by D M Cornish
The article was brief; written by a certain Contumelius Stinque, it said: The "bee's buzz"-as the vulgar cant goes, and come to me this very day from the bumpkin lands of the Sulk End-is that the Branden Rose is rumoured to have wielded QGU in the defence and release of a suspected yet unproven sedorner. With firm reputation for Erratic Conduct, the particulars of the terrible astrapecrith's newest and most appalling deviancy remain obscure. A Private Voice for the Lady-Rose told of the loss of a most Valued Servant, and it can only be guessed that this may well be a cause of this latest aberration. The identity of the sedorner (accused) remains undisclosed.
The printing and distribution of pamphlets within a city was typically quick-a matter of days.The calculation of the movement of information about the Empire was, however, measured in weeks; for this shocking report to have found its way already into such a gazette was surely a feat of deliberate and malicious alacrity.
The Master-of-Clerks must have sent an agent riding through day and night for passage on a fast boat to Brandenbrass to get this here already!
Rossamund was not free of his accusers yet.
With one angry action he twisted the pamphlet into a tight ball and threw it clear across the room. In distress he turned the bright-limn and lay in the waning light, staring through an open window at Phoebe, three-quarter-faced and rising amid thin inky strands of silver-lined cloud.
The night was old by the time sleep overtook him.
5
OF WRITS AND SINGULARS
Singular Contract, a ~ also known as a personal assignment or simply a singular; an offer of employment made by a private citizen or organization seeking a teratologist to hunt and claim the prize-money for killing a troublesome nicker. Singulars are the private counterpart of the bureaucratic Writs of the Course; that is, official, governmental commissions to slay teratoids. Both can be obtained at a knavery, though singulars, often offering less prize-money, are surprisingly preferred, as typically they are more promptly paid.
In the clarity of a new morning, Rossamund rescued the ruined pamphlet from the far corner of his chamber. Flattening it out as best he could, he removed the vile cartoon with its slander of Europe, folded the tearing and stowed it in his wallet. Yet as he supped on breakfast with her in the solar-the finest milling of porridge Rossamund had ever broken his fast upon-he kept the offending article to himself. "I told you, little man," is all she'll say. "Tilly fally, it's all spit and dribble!Why did you insist on reading it?" Instead he asked, "Miss Europe, what would happen if the Master-of-Clerks tried to get at us?"
"He would be a very foolish fellow!" The Branden Rose scowled at him as if he were the offending subject. She was at queenly ease in a soft robe of darkest green streaked with curling waves in cloth-of-gold. Two embroidered orange crawdods reached up from either hem, their great spiny feelers curling up to the collar and out over either shoulder. Her hair was held up by a rounded comb of dappled jade, thrust straight down into the mass of locks. Since he had known her, Rossamund had not once seen her looking ruffled in the morning. Even ailing from spasmed organs and grinnling bites at the Harefoot Dig she had kept an air of fathomless repose. "I do not doubt the blaggardly little fly will seek yet to buzz in my face. Let him go to his buzzing and discover how heavy a blow a peeress of the Empire can bring. As for now, I shall not be bothered by him or any other-the lords of Naimes are not so easily troubled."
Were it not so far from one end of the dining table to the other, Rossamund might have leaped up and given the fulgar a hug.
The Branden Rose, however, did not notice such lifts of fine sentiment. Rather, as she ate, she picked through a hefty stack of letters and calling cards, reading some, tossing others aside with an impatient sniff. "One might think that after so many refusals these dreary people would tire of inviting me to their dreary routs.Yet no…" She lifted an unfurled fathom of glittering card dripping with seals and crimped ties. "I am scarcely arrived and…" She made as if reading the card. "To her most irritable Duchess-in-waiting, Europa of Naimes; please come and stuff yourself piglike on twelve dozen courses at my interminably dull fete as our most honored patron and garnish to dessert.With all respect and starved felicitations, et cetera, Lady Tish Tosh of Beanpaste."
Unsure if she was angry or making fun, Rossamund stifled a laugh in his juice-of-orange.
The heiress of Naimes dropped the offending favor to the floor. "All these fat magnateers and low-order peerlets want me to give their tawdry turnouts legitimacy. I will not be made the ornament of some upstart's public posturing."
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 duchess, noble 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. "Hello 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 Brandenbrass."
"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 Duchess has expressed most pointedly her regrets at Licurius' passing-"
"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 Duchess 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 duchess-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 decl
aimed, "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 amusement.
"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 circumstances."
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 pronounced, 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 document 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 Duchess-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 noble stripe, seeks assistance 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 pass 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 municipality.
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 anticipated 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 amp; Lockstrait, at the Laughing Spectioneer hostelry, Saltenbrink Street, Pawnhall.
"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-gods 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-god 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-god, 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 documents 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 Brandenbrass 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.