'Of courssse.' The leer stroked his throat with a hand gloved in black velvet. He sounded less than convinced.
Europe shifted restlessly, then turned to her side and intervened with a soft voice as she did so. 'Leave him be, Licurius. Everyone has their secrets. Perhaps he should ask you, oh great leer, about a certain Frestonian girl…'
At this Licurius stepped back and away from Rossamund with an odd gurgle, to the boy's great relief. Shortly after, the leer doused the fire, crept to his cradle beneath the landaulet and bothered the boy no more. Even so, eyes wide in the dark, Rossamund stayed awake for a long time, well into the small hours, feeling more unsafe than he ever had when he had bunked by himself in the haystack or the boxthorn. Not even the happy appearance of Phoebe as nighttime clouds blew away east cheered him.
He felt terribly alone. The next day, the leer paid Rossamund no more mind than he had at any other time other than the bizarre bedtime incident last night. After another draft of that black ichor had been brewed for Europe, and the foundling had wandered briefly for a relieving stroll, they were on their way again into a frigid fog. By midmorning the vapors cleared and the country began changing. The fields became smaller and fewer and the land rockier, sloping upward ever more until they found themselves on the stony, uncultivated heights before a forested valley. This depression was filled with a great wood of evergreen beeches and stately pines, and into it the road now descended. Rain had washed broad ruts into the Vestiweg as it went down the flanks of the valley, creating enough of a hazard that Licurius was obliged to get down from his seat and lead the horse carefully on foot.
Europe frowned at the poor condition of the road. 'Roadway gone to clay, bring two shoes and carry one away,' she sighed, sipping at a glass of claret and sucking on-of all things-a chunk of rock salt. Draining the glass, she looked sidelong at her young passenger and suddenly leaned across, taking his small hands in hers.
Rossamund started and pulled back, not knowing what to expect. The lahzar stroked his knuckles absentmindedly, and even though her touch was as soft as Verline's and her grip gentle, he was very aware that she just might shock him or worse.
She smiled. 'I apologize for my factotum's behavior last night,' she offered quietly. 'He's a curious fellow, and this serves me well most of the time. Unfortunately it also makes him… twitchy, one might say. Pay him no heed- he's harmless enough.'
Rossamund could see how, to a fulgar of such self-confessed might as Europe, Licurius might seem less than threatening. But to this boy, the leer was anything but harmless.
'Now, very shortly I am going to have some work to do.' Europe released his hands with a pat and sat back. 'And you might find it scary enough, but fear not: I have been in business for a great long while now.' She paused and looked heavenward, tapping her lips with a long, elegant finger. 'Hmmm, too long perhaps. Nevertheless, you can be assured that you are safe.'
Rossamund looked about. 'Will there be monsters?' he whispered.
Europe laughed-a bright, crystalline chortle-as they entered the dark gloom beneath ancient eaves. 'My, my, there are always monsters!'
'Really? Always?' The foundling sat up.
Europe nodded gravely. 'I am afraid so, yes. Here, there and everywhere-not that city folk would know. It's out here in the nether regions that the nickers roam and the bogles lurk. But lo! Not a fear, Europe is here!' She finished with a flourish of her hand and a grin.
Rossamund blinked.
The light was growing dim, though the time was barely midday, as the road drove deeper and deeper into the wood-a deep green dusk full of hushed expectancy and subtle murmurings. Trunks huge and old spread out great, knobbled roots furry with moss, about which the leaf-carpeted road was forced to bend and twist. There was little undergrowth but for some scattered colonies of fungus-tall, thin, capped mushrooms, large, flat toad-stools, tiny red must, which even Rossamund knew was good for eating and for certain potions, and plump puffballs ready to pop. Bracken grew everywhere else, even upon the trees, while thin myrtle saplings sprouted here and there, struggling for life.
Rossamund had never been in such a place as this and found its appearance marvelous, more wild and beautiful than any of Boschenberg's elegant, manicured parks. Yet there was a great watchfulness here, a feeling of being observed and unwelcome.This place was threwdish: a place where monsters might like to dwell. It marred the woods' beauty and oppressed the visitor. He shivered and checked his almanac, squinting to read in the dimness. They had entered the Brindlewood, or so it said.
'What does that contain?' Europe asked a little too loudly, as she fixed her hair back into the bunlike style, just as it had been the day before.
'I was just finding out where we were,' said Rossamund.
The lahzar chuckled. 'I could have told you that. This'-she waved about grandly-'is the Grintwoode… or the Brindleshaws, as the locals will have it. We're on the northernmost marches of the Smallish Fells, the western tip of Sulk End, having recently entered the domain and jurisdiction of High Vesting.' She pointed casually to the book with her crowfoot hair-tine before poking it into the bun and comb. 'I think you'll find I am right.'
The almanac agreed. Rossamund was impressed.
Giving a bored look, she sighed. 'I've been here before. 'Tis a troublesome place.'
A short time later Licurius brought the landaulet to a halt, stopping at a bend where the road began to descend even more steeply, falling over a series of folds in the earth before disappearing below around the flank of the hill. He alighted and went to the rear of the carriage. Rossamund heard thumpings and scrapings.The factotum reappeared on Europe's side holding a great pole about twelve feet long, as thick as a man's thumb and tightly wrapped in copper wire. It was a fuse. Rossamund had heard and read of them but had not seen one until now. He stared at it in open wonder.
She must be about to fight. Rossamund's heart began to pound in anticipation.
The lahzar took the fuse from the leer with a sweet smile and laid it across both seats, one end sticking some way over the side of the landaulet. Then she retrieved something out of her precious black box and put it in her mouth, chewing slowly with a disgusted look. These apparent necessities done, they were on their way again, Licurius now driving from the seat once more. The road went into a steep decline cut into the side of a hill carpeted in pine needles, bending always right and going always down. From their vantage point Rossamund could see that they would soon come to a stone bridge a little farther below, which crossed a narrow, moatlike ravine.
Europe finished her mouthful and fixed her small passenger with a serious eye. 'Now, however, things shall soon proceed. You must declare to me that you will stay here within the landaulet no matter what. Do you declare it?'
Going white and wide-eyed, he nodded. 'Aye, madam.'
'I'm sure you do.'
The roadway dipped for a moment as it crossed a creek, then passed right through and over the crown of a small knoll, either side flanked by a high earth cutting topped with sinuous pines. Beyond and below, the road widened in a clearing of grass and shattered tree stumps before constricting again at the bridge, which spanned the narrow gap in a solid, gentle curve. As they arrived on the farther edge of this clearing, Rossamund thought he heard a rumbling, a kind of slow thudding, though he could not be sure.
Licurius halted the landaulet and climbed down once more. With a respectful bow he offered Europe his gloved hand as she alighted. The thudding was unmistakable now, like great footsteps, and echoes among the trunks made it sound as if it was all around. While her factotum held her fuse, the fulgar straightened her frock coat, tightened buckles and secured buttons. Suddenly the whole forest seemed to burst with a stentorian cracking.
Rossamund leaped to his seat and looked about wildly to find the danger as Licurius lunged for the bridle of the spooked nag. There! Just before the bridge a young pine was collapsing, pushed out of the way by the tallest creature the foundling had ever seen.
It looked just like an enormous person, taller than ten tall men, except that its legs were too short, its arms too long, and its body altogether too thick, too hunched and too rectangular. It was an ettin-one of the biggest of the land monsters-and it peered about momentarily before fixing a critical eye on the landaulet.
'Fie, fie, what do I spy? Gold-toting travelers passing us by,' it boomed in a surprisingly well-spoken way, forming the words with great articulations of its jaw through a mouth full of protruding, blackened and spadelike
