down to a dormer window that looked west onto a field of vibrant stars and black land. Rossamund found that a simple wool-stuffed pallet had been laid for him on the floor at the foot of a remarkably downy boxed bed where Europe reclined still fully harnessed, already sighing in the depth of easy sleep. In the fresh of the morning, Fransitart and Craumpalin arrived by the Monsiere's coach midway through breakfast and treacle testing, their relief at Rossamund's well-being evident in their gruff greetings. Accompanying them were three hard-looking fellows in woodland-hued proofing of leather and buff, animal pelts draped over their shoulders. They bore barbed boar-spears and elegant fusils with muzzles fashioned in the form of snarling bestial mouths. These were peltrymen from Lambingstone-or so they said of themselves-working the folds of Broad Trim and happy to accept the lucrative terms offered by Europe through her two crusty mediums. The eldest of them spoke for all with a thick accent Rossamund at first found hard to follow. Introducing himself as Quietis Furrow, he first presented his brother, Agitis Furrow, and then their young prentice, Bodkin Ease, who wore an olfactologue upon his face much like the box of a sthenicon except that it covered only his mouth and nose. Buff-brown faces clenched in permanent squint beneath greasy, battered tricorns, they greeted the Branden Rose and the Monsiere with deep, frowning nods that did for a bow and listened silently, expressions sharp, shadowed eyes bright to the recounting of the night.
'Thee can keep thy dollars and scruples, missus, till job's did done,' Quietis Furrow said when part of their fee was offered. 'That'n way thee'll know we 'tend to see this all right through to satisfaction.'
Europe happily accepted this, saying, 'Your integrity is laudable, sir.'
'Hark!' Trottinott declared warmly. 'Happy the day spent dealing with straight country lads. A boon on those who found you!'
Fransitart and Craumpalin limited their display of satisfaction at this approbation to a slight puffing of the chest.
The three peltrymen were provoked to the slightest surprise when shown a single sap, spiked now to the inside gate post. Stretched as it was from the spike, it still kept much of its structure: fat in its middle, tapering to either end, its spiny sucking mouth sagging viscously from the lower termination, the disturbingly fleshy pallor of the gums a stark contrast to the glistening black hide. No eyes were evident, just a series of holes open to the air and running down every quarter of the creature. Orange ooze leaked from the bullet wound and the spike hole, and the whole thing smelled oddly flat, almost odorless but for a fetid hint like rotting kelp washed on a shore.
'Looks like a smaller kind of them siphunculus beasties we fought off Langoland, 'ey, Pin?' Fransitart observed quietly.
The old dispenser nodded sagely.
'A right squirmerly bull-beggar,' the younger Furrow brother muttered dourly.
'I reckon I made out a reddleman cove yesterday, while Pin an' me were on th' look for these 'ere fellows,' Fransitart went on to report. ''E was much like th' one ye exchanged a word with back at Spelter Innings, Rosey me lad. But it can't 'ave been, for 'ow could the ruddy fellow 'ave got ahead o' us already on only feet, an' pushin' a cart?'
Rossamund frowned. Surely this was more than coincidence or mistaken identities.
'Hmm, most perplexing, Master Vinegar,' Europe said airily, but, preoccupied with the saps and the course ahead, she offered nothing more.
Advised by the still-sulking Parfait-now restored to his weapon-that the meadows were unfit for carriages, the landaulet was left and Craumpalin and Fransitart with it. The ex-dormitory master was well displeased with this arrangement, but his old friend was resolute.
'Thy joints will not suffer such wearing, Frans,' Craumpalin scolded. 'Thee daren't want to be laid up and useless by unneedful confustication to thy joints.'
To this Fransitart only growled.
A billy-pot, faggots, kindling and a tinderbox were provided in a burlap sack for boiling Europe's treacle. After a quiet word of encouragement from his old masters, Rossamund fixed his vent better about his throat, ordered his stoups, reloaded the flammagon, stowed food in his satchel, shouldered waterskins, and stood ready to go.
The creased foreheads of the peltrymen creased only slightly more at Rossamund's inclusion in the course.
Taken out back to the scene of the adventure, Quietis Furrow and his colleagues quickly picked the faintly slimed slot, a metallic gossamer shimmer scarcely detectable among the spring-fresh grass.
'Thy worms are cunning baskets,' Quietis informed the half circle of watchers. 'They squirm out in line wit' each other to keep their count a secret, yet e'en wit' so many they barely trouble a blade or weed.'
Like a pack of slothounds eager for the chase, the peltrymen set off. With a strange lift of excitement in his belly, Rossamund paced after, Europe close behind.
Quick and sure, the Furrow brothers kept well ahead, peering at the ground, sometimes bent almost double in their search, Bodkin Ease turning his boxy snout left and right to catch every scent, but seldom slackening stride.The path of the worms was unerring, almost directly east to the sunken land Rossamund had spied from the ridge-caps last night. The peltrymen spoke of older or lesser trails meandering off north and south into the green folds, of running shepherds, of lame sheep among a flock of a hundred, but the freshest drag was ever east.
Europe gave a grim smile at this intelligence. 'How happy for us that they are so single-minded.'
When the sun was at its highest, they lunched in the warm day on cold helpings provided by the cottagers, sitting by a stile over a drystone wall beneath a lone apple tree, young and straight with a thick white coat of full- blooming blossom. About them, all manner of bugs hummed and bumbled, curious of the food. The peltrymen exchanged muttered tidings and kept to themselves but for a brief report that the trail passed over the wall.
Much to Europe's increasing disgust, the day remained gloriously blue and clear except for a high mist of ice. The vermid trail took them far out into uncultivable eastern fields until the land began to lean downward by slight degrees, granting a low vista of the dark expanse of brown bog ahead, the sunken region Rossamund had seen the previous evening from the roof of Scantling Aire. A rank vegetable stink increased with its proximity, until Bodkin Ease was forced to remove his olfactologue for fear of fainting dead away under the amplified fetor.
Continuing on, the party arrived at the salt-crusted brink of a sodden stretch where the green of spring refused to take. A gray heron sprang to wing at their approach, interrupted in its hunt for slimy wriggling morsels and giving a soft remonstrating croak as it circled over them and away.
'This here be the Pout, missus,' Quietis somberly informed them, pushing his tricorn back on his pate. 'It is the sink for the Foist stream yonder north.' He pointed vaguely after the retreating heron. 'Folks di'n' come here a- much on the count of it being too unwelcoming, though we've had good trapping on its edges up by Angas Welcome.'
'And the slot takes us in?' Europe inquired.
'That it does, missus.'
'Then let us keep to it.'
'Even in this lately-ing part o' day?'
'Even then… Lead on, man.'
The gluey track of the saps paid little heed to the miry obstacles and sludgy pits that hindered the way of their human-framed pursuers. Where young Bodkin Ease had been allowed to lead the lurk on easy pastures, the elder Furrow now took over. With admirable patience the peltryman directed them around every boggy impediment, always keeping to firmer ground until he found the trail again, holding to the course until the next puddle diverted them. Several times Rossamund managed to slip on swampier soil, griming hands and stockinged knees, once sinking to the hem of his longshanks in flesh-colored murk, yanking his leg out violently when he felt an all-too-lively slithering about his shin.
Back to the mud from where I did come…
'Do try, dear Rossamund, not to soil your harness,' Europe chided almost smirkingly. Somehow, she always managed to pick a surer path and never once looked even slightly troubled by the difficult route.
As the westering sun drooped below gray strips of low cloud, they neared a gloomy hollow, and Rossamund spotted figures in long robes well away to their left, crouched and furtive, running north with many a backward glance out of the depression. Although it was impossible to be sure, Rossamund had the impression they were wearing white masks.
'They surely di'n' want to be met with,' Quietis observed.
Europe watched the receding runners narrowly.
'No,' she said slowly. 'They surely do not.'
