Factotum ft-3

by D M Cornish

  A glaring blue flicker lit up the darkening trees ahead about the bend. Scrambling onto the road itself, he hurried stoutly to it, half in hope, half in fear.

  The Branden Rose hove into view, grimed with gore, hair askew, proofing starkly bruised, boots scuffed, the weep of dark green tears lining each cheek like ghastly spoors. The fulgar was bent over a slouched figure, Featherhead, the chief of the fictlers, feathered hat discarded on the road. Four-bar mask plucked away from his very normal, very human face, now clenched in pain, his eyes were rolling with blank fear. One arm was raised feebly to keep the fulgar bayed.

  Yet even in defeat, the abysmal foulness Rossamund had first felt when they had passed the fictler-lord standing on the side of the road the day before still issued from the fallen fellow.

  Rossamund's stride quickly slackened still several yards from Europe and her captive and, taking a few cautious steps more, he halted.

  With a small cheep! Darter Brown settled on his shoulder.

  Laying the fuse beside her, Europe squatted to grip the stricken fellow by both sides of his battered head, her knuckles white. Through gritted teeth she seethed a single vehement word. "Who!"

  Shuddering involuntarily, the fellow fought the fulgar's coercion, his eyes revolving convulsively. His arms jerked, his legs kicked and bent.

  She arcs him! Rossamund realized in horror.

  "WHO!" the Branden Rose spat with venomous volume.

  The fellow's nodding, shuddering head was almost contracting into his body as his eyes rolled back into their sockets. "M-M-Maupin…," he gurgled, and, with a strange crick of the neck, expired.

  Rossamund felt his innards contract into a sickly chill.

  The reach of their foes was long indeed.

  I have caused all this, he groaned inwardly, barely able to comprehend so powerful an appetite for revenge that could summon such an ambush and put it into action.

  Finally Europe looked up. The whites of her eyes were entirely bloodshot-solid red like a falseman's orbs-as she fixed weary attention on Rossamund. "There you are, little man." Though she breathed fitfully as she spoke, her voice was as hard as iron. "You have lost your hat, I see."

  19

  TRAVELING LIGHT

  Belch pot also known as a kluge pot-for no known reason remembered in history, in the Gottskylds, where it is reputed to have been devised, it is known variously as a kaputtenkessel (breaking kettle) or furzentopf ("farting pot"). Infamous devices used by bandits, rough wild folk, and some armies too, belch pots are makeshift artillery made of great clay pots or iron cauldrons filled with black powder and jagged, thorny flotsam, half sunk in the soil and set off by a burning fuse. Any soul caught direct in its burst is sure to be flayed to splinders. Used to shape and channel the direction of a charge of fulminant, they are typically destroyed in the blast; a favorite of irregular fighters all through the Sundergird, the clay version being particularly inexpensive and simple to fashion.

  In the gaping, harrowed aftermath, Rossamund and the Branden Rose returned along the culvert way, the fulgar gripping the Featherhead's mask like a rare proof. "Such are the benefits of good fighting weather" was all she said of the butcher's bill of bodies. Beyond brief inquiry after Rossamund's health and the well-being of the two old vinegaroons, Europe remained disconcertingly silent, her expression taut with unsympathetic vigilance. She stepped callously over one hefty fellow still shuddering for breath, horned helmet wrenched loose to reveal within the nimbus of a fur collar his thick-jawed face, skin near white like that of the woman in the summer dress. A Heilgolundian. Hailing from far south beyond the Pontus Canis and across the Gurgis Main, where people fade for lack of sun, this dying man had come a long way to perish so uselessly.

  Reaching for his stoup of tending scripts, Rossamund realized they were left with Fransitart and Freckle.

  "Leave the hurt, little man!" The fulgar glowered at Rossamund fleetingly. "Others of their own will come back to retrieve them soon enough… or the crows to peck-it is of little concern to me which." Whether she swooned from unseen hurts or turned an ankle on some detritus on the road as she pivoted back to rebuke him, Europe abruptly buckled at her knees and staggered. She tottered backward, twisting partly as if to catch herself, her fuse clattering on the ground.

  Rossamund sprang to her, his arms wide, catching the fulgar before she went down, bearing her weight, surprised at her lightness.

  Gripped in his impromptu embrace, Europe regarded him silently, her scowl tempered by surprise.

  So close to her, Rossamund could plainly see wounds through smears and tears: a bullet graze on the left side of her pate, clotted cuts on scalp, forehead, ears, down her neck.

  "We have done well today, you and I," she said at last, a softer thought in her appallingly red-shot eyes as she found her own balance and stood to her feet once more. "Better than we ought…"

  "I thought we were done for." Rossamund kept his voice steady against the unexpected dizzying rush of relief. Somehow, when all was set against them, they had won…

  Brushing her hems and unruffling the sit of her collars, Europe said bluntly, "What have you done to your hands?"

  Rossamund told her of his own fight, and at the mention of jackstraws the fulgar's eyes narrowed; at the mention of Cinnamon and Freckle they became ill-humored slits.

  "How fortunate to be helped by bogles against the agents of those who accuse us as sedorners," she muttered darkly, gathering up her fuse and the fallen fictler's mask. "A splendid irony."

  The young factotum gave a grim smile. "If the jackstraws had been more intent on ending me than carrying me away I reckon I'd be ashes by now."

  "It seems our many friends think themselves in possession of a long reach, to send such a menagerie against us to pluck you away." She fixed him with a look partly satirical, partly in deadly earnest. "As for your paws, Rossamund, I recommend that before you next opt to play with sparks, you visit Sinster as I have done to get the necessary additions first." Her expression grew wry and she added, "Though I would recommend you kept your true nature a secret from all those fossicking transmogrifers while you were there…"

  They came about the bend and his dismay deepened as he saw again the shattered bodies of Rufous and Candle lying before the low walls that had hid the ambuscade. Debris of the original blast was thrown wide, a great elliptical fissure in the road. On the right, the once-thick olive was rent and bedraggled, the wall before it charred, the corners broken and missing.

  To the left, amid the lower pines, the landaulet was little more than a suite of beautifully upholstered seats, three wheels and a mess of lacquered firewood, its contents strewn about.

  The sparrow gave a bright cheep! then leaped away, winging ahead and down the hill.

  "We will be walking out, it seems," Europe observed, then hesitated.

  From behind the low left-hand wall Craumpalin appeared to be floating unconscious and lolling up the side of the hill and toward the road. Fransitart was there too, toiling up behind, the wounds and scabbed blood on his face shocking in the yellowing of the late day. To Rossamund's delight, Cinnamon stepped out from the blind of the low wall, the nuglung humbly carrying the ailing old dispenser pig-a-back, hauling him like some overburdened porter.

  "Oh, what fun…," Europe purred. Her sanguine gaze, fixed upon Cinnamon, barely shifted when Freckle emerged behind, leading Fransitart by the hand.

  Twittering merrily, Darter Brown circled about the head of the nuglung-prince, settling finally on the wall to sing.

  Reaching only to Rossamund's shoulder in height, Cinnamon regarded the fulgar with its great black, knowing eyes, turning its head to look with one eye then the next. It was clad like a gentleman, complete with white-and-black-striped weskit under its frock coat, with stiff shirt-collar, black stock, and buttons made of polished bone. Though the beauty of the coat was marred with many dark bruises, Rossamund could see that it was in truth made of the living petals of some dazzling blue flower fashione
d together so closely as to look like woven cloth. A nebulous threwd surrounded the blithely creature, less potent than that which wreathed the Lapinduce, but clearer, kinder, more hopeful, stirring in Rossamund faint notions of ease and security and bringing too a sweet, clinging rind-and-honey scent mixed with the piquant stink of feathers.

  Gently depositing Craumpalin on the road, it-or he perhaps, for it bore the facial colorations of a male sparrow and, moreover, there was a distinct he-ness about it… about him-he bowed to the fulgar, one arm bent at his middle, the other outstretched, clawed hand gracefully posed. "Hail, lady astrapeline," it called, its voice rising and falling like the melancholy music of the Duke of Rabbits, "protectress of our foundling child.Your enemies are many and far-traveled: I am glad to have arrived to help thee."

  In her turn, Europe remained unmoved, chin raised, terrible thermistor-red eyes fixed upon this bogle-prince. Rossamund was sure he smelled the metal tang of building levin on her. "So here is Rossamund's deliverer," she said with menacing care. "I commend you on your fortunate timing, sir. I understand that ultimately it is to you that I owe my far-traveled enemies."

  Cinnamon straightened, expression impenetrable. "Providence works as Providence wills, Lady of Roses," he warbled, "even through the littlest of us." He crooked a claw and Darter Brown flew to perch upon it. "And it was not I who had you take Rossamund the mighty gudgeon-slayer into your staff."

  CINNAMON

  The Branden Rose arched a brow. "It is not usual for me to treat with those of your tribe, bogle."

  "Nor mine with yours, fulgar," the bogle-prince returned evenly. "Too long has it been since two princes of our two kinds have spoken even a few fairer words as we do now."

  "Ours is not the blame for that, sparrow-man," Europe answered, her expression remaining cold.

  To this Cinnamon said nothing, but simply looked at the Branden Rose, his eyes unblinking. Glowering beside him, Freckle gnashed his teeth at her.

  As true as he tried to be to his mistress, even Rossamund was rankled at the injustice of Europe's remark and, not knowing what else to do, he dared to step between the nuglung and the fulgar. "Thank you, Lord Cinnamon," he said with his own bow to the bogle-prince, "for defending me. I was done in for certain otherwise."

  The nuglung turned his piercing, glittering eyes upon Rossamund. "Well-a-day, Master Gudgeon-slayer! Thee tussles admirably with the utterworsts. It is well to see thee growing strong and true."

  "Th-thank you…" was all the young factotum could get out as he bowed once more.

  "Yes, yes!" Freckle suddenly cried, stepping toward him but halting with many suspicious looks to Europe. "You have learned your true strength true and your strength is well learnt at last, as it was not in the bottom of that Hogglehead boat."

  "Better rest for you is near," Cinnamon continued abruptly, the chirrup in his words almost mesmerizing. "Hoarebeard"-he gestured with his small clawed hand to Craumpalin-"needs proper succor, and, if you will grant me this, oh Lady Europe, I shall lead thee all to a softer place for harms to heal away from common notice."

  For just a flash, Rossamund thought he spied his mistress taken aback, but if it were so, she quickly schooled her expression to its usual wry watchfulness.

  "What polite speeches you make, little sparrow-man," she replied softly, her gaze shifting briefly to the poor senseless Craumpalin.

  Propped against the broken wall, the old dispenser was looking much improved, his breathing less fitful, his throat bound with dense plaits of what looked to be just ordinary grasses and common weeds. Splints of thick branches were fastened about his legs with the same.

  "I grant it," Europe conceded. "Though do not suppose for a moment I shall stay my hand should you turn on us and show yourself the monster after all."

  Cinnamon bowed low and courtly. "Nor I if it proves true of you, Lady Europe."

  "Rossamund, come," the fulgar commanded frostily, and, revolving on her boot, she stepped lightly off the edge of the road and went down the hill toward the wrecked landaulet.

  The young factotum gave an awkward beck to Cinnamon and hurried to follow his mistress, Darter Brown fluttering after.

  A fume was billowing within the trees down where Rossamund had slain the last jackstraw.With a sigh of irritation Europe approached it, fuse held ready, her young factotum one step behind.The fulgar quickly relaxed her guard as she beheld the broken half of the cloth-made rever. Its head was driven into the soil, sinews beginning to fizzle and bubble, releasing a muddy steam that stank of bitter caustic and the vilest drouthy corpse-flesh.

  "Your handiwork, I am thinking, little man," the fulgar uttered with a mite of satisfaction.

  Entranced by the dramatic chemistry, Rossamund shuddered but did not answer.

  Before his very eyes the slain jackstraw was dissolving, effervescing like Frazzard's powder, breaking down to nought more than a puddle of corpse-liquor, metal frame and some mummified remains all wrapped in a threadbare suit of soiled clothes.

  Little wonder Mister Sebastipole found no evidence of the gudgeon I bested under the manse. It must have frothed clear away before he could.

  Europe blinked slowly. "Degenerate thantocriths!" she sneered with surprising vitriol. "They dare to call themselves lahzar…"

  As if to some cosmic prompt, they caught sight of the woman in the summer dress, a white glimpse wandering aimless among the woods and across the slope below, her hems stained and torn, her bonnet gone. She stared about with a deranged and disconcerting fervor, her head lolling then flopping back, squinting at the dull afternoon light, face wrenched with anguish and bewilderment.

  "So there is our canker-headed sciomane," Europe pronounced, a cold murmur matched by her soured mien.

  Tangling in her skirts, the woman fell out of sight, uttering a thin shriek that set small birds belling in alarm. Darter Brown, perched on Rossamund's shoulder, ruffled and trilled nervously.

  Despite himself, the young factotum began to descend to help.

  "Leave her to her grief, Rossamund," Europe said with hushed contempt. "It is a fair prize for her service." The fulgar strode to the landaulet and began fossicking about the various chests thrown from the wreck.

  Doggedly, Rossamund continued down a little farther, watched a beat longer, craned his head to listen… but no peep of the white woman showed again between the trunks, nor any sound of her stumbling in the underbrush.

  Time was wasting, light was failing, and Craumpalin needed a better bed.

  Now for the quickest making that ever was made…

  Fixed as it was to the landaulet's trunk-rail, the laborium was now wedged against the trunk of the pine that had halted the vehicle's career. Tipped on its side, its cover was twisted partly away, the off-smelling gastric contents dribbled out and soaking into the needles and dirt.

  When he informed the fulgar of this impediment, she drew in a breath ready to vent her ire, yet scowled in pain and forestalled pungent words with a bitter sigh. "We have not the time for a fire… Syntony and sangfaire will have to make do for the present!" She pushed a trunk over with her boot to draw from it a clean, gaulded frock coat of sleek inky hide.

  As quick as hurts would allow, they collected the necessary articles and handy luggage. Bending to take up the small assortment of sacks and satchels he had accumulated and with them a pair of unscuffed equiteer boots, Rossamund grimaced at a dark jab in his belly as he straightened.

  On the road, Freckle drew away at the fulgar's approach to sit on his haunches in the middle of the road, wide sunhued eyes winking and blinking at the Branden Rose with dismay.

  Dosed on balancing draughts, the fulgar chewed upon a whortleberry and paid the little fellow no mind at all.

  Cinnamon left off his ministrations on Craumpalin to insist he tend to Rossamund's hand before they went on.

  Obediently, the young factotum unwound his ersatz dressings to reveal the raw weeping mess of his palm and fingers.

  "Ahh, me lad!" Fransita
rt commiserated.

  "That is why most skolds throw their potives," Europe remarked drolly, standing near, her scrutiny never leaving the ministering nuglung.

  The ex-dormitory master snorted a slight laugh.

  Rossamund looked bemusedly at them both.

  Taking a choice of bonny weeds and luridly blotched bulbs from his pockets, Cinnamon began to masticate them together with pronounced clampings of his bill. Gently, the nuglung took Rossamund's hand in his own, the ashen skin cool and strangely calloused, its touch a comfort, and spat a gray-green mass directly onto the blistered flesh. Wherever the salivary poultice touched, the pain was immediately balmed.

  "This is how you mended Numps," Rossamund observed frankly, refusing to be disgusted as he watched the bogle-prince's careful tending.

  "Such and more, yes," Cinnamon agreed. "The utterworsts might have slain him else. Those vile festermen have brought as much misery to everymen as e'er they have to us."

  The young factotum watched the ancient nuglung in patent wonder, struck by Cinnamon's incongruous proportions and queer alien beauty and the fragrance of feather and blossom mingled with that of fresh-turned loam that surrounded him. The nuglung bound Rossamund's hand, palm now covered with the physicking spit, in thick weeds-weevil lily, he called it-all fixed with a final binding of more usual bandage from the stoup. Cinnamon did not offer such aid to Europe, and the fulgar did not seek it.

  "That's what caused yer blast," Fransitart called over the din of frogs that had begun to croak and trill all along the drain. Musketoon in hand, the old salt was hobbling beside the large elliptical crater. Abruptly, he kicked at an oddly bent plate of metal half buried in the upheaved soil, the iron piece torn and jagged as if mere paper. "A belch pot!" He spat and muttered something foul. "Breech-full o' cannon char…"

  Rossamund's eyes went round.

  "If it weren't for them poor daft horses halting short an' liftin' their heads when they did," the old dormitory master went on in wonderment, "I doubt we would be about this world any more… A miss is as good as a mile, 'ey, lad!" He smiled ruefully, forgetful of his wound and stretching the gash in his lip. "Oh…" The ex-vinegaroon hastily stanched the flowing wound with a wad of weeds he had in his hand. "They were a right parsthel of blackheartsth!" he declared bitterly through the leafy muffle.