The Foundling's Tale, Part Three: Factotum

by D M Cornish

  Rossamünd just blinked and nodded.

  “Have you read the newest papers, m’boy?” the physician asked abruptly. “Things have certainly taken a remarkable turn,” he added, pressing the paper open at a bold heading among other bold headings on the foremost page.

  Expedition Relates of a Marshal ’Mongst the Fallen in the Sack of Sulk End Fastness; Survivor Gives Graphic Account of Terrible Atrocities Committed by Ravening Nickers

  The survivor was named as one Laudibus Pile.

  “That rascal made it out somehow,” Crispus growled. “Probably by the cunning of his heightened senses . . .”

  There was no mention of goodly monsters, nor of any of the dark deeds done that precipitated such atrocities.

  “The sloppy erroneous scoundrel who penned the piece places Podius’ rank incorrectly. He was Marshal-Subrogate, as you know, yet they have him as Marshal-Lighter. How-be-it, it is unquestionably Podius Whympre by description,” Crispus explained, pointing to the finer print. “It is a form of due comeuppance, I suppose, though it does not make me smile . . .”

  Such was the sum of the Master-of-Clerks’ schemes.

  On the next page Rossamünd found a line of lesser type, yet no less stunning.

  Fabercadavery Uncovered in Emperor’s Own Fortress!

  Related by some other fellow, possibly a member of the expedition mentioned in the first report, it actually named Honorius Ludius Grotius Swill as the fabercadaverist implicated in the heading line, going so far as to make mention of his lectures held in Brandenbrass itself.

  “Have you seen this, Doctor?” Rossamünd asked, passing the paper back.

  “So that is what you were at, Grotius!” the physician declared with grim satisfaction as if Swill were there with them. “Lah! Who could possibly prognosticate such a twist of path, my friend?” he said to Rossamünd. “And in a mere two months?” Glancing up to a housemaid banging at a long Dhaghi carpet hung from Rossamünd’s set, he lowered his voice. “It certainly puts any accusations they have brought against you or the dear Lady Rose in new light, does it not?” The physician stared with disconcerting intensity at the young factotum. “To think he was correct . . . ,” he said after a moment’s reflection.

  “You mean Swill, Doctor?” Exposed or not, saying the surgeon’s name set a subtle twist in Rossamünd’s innards.

  “Indeed.” The physician stroked his chin. “However unwillingly, my respect for that quackeen’s research is materially increased. Ah, mistake me not, Master Bookchild! Swill was an unalloyed monster; but truth is truth, whomever alights upon it . . . If that butchering novice was correct about your nature, then he might well have been correct about how . . . well, how you came to be, my friend. The power of fecund muds and turgid earths as the source of monstrous life—indeed of all life—was once widely held, especially by the Cathars and the Phlegms, that brilliant foolhardy race without whose learning I would not have a trade . . . And if he is correct about how they connect to you, well . . .”

  “What, Doctor?”

  “If they have it right, then surely it can only mean that in your members dwell the secrets to perpetual life!”

  “Perpetual life?” Rossamünd almost did not want to know the answer—though in truth, he guessed at it well enough. The Lapinduce had said something of living on while the current generation passed.

  “Perpetual life! Perpetuity, continual existence, vita semper, to live on and on unaffected by time or aging . . .This is a subject the dark trades find powerfully fascinating. Should more massacars and fabercadaverists discover your proper tribe, my boy, I do not think there will be any obstacle that would detain such determinedly contrary from trying to get at you.”

  “Such as ambushing us on some faraway road,” Rossamünd returned grimly.

  “Such as that, yes . . .” Crispus took off his brown-glass spectacles and wiped them with a brightly striped handkerchief, observing the young factotum from the corner of his eye. “If you do not mind my saying it, that despite all this you are a most remarkably favored fellow, Rossamünd, to be able to go on observing the course of history with your own eyes long after all today’s scholars and matterns are slotted feet-first into the ground.”

  “And watch my friends and everyone I care for leave this world while I go on and on . . .”

  “Ah . . . yes.” The physician’s crest fell. “There is that . . . The price of perpetuity . . . Something perhaps the massacars have not considered.” He cleared his throat pointedly. “Stimulating as talking with you inevitably is, I must prepare further for my oratory . . . I shall see you at middens, perhaps.” He bid Rossamünd good morning and went inside.

  Left to continue his constitutional alone, Rossamünd found his attention caught by furtive motion at the gate. Sneaking between the very bars, a rabbit slipped into the yard to briskly hide itself among the roots and trunks of the glory vines along the wall. Its fur dagged and dirty gray, the creature was made for creeping unremarked along dull city slate and stone.

  As Rossamünd watched, another mangy coney passed nonchalantly across the mouth of the gate, disappearing farther up the Harrow Road.

  Darter Brown hopped across the gravel to the glory vine to twitter at the first rabbit.

  One ear tall and alert, nose twitching attentively, the rabbit-spy remained in its place, even when the young factotum sidled over to finally stand before it and cautiously look it in the eyes. One orb was glittering black, but the other was a filmy, sightless blue; the ear above it drooped unmoving down its neck—this creature had lived hard in this pugnacious city.

  On a peculiar flash of intuition Rossamünd gave it the merest nictation. Speaking low, almost under his breath, he addressed it. “Hail, servant of the ancient and rightful duke of Brandenbrass.You would do me great service if you should keep watch of my mistress wherever she might go in this city.” He was no monster-lord, but it was worthy of a try.

  The rabbit, however, did not move but simply peered at him, nose a-twitch twitch.

  Rossamünd gave a sad shrug and turned away. Yet, returning to the house, he chanced to see the little watcher wriggle back out through the bars of the gate and disappear down the Harrow Road with all the purpose of a scopp.

  Taking an audition in the hiatus of an armoniam player hoping to sweeten the mordant tattle of the glossary, Europe received the latest report of Swill and the Master-of-Clerks with typical composure.

  “Choked upon their own rope at last” was all she said, a slight I-told-you-so look passing across her face.

  Lost in the bliss of his art, the armoniam player played on.

  Shivering, Rossamünd clenched his teeth against the high notes. He wanted to say something to her—sorry for the tussle of words two nights gone, for the bad feeling it had brought between them.Yet he did not see that his was the fault, and fixing on this thought, said nothing.

  “THANK YOU, SIR!” Europe called over the barely melodic shriek, interrupting the slightly put-out musical gent in the very midst of his transports. “That shall make a perfect accompaniment, thank you,” she said, and bid the self-important fellow good day.

  Even as the man left, the Baron Finance was shown into them, his rouged cheeks more rosy than usual with a natural glow of exertion. The Chief Emissary smiled warmly and gave Rossamünd a brief, curiously knowing look as he bowed low in greeting.

  “Gracious duchess-daughter! I was hearing such rumors of your misfortune.You went out to knave fully provisioned in your best fit, yet returned—to the great dismay of Pater Maupin and his associates—much lighter in luggage, by a red-doored canty-coach. Yet here you are now planning a great celebration. You have us all more perplexed, m’lady, than the swapping of springtime months!”

  “Truly, Mister Finance?” the fulgar chided mildly, her face a placid blank. “I would have thought you’d have plumbed such mysteries already.”

  The Chief Emissary dipped his head. “I have found it is far simpler to ask directly where one can, graciou
s lady . . .” He waited expectantly.

  Europe took her time to answer. “Master Maupin and his surgeon pet set a nice trap for us to spring on the Holt Street in the eastern Brandenfells,” she said matter-of-factly. “By the attendance of the Seven-Seven sept and a base-born sciomane with her pack of jackstraws, I would say that he did not intend me to survive.”

  Finance allowed frank indignation to play across his handsome features. “And you know it was purposely set by Maupin, m’lady?”

  “Surely with your long experience, Mister Emissary, you ought to have learned that an astrapecrith’s full arts are subtler than just blasting life and limb. We, sir, are the great undiscovered falsemen!”

  “Indeed” was all the Chief Emissary said at first, then added cautiously, “One might hold that after such an affront you might have chosen to return with more furtive care.”

  “I do not do furtive, sir,” Europe instantly corrected him. “You of all souls ought know this.”

  LESQUIN CAPTAIN AND COLONEL

  The Baron inclined his fastidiously powdered head in capitulation.

  “Hiding my return, dear Finance, is not possible,” she continued. “Hiding my intent now that I am here, however, is.”

  The Baron smiled. “As is penetrating Maupin’s own schemes,” he returned.

  Europe looked at him steadily, Go on writ clear in her expression.

  Finance obliged her. “After his clandestine assault on this house, Pater must have mistaken your prompt departure from Brandenbrass for knaving as weakness.”

  “Silly fellow,” Europe put in.

  “As you have figured it yourself, gracious heir, Maupin gained the interest and the backing of a dark commerce principal and a massacars’ league. He holds this interest still, despite Swill’s ruin at the fall of the fortalice out Sulk End way and with it the removal of ducal approval. Now that you are returned to us, Maupin has grown rather anxious to fortify his dens and is hiring as many sturdies and mercenary fellows as will place themselves under his banner. And with all this, he remains determined to have at Mister Bookchild here, blinking so perplexedly beside me.”

  Rossamünd schooled his lids to a facsimile of unruffled stillness.

  “Pater has run himself out so far on the credit of the Archduke’s favor in his desire to get at me,” Europe posited, “I would think he had scant option but to burrow himself in so deep. Especially now that he knows his attempt at my elimination failed.”

  “If I may, gracious daughter . . .” The Baron Sainte smiled as he went on. “Whatever you intend, Maupin is nicely perplexed at your gala.”

  The fulgar gave a cryptic smile. “Nothing like a festivity to lift the common spirits distressed at distant Winstermill’s fall,” she said.

  “Of course . . .” The Baron Finance’s expression took on the dogged cast of someone fully expecting that which he did not at all desire. “To that end I can offer you intelligence of perhaps a deeper and better sort than your Mister Rakestraw has garnered. Though I am certain Mister Rakestraw’s scarlets are competent enough, you ought to take the services of one or even two of my percusors. Messrs. Slitt and Camillo are most excellent for the purpose.”

  Percusors! They always made it into pamphlets as the worst of all scoundrels: murderers for sport, money and state.

  “What might your duchess say of such a common use of her political apparatus?” Europe inquired, arching a brow.

  “I have always had the understanding, gracious lady, that your most excellent mother approves of whichever course I choose to travel, to maintain or increase the prospects of our sovereign state.” He leaned forward a little. “And if I may, ma’am, I myself most heartily wish to see you preserved in so fraught an adventure.”

  “Fraught, is it?” A wry grimace flickered at the edges of the fulgar’s mouth.

  Finance tapped his nose again. “Your graciousness knows full well that to vie with the dark trades or one that they patronize is to clutch at great girth with small hands.”

  “And you know well, oh Baron, that my hands are thew enough to grasp anything onto which they lay themselves. There shall be no safety for me or mine unless I put out the eyes of this froward gentleman. Your intelligence I gratefully receive, but yet again I must decline the use of your staff.”

  Finance conceded with an elegant nod.

  After the perplexing agent departed with many gracious words, Europe added to Rossamünd, “He will help regardless of my wish.”

  Rossamünd nodded. Help in what?

  Three days before the gala, with Rossamünd deep in ever-quickening preparations, Mister Oberon performed an examination of his mistress. At its conclusion he sought Rossamünd out and advised him to make emunic reborate, a treacle found in Europe’s expurgatory and good for fulgars given to overexerting themselves in the stouche.

  “Unlike plaudamentum, it keeps for a small while,” the transmogrifer explained, “and is to be drunk a few hours before a fight. Please make sufficient doses to be taken over the next four days.”

  And with that Oberon left.

  In the afternoon, with the sky remaining blue and unrepentantly clear, Mister Brugel the armouriere presented to Europe a most exquisite set of proofing. It was, he assured her in the most grandiloquent terms, the best protection money could gain while still holding easy movement. With Claudine and Brugel’s female assistant to help with points, frogs and buckles, it took the fulgar more than an hour to fit.

  Once all was in place, the Branden Rose immediately went up to the ludion, drawing a line of spectators after her. With dancelike spins and vaults over the glossy dark boards of the broad hall, she tested the freedom of the harness. Watching on in bliss, Brugel sat with his assistant on a row of leather campaign stools beside the large fireplace of green stone at the far end of the ludion as the Branden Rose proved the suppleness and robustness of his creation. In joy he would frequently spring from his seat and hurry over to the fulgar to point out the virtues of his design or clap and cry compliments to the lady’s grace.

  “Brava! M’lady! Brava!You are a jewel amid jewels! How well you set off my cuts!”

  Over the usual layers of white petticoats was a black soe coat of flaring frock and high fan-shaped collar that protected the nape and base of Europe’s head. Bound in at the elbow and forearm by sturdy vambrins of stiffened black soe, its sleeves were loose and puffed. Unusually, they were made of a different cloth: a glossy delicate grass green that shifted hues as it moved to a warm pale yellow, and patterned with daisylike flowers of fiery red. Over the hem of the coat was fitted a second skirt split into four panels: the sides and back were black, finished in a band of cloth-of-silver with silver brocade; its front panel was an apron of the same patterned mercurial material as the sleeves. This was held to Europe’s body by a broad sash of glossy black wrapped about her whole torso, binding her chest firmly, fastened at the back with frogging and finished in a large bow. Atop this she finally donned what Brugel called an eighth, a short pollern-coat of buff that barely covered her bosom, fastening down the left and under her arm, its collar and frogging brocaded in deep red.

  Eyes alive with a joy Rossamünd rarely saw, the fulgar watched herself—or rather, the new harness—in the long mirrors, bending and flexing, stretching seams as far as she could, extending cloth as far as it might, seeking small adjustments. Standing with Claudine and Kitchen by the tall windows, Rossamünd watched his mistress’ dance with breath held.

  When she was finished, it was to a small clatter of wondering applause.

  “This will do nicely as my new Number 3, Mister Brugel,” she said matter-of-factly, a patina glowing on her wan brow. “You have excelled as always.”

  The armouriere beamed.

  With that she departed the ludion to change into more domestic attire.

  In the gray hours Rossamünd felt himself shaken awake.

  “Mister Rossamünd, sir.” It was Pallette, anxious, fretting at Rossamünd’s hand.

  “
Miss Europe is in trouble?” he asked, rubbing at the blear clouding his senses, squinting into the steadily brightening bright-limn the alice-’bout-house gripped so shakily.

  “No, sir, no! She is well,” she returned, puzzled. “It’s Mister Vinegar—that is to say, Master Fransitart, sir—”

  “What about Master Fransitart?” Rossamünd sat up quickly, suspicions coming home to roost.

  “Nectarius here says he let him out after we had all turned in last night, opened the gate again under promise that Master Fransitart be back by now, but he has not shown as agreed!”

  Standing at the foot of the stairs in the vestibule hall, the nightlocksman, bearing his own bright-limn and looking sheepish with battered tricorn wrung in fist, told the same story.

  “Did he say where he was going?” Rossamünd demanded.

  “Na-”

  “He’s in here, me hearties!” came Fransitart’s own faltering voice, trying to sound strong as he called from the hiatus. There they found him, old and wan, grotesquely lit by the swinging limnulight. Head lolling, eyes red-rimmed and watery, the ex-dormitory master peered up at him groggily. Instead of a broken limb there was no limb at all, just a neatly capelined stump just below the shoulder.

  “Master Frans!” Rossamünd cried.