graciousness takes our state down a strange and difficult path.'
Rossamund could see the man's gaze momentarily flick to him.
Passion flared in the deeps of Europe's eyes. 'You can be assured, sir, that whatever path I take is the best to follow-and if it threatens otherwise, I will make sure that it becomes so.'
The Chief Emissary bowed in his seat. 'My lady will make a dread duchess,' he said, and declared it an anno praeposter — an upside-down year.
The fulgar sighed a delicate laugh. 'We all, dear Baron, are but murmurs in this tragical panto…'
12
Wigbold(s) wit who prefers complete anonymity, refusing to make any signifying spoors or other marks and covering his or her telltale hair loss with all manner of wig-hence the name. Some wear pieces so outlandish they are a signifier in themselves, yet other wigbolds dress as normally as is fashionable, deadly lahzars walking about unheeded by the unsuspecting.
The seat of the historied city's government, the Brandendirk, was found well beyond the rush of the Spokes, among the many tall towers and halls of dark stone and red brick of a major bureaucratic district known as the Marchant. Scattering a crowd of ibis gathered on flagstones, the town coach ceased its journey in a wide square, the Florescende. Its faded paving, arranged in the forms of near-on every manner of blooming flower, was ceaselessly traversed by carriages and planquins careless of the beauty hurrying beneath hoof, foot and wheel. Low fortresslike facades of pale basalt stood about three sides of the Florescende, spiked and spired, perforated with a multitude of high, thin windows. This was the Parvis Main, the public courts of the Archduke of Brandenbrass.Towering over them at the farther end rose a lofty fortress, heavy and impregnable, the ancient stones of the Low Brassard visible from almost any high building in the city, the original keep about which through centuries the palace, the benches of government and bureaucracy, and indeed the city had grown.
'If I may, m'lady,' Finance said, 'I shall remain in your fit and return in it to Highstile Hall.'
'Certainly, dear Baron,' Europe agreed, then called through the front grille to Latissimus in the box seat above, 'Deposit the Baron to Highstile and that done, return to wait here.'
The Chief Emissary inclined his head in gratitude.
Rossamund alighted to hand Europe out after him. 'I should remain too,' he offered.
'Tish tosh, little man!' she retorted softly. 'Your absence would be as good as an admission. Come along.'
Rossamund kept close as she marched over a short draw-bridge flanked by a platoon of figures cast of dark bronze. Massive double doors of dark, carven wood as tall as the building itself rose before them.The rightmost stood ajar to allow the steady ingress of human traffic to the darkness beyond. As they approached, a white-suited scopp-boy dashed out, bearing dispatches in his light satchel strapped soldier-style across his back, soon followed by another.Through this opening-broad enough to allow a pair of men to walk side by side-they discovered a long and high-arched obverse of dark slate, lined with a platoon of haubardier guardsmen proofed in black and white with a flash of heaven's blue. Past these grim wardens was another duo of enormous doors set with lesser, more human-sized portals in their lower halves. Here all incoming folk were met by severe gentlemen offering glowers for the lowly, stiff formality for the middling and bows for the lofty. Passing him a red velvet tab in exchange, one of the officious fellows took charge of the young factotum's digitals, 'to be retrieved again upon departure.'
The fulgar and her young factotum were then admitted to a shadowy hall paneled entirely in swarthy wood, its wide space made into aisles by row upon row of square wooden pillars. Above, the high ceiling of interlocking beams was pierced with numerous diamond skylights admitting the noonday in wanly luminous bands.
This public hall was filled with all manner of folk: people of humble station and even humbler clothes, and those of elevated degree in periwigs of glossy chestnut or lustrous silver, many wearing low wide tricorns with curled brims of a style Rossamund had never seen before. Each kept with his or her kind, each class equally exclusive and dismissive of the rest. The mercantile set seemed most represented, men-of-business with thick folios of papers under arm and anxious, hawklike expressions on their faces, muttering one to the other.Yet whatever the social situation, every waiting soul was possessed by an impatient expectation till the room near vibrated with it, the collective murmur joining into a mumbling echo that muttered from every corner and made the air of the chamber fuggy, almost stifling.
Against this fervor, haubardiers stood fast about a series of clerical stages-three tiers of wooden platforms raised several feet off the main floor in the center of the space. Here a gaggle of secretaries and assisting clerks sat, lifted above the mass so that they could look down imperiously at the next poor citizen seeking their attention.
Among them all hurried scopps, distinct in their white coats and soft hats as they boldly approached the secretarial benches unbidden before sprinting off to some part of the mysterious palace or out of the enormous entrance.
Confronted with this scene, Europe did not hesitate but strode on with loud claps of her boot-steps on the flagstones, the throng parting like butter from a hot knife as she moved through. Her expression a detached blank, she barely acknowledged the awkward Beggin' ye pardon, miss, the gallant How do you do? and near-salacious simpers that went wavelike before her. Rossamund scampered in the brief gap left behind, stretching his stride to keep up with the confident pace of his mistress. To him she indeed looked like a rose-a radiant flower proud and glorious and untouchable among all these needy and ambitious men.
There were others here, however-hearers perhaps of foul gossip-who loured and sneered at her. From the thick someone dared in histrionic whisper, 'Lady Squander, thorn among the roses…'
Loyalty flaring, Rossamund searched for its dastardly origin but could not tell who or where it came from, which was perhaps just as well.
Ignoring it all, Europe aimed straight at a stage where a single secretary watched her approach with polite, almost conceited expectancy. Three paces to go she halted and stood aside for Rossamund to pass, which he did, with only the briefest hesitation, handing the invitation to the secretary and saying the formula with as much resolution as he possessed, 'Europa, Duchess-in-waiting of Naimes, the Branden Rose'-it felt very fine to reel off such a credential-'come upon the stated invitation of His… His Gracious Sufficiency the Archduke of Brandenbrass.'
The secretary took the document, gave it the most cursory look and, without once acknowledging Rossamund, looked to his mistress instead and said with an artificial smile, 'M'lady, you are most welcome.' With a wave of his hand crowds parted and a curator, fine-dressed in standard black and white, appeared. The invitation thrust unceremoniously back into his grasp, Rossamund hurried to follow as Europe was taken to a door at the rear of the hall where the haubardier guards parted and they were let through.
Led by the curator, they traversed a vast hall; its extremities were lost in the murky shadows made by the pale sunlight, so defying any reckoning of its size. The Arborlustra, their guide proudly called it-the Illustrious Wood-and Rossamund quickly discovered why. Arranged, indeed growing, in several rows down either hand through gaps in the very marble of the floor, were tall trees, sycamore and turpentine in sequence, one trunk pale, the next dark, forming a great natural colonnade of living columns, black then white, black then white all the way down.
Little lights of the softest blue shone from trunk and branch. About their roots and down the full length of the hall were arranged broad Dhaghi carpets figured with rabbits frolicking in black and white and gold woven into the sumptuous scarlet, worn almost to thread in places by uncounted years of footfalls. Up in the high vaulted spaces between the roof beams branches spread, obscuring the coffered roof lights, reaching right across the vacancy of each row to overlap and intertwine with the limbs of their fellow trees. The fitful tweeting of hidden birds sounded from this elevated, knotted green. Just below the canopy an ingenious awning of fine mist-nets caught leaves, nuts
