Imperial of the Gate and heir of the Patredike, their host handed Europe from the landaulet as his yardsmen took Rufous and Candle, the carriage and the luggage too into their charge. Without even a glance at any documentation, Monsiere Trottinott welcomed the Duchess-in-waiting and her faithful staff openly to his bastionlike home and holdings.
'You can well imagine how hopeful I was when the communication arrived from the coursing house that it was the great Branden Rose who consented to effect my solution,' he declared with gusto. 'How gratified I was when I received communication from your own gracious hand confirming the same!'
Europe received his enthusiasm with queenly equanimity, neither falling into aloof superiority nor letting herself be caught up in the tide of his candid delight.
Despite his southern name, Monsiere Trottinott spoke with a refined and common Grumid accent, spontaneously showing away his wide barns sheltering all manner of rural equipages, his buried cellars smelling of musty grapes and full to their low groin-vaulted ceilings with innumerable wine presses and pipes of properly aging vin, and the gala hall with its family crypt beneath, entombing generations of his line back to the founding of Patredike in HIR 1401.
'Ahh, but pity us, your graciousness,' Monsiere Trottinott went on as he showed them at last through the domed entry hall of the main manor to a grand hiatus, 'that in our two hundredth year we are beset by some secreted evil that steals my sheep, tears up my precious vines and-foulest of all-wounds and attempts to carry off my loyal sheepmen!'
'The pity, Monsiere, is that I could not come to you sooner,' Europe replied with practiced grace.
Trottinott nodded and gave a gratified bow, offering Europe a plush seat and simpler benches for her three fellows. 'Your graciousness is most gracious.'
The day's early threatening gray finally brewed into a storm, rattling windows, gusting down chimneys, setting sumptuously liveried servants in silken blues to hurry closing shutters and drawing drapes.
A jut-jawed steward entered bringing a tray of fine Heil glasses of delicate powdery blue and a refreshment the Monsiere called agrapine.
'You must try,' he insisted. 'It is from the gleanings of my own pressings, would you believe! It tastes full, though it is not at all strong-perfect for just before a meal.'
Taking his portion, Rossamund surreptitiously eyed the wonderful luxurious clutter of the many-windowed hiatus. Between bookshelves swollen with books and red marble columns, every panel and wall was hung with paintings, large and small, mostly of people in portrait or action, and making the room seem filled with a veritable crowd of souls. Even the lofty coffered ceiling was alive with many prospects, in-cluding-directly above him-a glorious campaign scene of a man in the mottle of the Empire standing prominent in a mass of wrestling warriors in Imperial and Turkic harness.
'That is the moment when my grandsire earned his honor and his title, and his ever-grateful heirs their elevation,' the Monsiere offered smilingly, breaking into Rossamund's craning fixation.
'Aye, sir, at the Battle of the Gates, just when-late in the day-the Turkoman flank was collapsing,' Rossamund returned in uninhibited enthusiasm, 'just before Haroldus met and slew the Slothog!'
'One and the same!' Trottinott clapped once in delight. 'Hark, here is a proper student of matter to show my boys how it is done! I must praise you, Duchess Rose, for your young servant's fine address; how excellent it must be to be served by such learned fellows.'
Europe gave a single, slow blink. 'Indeed it is, Monsiere… very excellent.'
The young factotum blushed as Craumpalin gave him a subtle nudge. Vaguely conscious of his mistress' gaze upon him, Rossamund fixed his attention on his delicate glass of sweet yet sour agrapine.
Settled, they were joined by a handsome woman in a flaring dress of rich satin, grass-hued with thin peach pink stripes, her entrance marked with the comforting swish-swish of her skirts. Trotting dutifully beside this gracious woman came two children, both boys, turned out in neat suits of deep warm blue like their father: one little, the other nearer to Rossamund's own age.
'Allow me to name my wife-Lillette, the Madamine Trottinott…'
The auburn-haired beauty curtsied low with well-practiced ease and a slight creak of stays, her elaborate curls falling about her face and neck. 'Gracious lady,' she said with great gravity, the doubt in her eyes at this martial peeress discreetly contained.
'And two of my triple joys, Autos…'
The older boy bowed, saying with already breaking voice, 'I am delighted, graciousness.'
'… and Pathos.'
The younger boy grinned. 'Hullo, my lady!' he said with a slight rustic burr.
'And hullo to you, small fellow,' Europe returned with the perfect model of an amiable smile.
'He loves to spend his days with my moilers,' the father offered by way of explanation. 'Their older sister, Muse, is boarded at the aplombery in Lo, applying herself to finishing her womanly graces.'
Europe sniffed bitterly as if to say exactly what she thought of aplomberies, yet when she spoke, she was civil and smooth. 'So tell me more, Monsiere, of this creature that besets you. Have you seen it?'
Trottinott's face fell. 'Ah. That I have not, gracious lady, though several of my tenants and servants have. All that is sure is the evidence of their ravages: my kennels empty.' He looked nervously to his sons, clearly uneasy about saying too much in front of them. 'Vines in ruins, flocks… decimated, their herdsmen hurt and demanding exorbitant incentive to stay to the watch of their folds. It would be best to speak with them. I shall call them out tomorrow. They have had closest dealings with the… troublers… Apart, that is, from the fugelman we sought from Dough Hill to hunt it-but alas, he never returned, precipitating the very writ you have so fitly answered… Ah! But listen to me! It is a long road from the bright city to here.' The Monsiere spread his hands before them. 'You should take a day to recover yourselves.'
'Idle hands find mischief, good sir, and idle minds even more,' Europe proclaimed, to the gentleman's clear relief. 'We shall begin tomorrow. Now, if you please, direct my factotum to the place most appropriate where he might make my plaudamentum.'
15
Parmister essentially a foreman in charge of the various workings and facets of a franchise. Whether it is the shepherds and their flocks, the hay wards and their herds, the swains and their farrows, the moilers and their fields, the pruners and their trees, the pickers and their vines, the garnerers and their stores, there is a parmister in charge of each, and a master-parmister in charge of all and answering only to the owning lord or his seniormost agent.
In the half-light of a fresh, still day, gentle servants roused Rossamund early. With careful quiet they stoked the hearth and set more wash-water on the nightstand, then left him be. In the serene luxury he bathed away the stains of travel in the balmy comfort of the copper basin. After a dinner the night before of a full five removes and glaces, he had been too fatigued to do more than collapse on the opulent bed and sleep, despite the gale pounding at the shutters and howling desolately down the chimney flue.
A hesitating knock stirred him and had him leaping from the water to hurry on smalls and longshanks. Fransitart and Craumpalin had come, faces kindly, eyes shining with a strange agitation.
'Slept the slumber o' the innocent, 'ey, lad?' Fransitart smiled earnestly.
Rossamund could not conjure the words to fit his confusion. He stared hopefully at his old masters and
