right past the two, glaring at them both, and disappeared into the adjoining room where a bower maid was turning down the beds.There was a shout and the maid hurried out, looking even more puckered and near tears.
'That will be all, my dear,' Europe said, handing the quickly brightening maid a whole sou. 'You may go.'
Listening to the thump and bluster of the girl in the bedroom, Rossamund asked, 'Miss Europe? How can we stop Swill and the Master-of-Clerks?'
'I have warned that Saphine lass you may remember from the Cat, and you have written your letters.' Europe peered at him, her hazel eyes intent, thoughtful. 'Beyond that there is not much else, and even what we have is insubstantial. I think you will find it very hard to lay a solid accusation against Swill or his clerk-master. If they have been able to carry on as black habilists right under the lighters' feet, then you may be certain, Rossamund, they will have all traces of their dabblings well in hand and can easily obliterate any trails that might lead to them.'
'But I fought with their rever-man!' Rossamund persisted. 'I saw the flayed skin! There-there was even that butcher's truck that smelled of swine's lard, just like Poundinch used to hide in his cargo, that's why the Trought attacked!'
'At this instant it would be what you say against what they would say,' Europe countered calmly.
'But we have Sebastipole! No one doubts a falseman!'
The fulgar took a deep breath. 'And I am sure they would have a falseman of their own. Use one falseman to cancel the other out-typical Imperial politics.'
'Who can stop them, then?' Rossamund despaired, an image of Laudibus Pile's sneering face looming in his imagination.
'Well, it certainly won't be you, little man, will it-sent out here at their very behest?'
'No.' Rossamund hung his head.
'And with Whympre the current lord of Winstermill,' Europe continued, pressing the point, 'I cannot see how they will be stopped in a hurry.'
'You could, Miss Europe.'
Europe laughed a strange, sardonic laugh. 'Oh, little man!' she sighed. 'Rescuing empires from their own corruption is not my game. You'll just have to trust that all wicked things bring themselves to an end in the end.'
'But who says what is wicked?' Rossamund blurted.
'Enough now,' the fulgar said with sudden impatience. 'You wax too philosophical for weary travelers.'
The young lighter ducked his head in apology.
'Do not speak of these things to another, do you understand me?' Europe said sharply. 'They will not believe you, and word of any loose talk or unguarded accusation might find its way to the wrong ears.'
'Aye, Miss Europe.' The young lighter retreated to his comfortable bed. He slept eventually. His last sight through the door ajar was the motionless fulgar lost in her unfathomable recollections before the dying embers in the hearth. The new-morning world was sunk in fog. The lenterman was cautious and they left Compostor at a measured crawl. Threnody's wind had improved little since yesternight and she dozed and stared out the opposite window and said naught.
There was little to see from the window but fathomless gray until the lentum slowly crested a hill and drew clear of the obscuring shroud. Rossamund was graced with a view that until now he never knew possible: all about was a puffy lake of cloud, glowing a russet golden-white in the climbing light, lapping at the contours of spur and gully as an ocean touches the sandy shore. Other hilltops poked through and made dark islands in this stark fog sea. On one pinnacle about a mile distant, Rossamund thought for a moment he spied movement. He looked closer and saw a large, longlimbed something gamboling in the clear, cold dawn looking for all the world to be hooting at the glaring day-orb. It must have been very tall indeed to be visible from so far, but as he went to call his fellow travelers' attention to it, the carriage descended into the murk and the unsettling sight was obliterated.
'Such things are common here,' Europe said in answer to his hurried, hollered description. 'This remains true ditchland, whatever maps might say. Here monsters have free rein and are stopped only by walls and vigilance-and me,' she finished, a twinkle in her eye.
The brume persisted for much of the first half of the day, lifting only slightly to hang above as a somber, drizzling blanket. In the haze loomed the Wight, raised where two trunk-roads met with the highway.The fortress- city had grown rich on tolls extracted from grain trains coming down from Sulk and luxury trading caravans going north. Negotiating its streets, Rossamund saw that the military very much intruded on the public: watchtowers in municipal squares, barracks fronting a common park with its soldiers monopolizing the green for their evolutions. Nevertheless, women in tentlike dresses promenaded with parasols and met with men in finest silks. Together these would take their spiced and scented infusions in public places of high fashion and then be carried home in gilt, leather-covered mule-litters.
Insisting on a change of carriage as well as team, Europe took them to a tiny corner shop known as a small-market or kettle. It was a cluttered affair, full of such a disparity of goods that it took Rossamund some time to even orient himself before being able to decide on purchases.With much of his money-almost a full year's worth- still encumbering his wallet, Rossamund first bought a fine black thrice-high with satin-trimmed edges. It squatted rebelliously on his bandage, refusing to sit right, and became so annoying he removed the dressing so that the hat might fit as it should.
'I don't know the nature of the wound you had,' declared Threnody, peering at his scalp, 'but there is no evidence of it now.'
Rossamund also purchased a quarter of a rind of his old favorite-fortified sack cheese; a small jar of preserved apricots; dried fruits; half a cured pork sausage; and boschenbread. This last was just like from home: golden-dark and doughy, with a scrumptious hint of ginger.Verline had made boschenbread every Bookday, enough for every foundling. He carried two pounds of the stuff away in a big brown bag and shared it liberally with a quietly amused Europe, with Threnody-who declared she did not like it and left her piece barely nibbled-and even the bemused lentermen.
A new lentum took them out of Wightfastseigh. The replacement carriage was a public coach rather than the post, better sprung, with windows covered in iron grille work, and carrying an extra backstepper, a quartertopman who held a salinumbus and rode alongside the splasher boy. It was a vehicle intended for travel in threatened places. It was also quieter on the road.
On this side of the fortress-city they began to pass wayfaring metal-mending tinkers, script-selling pollcarries and brocanders shopping their secondhand proofing; those who dared the dangerous way in hope that isolation might make people willing to buy their inferior goods. The life expectancy of such as these would not have been long and only desperation could surely drive someone to such work; Rossamund had a sudden glimpse of his privileges, when measured against the lot of these ragged gyrovagues.
As Ashenstall drew near, its window-lights and lanterns glowing merrily against the dour evenfall, the post- lentum eased its pace, its driver clearly intending on making that cothouse their night-stop.
'I have no desire to spend a night in the insalubrious squish of one of your cot-rents,' Europe declared testily. She pulled down the grille and rattled her purse ostentatiously at the lenterman, shouting, 'Drive on! Take us to the Prideful Poll. It will be well worth the anxiety if you persevere!'
There was a hasty discussion between the carriage-men and a quick conclusion.
The lentum pressed on, going faster now.
Rossamund could hear the horses' frequent whickering, even over the clangor of the carriage's hasty progress. They well knew the unfriendliness of the dark and-shabraqued or not-the tasty treat they presented to night-prowling nickers.
The sun was an hour set and the waning moon well up on its course when Europe pointed through the grille of the window at a square, keeplike structure with a rounded roof built into the cutting on the northern side of the highroad right opposite a great-lamp. Its own gate lanterns made a well-lit spot upon the road before the thick encircling wall. Suspended between them was a circular sign with the silhouette of a proud-looking head and large white letters beneath that read Prideful Poll.
Another wayhouse.
They drew into the slender coach yard and a warm welcome as strong gates closed out the nighttime fears. The next morning, though their rimples were decidedly fatter after Europe's financial incentives, the public-coach lentermen were unwilling to take her and her two young passengers down on to the Frugelle. The nighttime dash to the Prideful Poll was one thing, but a trot along that threatened place was 'quite another tan of leather!' as the
