all.'
A small warmth of hope unfolded within him, infusing its tender solace through every fiber of his being until he near sang with the relief of it. Of a sudden, he clasped her from the side as she sat, an awkward honest embrace filled with the smell of her, feeling just how wastedly thin the mighty Branden Rose was made by her lahzarine organs.
Startled by his action, Europe held her hands up in surprise, relented and held him in return with those same graceful hands. Releasing him quickly, she made a wry face. 'A delicious irony, do you not think, little man, that it is you who has won my affections… A pretty paradox to figure through.'
Rossamund smiled happily. 'Aye.'
The fulgar nodded briefly, yes, yes. 'Mind on the knave now,' she declared more firmly. 'We have lesser creatures to find today.' To aid the course for the secreted evil, Monsiere Trottinott had sent for his squires and parmisters, parcel-holders and various tenant farmers who worked his historied franchise. By midmorning, when Rossamund emerged on the heels of the Branden Rose, most of these various heads and local men of import were gathered in the square before the enormous manor, with others yet arriving by horse, cart or carriage. Most were dressed in frock coat and longshanks-the usual country-gentry attire.Yet a few were decked in more peculiar garb of voluminous white sleeves under proofed vests of red or black, deep brown or gray, and thick high-waisted skirts striped vertically and across with bands of brown and black or brown and blue, wearing their own hair long and pulled back with broad black ribbons. Piltmen chiefs, the Monsiere quietly called them, 'the descendants of the original folk that once prospered in the lands about before my sires came.' Keeping apart, these chiefs spoke to each other with the same strange lilting song in their words that many of the Trottinotts' servants shared and stared at Europe with guarded wonder. 'Our Bright Lady Schurmer,' they dubbed her, and honored her with many solemn bows.
A table had been brought out and placed with plush chairs amid the graceful trees of the wooded park in the middle of the grounds. Here Europe sat, proofed in her usual scarlet harness, sucking on rock salt and sipping agrapine as the warming sun eased over the high roof of the main manor. She looked like a queen holding court as showy country gents and shy taciturn laborers took their turn to tell her what they knew.
For his part, Rossamund was given the role of amanuensis, writing with a stylus all pertinent evidence into the Branden Rose's ubiquitous ledger. The details he accumulated were little different from the particulars related by the Monsiere himself last night: nocturnal commotions; vines ruined; sheep sucked dry of their humours; night- watching men attacked, bruised and half strangled. There was confusion about the number of their foe: some said a great swarming many; others told of a lone giant. Together they were unable to give a more substantial description than black, slimy and prodigious great thew.
'They… it… is gettin' bolder, miss!' a ruddy laboring parmister attested. 'Waylaid us in our homes in the storm last night; hammerin' and hissin' and tryin' to tear out the bars of our winders. We already toil hard on the common diems, wi'out being made to risk on our rightful vigil…'
'Monsters seldom observe the scales of rest,' Europe answered grandly, 'and-good fortune for you-neither do I.'
'They seem to have a taste fer soured milk, ma'am…,' one bashful fellow with sad eyes and a fluttering, nervous smile volunteered, telling rapidly of night after night where pails holding milk on the turn were upset or drunk dry.
'Then that shall be our lure!' The fulgar clapped her hands just once. 'Monsiere Trottinott, I shall need dishes of the stuff before the day is out… And perhaps-if you will allow it-some drops of sheep's blood with it as a further incentive.'
'Surely, my lady.'
The parmisters and landholders murmured in approbation as the meeting was concluded and dispersed.
Trottinott beamed in pleasure at them, Europe and the world in general. Ahh, my problem is solved! was writ clear across his genial dial.
A pair of Trottinott's servants as their guides, Fransitart and Craumpalin went by one of the Monsiere's dozen carriages to Angas Welcome to retain any pathprys or other lurking fellows they could discover. Remaining at the manor to prepare, Europe and Rossamund took an early lunch with the family, supping in a modest but excellently appointed room attached to an enormous golden dining hall.
With the glow of good food in belly, Rossamund rode with Europe and Trottinott in the landaulet, driven-with the fulgar's permission-by one of the Monsiere's own men, the Monsiere himself well proofed and armed with a long-rifle richly ornamented with curling pearlescent devices. After much boyish persistence Autos had been allowed to come too, to the howling dismay of his little brother and clinging apprehension of his mother. Solemn-faced and harnessed like his father, the heir of Patredike now sat across from Rossamund, staring at him owlishly as they were taken down to a place called Scantling Aire. A small settlement of shepherds, vineyardists and hurtlemen, it was a bare few miles to the north and the site of the previous night's theroscade.
'Have you slayed many nickers?' Autos finally spoke, his voice stiff with contained intensity. He looked straight at the young factotum with serious, gray-blue eyes.
'I-ah-aye, some few…,' Rossamund admitted after a small, sad breath. A memory of Threnody attempting to wit snarling, slavering nickers on the road before flashed unpleasantly in his thoughts.
The other boy's expression went wide, How can a boy my own age have already killed a nicker! obvious on his face.
For a moment Rossamund had an inkling of how peculiar he might look clad in his heavy proofing and laden with stoups and digitals like a proper skold.
'Where was this, young sir?' the Monsiere interjected, betraying no little amazement himself in his quizzically frowning mien.
'Ah… Out Bleak Lynche way, sir… on the Conduit Vermis,' he added.
'Ahh, yes. I have heard some fluttering rumor that speaks of disquiet among the therian over that way,' Trottinott observed. 'I wonder if it bears any connection with our own distress.'
'Perhaps,' came Europe's soft reply.
Scantling Aire consisted of four round towers arranged in a square, the spaces between closed with a tall fence of stone and iron. Smilingly self-sufficient, the local parmister in plain gray soutaine greeted them in the iron- girded yard between these four tall cottages. They were quickly joined by many tired, solemn-eyed women dressed in white bagged sleeves and long-hemmed bibs of gray or brown, and ruddy barefoot children clad in sacklike smocks regardless of gender. These were the sheepwives and their bantlings-amiable enough, yet their hospitality was diminished by a deep fatigue.
There were, however, no other men.
Introduced as Master Parfait, the parmister was a windy, posturing, rooster of a man. He showed Europe about his tiny constituency with all the self-satisfaction of the sole male among a throng of frightened women.
'The men are all out in field or sleeping,' Parfait explained to his lofty lady guest. 'Some brave fellow has to keep eyes out for these lonesome ladies.'
Rossamund looked away to hide his sour face.
'I am sure their menfolk have much to say about your bravery,' Europe returned coldly.
The smug fellow's countenance fell. 'Well… They… I-uh…' He spluttered and blundered to silence and was ignored forevermore.
In a flurry of curtsies and breathless 'M'lady's!' the sheepwives were nevertheless reluctant to sacrifice a sheep to the demands of a fulgar.Yet, with some quiet encouragement from Trottinott, they singled out a young beast from the domestic pen. To their relief, Europe required only a little of its ichor let run into a bucket from a small hole pricked in its neck, and the life of the bewildered hogget was spared.
At the fulgar's instruction, this bucket of gore, two pails of soured sheep's milk and an armful of pudding basins were hefted by a quarto of doughty wives, carried outside of Scantling Aire's wall and about it to the meadow behind. This procession-Europe, Rossamund, the Monsiere and his son, and the senior-most wives of the village-was joined by children crowding and shouting and running after them as if it were a summerscale vigil.
Europe put Rossamund to work under the giggling gaze of the fascinated children peeking from the shade of
