Factotum

eyes.

'I beg your pardon, miss?'

'That tandem were once dear Master Licurius' bed,' the alice-'bout-house repeated. 'He would sit to sleep in the end. His box made it hard for him to lay his head like other folk do. He was a great help to our lady, sir,' she added quickly, as if in doubt of Rossamund's own capacity.

Rossamund promptly stood, uneasy at being in contact with the spot where that blighted laggard had reclined. 'I don't reckon I'll be needing it,' he said, unsure how to react to someone who described Europe's old murderous, malevolent leer as dear. Indeed, it struck him that all these folk serving busily in Cloche Arde knew Licurius, maybe intimately. What kind of home is this that looks kindly on such a fellow? 'Maybe we can have it taken out.'

There was only the merest hesitation before Pallette said, 'Yes, sir… If you have any other needs, you call for assistance by a pull of this handle,' she added, gently touching a brass lever in the shape of a claw sticking from the wall by the door, 'and me or another will come.'

It was perplexing to have a stranger offer her obedience to him so readily.

'But if our lady wants you, sir,' Pallette continued, 'this bell just by it will sound, and then you are to go to her right away-you know the way?'

'Aye, thank you.'

'Certainly, sir.'

'My name is Rossamund.'

'Yes, sir.'

His meager count of dunnage-most of his belongings lost in the destruction of Wormstool-arrived and was deposited on waiting stands by a pair of huffing, puffing footmen. With only the slightest reticence these fellows obeyed as Pallette repeated Rossamund's instruction to remove Licurius' tandem.

'Maybe a simpler chair will do,' Rossamund added awkwardly. 'Or maybe just a stool.'

'As you would have it, sir.'

With the footmen lifting out the furniture, Pallette began sorting his belongings. Shirts and drawers and trews and all were carefully laid, each in its appropriate spot within cupboards and drawers. Who are you, her action seemed to be saying, to try to replace our dear dead Licurius? Look how small you are!

Rossamund took closer inspection of the small, broad-framed pictures hanging upon the walls. They were little more than a thumb-length high and the same wide. Admiring the profound skill that must have been required to paint so lifelike a finish at such a scale, he realized with an involuntary jolt what he was looking at. Each image was of some kind of wicked and depraved violence twixt men and monsters-foul tortures and cruel injuries. He caught only a glimpse, but that was all he needed.

Cabinet pictures!

Such an innocent name for such vile objects. Rossamund knew ever so vaguely of them; that among those of disposable means and dark tastes there was a barely legal fashion for depictions of the foulest violence and horror. This was the art of monster-haters, high fashion for coarse-minded invidists so twisted, it looked to Rossamund- even with the brief eyeful he received-to be almost a distorted kind of outramour. This was the heart of Licurius laid bare.

The young factotum backed away from the images. 'And you… you may take these down from the walls too,' he said to the departing footmen with a shaky voice and a sterner tone than he intended.

They and Pallette swapped quick, uneasy looks.

'Y-yes, sir,' the alice-'bout-house answered very softly, blinking at him in discomfort. 'As you would wish.'

And to his astonishment, the servants said nothing and began lifting the pictures from the wall.

For luncheon-although so soon departed from the lamplighters he could not help but still think of it as middens-Rossamund was shown to a modest-sized chamber. The solar, Europe had called it. The room was not grimly dark; rather it was a soft, deep red, its high ceiling entirely gold. In its midst, before many tall windows, was an oval table of glistening scarlet, thinly etched with strangely formed flowers in golden filigree. About it were arranged high-backed chairs upholstered in the softest silk woven with curling golden stems and dyed with the shapes of petals in shades of ruby and crimson.

Sitting upon two of these at the far end waited Fransitart and Craumpalin, looking ill at ease but refreshed, like drab stains in the clean, gleaming ruddiness.

'Well, hullo, me boy,' Craumpalin declared, making an easy showing but possessing a distinct air of a man interrupted. 'What does thee make of thy new berth? Not much in the way of a cheerfully homey place, is it?' He lifted his eyes archly to include the room and the entire house with it. 'She has treated thee with such expense and magnificence we cannot help but be grateful…'

Rossamund gave a halfhearted smile.

'Aye,' Fransitart concurred. 'Her generosity is as deep as her pockets.'

'Aye to that, Frans,' Craumpalin continued, looking up. 'She can afford to keep her sconces a-glowin' all day.'

Above, on golden rope, was suspended a great light, a cluster of thin red crystalline flutes bent at their bases like lips, sleek bright-limns luminous even in the day with a subtle rose glow.

In the far corner stood a screen of very similar style to the one in Rossamund's new billet. On it some bizarre heldin flourished a hammerlike weapon over a beaten nicker that looked much like a round-faced, round-eyed dog, while two more hound-monsters ran off with a strangely demure maiden. Stepping close to get a better view of each panel, he frowned at the image, not certain who to feel for the most: the fallen monster, the maiden or the heldin-man. Am I one of those? he fretted, peering at the goggle-eyed bogles abducting the woman to a presumably foul end. Am I some half-done monster born from the muds, as Swill has said?

On the journey away from Winstermill, Rossamund had held his questions, his pressing self-doubts. Now, safely harbored in the high-walled bosom of Cloche Arde, the time had come for all troubles to be answered, all long-kept secrets to be revealed.

'Whatever are you at, little man?' Europe demanded mildly, her voice attended by the thump of an opening door.

Rossamund turned about quickly.

Standing in the entrance, the Branden Rose was out of her fighting harness and now wrapped in a flowing house-cloak of stiff satin of such dusky red that it seemed in its folds to be black. Her chestnut hair was down in a left-hand plait hung over her shoulder, reaching to her waist.

'I–I was just wondering at all your remarkable things, Miss Europe… especially this screen here.'

'Yes, yes, very pretty.' The fulgar took a place at the end of the table. 'I am told they are called a bom e'do or some such. This and the one in your room are part of a whole set given to me by some besotted Occidental princeling from Sippon. He thought they might buy my affections.' She paused. 'They did not… Apparently one alone costs more than an average man is worth a year.'

'Thirty sous each?' Rossamund exclaimed after some brief internal arithmetic as he took the seat shown him at the opposite end of the table.

'Oh, no, little man, not quite that average,' Europe replied with a slight smile.

Shrinking within, the young factotum was spared his blushes with the arrival of food.

Dished at Kitchen's direction on to fine Gomroon, with genuine shimmering silverware arranged beside, was food such as Rossamund had never known: tepid pyet ponce-or magpie stew-and seethed eagle wings accompanied by pickled winkles in butter-boiled cabbage on the side.

'Look thee at this fancy fare, Frans.' Rossamund heard Craumpalin's faint mutter across the table to Fransitart. 'Smells as if it'll go down hearty.'

'Why, thank you, Mister Craumpalin,' Europe said with an amused look to the old dispensurist.

'Thank'ee in ye turn, miss,' Fransitart replied evenly. 'Ye keep a handsome table.'

The cook snorted reproachfully as she served a healthy spooning of cabbage onto the ex-dormitory master's fine white plate. 'Of course it is…,' Rossamund heard her mutter. 'Handsome table, indeed!'

With slow grace, Kitchen poured tots of fine claret into the biggest, most delicate-looking glasses Rossamund had ever beheld-half water for him. When all was served and the other servants disappeared again to their manifold labors in other parts of the stately home, the steward went to stand faithfully in the corner near Europe's right