Factotum ft-3

by D M Cornish

  The young factotum peered at the serving, a dull wan green frond wet with dew and unappetizingly coiled on the Lapinduce's pale palm. Feeling obliged after his first refusal, Rossamund opened his own hand to receive his morning repast and felt a soulful surprise of threwd shiver through his very marrow as the urchin's truncated claws brushed his bare palm.

  The rabbit-duke did not appear to notice this contact, but explained with a strange and disarming chattiness, "You will find this growing almost anywhere with enough dampness in the air, and every variety is good for eating-whether for everyman or euriphim."

  Rossamund sniffed the mossy tendrils. They smelt of grass, of hidden forest glades, of dirt. He tried a nibble. It was like a mild variation on mushrooms, bland enough to be edible. "How do people not fathom you are here?" he asked, still chewing.

  The Lapinduce tapped its long-whiskered upper lip ruminatively with a crooked finger, a voluminous cuff dropping to reveal its bony wrist. "Because I do not wish it. Though some do… " came the patient answer. "My steadfast ones… Oftentimes the short-lived dukes will know of me too and reckon well to keep mum."

  Rossamund could barely credit it. "They do not send in battalions of teratologists?"

  The monster-lord peered at him as if this were a ridiculous notion. "I would fill this city full of terror and empty it, make it barren for generation upon generation to become a nest for sunderhallows and darkness… Though your concern for me is commendable, ouranin," it added dryly. "The last duke with whom I had to deal-and all those before him-have proved shrewd enough to keep such discernment to themselves. How-be-it, I do not know if the current fellow is the same fellow as before. Too quickly does each generation come and live and go again."

  "Do other… monsters"-Rossamund hesitated, wanting a better word-"dwell here with you?"

  "I seldom seek the company of my frair. Too often they are spoiling to harm or help the everymen, pulling at me to do the same. I prefer stillness and memory."

  Looking up, Rossamund beheld eoned memories that shifted in the depths of the Lapinduce's inhuman gaze. Was this the fashion of the Duke of Sparrows' rule as well, to watch and wait and remember sweeter times? "Are you and the Duke of Sparrows kin, sir?"

  It regarded him with what the young factotum could only read as amusement. "Ahh, the Sparrowlengis. As such things are reckoned, indeed we are-though you will find him less willing to admit the kinship. But we theraphim-you and I and the sparrow-king too-are frair all to each other and to the groaning earth too."

  Rossamund peered at the monster-lord in wonder. Could I possibly be kin to such creatures? "But what of the hob-rousing?" he dared to ask. "Does it not stir you to anger to have it in your land?"

  The monster-lord's ears went flat again. "Am I to be the soul to solve the endless enmity twixt theriphim and naughtbringer?" it hissed, taking several large strides toward him and thrusting its visage into Rossamund's own, the young factotum retreating a small step.

  A sinister threwdishness-an angry surge that made the world go strangely dim-swirled about him. With a gasp of dismay, Rossamund raised an arm as if to defend himself, vaguely aware of Darter Brown's own anxious twittering above him.

  "I happen to know that Gingerrice won free!" the Lapinduce declaimed with low and sibilant ferocity. "As has that daftling Grackle; oft has he passed through the guts of kraulschwimmen and other terrible salamanders and always survived barely hurt! Did not I myself save you from that fluffed and perfumed neuroticrith looking to snatch you away? What more do you wish for, squidgereen! Do you seek to provoke me in my own city and question my mercies?" it snorted.

  Its warm, scented breath-like flowers and new-turned earth-was strong in Rossamund's nostrils. "No, sir, I do not," he said in a small voice, recalling all too lucidly that this mighty creature had slain a wit in his defense as thoughtlessly as a pantry maid might strangle a chicken for a meal.

  "I-" continued the urchin-lord self-importantly, "I have never prevented the many shifting tribes of people from coming to dwell in my domain nor prevented them from conquering the previous tribe to establish themselves. I gave my consent when the two sisters Radica and Dudica-rossamunderlings just as you are and now long departed-defended this youngling city against an onrush of wretchling theraphim kin. I parleyed with the seventh duke-blind and deaf-of this current dynasty, for with me alone could he commune, and in doing thus proved his crafty advisers mendacious and insincere. And yet, I let the schwimmenbeasts take from the harbors their share of iron boats with their toothsome marrows of muscle, and leave marauding nickers to take their fill of souls in the parish lands. Complexities within complexities… As it has ever been." It opened its mouth and clacked the long front teeth of top and bottom jaw together. "You might do well too to ask the sparrow-king-so righteous in his forest nest-why it is he lets revers be made in the hinter of his own autumn-his own realm!" It straightened to look down its long nose at him. "If you are of such wisdom and thew, frail ouranin, why do you not do better than me and go and bring out all the skulking, simple-souled sprosslings from those loathsome dog-fighting dens?"

  "I–I am but one… boy… I could barely help one," he countered. "You are a great lord of the monsters!"

  "A boy, forsooth! Is that how you see it, oh wise one? Have clean now! You are much more than a mere boy! That is ichor in your innards and there is cruor on your hands. You have felled our frair and used your great vigor in the defense of the everyman foe. How would you answer me if I were to call you to account and pronounce judgment, as is my long privilege?"

  Rossamund opened his mouth in response yet could offer none. He ducked his head, strange passion thrumming under his ribs.

  The Lapinduce gave a grim smile, a disconcerting expression in such an animal face. "You are right, however, when you say that I am great. I am grandfather to the hills and elder brother to the vinegar's boundaries, but restrictions there are to my reach, margins that I have placed on myself and limits laid down upon me." It lapsed and its sight became inward as it began to walk about the woodland hollow, touching flower and branch, leaf and stalk, humming a muted variation to the tune it played so stridently on the spinet.

  The glade was quiet but for this mellifluous purring.The soft caw of a high-passing ibis and the subdued whisper of wind-shifting trees only joined the sympathetic melody.

  Rossamund found himself swaying in accord with the monster-lord's throaty music, the very core of him vibrating with ponderous complex regret for the discord between monster and man; with anger confounded by a peculiarly happy melancholy that folded back to anger again; with great longing for an ease and joy once known so well so long ago.With a shock of clarity he realized that he must be feeling what the Lapinduce felt. He smudged away a lonely tear that had squeezed unheeded to tickle down his cheek.

  "Ahh… this has been a most excellent deliberation," the Lapinduce abruptly declared, breaking the chant of its throaty music. "You are most certainly an unwitting yet faithful student of the Sparrowlengis, your watchful sparrow-duke. He too thinks better of men than they deserve and defends them in obedience to the ancient treaties." It eyed Rossamund cannily, and he felt his very soul shudder. "Yet for me the blackest of all the blackest things I have seen is an everyman's evilness to a fellow everyman-"

  "Or everymen-enemies only because they do not know better-flayed and splashed to the eight winds by a nicker's claws!" was the young factotum's own reflexive retort.

  "Ahh." The monster-lord smiled narrowly. "Yet is their thoughtlessness an excuse?" It raised a blunt bony claw. "Who is responsible for one's thoughtlessness if not a soul itself? Enough evidence there is of our good support to change an everyman's opinion a score of times over should any care to look better, but they will not. The kingdoms of everymen stand much through the protection of our blithely frair, yet still they course and kill them."

  "But there are those everymen who have thought better," Rossamund countered stoutly. "I have seen monster-slayers show kindness…"r />
  "Little doubt you speak with your mistress in mind-the Brambly Rose, who has taken you into her care."

  The young factotum's eyes went round with amazement. "How-"

  "How again, is it?" The Lapinduce's blank expression held the shadow of a bestial smirk. "How is it I know that you serve Europa of Naimes, Duchess-in-waiting, the Brambly Rose? How is it I know that-as I have done-she saved you from the grasp of selfish souls knitting abominations in their high stone hall on the edge of Master Sparrow's autumn?" It arched a brow. "Why, Lentigo has told me…"

  "Lentigo, sir?"

  "The one you know as Freckle, who goes huc illuc to all points and serves none but Providence."

  To this Darter Brown puffed himself and gave an affirming kind of chirp.

  "He is here?" Rossamund looked about rapidly, thinking the plucky glamgorn might emerge from the shadows.

  "Most certainly, quizzing ouranin! Lentigo has been and is now gone. Very anxious he is after your weal in the custody of one so infamous as is this orguline, the Rose of Brandentown. Ahh, a hindrance and blight to all euriphim is she… I would like to meet her before she all too soon perishes. She suspects, I think, that I am here. Many times has her square-faced servant-man stood under my trees to sniff me out… He failed, of course."

  Suddenly the young factotum realized he had forgotten… Europe's treacle!

  Anxious now to get back to Cloche Arde and attend his testtelating duties, Rossamund opened his mouth to ask his leave of this perplexing creature.Yet before he could press his plea, the Lapinduce spoke.

  "An ouranin as manservant to an orguline…" the Lapinduce's bestial eye twinkled with a cold mirth. "Complexity, I see, follows you like flies do a dung cart. Ever it is like this for an ouranin; never fitting, always searching on and on through generations and on into history… Come, let me show you a fine trick."

  Immediately the monster-lord stalked out of the dell, ears back, finding a path that wended deviously among the thickets.

  Keen not to get lost in the hedging woods, Rossamund had to run to keep pace while Darter Brown dashed low before him. A goodly way into the park, breath rasping in windpipe, he found the Lapinduce had halted atop a sizeable mound. Ears tall, standing alert in the thick shadow of a geriatric pine, the monster-lord peered down with keen intent on something below. Creeping on soft clover to hunker by the creature's side, Rossamund could see through crooked branches a figure prowling down in the parkland gloom maybe only a half-a-hundred yards away, a heavyset fellow in a deep green soutaine and a black tricorn pulled over his white wig.

  The young factotum's innards went still.

  It was one of the Broken Doll's door wards.

  Rossamund clenched every muscle, ready to leap into hand strokes.

  "They have trespassed deep indeed in search for their lost chum… and for you too, I think," the rabbit-duke breathed. "They will not seek for long. Watch… "

  The intruding fellow was scowling at the darksome nooks and threatening crannies, patently uneasy at his task. Calls came through the trees-other searchers on the prowl. Shouting his own reply over his shoulder, the door ward approached the base of the hillock where the Lapinduce and Rossamund were hid.

  The Lapinduce closed its eyes and let out a slow hissing breath.

  All around the threwd thickened, a settling dismal chill.

  The young factotum shivered.

  The door ward hesitated and stared anxiously about. There came another cry to the left, its unintelligible words possessing a warning. The intruder began to withdraw, the calls retreating with him until the woodland hush relaxed and the threwd eased to its usual gentle watchfulness.

  "Come, ouranin," said the Lapinduce, "let us return to my court." "So what of you, oh ill-named one!" Stepping to its spinet stool and sitting, the Lapinduce peered at Rossamund keenly. "I did not save you to pass you back to bloodthirsting everymen." For a moment it sounded angry. "You ought depart from here to live in proper seclusion with the sparrow-duke and Cinnamon, so interested in your progress; let this generation and all its selfish single-mindedness pass into matter. I can grant you easy passage to your sparrow-lord to dwell in peace till all things are restored.Yet it is for you alone to choose your progress."

  Rossamund breathed long and deep. How simple it might be to take up the Lapinduce's offer, to retreat and live safe, and make forays out into the cities to overturn every rousing-pit or massacar he could find. For just a moment Rossamund's soul soared with the idea.Yet, as quickly as it swelled, this hope sank again. "Europe has risked too much for me to desert her now," he breathed, swallowing back on the knot griping in his throat. "Fransitart and Craumpalin too…"

  A melancholy shadow passed through the Lapinduce's ancient gaze. "An answer at last to my original question…," it murmured heavily. "Brutish and short are the lives of every men; do not expect your own with them to be different."

  Rossamund looked to his hands-a man's hands, a monster's hands.

  Born out of the mud from some other soul's parts…

  "It is time for you to return to your chosen mistress," the rabbit-duke commanded abruptly. It coughed to summon Ogh and Urgh. "Follow them close and do not mind their bold divagations; they shall show you by their own route to familiar paths that will take you home again."

  Rossamund hesitated. He glanced anxiously to the sliver of forenoon sun peeking over the towering eastern wall-so much higher from this sunken vantage. How did it get so high? Surely they had talked only for some moments.

  Flicking its coat hems to sit properly on its stool, the Lapinduce lifted long hands to play. "I will likely not see you again, ouranin," it said without looking to him. Flourishing a blunt-clawed hand, it gave the spinet voice once more, a wild tune that had the urchin-lord's arms and deft fingers running along every octave. It closed its eyes and was lost in the music.

  Reeling, Rossamund slowly heeded a gentle tugging at his right shin. Ogh-or was it Urgh-was pulling at his stocking with its teeth, while its twin was slowly hopping to the farthest of the three arches and out of the court. With a final, heavy-hearted glance at the furious playing of the Lapinduce, the young factotum followed, leaving the glorious monster-lord in its hidden musical court.

  10

  A BAD EXCUSE IS BETTER THAN NONE

  Crimp(s) privately operating impress contractor, that is, a group or individual licensed to press people into naval or military service. They are usually given a quota by a ram's captain or a regimental colonel and with this authority trawl the streets of less well-heeled districts, seizing anyone appearing at that moment not to be engaged in gainful activity, regardless of the poor soul's true employment status.

  In dour fungal light the twin rabbits Ogh and Urgh took Rossamund down the bending root-walled course, loping at an easy pace yet keeping out of his reach. He tried once to stride forward and pat one, and in an instant they shot ahead into the twilight of the tunnel that led away from the Lapinduce.

  "Wait! Wait!" he called, finding them sitting in gloom in the middle of the passage floor, eyes glittering, noses twitching rapidly.

  Guided by the flash of their bobbing sallow tails, he was shown through many dim intersections and lighted burrows, the flanks of the warren becoming coarser, more uneven. Tessellated floor gave over to cool earth and cold puddles, the walls to rough earth, then quickly to the brick and stone of the city's deep-sunk foundations. Finally even radiant fungus ceased, the threwd shrinking to little more than a sleepy suggestion, the merest hint for those who might care to notice.

  Moldy twilight gave over to a strengthening warmer glow. Just about a bend he discovered Ogh and Urgh stopped, sitting silhouettes before a ragged window of umber and blue; the end of the hole.

  "Thank you, good sirs," he said to the rabbits, bowing to each in turn, wishing they might respond with words of their own and divulge primeval secrets.

  Mute, they regarded him blankly, noses ever twitch twitch twitch.

  With a sigh, the
young factotum pushed through the shrouding fringe of unchecked vegetation, and, blinking near-blinded in the bright afternoon sun, almost slid down the steeply slanted side of the brick-paved drain. Gripping the edge of the hole, he saw that he had emerged into the usual world from between the weedy roots of an old turpentine growing far beyond the bounds of the Moldwood in some tiny neglected common.

  By its green trickle and orange carp he easily identified this channel. The Midwetter! — the very one flowing by Cloche Arde.

  Darter Brown appeared over the top of the high roofs-somehow reckoning Rossamund's path despite his hidden progress. With a tweet! the little fellow alighted on a spear-pointed post of the fence that lined the height of the drain.

  Rossamund straightened, set his thrice-high firmly on his head and went on by way of the channel, back to service and contradictions.Walking carefully along the slope, he had the disorienting sensation of rousing from a deep and convincing dream-some mystic abyss-to finally gasp mundane and sensible air. By the time he clambered up the side of the bridge to Footling Inch, his time with the Lapinduce was a small disquieting memory and his thoughts were more concerned with how he might explain his absence to his mistress.

  Kitchen greeted him in the cold black vestibule. "Glad to see you have elected to return to us, Master Bookchild," the steward began, a little dryly. "You are expected in our gracious lady's file."

  With a quiet knock at the carven door, Rossamund waited for the usual "In." When it did not occur, he rapped a little louder, at which the portal opened, revealing not Europe in some splendid gown but Fransitart, his worn, worried-looking eyes going wide with sharp relief.

  "Rossamund!" he barked, grasping him by the shoulder as if never to let him go.

  "Master Frans?" Rossamund said. "Where is Miss Europe?" Part stepping, part pulled into the file, he found Craumpalin there too, rising quickly from an easy chair before the fire, looking at him like one returned from the grave.