nearest avenue and out from those oppressing trees.
Hastening after, Rossamund did not dare a word, aware of the shadowy escort of the two wits keeping pace nearby. Collecting his digitals in the obverse, he exited that illustrious menacing court pregnant with malignant suspicions in mighty relief and clambered back into the day coach waiting faithfully for them out on the Florescende.
'A wanton waste of a day's travel…,' Europe said quietly as Latissimus took them home.
'Might he have had us arrested?' Rossamund asked carefully.
The heiress of Naimes fixed him with hard eyes. 'He has not the stomach to risk a brawl with me in his own courts, nor to upset the delicate humours of my mother and all the states in between should a bump even come upon my crown in his city.' She settled in her seat and stared at the passing world with its simpler cares. 'No, he will set a watch on us if he has not already; have all his earwigs and peterpeepholes ogle us…' She smiled thinly. 'Watch as you will, cousin gapeseed,' she suddenly spoke to the air, 'there is little enough to see.'
For a time there was tight, vibrating silence, Rossamund's thoughts pivoting rapidly about the meeting with the Archduke. Soon his deliberations spiraled inward to one painful point. 'Miss Europe?' he tried.
Her chin resting with light and practiced poise upon gracefully bent knuckles, the fulgar peered at him, her expression beckoning him to continue.
'Do… Do you truly believe that monsters are only good for sport or slaughter?' he managed.
The fulgar's eyes narrowed, and Rossamund wondered for one astounded moment if he had achieved the improbable and confounded the impenetrable fulgar.
'Can you imagine me holding to a different thought, little man?'
Rossamund blanched and looked to the floor of the landaulet.
'What might you have me say?' his mistress insisted. 'You have seen for yourself the wickedness that a handful of nickers might bring.'
He nodded, the violent end of Wormstool clear in his mind.
'Without me and all the teratologists, monsters would rule supreme.' Europe's voice remained frighteningly steady. 'I can hardly conduct my necessary labors fussing over whether one hairy brute chewing on a child might be in a better frame of mood on some other, sunnier day! Or if a ravening bugaboo ruining some rustic gent's life and future really might prefer to sip sillabub with demented old eeker ladies out in the swamps!' She took a breath. 'You might meet some soft-headed teratologist who is prepared to ponder the motivations from one tribe of bogles to another-and I know such as they are about-but occurrence enough has taught me that such flimsy souls soon come to surprised and nasty ends.' She stared hard at him. 'Would you rather that I grow philosophical and let the next murderous monster we hunt rip me and you and the world about us asunder just for the sake of a few felicitous feelings?'
Rossamund shook his head, but this time held her gaze. 'No… Yes… I…' He paused to collect himself, then chose each word with care. 'Where-where do I figure in your reckoning of things? Don't I change your mind in some part?'
Her stare hardened to a glare, anger flashing in her eyes. 'You figure very much in my thinking, Rossamund! Of that you may be certain.'
In deep confusion he said nothing more and watched the city passing.
They returned to Cloche Arde and the final preparations for departure, neither speaking again that day upon the meeting with Maupin or Swill or the Archduke. In the deep hush of night Rossamund stirred and lay for a moment in his downy bed tracing the whorls in the ceiling and wondering in frustration why he was awake when he so dearly wanted sleep before the early start. He could hear the careful rasp of cautious carriage wheels and muffled hooves came from the Harrow Road below.
They slowed…
… then stopped.
Instantly every fiber within him imploded with pain, the drawing, agonizing scathing of a wit doubling him over in its excruciating grip.
Through his anguish he heard a shocked cry come from somewhere within Cloche Arde, quickly followed by a woman's shrieking.
The whole house is under assault!
He clutched at the pain, trying to fight off the silent, pulsing torment that pinned him. For a moment he was master of himself, yet this served only to tumble him in a tangle of bedclothes onto the floor.
Immediately below was a racket of thumping footfalls on carpet and board and stone. The front door slammed open and boot steps ground speedily on gravel. The flat pop! of one-two-three firelocks sounded from the street, immediately followed by the deadened fizzing thump of a detonating potive. A shout. A sudden crack of a whip and the answering snorts of frightened horses set carriage wheels in more hasty motion.The scathing abruptly ceased, leaving ears ringing and a muffled clamor of distress elsewhere in the house.
With but a breath to right himself, Rossamund snatched up his digitals on their thin belt, clumsily slid on soft slippers as he left his room and fairly leaped the flights down to the front door. Out in the chill yard he found Europe wrapped in a thin seclude but heavy-booted, standing at the locked gate and speaking with hushed agitation to someone beyond on the street, her unbound hair fine fluttering gossamer on the nocturnal currents. Rossamund could make little of the dim figure standing in the shadow of the wall except that he was rather thin. Another similarly reluctant companion stood across the other side of the Harrow Road. He wore a device of pewter and enamel and lenses strapped to his head-a sthenicon, Rossamund supposed, though of a kind he had never seen-and bore heavy pistols in hand.
'She departed in haste once we fired on her cart,' Europe's interlocutor was saying as Rossamund hurried to see who it was. 'They were not expecting a repulse from the flank.' His voice held a subtle note of amusement. 'Just a common takeny, nothing especial to pick it out…'
'Of course,' Europe replied. 'They do not want to spell out their deeds too simply…Your assistance and the aim of your shooting irons were as timely as they were unsought, Mister Slitt.'
The fellow moved a little into the gate's light to reveal himself as the man who, with the Baron Finance, had intercepted them that very morning. 'I-and Mister Camillo with me,' he said, gesturing to the pistol-wielder behind, 'are in your service, ma'am… and yours too, Mister Bookchild,' the rather unassuming fellow said to Rossamund in turn as he drew close.
'Was that Anaesthesia Myrrh?' Rossamund asked in reply.
Turning suddenly at her factotum's approach, Europe replied rather curtly, 'I am reckoning it was, yes… Unless Maupin has an entire hand of wits at his beck.'
The two obscure guardians chuckled.
'Apart from the one he lost so recent,' Elecrobus Slitt elaborated, 'I know of no others in his service, good lady… Else Pitter-Patter has himself 'come a wigbold.'
The Branden Rose smiled darkly. 'There is scant we can do about it tonight, and I have a knave to begin tomorrow,' she declared with the tone of conclusion. 'So I thank you again, Mister Slitt. Be sure to thank your master for his motherly care.'
With humble nods the two men returned to the shadows, and Europe and Rossamund to the violated safety of Cloche Arde.
13
Pipistrelle light onshore winds that make for good sailing of small-sailed vessels such as sloops or brigantines. Their presence is seen as a sign of favor by all seafaring folk, but they are known to be fickle benefactors, turning all too quickly into mortal tempests.
