Factotum ft-3

by D M Cornish

  A glissando of sharp spinet notes rang down the passage from the lighter end. Creeping toward the melody, Rossamund recognized it as a close variation on that which he had heard only three days before, driving past the Moldwood with Mister Carp on the way to the knavery. As he stole forward, small skitterings whispered from the twilight behind. He became utterly still, but the florid playing only waxed louder, drowning any creeping noises. Rossamund hurried from the dark and about a curve spied a line of three hand-carved archways a dozen yards ahead. Feet clad in soft trews, the young factotum noiselessly approached the first arch and squeezed a peek past its inward pilaster.

  Beyond he found the deep cleared cellar of a completely floorless high-house, a square shell of a tower open to the heavens, lighter bands of brickwork among the gray stone and thin, many-mullioned windows evidence of missing stories. Rossamund squinted up into the roofless height dappled with layered leaves and pastel morning sky. A venerable walnut tree grew bent and broad in its midst, much of its trunk and lower branches wound with creeping glory vine. There was no rubble or ruin about it; rather it grew from a paved square of black-and-white marble laid around the walnut's wide-spreading roots. And here, under its shade, sat the Lapinduce astride a stool fashioned of branches writhen together, playing at a spinet of lustrous caffene-colored wood. Clothed now in a heavy high-collared frock coat of shimmering midnight purple stitched with playful rabbits, the mighty beast's back was turned to Rossamund as it hammered away in impassioned throes. Shuddering under this artful assault, the spinet glistened in the variegated light, every panel and plane of the instrument inlaid with traceries of ivory and gold.

  The metallic fugue unraveled to a pounding, beautiful acme when, one note short of the final satisfaction, the Lapinduce hesitated, blunt-clawed hands hovering taut with potential by its great rabbit ears. Thus the monster-lord remained, motionless, head turned. Rossamund stared in dread wonderment at the trace of its severe sky-gray eye, heedless of him, of the elderly tree, of the gutted shell of its musical well, of its playing. The young factotum could see subtle movements in the creature's mouth, a voiceless monologue as it stared into the air, into the fathomless sinks of history and memory beyond human record.

  All sensible people held that such a creature was an impossibility, a dreadful rumor, a beautiful fiction.Yet here the impossible dwelt, in the very heart of a powerful city filled to its outer curtains with vigilantly invidical folk.

  Without the music a great threwdish hush dwelt here; not even the baritone grumble of Brandentown's daily routine carried on the woody, bug-buzzing breath of the day's start. Kindly breezes whispered in the green above, branches barely squeaking as a gentle rain of blossoms and seedling puffs settled like clumsy snow. High to his left, water was dribbling from a circular grate a few feet up the sunken wall, its bubbling caught in a mossy runnel muttering down a marble drain by the arches where Rossamund hid. A puff of forenoon breeze dropped from the cerulean gap above, bringing on its breath the smell of the great creature-an oily, spicy, bestial stink touched with rich spring blossom. Something wheedling within this scent worked to put the young factotum at ease.

  In a tiny looping dash, Darter Brown flew down the chute of the gutted building to alight on a walnut branch reaching toward Rossamund over the runnel.

  Crouching, the young factotum smiled up furtively at his sparrow friend.

  The bird, swallowing some twitching bug it had caught on the wing, twisted his petite black-hooded head to one side and then the other and voiced a brief twitter of greeting.

  "So, rossamunderling," the Lapinduce declared suddenly into the hush, its back still turned, "you wish still to be an everyman?"

  Nearly toppling back, Rossamund grabbed at the frame of the arch, righting himself. Feeling suddenly nude among the shadows he cast about wildly, looking to flee-but to where?

  "Come out from the shadows, little ouranin," the urchin-lord persisted, relaxing his dramatic pose, "and let me greet you a'right."

  Reluctantly Rossamund stepped into the mottled light of the open arch, halting cautiously on the bank of the runnel. "Uh-h… Hello, sir…," he stammered. "H-how…"

  The mighty urchin pivoted upon its stool, arching about to fix him directly. Black fur bristling, head hunched low between tall collars, its great ears laid flat behind its head and out along its back, the Lapinduce barked, "How? How do I know? Know that you are there or know that you are a rossamunderling? An ouranin? A manikin? A hinderling? A pink-lips? A fake-foe?"

  "Uh… b-both, sir," the young factotum squeaked.

  In the elucidating light of day the creature's visage was clear: a dark, triangular face covered in a lustrous pelt like rich black velvet, with pale fur ringed about equally pallid eyes; shadowy stripes ran from beneath each lower lid, down and across each high cheek.

  Its gaze narrowed.

  Alarmed as he was, Rossamund was awed by something eccentrically and inexpressibly handsome in this imposing monster-lord, its face appearing less like a rabbit to him now, more like that of some hunting cat such as he had read about in the scant count of natural philosophy books at Madam Opera's.

  The damp black rabbit's nose-oddly endearing and bestial beneath such a humanly astute and judicious regard-twitched, testing the air. "I know because I was there, little ouranin," the urchin murmured, voice still carrying. "I was there when the fresh land sang with threwd so sweet and new as to reach an accord with the pure ringing of the very stars themselves."

  A frown darkened its brow.

  "I was there when the alosudne, perfidious and haughty-those whom men now call the false-gods-rose up from the waters in their conceit to drive the gentle naeroe away as they sought to seize all three of the middling grounds as their own. I was there when my landling frair and I joined to beat the false-hearted alosudne back to the utter deeps to slumber uselessly evermore."

  The Lapinduce became quieter now, speaking rapidly in its passion. "I was there to watch men arrive-born of mud as we-to flourish and, finally, full of the pride of life, set to building tiny empires of their own, whelming and shackling each other, snatching at things once freely given as if they were their own. I was there when they sought to wrest the living sod from us and slew their first urchin by deeds of great and corporate treachery."

  Sitting tall and manlike, the beast paused, smoothed its coat hems and continued in a more even tone. "I was there when one whole third of the theriphim declared their hatred of men and compacted to ever thwart them." It stood, reaching thick-sleeved arms out and up, pressing its overlong hands against a heavy walnut bough. At the crown of its swarthy head it would have exceeded eight feet; with its ears it gained another yard of height.Yet, in the lucidity of day's glow it did not appear quite as massive, and its coat lent the monster-lord a regal, almost human, aspect. "Long years have I ruled here till every particle about me has become my own, yet never once have I been greatly troubled by the too-brief souls about me." It took a breath. "All of this, little rossamunderling, is how I know."

  Rossamund waited, and though bursting with a swarm of questions provoked by this riddling sermon, he did not speak.

  The pause stretched into a weighty silence.

  Rossamund blinked.

  "Will you give me answer, ouranin?" insisted the monster-lord, breaking the stifling hush. It stepped toward him, a jaunting tip-of-toe stride, its legs elongated like a rabbit's. Unlike the close-cut claws of its hands, the claws on its large coney feet, clicking on the paving, were wicked long and wicked sharp.

  Stoutly Rossamund opened his mouth once, twice, but even on the third no more than an astounded gurgle came out of him.

  Chirruping urgently, Darter Brown danced winging loops about the Duke of Rabbits' ears.

  THE LAPINDUCE

  Ears drooping slightly, the Lapinduce shot a strangely chastened look to the agitated sparrow. "Be not afraid, little wing-ed merrythought," it murmured, addressing the bird directly. "I am no cacophrin nor simple sunderhallow
to set on your friend and eat him!You may tell Lord Strouthion-my word to his ear-that though I might decline to bind myself to seek everymen's welfare, yet I am not so lost that I would devour our own." Ears once more erect, the Lapinduce stared down upon Rossamund with its large limpid eyes, elbow in hand, stroking its hairy chin beneath enormous, protruding teeth in a very human manner. It gazed at him so searchingly the young factotum began to itch. "You are alive, now speak… What do they call you by?"

  Rossamund fumbled, not knowing how to address this primeval creature. "My… my name is Rossamund Bookchild." He went to doff his hat diffidently and was reminded by empty, questing grasp that it was missing.

  The monster-lord laughed, a coughing, oddly person-ish noise. "Of course it is! Who was it, to bestow you such an uninspired nomination?"

  "I-uh-I suppose it was Madam Opera…," the young factotum answered a little tightly, "though I reckon it was Cinnamon who gave it to me first."

  "Cinnamon, you say?" The Lapinduce twitched its nose and flicked its ears. "Surely modest Cannelle would not be so dim?"

  "Cannelle, sir?"

  The creature looked at him as if he were simple. "Cannelle is the one you name as Cinnamon. He has always been curious beyond his place, wandering far and farther through the eons, outside his rightful range… though I reckoned him sharper-soiled than to give an ouranin such a simple name-"

  Tweet! went Darter Brown touchily.

  "I think it was more a label…," Rossamund elaborated.

  The Lapinduce cast a shrewd look at both boy and bird. "He sought perhaps to play a tease upon the everymen?"

  "Play a tease?"

  "Most certainly-jest with them! Put a theriphim so thoroughly disguised among them and fool them all, yet leave the morsel of a hint to unravel the ruse and reveal the jest." Another coughing laugh.

  Standing still on the opposite bank of the runnel, the young factotum could not help his frown. If his arrival on the foundlingery steps was a jest, it was a very poor one.

  "Will you tell me, puzzled ouranin," the Lapinduce crooned, "why you remain in their realms? Why have you not joined us and kept yourself away from needless troubles?"

  "I–I have not known of what I am supposed to be until only a fortnight gone. My master got a mark of my blood upon his arm to prove it, but it is yet to show."

  "Oh, now." The urchin-lord's alien eyes went a little round. "Here you need no such gruesome proofs-I have told it is so; all doubts are ended."

  His soul set so fixedly on the confirmation of Fransitart's cruorpunxis, Rossamund did not know what to do with so blunt a revelation. "But can I truly have come from the mud? Am I really the remaking of some lost everyman fallen dead in the wilds?"

  The Lapinduce regarded him with glittering eyes.

  "Whoever told you so told it true," it said simply.

  Rossamund gasped a steadying breath. "But am I an everyman or a monster?"

  "Ahh." The Duke of Rabbits clacked its front teeth together impatiently. "Thus did Radica and Dudica, the darlings and saviors of the Brandenfolk, worry. 'Are we mannish monsters or monsterish men?' was ever their quest." The monster-lord became contemplative and so completely still, the young factotum thought he had been forgotten. Finally the creature stirred. "The answer is as it was for them: you are both at once, neither more one nor less the other, an everyman and euriphim congruently and indivisibly, unable to be separated into parts. No marks on arms nor hiding behind unsmells will make you more or less than what you already are and have always been, oh manikin."

  Despite all the evidence, Fransitart's recounting and Rossamund's own knowing, a self-denying blank reached out from Rossamund's milt, prickling at his scalp and setting a disconcerting buzz ringing in his ears.

  The Lapinduce gave a disgusted snort. "Look at these pullings of long faces! How does knowing what you are make you any different? You have been you all this time; you will remain you for the long stretch of your life regardless of the reckonings in your thinking soils. The only alteration you have undergone is to simply have information to remedy your self-doubtings. Cease these snivels!" Again it clacked its terrible front teeth together, a loud, disapproving sound.

  The rabbit-duke turned, took up a fine glass goblet that had sat upon the wooden-keyed spinet and sipped heartily at the wriggling froth it held, chewing on a mouthful. "I welcome you, ouranin, to my warren in this miniature remnant wood of mine." The Lapinduce bowed to him. It spread its arms like an invitation. "Come, let us walk in the cool of the morning so I might show it to you."

  With a slow watchful stride over the tiny watercourse, Rossamund approached the urchin-lord under its ancient tree.

  Another quaff of its frog-froth and the monster-lord coughed unexpectedly, two loud, clear hacks that bore the suggestion of language.

  As if in response, two large buck-rabbits, brown with black faces and brooding jet eyes, hopped from a hole in the flagstones between a tight bole of walnut roots. Each rabbit bore one of Rossamund's boots, carried somewhat uncomfortably in its teeth by the heel-loop.

  The young factotum gave an involuntary chuckle of delight.

  "This is Ogh." Clearly pleased at the young factotum's reaction, the rabbit-lord indicated the buck carrying his right shoe with an uncurling of its great hands. "And this"-it did the same for the rabbit holding the left boot-"is Urgh; if they had not held them for you, the littler ones might have carried your shoes away for keeping."

  The two creatures dropped Rossamund's boots carefully at his feet, and as he wrestled his footwear on, one pulled the leafy blanket from his shoulders and dragged it to its master. The other hopped in lazy lopes to disappear again beneath the walnut. As large as they were, there was nothing especially threwdish about them; they were just rabbits.

  As if detecting its guest's inklings, the rabbit-duke declared, "They are of a long line of Oghs and Urghs who have served me ear and nose, keeping watchful eye while I ponder and I play to remember the sweet piping of the cosmic firstenings." The monster-lord reached down to fondle the ears of the one at its feet.

  The other reemerged bearing Rossamund's slightly soiled hat in its gentle mouth.

  The young factotum laughed again as he took it gratefully.

  Eyes glittering, the Lapinduce turned and beckoned him to follow, taking the young factotum through the arches upon the other side of the cellar. By winding root-paneled passages full of half-heard whispers, Rossamund let himself be led upward, holding back cautiously as around and around they went, ever higher. Stooping through a veil of bracken and root fronds-the Duke of Rabbits almost bent to its oddly working knees-they emerged between the roots of an enormous olive onto a bright hillside glade.

  Dazzled and blinking, Rossamund perceived a host of rabbits grazing and loping about the thickly flowering grass hemmed by great thickets of thorny trees. To the east over the treetops, where the morning sun was well lifted into the wan blue, he thought he saw the gray misted curve of the city's entire harborage brimming with masts. Founded a dozen yards behind him on the summit dense with pungent sage like some fortalice, the hollow building of the Lapinduce's court rose for four stories. Its banks were grown around with massive ancient trees of many kinds-walnut, sycamore, olive, turpentine-obscuring much of the skeletal tower. A powerful slumbering peace dwelt here, giving no hint that they were indeed in the middle of a vast and hostile city. Alighting with a whir in the branches above, Darter Brown played with little wrens and woodland robins.

  Closing his eyes, Rossamund drew in a sweet cleansing breath.

  Striding down the embankment, the Lapinduce was quickly gathered about by a milling, frolicking drove of coneys and hares. The monster-lord cooed for a moment to them, then held out its long arms and turned slowly about.

  "When far-seeing Idaho was still on pap, this wood covered every dune and vale," it spoke with chanting tone, "from Lillian of the Faye to the People of the Dogs and far into the Piltmen's kingdoms. The Harholt, the Harleywood, Cacolagia, Nemus
Cunicula… It has gone by many names, but each one gives it my name. Whether brave sires or cowardly heirs, wide-visioned conquerors or money-hearted gooses-grabbers, all souls have lived in it and about it by my consent."

  "You let them cut your trees?" Rossamund asked carelessly, more intent on keeping from crushing a rabbit as he stepped down to the grass.

  "Trees do not concern me as long as I am let alone. The ambits of this park are enough; I seek only to be untroubled by man or monster, and I let all these little naughtbringers flurrying about me flourish. I am not bound to be kind to everymen; however, it pleases me to watch their self-important antics. Ahh, everymen, one brief span you get!" the rabbit-duke cried into the sky, its tiny charges crowding about its slender feet untroubled by the monster's passion. "You are like the twigs on a plum tree; in spring you blossom, in summer bear fruit, in autumn you drop your leaves and in winter fall and then are gathered up to be thrown as kindling on the fire… How I delight in watching you all scurry and toil so seriously only to depart too soon. I stop for but a movement of thought, then rouse, my nails grown again, to find that a once-familiar generation have all departed and their children have become grandsires. Think what troubles you could wreak, oh, busy, busy everymen, if your span of years were but doubled! What terrible momentum you might gather. It is well you fight with each other as much as with us and waste time making wagers over the fate of the weakling tykes in their pits."

  The monster-lord returned its shrewd attention to its guest.

  "Are you pecked?" it inquired with a peculiarly light tone, holding out its now near-drained goblet of wriggling froth.

  Eyeing the offering with barely contained repulsion, Rossamund declined while his stomach turned traitor and gave an audible burble.

  "No? Maybe some thrisdina?" It walked over to an anciently knotted olive, reached up and pulled several strands of the diaphanous weed that hung limply from a lower branch.