Yet many of the most elevated, however happy they were of their release from their distress, seemed to evince veiled yet supercilious disapproval of their deliveress. Rossamund was sure he caught several disdainful gazes sent Europe's way by the congregations of gloriously refined women that collected between each dance. With such creatures the Branden Rose, duchess heir or not, would never fit. The young factotum wondered wryly how many of them might have gossiping aunts or sisters or daughters writing them from Brandenbrass.
Such grim turns of mind did not last long against the compelling melodies of the half orchestrato on loan from the Earl of Holly. Turned out in pristine white wigs and gorgeous golden livery, the musicians played almost ceaselessly from an elevated gallery. Beneath them sat a great covered trestle spread with food, its centerpiece a disturbing replica of the sap fashioned in blackberry flummery. Peering at this remote feast hungrily-though keeping his gaze from the flummery-Rossamund became aware of a giggle of young girls assembled among the tall white and blue urns that stood between the windows of the left-hand wall. They were staring at him and bending toward each other to whisper behind pretty hands. He did not know what to do with such attention but redden about the ears and try to keep his show of solemn concentration resolutely on the dizzying sway of merry dancers strutting a saraband so finely across the wide space before him, or on the many glimmeralls bright overhead.
At a lull in the music, a tall girl in a gown of shimmering silvery white, with wood-dark eyes and hair the hue of rare honeycomb, detached herself from her corner of friends and approached, quiet defiance in her mien. Cheeks aflame, Rossamund made to be suddenly and very seriously fixated on somewhere else. Yet his play was foiled, for she stood right beside him and, to his mortal embarrassment, said with many blushes of her own, 'I–I would like it very much, s-sir, if-if you would ask me to-to dance…'
Had it been Threnody before him, she would have made the whole operation simpler by demanding, but he was being asked to ask. In a panic as terrible as one caused by a ravening nicker, Rossamund looked to Europe for help, but she was occupied with the fuss being made of her by some septuagenarian dame in an enormous silver- pink wig. Swallowing hard, Rossamund fumbled and, heart skipping uncomfortably, managed, 'W-would y-you care to dance, miss?'
The girl in shimmering silvery white agreed, of course-though for a moment he madly feared she would not- and they danced a pavane, just once and not very well, treading on each other in equal measure. Near dumb with awe, he thought her the most splendid being he had ever encountered and kept blinking at her rosy face and sparkling auburn eyes. All through their turn they spoke little beyond soft apologies, and at the conclusion separated with only awkward thank-yous, Rossamund never discovering her name. Harnesses laundered and properly dried, prizes paid-including treasures of gratitude for Fransitart and Craumpalin from the Monsiere's much-vaunted cellars, and for Rossamund the silvery suit he had worn the night before-the four left the Patredike the next morning.
Just south of Broom Holm, Fransitart was directed to take a lesser yet straighter way to Luthian Glee, 'The quicker to Pour Clair and our next prize,' Europe explained.
Too soon the quality of road failed, the ruts made by overladen wagons and drays often so deep that the landaulet's axles near scraped the ground. In the rain-shadow of the low ranges, the land was stony and dry, covered more and more by olive groves and apple orchards tended by cheerful, singing bough dressers as it rolled up gradually to the gloomy hills ahead.
'Folks are said to disappear all too often in them there mounds,' Craumpalin said, low and serious.
'We shall have to make certain we are not among them, sha'n't we?' the fulgar returned lightly, chewing on a whortleberry. 'We have actually crossed into the merry parishes of Fayelillian,' she explained. 'I believe, Rossamund, your once marshal-lighter comes from this land.'
Rossamund took in the scene with greater curiosity, wondering bitterly if the Lamplighter-Marshal, the Earl of Fayelillian, might win free of the damning political games played in the Considine and return to this, his home.
At day's closing the four travelers found the walled town of Luthian Glee, built over a stream among spires of lichen-scabbed stone and a thin woodland of young myrtles. In the loom of the hills, the town looked very old, the stones of its walls worn and black with mildew, the whole settlement possessing an air of dogged persistence. Yet the heavy-proofed gaters standing warden at a minor gate conducted themselves graciously enough when reviewing nativity patents, and the townsfolk were equally affable, tipping hats to Fransitart and Craumpalin, the old salts doing so in return.
The proprietor of the crowded hostelry, the Alabaster Brow, proved friendliest of all when shown the tint and weight of Europe's coin.
'Our senior suite is reserved particularly for such eminence as your own, good madam.' The boniface smiled with only the merest hesitation at the small diamond spoor above her left brow. Leading them up the many-flighted stairs, the fellow made much of the hostelry's upper room vistas, boasting that it was one of the tallest structures in their humble municipality.
Standing alone upon the modest balcony while the proprietor continued to show away the room's few comforts, Rossamund could not but agree that it did afford an excellent view of the entire eastern sweep of dirty lichened roofs and puffing chimneys and the darksome bluffs rising beyond. The threwd about was all but absent, the place being long settled by everymen. Yet as he continued to watch in the evening hush, Rossamund had the tenuous sensation of the stony hills brooding with watchful unwelcome, an oppressiveness not entirely threwdish. Looking back inside as the proprietor bid them good eve, Rossamund was certain the fellow had given the rise a melancholy look as he left.
'The Witherfells,' Europe declared, joining Rossamund on the undersized perch. 'Our road will take us into them tomorrow. Our next prize, the Gathephar, lairs itself somewhere in their folds. We may need more than peltrymen to pry it out.'
'It might find us,' Rossamund answered, eyeing the hills uncertainly.
'That would certainly make our task simpler.' Marked the Pendlewick on Craumpalin's chart, the way into the Witherfells was empty of even the usual infrequent country traffic as it cut a serpentine path up the blunt heights of corroded stone, their dark flanks streaked with rust, their summits crowned with anciently gaunt myrtle and pine. A feat of historied engineering, the road entered the hills through a great channel carved by hands long dead and disappeared from human record. Flattening as it wound about spurs and gullies, their way crossed the troughs between crags upon narrow stone dykes, the yawning dells thick with trees where unseen birds belled mournfully, their slow cries reverberating in the closeness. A heaviness dwelt in these heights, a nameless dread souring the soul and turning thoughts unhappily inward.
On a lofty pinnacle obscured by rock and tree, Rossamund glimpsed the evidence of a fortification. It seemed to him that there was a remnant path leading to it from the road, and he was possessed with a strong desire to go up and explore.
'It is likely a Burgundian fastness.' Europe answered his inquiry with a mildly didactic tone, chewing on a cold spatchcock greme clumsy supplied from the Monsiere's own larder. 'Built during the subjugation of the monster- worshipping Piltdowners who were said to crowd these hills. This is how my schooldames taught it to me… though it has been some time now since my instruction at Fontrevault.'
'Fontrevault?'
'The sequestury and aplombery of the Right of the Open Hand. My mother boarded me there, little doubt believing that training in the five graces would calm me. She did not, however, account for the bastinado and sagaris also taught there, nor my facility in them… Happy times.' Europe's smile was ironic.
'Ye were lettered with calendars?' Fransitart asked over his shoulder.
'Indeed… and was expelled by them too.' Europe sipped at her wine with an arch and sardonic air. 'It was not much later that I left Naimes for good.'
They moved up into the next crag and the sight of the ruin was lost.
As sour winds blew up from the distant Grume and the day grew gloomy and gray, they came to a ravine crossed by a viaduct known as the Cold Beam Bridge. Two likely fellows in heavy linen smocks were sitting on a large gray rock by the stony post of the bridge, fishing with long poles and even longer twine into the gorge below. There seemed to Rossamund something slightly repellent about them, though he could not say what it was, and neither Europe nor his old masters seemed to heed it.
'Ahoy, mates!' Fransitart slowed the landaulet and hailed them. 'Don't ye know there is a fierce-some bugaboo about?'
'Ahoy ye back, ye salty scoundrel! Ye are far from the treacherous sea!' the older one returned, squinting skeptically at them all from under his wide floppy hat, one eye going only a little wide when he caught a sight of Europe. 'Ye speak of the Gutterfear, little doubt.'
