day, the leer paid Rossamund no more mind than he had at any other time other than the bizarre bedtime incident last night. After another draft of that black ichor had been brewed for Europe, and the foundling had wandered briefly for a relieving stroll, they were on their way again into a frigid fog. By midmorning the vapors cleared and the country began changing. The fields became smaller and fewer and the land rockier, sloping upward ever more until they found themselves on the stony, uncultivated heights before a forested valley. This depression was filled with a great wood of evergreen beeches and stately pines, and into it the road now descended. Rain had washed broad ruts into the Vestiweg as it went down the flanks of the valley, creating enough of a hazard that Licurius was obliged to get down from his seat and lead the horse carefully on foot.
Rossamund started and pulled back, not knowing what to expect. The lahzar stroked his knuckles absentmindedly, and even though her touch was as soft as Verline's and her grip gentle, he was very aware that she just might shock him or worse.
She smiled. "I apologize for my factotum's behavior last night," she offered quietly. "He's a curious fellow, and this serves me well most of the time. Unfortunately it also makes him… twitchy, one might say. Pay him no heed-he's harmless enough."
Rossamund could see how, to a fulgar of such self-confessed might as Europe, Licurius might seem less than threatening. But to this boy, the leer was anything but harmless.
"Now, very shortly I am going to have some work to do." Europe released his hands with a pat and sat back. "And you might find it scary enough, but fear not: I have been in business for a great long while now." She paused and looked heavenward, tapping her lips with a long, elegant finger. "Hmmm, too long perhaps. Nevertheless, you can be assured that you are safe."
Rossamund looked about. "Will there be monsters?" he whispered.
Europe laughed-a bright, crystalline chortle-as they entered the dark gloom beneath ancient eaves. "My, my, there are always monsters!"
"Really? Always?" The foundling sat up.
Europe nodded gravely. "I am afraid so, yes. Here, there and everywhere-not that city folk would know. It's out here in the nether regions that the nickers roam and the bogles lurk. But lo! Not a fear, Europe is here!" She finished with a flourish of her hand and a grin.
Rossamund blinked.
The light was growing dim, though the time was barely midday, as the road drove deeper and deeper into the wood-a deep green dusk full of hushed expectancy and subtle murmurings. Trunks huge and old spread out great, knobbled roots furry with moss, about which the leaf-carpeted road was forced to bend and twist. There was little undergrowth but for some scattered colonies of fungus-tall, thin, capped mushrooms, large, flat toad-stools, tiny red must, which even Rossamund knew was good for eating and for certain potions, and plump puffballs ready to pop. Bracken grew everywhere else, even upon the trees, while thin myrtle saplings sprouted here and there, struggling for life.
Rossamund had never been in such a place as this and found its appearance marvelous, more wild and beautiful than any of Boschenberg's elegant, manicured parks. Yet there was a great watchfulness here, a feeling of being observed and unwelcome.This place was threwdish: a place where monsters might like to dwell. It marred the woods' beauty and oppressed the visitor. He shivered and checked his almanac, squinting to read in the dimness. They had entered the Brindlewood, or so it said.
"What does that contain?" Europe asked a little too loudly, as she fixed her hair back into the bunlike style, just as it had been the day before.
"I was just finding out where we were," said Rossamund.
The lahzar chuckled. "I could have told you that. This"-she waved about grandly-"is the Grintwoode… or the Brindleshaws, as the locals will have it. We're on the northernmost marches of the Smallish Fells, the western tip of Sulk End, having recently entered the domain and jurisdiction of High Vesting." She pointed casually to the book with her crowfoot hair-tine before poking it into the bun and comb. "I think you'll find I am right."
The almanac agreed. Rossamund was impressed.
Giving a bored look, she sighed. "I've been here before. 'Tis a troublesome place."
A short time later Licurius brought the landaulet to a halt, stopping at a bend where the road began to descend even more steeply, falling over a series of folds in the earth before disappearing below around the flank of the hill. He alighted and went to the rear of the carriage. Rossamund heard thumpings and scrapings.The factotum reappeared on Europe's side holding a great pole about twelve feet long, as thick as a man's thumb and tightly wrapped in copper wire. It was a fuse. Rossamund had heard and read of them but had not seen one until now. He stared at it in open wonder.
She must be about to fight. Rossamund's heart began to pound in anticipation.
The lahzar took the fuse from the leer with a sweet smile and laid it across both seats, one end sticking some way over the side of the landaulet. Then she retrieved something out of her precious black box and put it in her mouth, chewing slowly with a disgusted look. These apparent necessities done, they were on their way again, Licurius now driving from the seat once more. The road went into a steep decline cut into the side of a hill carpeted in pine needles, bending always right and going always down. From their vantage point Rossamund could see that they would soon come to a stone bridge a little farther below, which crossed a narrow, moatlike ravine.
Europe finished her mouthful and fixed her small passenger with a serious eye. "Now, however, things shall soon proceed. You must declare to me that you will stay here within the landaulet no matter what. Do you declare it?"
Going white and wide-eyed, he nodded. "Aye, madam."
"I'm sure you do."
The roadway dipped for a moment as it crossed a creek, then passed right through and over the crown of a small knoll, either side flanked by a high earth cutting topped with sinuous pines. Beyond and below, the road widened in a clearing of grass and shattered tree stumps before constricting again at the bridge, which spanned the narrow gap in a solid, gentle curve. As they arrived on the farther edge of this clearing, Rossamund thought he heard a rumbling, a kind of slow thudding, though he could not be sure.
Licurius halted the landaulet and climbed down once more. With a respectful bow he offered Europe his gloved hand as she alighted. The thudding was unmistakable now, like great footsteps, and echoes among the trunks made it sound as if it was all around. While her factotum held her fuse, the fulgar straightened her frock coat, tightened buckles and secured buttons. Suddenly the whole forest seemed to burst with a stentorian cracking.
Rossamund leaped to his seat and looked about wildly to find the danger as Licurius lunged for the bridle of the spooked nag. There! Just before the bridge a young pine was collapsing, pushed out of the way by the tallest creature the foundling had ever seen.
It looked just like an enormous person, taller than ten tall men, except that its legs were too short, its arms too long, and its body altogether too thick, too hunched and too rectangular. It was an ettin-one of the biggest of the land monsters-and it peered about momentarily before fixing a critical eye on the landaulet.
"Fie, fie, what do I spy? Gold-toting travelers passing us by," it boomed in a surprisingly well-spoken way, forming the words with great articulations of its jaw through a mouth full of protruding, blackened and spadelike teeth. It stepped into the clearing, sending the shattered pine toppling into the gorge.
Europe gave Rossamund a passing wink. "How so, how so, to do my work I go," she murmured, then she turned and marched directly toward the ettin, shouldering the fuse and waving to get its attention.
Rossamund was agog: surely she did not think to challenge such a fearsome foe? It wore a large smock for modesty's sake made up of many hessian sacks stitched very roughly together. Under its left arm the ettin carried a great barrel, which had probably been a vat for aging wine or brewing beer. The ettin waggled this distinctly, pointing within its wide gape.
"I'll not stop your chill-day stroll," the ettin hoomed, "if you'll not shrink from the bridge-crossing toll."
"Ho! ho!" Europe chortled dramatically, continuing her approach. "It's that old ruse, is it? Frighten everyday folks out of their goods?"
The ettin nodded once. From Rossamund's vantage it seemed very proud of itself.
"What's more, you stand-and-deliver us with sweet little rhymes. What a lovely touch, don't you think, Licurius?" the lahzar continued, looking over her shoulde
r briefly at the leer, rolling her eyes mockingly as she did.
Licurius, as always, said nothing.
The ettin almost beamed with self-satisfaction, revealing even more crooked spadelike teeth. Rossamund was finding it very hard to believe this creature was all that terrible. In fact it seemed more like a childish prankster than a dread threat.
"And what do they call you, sir?" Europe stopped no more than ten feet away from the giant and planted her fuse firmly.
Hesitating for a moment, the ettin formed its reply with obvious effort. "I'm th' Miss-be-gotten Schr-rewd." It patted its chest.
"Well, Mister Schrewd, do you know who I am?"
The ettin shook its head.
The lahzar's voice became very icy. "No?" She gave a cold, humorless smile. "It's a bit much, I suppose, to expect absolutely everybody to have heard of me. No matter."
Rossamund was grateful she had not asked him the same question when they had first met.
"Nevertheless," she went on, "there's a problem, you see.
Everyday folk don't want to pay your toll, and I for one don't believe they should have to. What say you to that?"
The ettin's face fell. It looked genuinely perplexed.
Europe pressed on. "Hmm? Well, I have an alternative for you, and it's the only one really, though I know you'll neither understand nor agree…" The fulgar toed the ground in a mime of unconcern.
"What's she going to do?" Rossamund whispered to Licurius. "Will she send it on its way?" Disturbed, Rossamund stood, causing the wagon to rock and the horse to nicker.
"Be still, toad! Wheeze!" Licurius hissed. "The beggar must die. That is our duty!"
This small interruption caught the schrewd's attention. It peered at them in a baffled way.