'They have trespassed deep indeed in search for their lost chum… and for you too, I think,' the rabbit-duke breathed. 'They will not seek for long. Watch… '
The intruding fellow was scowling at the darksome nooks and threatening crannies, patently uneasy at his task. Calls came through the trees-other searchers on the prowl. Shouting his own reply over his shoulder, the door ward approached the base of the hillock where the Lapinduce and Rossamund were hid.
The Lapinduce closed its eyes and let out a slow hissing breath.
All around the threwd thickened, a settling dismal chill.
The young factotum shivered.
The door ward hesitated and stared anxiously about. There came another cry to the left, its unintelligible words possessing a warning. The intruder began to withdraw, the calls retreating with him until the woodland hush relaxed and the threwd eased to its usual gentle watchfulness.
'Come, ouranin,' said the Lapinduce, 'let us return to my court.' 'So what of you, oh ill-named one!' Stepping to its spinet stool and sitting, the Lapinduce peered at Rossamund keenly. 'I did not save you to pass you back to bloodthirsting everymen.' For a moment it sounded angry. 'You ought depart from here to live in proper seclusion with the sparrow-duke and Cinnamon, so interested in your progress; let this generation and all its selfish single- mindedness pass into matter. I can grant you easy passage to your sparrow-lord to dwell in peace till all things are restored.Yet it is for you alone to choose your progress.'
Rossamund breathed long and deep. How simple it might be to take up the Lapinduce's offer, to retreat and live safe, and make forays out into the cities to overturn every rousing-pit or massacar he could find. For just a moment Rossamund's soul soared with the idea.Yet, as quickly as it swelled, this hope sank again. 'Europe has risked too much for me to desert her now,' he breathed, swallowing back on the knot griping in his throat. 'Fransitart and Craumpalin too…'
A melancholy shadow passed through the Lapinduce's ancient gaze. 'An answer at last to my original question…,' it murmured heavily. 'Brutish and short are the lives of every men; do not expect your own with them to be different.'
Rossamund looked to his hands-a man's hands, a monster's hands.
Born out of the mud from some other soul's parts…
'It is time for you to return to your chosen mistress,' the rabbit-duke commanded abruptly. It coughed to summon Ogh and Urgh. 'Follow them close and do not mind their bold divagations; they shall show you by their own route to familiar paths that will take you home again.'
Rossamund hesitated. He glanced anxiously to the sliver of forenoon sun peeking over the towering eastern wall-so much higher from this sunken vantage. How did it get so high? Surely they had talked only for some moments.
Flicking its coat hems to sit properly on its stool, the Lapinduce lifted long hands to play. 'I will likely not see you again, ouranin,' it said without looking to him. Flourishing a blunt-clawed hand, it gave the spinet voice once more, a wild tune that had the urchin-lord's arms and deft fingers running along every octave. It closed its eyes and was lost in the music.
Reeling, Rossamund slowly heeded a gentle tugging at his right shin. Ogh-or was it Urgh-was pulling at his stocking with its teeth, while its twin was slowly hopping to the farthest of the three arches and out of the court. With a final, heavy-hearted glance at the furious playing of the Lapinduce, the young factotum followed, leaving the glorious monster-lord in its hidden musical court.
10
Crimp(s) privately operating impress contractor, that is, a group or individual licensed to press people into naval or military service. They are usually given a quota by a ram's captain or a regimental colonel and with this authority trawl the streets of less well-heeled districts, seizing anyone appearing at that moment not to be engaged in gainful activity, regardless of the poor soul's true employment status.
In dour fungal light the twin rabbits Ogh and Urgh took Rossamund down the bending root-walled course, loping at an easy pace yet keeping out of his reach. He tried once to stride forward and pat one, and in an instant they shot ahead into the twilight of the tunnel that led away from the Lapinduce.
'Wait! Wait!' he called, finding them sitting in gloom in the middle of the passage floor, eyes glittering, noses twitching rapidly.
Guided by the flash of their bobbing sallow tails, he was shown through many dim intersections and lighted burrows, the flanks of the warren becoming coarser, more uneven. Tessellated floor gave over to cool earth and cold puddles, the walls to rough earth, then quickly to the brick and stone of the city's deep-sunk foundations. Finally even radiant fungus ceased, the threwd shrinking to little more than a sleepy suggestion, the merest hint for those who might care to notice.
Moldy twilight gave over to a strengthening warmer glow. Just about a bend he discovered Ogh and Urgh stopped, sitting silhouettes before a ragged window of umber and blue; the end of the hole.
'Thank you, good sirs,' he said to the rabbits, bowing to each in turn, wishing they might respond with words of their own and divulge primeval secrets.
Mute, they regarded him blankly, noses ever twitch twitch twitch.
With a sigh, the young factotum pushed through the shrouding fringe of unchecked vegetation, and, blinking near-blinded in the bright afternoon sun, almost slid down the steeply slanted side of the brick-paved drain. Gripping the edge of the hole, he saw that he had emerged into the usual world from between the weedy roots of an old turpentine growing far beyond the bounds of the Moldwood in some tiny neglected common.
By its green trickle and orange carp he easily identified this channel. The Midwetter! — the very one flowing by Cloche Arde.
Darter Brown appeared over the top of the high roofs-somehow reckoning Rossamund's path despite his hidden progress. With a tweet! the little fellow alighted on a spear-pointed post of the fence that lined the height of the drain.
Rossamund straightened, set his thrice-high firmly on his head and went on by way of the channel, back to service and contradictions.Walking carefully along the slope, he had the disorienting sensation of rousing from a deep and convincing dream-some mystic abyss-to finally gasp mundane and sensible air. By the time he clambered up the side of the bridge to Footling Inch, his time with the Lapinduce was a small disquieting memory and his thoughts were more concerned with how he might explain his absence to his mistress.
Kitchen greeted him in the cold black vestibule. 'Glad to see you have elected to return to us, Master Bookchild,' the steward began, a little dryly. 'You are expected in our gracious lady's file.'
With a quiet knock at the carven door, Rossamund waited for the usual 'In.' When it did not occur, he rapped a little louder, at which the portal opened, revealing not Europe in some splendid gown but Fransitart, his worn, worried-looking eyes going wide with sharp relief.
'Rossamund!' he barked, grasping him by the shoulder as if never to let him go.
'Master Frans?' Rossamund said. 'Where is Miss Europe?' Part stepping, part pulled into the file, he found Craumpalin there too, rising quickly from an easy chair before the fire, looking at him like one returned from the grave.
'Pullets and cockerels! We thought ye pinched by the crimps, lad, and forced to serve upon a cargo!' Fransitart chided sharply, guiding him to the comfortable chairs.
'Oh, no, not the crimps, Master Frans.'The young factotum frowned abstractedly as he took a seat by Craumpalin.
'Aye, or carried off by some ill-informed mercator!' the old dispensurist added gruffly.
