Factotum ft-3

by D M Cornish

  Bending around several tight spurs, the valley road climbed the grassy flank of a low hill, bringing them to a new and welcome prospect. Soft-lit by the porcelain radiance of heaven's dome, wide downs of ripening pastures folded away before them, fresh with soaking dew, scattered with trees, tall garners and low farmsteads and oddly regular woodlands as far as vision could grasp.

  From an ancient myrtle on the crown of the next hillock, a magpie gave throat to its happy quavering music full of primeval wisdom, and morning's joy. Inwardly, Rossamund soared with the birdsong.

  "The Page," Europe proclaimed, interrupting his flight. "Here, Rossamund, is parish land, a pleasant change from the ditches where you last served." She pointed with open hand to the vista.

  To Rossamund the scene seemed tilted to the left, descending to the far-off basin, a dark line at the edge of sight where the entire southern sky was brooding again upon another squall. To the north, the hill they stood upon reached for miles to join with its sisters, rising yet farther to meet a distant hedge of grimmer higher mounts.

  "Take us on, Master Vinegar, if you please."

  Moilers and faradays were out early in the fields, scything and wrenching at weeds that grew thick at this part of the season and threatened to overwhelm whole crops.

  "They could come and clear the verges while they're about it," Fransitart grumbled, veering the landaulet into the sprays of mustard weed and fennel thick on the brink of the road as he attempted to find a path through a herd of dairy cows.

  The beasts' hay ward-a fellow in the meager proofing of a long smock-gave the four travelers a bold "halloo!" and a cheerful wink from beneath the wide brim of his catillium as he lazily goaded his charges with a spearlike mandricard.

  "Halloo to ye too, ye mischievous grass-combing kinekisser," the ex-dormitory master muttered under his breath as Craumpalin adopted a cheerier face.

  The day-orb rose and spring's early bees hummed about them inquisitively before winging away to pollinate the feral plants. Butterflies, bright azure or patched orange and black, tumbled their crazy courses. Droning wasps and emperorflies hovered, hunted, joined by curious predatory bugs unusual in bright colors. Somewhere near, just beyond sight, a cow bellowed.

  "Cowherds and honeybees; what an enchanting place," Europe uttered sardonically.

  "Aye, this is a pleasant way to serve," Fransitart offered with gruff cheer. "Sittin' high aboard a wheel-ed barque upon a sea o' weeds is a fine way to see out yer days."

  "Very poetical, Master Vinegar," said the fulgar, affecting just the right pitch between interest and indifference.

  The ex-dormitory master half turned to catch Rossamund's eye. "Can't say I've e'er wanted to perish mopin' in some damp hut complainin' of the rheum."

  "No, indeed," Europe returned with a smile. "That is not an end I intend for myself either, chair-bound and sciatical. 'To die in harness' is the phrase, I believe."

  "Aye, madam, that's th' one." Fransitart nodded philosophically. "To perish with yer hand to the plow, to bow out still swinging-"

  "To push on to th' end…," Craumpalin added glibly.

  "We are of one accord then, sirs," Europe declared with a flourish of a graceful hand. "A life of adventure for us it is, until the very end."

  The two ex-vinegaroons chuckled together.

  Rossamund joined them with a sad smile of his own.

  With increasing frequency they found baited animals hung, dead, on fence posts: foxes, hares, possums, mink-left to be taken by peltrymen or soapers. Though the land was long cicurated and barely threwdish, Rossamund expected to spy some small bogle murdered and stiff, strung up on some fence-post hook.

  Though a well-used, well-founded thoroughfare bending through the domed pasturelands, the Athy Road was not broad and straight like the Wormway that ran east from Winstermill. Several times was Fransitart forced to slow and pull aside or stop for oncoming traffic: local folk commuting carefree between towns; post-lentums or hired canty-coaches carelessly hustling to the great city; lumber wagons from the plantations or ore-carters from the local coal mine, driven by hardy wagoners and under the escort of saturnine harnessguarde in the employ of some mining cartel. With these obstacles and the usual privacy stops taken at conveniently luxuriant bushes, when sundown came they were still short of Spelter Innings, a proper wash and a cozy bunk.

  "The town is really only a skip over those hills," Europe advised, pointing away northwest. "Yet the twist of the road makes it much farther. Let us stop at the nearest nook; this part of the map is easy for sleep."

  Muttering of a softer seat for his aging tailbones, Fransitart willingly complied, urging the horses to pick up their trot.

  In the cool, clear luster of a just-set sun, they halted in a deep crease on the right-hand side of the road, a bay in the downs that sheltered a stand of young, self-sown white oaks. To the soft chorus of sparse crickets they settled themselves for food and sleep.

  "Ahh, lad, look at thee test like a wise old rhubezhal," Craumpalin observed proudly as Rossamund made treacle.

  The young factotum stood a little taller as he brewed, nearly forgetting the foul sensation as he poured the Sugar of Nnun. "Give me elbow-way, Master Pin. I don't want to topple this nasty stuff on you!"

  It was a cold camp-no fire at least. However, the laborium made for an excellent pot, and once Rossamund was done with his brewing, Craumpalin assumed the role of cook and soon had a savory medley sizzling out its friendly aromas.

  "This is a decidedly pleasant shift from my usual encampments," Europe announced. "Hearty food and plaudamentum fit for the dinner table. If I could have, gentlemen, I would have employed all three of you years ago."

  Despite the general reputation this land had for being friendly and peaceful, the night was divided into three watches-Europe neither offering nor expected to take part and Rossamund taking the middle watch. Curled on the landaulet seat and well asleep under ample blankets, he reluctantly woke at Craumpalin's firm shaking and softly rasping voice.

  "Rouse out, me hearty, all is well! Tumble up and shake thyself. Time to watch the midnight world!" The dispenser pointed to the proverbial green star rising with a bulging moon in the eastern firmament. "When Maudlin's at her height, be waking ol' Frans for last lookout; don't let his limping or his groaning drive thee to too much sympathy."

  Rubbing eyes and yawning wide, Rossamund climbed as easy as he could from the carriage. With a yawn, he hooked his baldric with its attached stoup over his shoulder, adjusted the digitals at his waist and made ready for all surprises.

  The night was prickling cold, the air sharp with the tang of frost and damp grasses as his breath made steam in Phoebe's rising gleam. Cheeks stinging, Rossamund wrapped a blanket of silken wool about him and listened, blinking, holding his breath to better hear any furtive hints. In this cleft the air was still, rare puffs setting the knuckled branches of the oaks to an arid rattling. Up on high in the spangled firmament where Gethsemene sparkled brightest, flat fragments of clouds raced, thin luminous veils that left the world of men and monster untroubled in their chase.

  Rossamund drew deeply of the frosted night.

  Somewhere away to the left a boobook gave voice to a husky, cautious hu-hoo, speaking twice then lapsing to quiet.

  His bladder griping for his attention, the young factotum awoke more fully. "Give me a moment, Master Pin," he said as the old dispenser was settling himself for sleep. "I need the jakes."

  Grumbling to himself, the old dispenser kept hold of the musketoon and consented to watch the sleepers a little longer.

  With a quick look about, the young factotum sought the privacy of a flowering hawthorn up on the brow of the left-hand hill.This was deceptively steep, and he was well awake and near bursting as he reached the blossoming tree. Finding relief just in the nick, Rossamund was gifted with an enchanting, almost endless panorama of the vales and swards beyond, a silver-lit sea of flattened downs bounded only on the east by the low and distant umbra of the
Brandenfells. Most obvious in this midnight charm were the twinkling lights of a settlement in a shallow combe west-by-northwest, not much more than two miles away.

  Spelter Innings.

  Rearranging himself and about to descend, Rossamund caught movement in the field across the way. Before him the earth dipped abruptly to a plant-choked runnel, the other bank rising to a larger, almost perfectly round hillock. In Phoebe's stark light, bright enough to obliterate the sight of many stars, the young factotum could see this hillock was sprouted all over with slender square-sided markers of stone tapering to pyramid points or blank orbs. Crownstones! A whole mass of them! This was a boneyard, perhaps the very one identified in the first singular for the corpse-eating Swarty Hobnag-the one already filled by some other teratologist.

  Something shifted in the necropolis, a careful, contained action in the shadows of the stones. At the base of an unremarkable crownstone, some stooped figure was pawing at the soil. In full sight from Rossamund's vantage, it clearly thought itself hidden from view of the middling distant town. Even in the three-quarter lunar light the young factotum had the awful dawning it was not an everyman.

  Was this the Swarty Hobnag? Surely not… Surely it was just a corser or an ashmonger. Which is worse?

  Drawing cautiously down the hill in the hide of the long grass, moon shadows as his ally, Rossamund could feel a faint, unpleasant threwdishness tingling in his backbone and shivering along both arms.The furtive digger pivoted unexpectedly and stared suspiciously at the slope, its attention fixing disconcertingly close to where the young factotum huddled. Distorted blunt-jawed face plain in the moon-glow, it let out a very un-humanlike hiss, then returned to its gruesome excavation.

  Surely it was the Swarty Hobnag!

  Clearly the teratologist who had taken the singular for its annihilation was in no hurry to complete the labor… or had met his end at the creature's hands.

  He thought to go for Craumpalin's help, but feared the creature might leave in the time it would take to climb down and come back. Rossamund sneaked closer, determined to confront the creature before Europe did and drive it away. As carefully as he could, he scampered down to the trickling runnel and pushed through the thick fennel, releasing its pungent licorice perfume into the night. Catching hold of the rough top of the boneyard's drystone wall, Rossamund heaved himself over, to land in the stubbly rabbit-mown lawn of the necropolis.

  A caste of beedlebane was in Rossamund's grip in a trice as he toiled up the incline. Rounding the memorial obstacles, he was startled to find the creature so close, so stocky, so real and apparently awaiting his approach.

  "UHH!" He gave voice to wordless dismay.

  The Swarty Hobnag unbent to its full height. Even on stout legs it was a foot taller than Rossamund, its gangling forelimbs thick and prodigiously muscled, all fingers ending in obtuse claws. Its face was bluff and chinless, its skin parched black.Thin nostrils in a small, sharply pointed nose flexed and narrowed as the monster sniffed and snorted. Its lips parted obscenely, rolled back over blenched gums and protruding carnivorous teeth as once more the creature hissed.

  "Go back to the wilds!" Rossamund demanded. He had traded words with an urchin-king; he could banter with a lesser nicker. "The lands of everymen are not for you!"

  The creature stared at him with jet-dark eyes made luminous by Phoebe's unsympathetic luster. Tainted threwd seethed from the bogle, a broken, confused malice as clear now to the young factotum as the rising reek of the opened grave.

  THE SWARTY HOBNAG

  "The long-gone have not been put here just for you to eat," Rossamund pressed, self-doubt beginning to gnaw.

  "What are thee to prat at me about mine own doings!" the Hobnag coughed, its voice somewhere between a belch and a wheeze. "What are thee with thy rosy cheeks, thy puffy lips and thy dandy naughtbringerling drapes? Thee clearly lives false among the menly ones. Dost they love thee like thee was their own?" it heckled, then spat.

  "I am Rossamund, known to the Lapinduce, whose realm you are spoiling, watched over by the sparrow-duke, and servant to the Branden Rose," Rossamund retorted, the words just spilling out. "Nought but bad can come from your worthless digging. My mistress will not be so kind."

  "Hark thee, the little blithely hinderling, quothing thy poxy masters!" it spat. "I fully ken whose borders I invade, Pinky! What might the Largoman do to me so far from his hiding hole? Has he sent thee to chasten me?" it continued in a mockingly saccharin voice. "Or hast thy sparrow-prince doomed thee to bring us all to harmony?"

  "There is a writ taken against you…"

  "Bah! Thou blithely ones always wheedle and nag at me!"

  "You will be found and killed," Rossamund pressed, regretting already entering into parley with this wretched thing. "You must go-"

  "Humbuggler!" it barked. "Why don't thee!"

  At this the foul thing sprang from the hole it had fashioned. Without hesitation, Rossamund threw the beedlebane. Yet the nicker leaped higher, narrowly clearing the glaring sickly orange burst of the potive as it struck the globe of an intervening crownstone with a whoomp! In that single bound, the Hobnag covered the five-yard gap between them and more still, landing adroitly behind Rossamund. Before the young factotum could turn, it struck him hard in the side with a mighty backhanded swat, lifting him clear off his feet and sending him smacking, back and shoulders, into a crownstone ten feet uphill. The carven rock cracked with the blow of Rossamund's fall, and the heavy top slipped and tottered. Rossamund sagged back against the memorial. Weird lights crowded his vision's edges, and an iron taste rose in the back of his throat.

  Head craning to see the fall of its victim, the blunt-faced monster shambled up and past the bubbling remains of the burst beedlebane, thinking perhaps its diminutive foe done in.

  Dragging himself out of the blankness that sought to submerge him, Rossamund pulled up his legs to stand, pains flashing all about his battered body. With a dry, stony pop! the top of the crownstone came loose and toppled directly over the young factotum. Rossamund's senses were a sudden clarity as he reached into his strength and caught the heavy thing in both arms, holding it before it could squash him. He heaved to his feet, the stone still in his grasp, as the cunning Hobnag rushed him with loping leggy strides. Head craning back and jaws stretched impossibly wide with teeth fully exposed, it charged like some jutting jagged saw, seeking to carve Rossamund to mince and jelly.Yet, with strangely indifferent lucidity, Rossamund stepped aside, swinging the crown-piece like some battering post, striking the nicker on throat and jaw to send it colliding with the broken base.The foul creature reeled and stumbled, lurching back down the boneyard hill. Tripping on another crownstone, it came to a stop, parched black skin on its left temple torn to reveal lurid flesh seeping in the moonlight.

  "So thee has found thy strength…," the Hobnag muttered, facing him cautiously now.

  Chest heaving, hurting sharply with every gasp, Rossamund caught his breath.Though the shadowy hint of its face was a dismal blank, the young factotum somehow perceived a kind of bafflement in the wretched thing.

  "I want food, not fighting," it seethed, and with that it sprang nimbly away and hared across the flank of the hill, attempting escape between the stones.

  Mindlessly, Rossamund dared his strength and with an almighty heave flung the crown-piece at the retreating creature, throwing it astonishingly far to catch the Hobnag a glancing cuff upon its hip. An audible crack! broke the night quiet and the wretch tumbled to the mold, pitching head over end to disappear among the grave-markers. Seizing a caste of Frazzard's powder, Rossamund hurried as fast as his own bashed body would allow through the tall slender crownstones like some avenging heldin glorified so often in his old pamphlets. Not far on, where he thought he saw the nicker fall, he found the crownstone piece, but the Hobnag was gone. He spied a glimpse of it, staggering through the stones toward the iron-bound entrance on the opposite side of the hill.

  "What good does it do to make everymen your pr
ey?" the young factotum cried futilely after it.

  "Humbuggler!" he heard it hiss at him in turn. Struggling over the iron-arched gate, the thing was gone into the night.

  Rossamund thought to follow it, but he did not have a single notion what he would do if he caught up with the creature. To kill in the passion and mayhem of a fight was one thing, to destroy by cold choice another, and that he did not think he could do.

  His perception swam and oblivion crowded.

  Something sharp and deep hurt in his right side.

  His back pained.

  He knelt for a moment in the graveyard soil and took as deep a breath as his aches would allow.

  A terrifying, reedy wailing, an alto voice of sorrow and rage rose and fell on the shifting airs.

  Then silence.

  No other sound punctuated the quiet, that complete and buzzing silence that seemed to follow every fight; even the crickets were still.

  Anxious to get back to Craumpalin waiting so stoutly, Rossamund clambered to his feet, gathered up the fallen crown-piece in one arm as if it were a light thing and went to the partly exhumed grave. Hastily kicking the new-turned soil back into the hole, Rossamund refused to look too closely at the ashen dome of the putrefying head poking through where the Hobnag had been digging. Evidently, the dear departed were humed here feet-first too, just as in Winstermill, but that was already more than he wanted to know. Returning the crownstone piece to its original stump, he gingerly scaled the wall and returned up the hill and back to his watch.

  All twinges and stabbing aches, he looked to the slow-spinning heavens; the Signals had barely moved. From when he left till his return and the great struggle for life and limb in between had taken little more than one quarter of an hour.

  At the camp, he found Craumpalin sitting in a sagging huddle propped against the musketoon and nodding in sleep, unmolested and serene. With a wry sniff, he thought to wake the old salt, tell of his exploits and receive some skillful care.Yet what was there to say? Smiling ruefully to himself, he left the old fellow to his slumber.