indeed it is not over yet-and say, with a carlin and a tuck, that you will be paid up to the morning of tomorrow night. Agreed?'
Rossamund's overtaxed mind cogitated the sums: There's twenty guise to a sequin and sixteen sequins in a sou. So-two lots of six sequins was twelve sequins. A carlin is a ten-sequin piece and a tuck a two-sequin piece. Ten and two makes twelve-twelve sequins, again. I reckon it's right-sure is a lot, though… He thought his head might burst. 'Aye… I think. Uh… thank you.'
Mister Billetus held out his free hand, palm uppermost.
Rossamund looked at it dumbly for a while, then realized the proprietor was wanting payment now. The foundling fingered about in his purse, finding only the gold Emperor's Billion coin he had received on entering the lamplighter service, three sequins and a guise coin. He frowned, thought for a moment and then handed the gold billion to Billetus. The proprietor looked down at his payment with astonishment.
'Does-' Rossamund's voice caught in his throat. 'Does that cover it?'
'Um… it's a little… irregular, but yes. It's certainly legal tender and covers the fare amply. It will even buy you breakfast for the mornings.' Billetus pocketed the coin while he opened the door.
The room beyond was large and of a luxury the foundling did not think possible. There were two beds, their highly decorative heads against one wall, billowing linen and eiderdowns of the softest cotton. The floor was wooden boards polished till they were slick, the white walls and high ceiling-richly decorated with flutes and twirls-made buttery yellow in the lantern's glow. In the foundlingery a room of this size would have been used to bunk twenty, where this was meant for just two. Europe was being laid on the farther bed as Rossamund and the proprietor entered. A worn-looking blanket-looking out of place in its fine surroundings-was stretched upon this bed to stop the coverlets from being ruined by the fulgar's travel-grimed gear.
A maid, two tubs and several pitchers of steaming water arrived.
Mister Billetus excused himself and Rossamund bathed behind a screen while the maid attended to Europe behind another. He almost fell asleep in the tub, but the maid, finished with her attentions on the fulgar, woke him with an impatient cough. Before too long he was clean-cleaner than he had ever felt in his whole life, dressed in a nightgown and lying in a bed, the very softness of which swallowed him whole. Europe lay, much like he, bathed and in her bed, in a borrowed nightgown.
'Is she better?' Rossamund managed, vaguely aware that the maid was hovering about doing who knows what.
'She fares as well as she may, considerin'…' she hushed. 'You can sleep, little boy-her state won't change just on your attentions.'
Lamps were doused. The maid left. In the dimness of a growing dawn Rossamund watched the feverish Europe. He could not tell when or how, but in that soft, warm bed of the smoothest cotton, sleep finally took him. He awoke with a deep fright, released at last from churning nightmares of Licurius' bloody end. The room was too white, too bright, the ceiling too florid and the bed too strange. Then he realized where he was. Rossamund was beginning to tire of waking in strange places. Some comfort it was then that the bed was so soft and so warm. He stretched luxuriously, wrapped in its wholly unfamiliar feeling, then sat up and looked about. There was a tall window at the far end, its two panes flung open, letting in cold air and the birdsong of late afternoon that had brought him to reality. The world beyond it, of straight trunks and bare, tangled twigs, was wintry but golden with afternoon sun. The choir of birds-the soft, insistent cooing of some type of pigeon, the twitter-twitter of many small beaks and an unusual call going warble-warble-warble-chortle-was strangely loud and altogether foreign.
The room itself was empty, inasmuch as there was no one else walking about in it. However, the bed near him, on his left, before that open window, was occupied.
In it, of course, lay Europe.
He clambered out of his own and went to her side. She lay on her back, her head cushioned upon many marshmallowy pillows, the covers tucked right up under her chin. Her long hair had been gathered under a maid's cap just like one Verline would wear. Shivering as cold air blew in through the open window, bringing with it the smell of mown grass, he reached out, touching her smooth forehead with his forefinger.
The fulgar did not stir.
She felt cool now, in contrast to the feverish heat she had boiled with so recently. His curiosity mastering him, Rossamund cautiously stroked her spoor, the small diamond drawn so neatly above her left eye. Every side was straight and of equal length, the corners clear points, its bottom just meeting the hair of the brow. He had heard-he could not remember whether it was from Fransitart or somewhere else-that these spoors were made by using some acidic substance which left a permanent, yet somehow scarless brand. Why anyone would want to do something to themselves that sounded so painful was very puzzling: was it just vanity, or was it a warning? As far as he was concerned, the next time he saw a mark like this upon someone, he would be very wary of them. He stared at her blank, sickly face, hugging himself in the insufficient warmth of the borrowed nightgown, rubbing one foot against the opposite shin, then the reverse, to relieve the chill of the floorboards.
Suddenly he decided it was time to be dressed. He found his clothes in the cupboard, cleaned and pressed. Everything was there but his shoes. Rossamund got dressed, searching quietly all about the room as he did.
Where are those shoes?
Under his bed? No.
Under Europe's bed? No.
They were not in his closet, and so he went to the one that held Europe's effects. Her clothes had been washed too, and the cupboard was filled with the odor of the aromatics used to clean them. With this hung a sharp, honeylike scent he was beginning to recognize as Europe's own. He was sure he was doing something quite rude by even thinking of looking through the fulgar's belongings. He closed the closet quickly.
The door at the farther end of the room, of a wood so dark as to appear black, opened. In breezed a maid with a flurry of swishing skirts. When she saw Rossamund standing by the fulgar's bed, she seemed uncertain. She curtsied expertly, despite her burdens. 'I've brought the doctor to see you, young master.'
Rossamund ducked his head shyly.
A very serious and surprisingly young man entered the room. He was richly attired in a wonderfully patterned frock coat, flat-heeled buckled shoes known as mules, and a great white wig that stuck high in the air and left a faint puff of powder behind it.
'This is Doctor Verhooverhoven, our physician,' the maid said, indicating the young man with a tray she carried, a tray holding two bowls of pumpkin soup that smelled so delicious Rossamund was immediately distracted by it. 'And this, doctor, is uh, is…'
'Rossamund,' said the foundling matter-of-factly.
'Ah… right you are, my… boy,' said Doctor Verhooverhoven, squinting at him. 'Delighted. How are you feeling?'
'Good, thank you.'
'As it should be. I want you to have some of this soup that Gretel has kindly brought you,' the doctor said as the maid placed the two bowls on a small table by the fire with a simpering blush. 'I have fortified it with one of my personal restorative drafts, so it will see you righter than ever.' He half turned to the maid. 'You may leave now, Gretel. If I need anything, you will be the first to know.'
The maid ducked her head, grinned at Rossamund and left again.
Doctor Verhooverhoven ambled over to the sickbed, hands behind his back. He stood over the unconscious lahzar and rocked back and forth on his heels. He checked the pulse in her neck, felt the temperature of her forehead, hmmed a lot and scrutinized her closely through a strange-looking monocle.
Rossamund sipped at his soup, which right then was about the sweetest thing he had ever had, and watched Doctor Verhooverhoven watching Europe.
At length the doctor turned his shrewd attention to the boy. 'She is not your mother, is she, child?'
About to help himself to a mouthful of wonderful soup, Rossamund stopped with a slight splutter and fidgeted. 'I-ah… No, sir-I never actually said that she was, though, sir. Others did… How did you…?'
Doctor Verhooverhoven adjusted his monocle. 'How did I know, you were about to ask? Because you've got the Branden Rose here, my boy-heroic teratologist, infamous bachelorette and terror to the male of our species! She is not, if reputation serves, the mothering type! How, by the precious here and vere, did you come by her?'
The Branden Rose? That name was familiar to Rossamund, though he could not remember why. Perhaps he had read just such a name in one of his pamphlets? What a remarkable thing that would be to have fallen in with
