pointedly her regrets at Licurius' passing-'
'I am sure she has,' the fulgar said heavily. 'Enough with your subtleties, fox! Out with it now; why have you come to me so promptly?'
The Baron dipped his head obediently. 'I have come so that I might give your mother, the Duchess Magentine, a better report of your wielding of quo gratia than the worrisome distortions that bruit and rumor will bring.'
Europe blinked slowly at him. 'You may tell my mother that its use was just and apt and done in the defense of the defenseless.'
'It is said, gracious duchess-daughter, that this defense was done for a… a sedorner…' The barron's voice dropped ever so slightly.
Sitting once more, Rossamund felt the man's regard turn to him and kept his attention on his porridge.
'A flimsy pretext devised by dastardly men of creeping ambition,' the fulgar declaimed, 'seeking only to magnify themselves at others' cost and so cover their own scheming.'
'Ahh, the fall of Dido writ small,' Finance murmured, his bright, unconvinced eyes belying his smiling mien.
'Indeed.' The fulgar's tone was frosty, yet her own gaze glimmered with amusement.
'That is all, gracious lady?'
'That is enough…'
The Baron drew a highback out close to Europe and sat. 'You must know that unkind eyes are upon you, that your application of QGU weakens you, especially under such… confused circumstances.'
Weakens? Rossamund repeated inwardly, innards sinking in dismay. What trouble have I brought?
'I know it, sir.' Europe's hazel eyes became genuinely hard.
Standing, the Chief Emissary conceded with a gracefully extended bow.
An inordinately loud pounding at the front door was soon followed by the reappearance of Mister Kitchen bearing offers of coursing work delivered directly by scopp from the knaving house. Come as a parcel, the offers were covered in black leather and bound with black ribbon.
'And timely too!' Europe pronounced, and immediately sent summons for Mister Carp. 'You must excuse us, my Lord Finance. I have work of my own, as I am sure you do too.'
'Absolutely, m'lady!' Finance proclaimed, and stooped once more.
Rossamund smiled to himself. He certainly likes a good bow.
'My role is ever a restless one and I must be away.' The Chief Emissary bent in the middle one final time. 'Good day to you… and to you, Mister Bookchild,' he said with a last skeptical glance to Rossamund, and left the way he had come.
Climbing after his mistress as she proceeded to her file, Rossamund peered uncertainly at the offers, seltzer- light gleaming dully on the binding ribbons.
Taking a seat by the fresh-stoked fire under the painted gaze of her child self, Europe undid all the ribbons and wrappings and drew out a card paper coverfold fat with individual handwritten sheets.
Sitting meekly upon a low soft turkoman beside her, Rossamund watched intently as the Branden Rose read through each document and placed it either on a low table before her or-the smaller pile-on the seat beside her. Soothed by the hearth's warmth, Rossamund began to read.
'The only Imperial Forms offered are those seeking aid for your old masters at Winstermill,' the Duchess-in- waiting said finally with slow distraction and abruptly reviving him. 'They are very much the same as the one I responded to some months ago when I met you there.'
Rossamund nodded glumly. Whatever ruin the despicable wiles of the Master-of-Clerks had achieved, the young factotum still held a deep connection to the beleaguered lamplighters of Winstermill themselves.
'As for singulars…,' Europe continued, 'they have sent a goodly many-the Idlewild is not alone in its troubles-but most are too far or pay too little. I think one or more of these will answer…' From the small collection beside her she placed three writs on the floor before Rossamund.
A curiously grim excitement knotting in his gizzards, Rossamund bent over them to see.
The first read: Only for the fittest and most thewsome teratologist ~ A necrophagous seltling by reputation named as the Swarty Hobnag is pestering the parish tombs about Spelter Innings in the Polder Nil. This vile blight on the innocent lives of men has already slain two boundary wardens and keeps all peltrymen, gentry spurns and labouring hands frighted away. The mayors and notables of the parish offer two sous for each day's journey there, twenty sous for driving the thing off and a further twenty for proof of its destruction.
'Excuse me, but a necrafugous who?' Rossamund quizzed.
'A necrophagous seltling-a corpse-eating nicker.' The fulgar sounded jaded. 'A monster that eats the dead.'
'Oh.'
The second went: A pastoralist of substance and situation with vasty properties in the north-o-west meadows of the Hollymidden between Broom Holm and Hollymidden, and along with his neighbours, men of the same noble stripe, seeks assistance to rid his flocks and fields of a tenacious tribe of murderous blightlings. He has exhausted all personal and local solutions and seeks for a doughty city knave to clear his lands of threat. All billet and board will be provided at his own expense and a single generous prize of one hundred sous is guaranteed for evidence conclusive of the plaguing beasts' destruction.
The objects of both these jobs sounded foul enough; though it was a higher prize for the second contract, each could be any kind of hungry bogle simply seeking sustenance and not necessarily a true wretcher.
The final singular was the highest paying: A chance for extraordinary renown in the green beauty of Coddlingtine Dell and Pour Clair! The Gathephar, a locally famous nicker long thought destroyed by the region's ancient forebears, has arisen and will not be shifted. Families devoured hand and foot, remote high-houses found smashed and bereft of their dwellers, hams and villages starving for lack of regular supply-the complete tale of a most thorough haunting. An opportunity for memorial deeds no mighty catagist worth their fame should pass over. Eight sous a day alone for time spent traveling there and fro, a return of fifty sous simply for taking the work and making the journey, plus collected prizes from a gathering of interested parties to the total of two hundred sous. Arriving enquiry can be directed to the masters of either municipality.
Two hundred sous! A lamplighter would take a decade to earn as much. More than forty sous, one hundred sous, two hundred sous! With such vast amounts offered for a single job it was little wonder people risked wind and limb to turn teratologist.
Attached to the final singular was a covering notion, evidently added by a third party. It read: OFFER OF CORPORATE GLORY ~ A pistoleer, a skold and a laggard have entered pact together to rid the world of this historied beast, the Gathephar. In such capacity they now require a fourth member in their undertaking to ensure its complete success. Expenses and Energies will be shared. REWARDS will be divided equally at the anticipated triumphant completion of the accompanying singular work-bill. Panegyrists and pens also welcome for a set fee. All enquiring parties to refer aforementioned work-bill to the underwriters at the Letter and Coursing House, the Spokes, else seek Aristarchus Budge, Gntlmn amp; Lockstrait, at the Laughing Spectioneer hostelry, Saltenbrink Street, Pawnhall.
'If this is such a chance for extraordinary renown and corporate glory-and pays so well,' Rossamund wondered aloud, 'why is this Mister Aristarchus Budge fellow looking for help? Why has no one else taken it before?'
'In part I would surmise for its location,' Europe said matter-of-factly. 'Some would have it that the marches of Coddlingtine Dell and Pour Clair are too near the Pendle Hill-a place where people are held to be a touch, shall I say, insular: backwoodsmen-all cousins and next of kin and wonderfully cross-eyed. False-gods are said to be worshipped there by folk hidden away so deviously my cousin duke's most cunning servants rarely reach them, and if they do, seldom return alive.'
False-god worshippers? The young factotum could bare reckon it. Fictlers, they were properly called- bloodthirsting souls who gathered together for perverse reasons not clearly fathomed, seeking to summon up their chosen false-god, thus bringing the destruction of all land-born creatures, whether everyman or unterman. Despite such dark repute, most city folk held fictlers to be nothing more than a puzzle-headed nuisance.
'More the likely though,' the fulgar continued, 'is that the beast itself is too much for most.This Gathephar is of notorious antiquity, and the greater the prize, the greater the chance of an untimely conclusion to your days.Yet,
