Factotum

'Where were ye at, Rossamund?' Fransitart demanded, staring him hard in the eye. A penetrating, almost suspicious concern dawned in his eyes. 'What troubles ye? What did ye see?'

At that point Europe chose to enter, looking flushed and puffing as if she had been running many miles. She was wearing a long-hemmed seclude of diagonal pink, red and dark magenta stripes clinched about her waist with broad black satin, its hems, collar and turned-up cuffs white embroidered with thread-of-gold.

'Is this to be your mode from here on, little man?' she asked with cool irony by way of salutation. 'Are you thinking, now that I have released you from the straits of military life, to begin a career of adolescent revelry?'

'No… no, Miss Europe,' he answered, a little surprised by his own directness. 'Not intentionally, anyway.'

'Well, out with it! A bad excuse is better than none. Where have you been?' Her gaze narrowed as she dabbed with a plush towel at the damp glow upon her forehead.

Rossamund had no notion of how to proceed.

'I-'

He had assumed he would tell them everything. Now it had come to it, he was powerfully disinclined to reveal much at all of the Lapinduce.The monster-lord had demanded no such fidelity, yet it was surely a betrayal to reveal its presence. Regardless, a man had died in pursuit of him. Surely Europe needed to know of this!

'They-uh…' He gathered himself. 'After the play, Rookwood and his obsequine friends took me to a chancery that was connected to a rousing-pit, where I-'

Fransitart sucked in sharply. 'Avast ye, lad! What point o' compass did ye find such a place?'

'By tunnels under the Broken Doll…'

His old masters shifted unhappily in their places.

'There's an ill-hearted den.' Craumpalin whistled in consternation.

Europe showed no such dismay. 'And you did what there?' she pursued, shrewd suspicion dawning in her gaze.

'I–I botched a dog. One of the nickers got free, so I… I threw glister in the face of a swordist trying to slay it.'

There was a beat of stunned silence.

'Why di'n't ye simply weigh and depart at th' outset, lad, when ye first knew what manner of people ye was with and what place ye was at?' Fransitart questioned.

'They had locked us in. Besides, I could not leave'-my frair, Rossamund almost said-'the little fellow undefended in that foul hole!'

Europe closed her eyes long-sufferingly. 'You do not always have to heed your conscience, Rossamund. I find it is a troublesome guide to action, bringing all breeds of inconvenience. Was your intervention seen?'

Rossamund felt his cheeks flush guiltily. 'A spurn of one of the pit's patrons saw me. A wit…' His words caught in his throat. 'He chased me from there.'

'And my point is proven,' the fulgar said bitterly. She sat carefully upon a tandem before the fire. 'So tell me, little man, how did you manage to escape a wit?'

'I took a takeny from the Broken Doll, but once the driver realized a wit was on us, he put me out near the Moldwood and I ran into it. I hid far inside the park and stayed hidden all night. Th-then at day I came by the drain to get home.'

Though he kept his words grave and even, a great wrench of compunction gripped his innards, the manifest tearing of loyalties. Firm, however, in his conviction to keep the Lapinduce hid, he held to his tale, fixing his gaze upon the fire lest they all see the evasion in his eyes.

Fransitart scrutinized him sharply, disappointment clear in his face.

Pulling at his beard, Craumpalin stared at the fine Turkic hearth rug.

Yet, astonishingly, they said nothing.

Europe regarded Rossamund narrowly. 'I wonder,' she queried with subtle scorn, 'if the patrons of the pit know they have hired the services of so unskilled a strivener as a fellow who loses another soul so easily in the limitations of a well-fenced park.'

Resisting the urge to duck his head, Rossamund kept his attention upon the consuming flames and said nothing.

An unpleasant quiet ruled.

Rossamund's humours pounded like an accusation at his temples.

Europe flicked at some smidgen upon her thigh. 'I see you preserved your hat at least, little man. Bravo.'

'Aye, Miss Europe.'

'Since you have been awake hiding the entire night,' his mistress went on, 'perhaps you ought to go and rest now?'

His soul burned. 'I… I am well enough, ma'am.'

She stared at him searchingly. 'It is good then that we are shortly to go on the knave,' she said flatly.

'How might that aid us, m'lady?' Fransitart pressed. 'Trouble keeps for safe returns.'

Europe bent her spoored brow. 'To go out and come back with my bag full of prizes and new-pricked marks upon my arm shall amply prove all bad wind and ill rumor unfounded.' Closing her eyes, the fulgar smoothed her thin eyebrows with thumb and forefinger. 'This has all been very diverting, but we have our own course to prepare. Banish fruitless recollections, Rossamund; you have much to do to make ready. As for you, Masters Vinegar and Salt,' she added to the old vinegaroons, 'seek out Latissimus in the coach-house across the road for your duties. I was to have us away today but…'

'Delays change ways,' Craumpalin muttered.

'Indeed, Master Salt.' Europe blinked at him. 'We shall spend what is left to us of today to make ready.'

Caffene arrived in an elaborate steaming multivalved pot, and with it the information that Master Learned, stouching tutor, was awaiting their gracious mistress in the ludion, and they were dismissed.

'Oh, and should you be wondering, Rossamund… I did my treacle myself this morning.' She flicked her hand in mild irritation at Rossamund's chastened expression. 'It was correct enough for the purpose, though I dare to admit my palate is happy you are returned.' The fulgar gazed at him for a moment. 'Please do not make me drink my own makings again.' For the rest of the day, Rossamund attended to the preparations. Every store to be taken was gathered in the stowing room at the rear of the stately home. The landaulet was brought down the narrow drive between the flank of the house and the outer wall, and the whole collection steadily stowed in its holdfasts and panniers. Into a plethora of lacquered boxes and lidded hampers went all manner of fine foods that had once amazed Rossamund on his first jaunt with the Branden Rose through the Brindleshaws. These included a profusion of whortleberries, of course, and, at Rossamund's request, fortified sack-cheese. To his delight, there was also juice-of-orange. From the saumery came black-lacquered parts-boxes with ample quantities of all the salts needed for Europe's treacle. Largest of all was a great trunk for the coats and various other parts of harness for the Branden Rose, and lesser ones for her underclothes and for her shoes, the smallest her traveling fiasco. Each coat was numbered to a system he did not rightly understand, for to him every garment looked of comparably excellent make. Her Number 8, for example, was the richly furred magenta coat Europe had worn at the inquiry; her Number 2 was a magnificently embroidered black campaign coat similar to that which had been made for Rossamund by Master Brugelle; and her Number 3 was the very scarlet frock coat his mistress had worn at his first sight of her from under the boxthorn on the Vestiweg. Her Number 1-of shifting carmine, its sleeves a mist of finest organza, its collar sprayed with delicately dyed feathers-did not come. From the armory in the foundations of Cloche Arde, Nectarius reverently brought the fulgaris-stage and fuse-cleaned and glistening with preserving oils. Among all these items came a small box of silver and ivory. Daring a look within, Rossamund found Europe's sprither, laid in padded plush of deep red. Used to draw the cruor-the dead blood-from a slain monster to be used to make monster-blood tattoos, it was the one tool common to every teratologist. Probably in vain, Rossamund hoped he would never need to employ it on the knave. Worse, he contemplated with horror, was the thought of being the one Europe would expect to mark another little 'x' of victory and add to those that already stood in ranks upon his mistress' arms. She will employ a punctographist, surely… he offered to himself as a comfort, and his thoughts instantly skipped to the marking upon Fransitart's arm that Rossamund knew now would show as a cruorpunxis. It was a small comfort that they were to be out on the knave when it revealed itself.

Established as Europe's driver and navigator, Fransitart and Craumpalin went out to the Dogget amp; Block