realized that Fransitart was just in shirt and weskit, that he was carrying his heavy frock coat and the long shirtsleeve on his left arm-his puncted arm-was loose. 'Master Frans…'
With a look to the door, the dormitory master drew back the cloth of his sleeve and bared the pallid flesh on the underside of his forearm. 'It's showed itself, lad…'
There, marked by the butcher Grotius Swill during the inquest at Winstermill, and clean of any scab, was a small, scarce-begun cruorpunxis of faint red-brown lines-a monster-blood tattoo made from Rossamund's very own blood.
For a moment the young factotum simply stared at the incomplete figure. In the short time he had been afforded to work before Europe's intervention, Swill had still managed to mark what was recognizably a curling brow, a whorled eye and a nose. He was barely surprised to see it revealed, yet something within Rossamund still knotted, bringing with it a peculiar sense of dislocation, of observing himself as if from without.
'Ahh… I'm sorry, Rossamund,' Fransitart murmured, shaking his venerable head as if he were at fault, quickly concealing the pristine cruorpunxis again under his sleeve.
Rossamund drew in deeply of the delicately scented air of the room. 'I already know…,' he breathed, a disconcerting ringing setting in his ears.
Craumpalin nodded sagely. 'I can't say I am in any stretch flabbergasted meself, lad.'
'No,' the young factotum persisted. Time to be out with it all, time to trust these faithful men as good as fathers… 'A monster-lord told me so.'
'A monster-lord?'
'Where, lad? Out in the Paucitine?'
'No.' Rossamund closed his eyes. 'In the Moldwood in Brandenbrass… The Duke of Rabbits…'
'In the middle of a city!' Fransitart bridled. 'Surely the line of dukes would've had a battalion of pugilists in there quick as levin to winkle it out?'
'It is too mighty for that, Master Frans. Most of the whole city doesn't fathom it's there. They never have, and I reckon they never will…'15
'Sparrows! Rabbits!' Fransitart exclaimed softly. 'Brace me to a mizzenmast tree, what else be out there?'
'More'n common folk would reckon upon,' Craumpalin replied knowingly, tapping his vinegar-scarred temple.
Rossamund let out a long and shuddering sigh.
The ex-dormitory master gripped him firmly by the arms and held him in his narrow, wondering gaze.
As unlikely and bizarre as it was, Rossamund was not just some causeless aberration; real though occult processes had brought him to be. He had been formed by ancient unsullied forces, a child of the threwd, of the very earth.
Suddenly, the young factotum flung himself into the old salt's grasp, Fransitart gathering him in to clasp him close and hard, somehow managing to smother him with his thin, still-strong arms. With a great gust of tears muffled in the rough stale proofing of the old salt's weskit, Rossamund poured out the weight and agony of it all.
'If ye were knit of me own stuff, boy, I could not love ye better!' Fransitart whispered.
'Aye, lad…,' Craumpalin's emotion-cracking murmur confirmed.
Fransitart released him from his paternal embrace and he looked at his masters squarely. In return the two vinegaroons regarded him in wonder.
'Well, let's have a squint at thy trunk,' said Craumpalin matter-of-factly, finally breaking the tender quiet. He held up his own satchel with its brews and bandages. 'All gone,' he marveled as Rossamund submitted to the scrutiny. 'Nought left but slight bruemes.'
Indeed, where livid bruises had covered half his ribs only two days ago there were but faint shades of the old contusions.
'Tend thy pumps and tell me if it hurts…'
Obediently, Rossamund took a deep breath… Barely a twinge.
'Thee always was a prodigious quick healer,' Craumpalin said knowingly, patting him in fatherly fashion on the crown.
'Wish I could say the same,' Fransitart muttered sardonically, bending with a wince at the hips. He fixed Rossamund with a determined eye. 'We'll 'ave to be showin' me mark to yer mistress, lad,' he said with old masterly firmness.
Rossamund returned his gaze reluctantly. What he was afraid of he did not know… Europe's rejection? Her fury?
'She surely fathoms it's comin',' Fransitart pressed. 'Prob'ly been countin' th' days…'
'Aye,' Craumpalin added. 'A spoiled tooth is best pulled quick.'
Fransitart nodded, hmming in solidarity.
The young factotum smiled for but a moment; then, innards knitting, he finished dressing and firmed his courage to face his mistress with this final and unavoidable proof. By the guidance of the Patredike's amiable servants Rossamund went to the kitchen in the main house to test the morning's plaudamentum. He brewed with a distant and instinctive care while his old masters waited unobtrusively in an adjacent parlor, sipping sillabub made straight from the cow. When the draught was done, they were shown upstairs down a golden hall carpeted with blue and lined with tall alabaster urns fashioned after some ancient style. Rossamund's footfalls were a grim echo to the apprehensive pounding in his ears as they approached the eggshell-blue door of the temporary boudoir of the heiress of Naimes.
Gritting his teeth, Rossamund knocked-faintly first, firmer second-and entered.
In a suite of white ceiling and walls striped deep rose and pale geranium Europe was breakfasting alone. Already fully harnessed, she sat in a high chair by a thin-legged table, staring out the enormous windows to the panorama of half-lit vineyards and a sky scoured clean by the night's tempest. Appearing at ease in the friendly light of the full-fledged dawn, she barely acknowledged Rossamund or the two old men as she took her morning dose in its flute glass, shifting slightly in her seat, not turning her head.
'Miss Europe, Master Frans' mark has shown… It is a… cruorpunxis.' Frowning, Rossamund held his breath.
In verification, Fransitart stepped forward and turned his sleeve to show the underside of his forearm.
Uttering a quiet unamazed 'hmph,' the fulgar barely cast a glance at the proffered limb. 'It turns that our foe the dastard surgeon has correctly surmised your origin after all, little man,' she said evenly as she sipped her plaudamentum, keeping her attention fixed on the vista.
Fransitart and Craumpalin retreated from the room.
'So rossamunderlings are truly real…,' Europe murmured, as if to herself. 'Your strength is not just some happy aberration… An unterman in service to a teratologist…' Finally she turned to behold him fully, her expression tight yet eyes inquiring.
He held her searching stare unflinchingly, hoping-aching-for her to take him just as he was.
She blinked slowly, bitter perceptions roiling in the depths of her gaze. 'You worry I might fly into a rage? Slay you where you stand?' Her voice was low and dangerous. 'And after this collect my prize at the closest knavery so to be held a savior for defending goodly folks from a most insidious trickery?'
Shrinking from her, Rossamund was not at all certain what he thought. 'I…'
The fulgar's mien clouded. Draining the dregs of her draught, she stared again out the window. Steepling her fingers, she pressed the foremost to her lips. 'I am not entirely the thoughtless invidist you might suppose me, Rossamund. I slay the monster out of need, out of right, out of…' She hesitated.
Rossamund stared in awe at her unfamiliar confusion.
'I slay the monster because long ago a silly hoyden, too well used to good living and in flight from her mother, sought to make much money where much money was to be made. Dazzled by the great prizes offered to teratologists, she mindlessly chose the knaving life and, being slight and terribly silly, thought a fulgar would be the best and simplest kind. No need for aptitude or muscle, just point and zzick! It has served her well, protecting her from monsters without the city and those within…' She closed her hazel eyes as if against some dark memory. When she opened them again, they were clear, determined. Reaching out, she touched his arm with surprising tenderness. 'Nothing changes, Rossamund. You are my factotum, I am your mistress; the plot thickens, that is
