'That is a fine wee bird on your skull, young sir,' Plume suddenly said to him, nodding to Darter Brown. 'Is it properly… trained?' he asked frankly. 'Guano about the house and down one's back is not a good show, I would think.'
Rossamund blinked. He had never given the notion any thought. 'I do not know, sir. He came to me out of the wilds just as he is.'
'It is a rare thing for a fellow to have such a spontaneously loyal creature,' Plume observed shrewdly. 'You are fortunate to be held in this regard… He may share a perch with Pig if he wishes'-Plume indicated the daw-'should he need.'
Pig, the pied daw, blinked at hearing its name.
'Uh… Aye, sir…'
'Mister Plume, you are vaunted as a man of many parts,' Europe interjected after further brief pleasantries, taking a high-backed seat before the man's spreading desk. 'Do you recognize this?' She produced the four-barred mask of the Featherhead chieftain, its fastening ribbons trailing from it. 'Its owner was among our attackers.' She gave a brief account of the ambush, shifting a little painfully in her seat as she made mention of blows delivered and received.
'Mmm, mighty deeds done at our very door.' Plume chuckled gravely, tilting his head knowledgeably, turning the mask over and over. 'Still, a good neighbor is better than a distant relative, and any soul in sore need sorely needs a neighbor! You are healing, m'lady?'
'As well as pith allows,' she replied with an impatient twirl of her fingers. 'What of the mask, sir?'
The genial fellow blinked tolerantly at her. 'This, good lady, is the dial of a Grammaticar of a sept of the Seven Seven cult.' He paused as if the gravity of his statement was obvious. 'The Seven Seven are of the worst false-god adorants; worshippers of Sucathes, ruthless and bloodthirsty and all that… Fond of entering into a fight drunk on sanguinary draughts…'
Little wonder then they were so heedless! Rossamund's thoughts must have shown on his face, for Plume beamed at him gratefully, glad to have affected at least one of his listeners.
'They are bad company to have at your tail, I am afraid, m'dear,' Plume continued, 'and here you have gone and done in one of their most senior members.' He paused. 'It ought be hoped you have annihilated this local sept, else they will come, hunt and find you…'
'I am not agitated by some local fictlers, sir,' Europe replied, unmoved.
'Ah, yes, of course…Your confidence does you credit, madam; you are an ornament to your profession!' The historian cleared his throat. 'As for the wildmen you describe, they are most likely to be the Widden-or so they call themselves, after their forebears. They are eastern Piltdowners, still embittered a thousand years on at the conquests of the Burgundians, of the Tutelarchs, of their western and southern Pilt brethren, using long history as an excuse for all kinds of brigandry…'
'I hope we have not brought undue threat to your house, Mister Plume,' Rossamund said in increasing concern.
The historian smiled. 'Master Cannelle will have brought you unobserved and unfollowed. If it comes to it, we have seen such as them off before.'
'You fought bandits from this house, sir?' Rossamund gaped.
Gentleman Plume gave him a knowing wink. 'I believe Mister Gutter, our resident playwright and sometime composer, is attempting to work a variety of the salient event into his second operetta.'
Europe smiled patiently. 'And the heavy warriors in the horn-ed casques?'
'Tungid viskiekduzar,' the historian said without hesitation. 'From Dzik on the southernmost edges of Heilgolund!' He sniffed and shook his head. 'The Widden! The Seven Seven! Fistdukes!' He let the import of this list linger, a grim and learned grimace twitching on his lips.
'And that reddleman,' Rossamund inserted.
'Reddleman?' Plume's eyes sparkled bemusedly.
'Yes,' Europe answered with a heavy sigh. 'An agent of my foes, I would expect, disguised as a madder dye- seller.'
'While we went by carriage,' the young factotum expanded, 'he was on foot pushing a cart, yet he kept watch on us the whole way from Brandenbrass to the ambush.'
'Ahh, likely a brinksman,' Plume said knowingly, adding at Rossamund's obvious bafflement, 'a person who uses sanguinary draughts to an extreme so they might do such feats as chase a horse and carriage all across a parish and back.' He returned his sagacious attention to the Duchess-in-waiting. 'You have certainly locked horns with someone possessing substantial grasp, Lady Rose!'
'Indeed, sir,' the fulgar returned.
Plume drew in a noisy breath. 'Still, in it all, it is a most fortunate thing to have the friendship of so blithely and potent a fellow as Cannelle.'
Europe crooked her spoored brow and regarded Plume with narrow calculation.
The historian gave a gentle cough. 'Dare I ask how you of all the people in the world, gracious Lady Rose, came to gain it? Or,' he said hastily before Europe-her eyes flashing dangerously-could catch a breath to answer, 'if I may say, it comes as only small surprise, if the peculiar rumors of you that have made it even to us are to be countenanced…'
Europe bridled. 'The set of my heart is mine alone to know, sir.' She looked long at Plume. 'It is clear you yourself are not to be troubled by such rumors.'
'Indeed not, ma'am,' the gentleman replied with a long, affirming nod. 'And, if I might, m'lady, neither, it appears, are you…'
A bitter smile fluttered on Europe's lips. 'Events of recent months have allowed me to consider anew the possible finer distinctions of monster-kind…'
'Ahh, yes.' The historian nodded musingly. 'The teratological complot-teratologists who seek to serve man and monster both.'
The fulgar's gaze narrowed. 'It would be a… mistake, sir, to state my position so blankly.'
'Oh…' Gentleman Plume quickly schooled his mien to something a little less knowing. Repose quickly returning, the fellow leaned back in this chair. 'How-be-it, if Master Cannelle associates with you so readily, then so shall we… Please continue as our most honored guests in this our modest haven of learning and enlightenment for as long as you have need.' In the bright cool of a clear afternoon, Amonias Silence and Spedillo returned from a morning excursion in their small sturdy carriage to the scene of the ambuscade, there to retrieve what they might of the four adventurers' chattels.
'We call the place Step Dribble,' Mister Silence explained, giving his account to the Duchess-in-waiting as she reclined with Rossamund and Fransitart before the fire in her vasty guest room. 'It is an obvious site for a trap, m'lady-by all evidence it was a mighty fight,' he said with a pointed look of admiration to his listeners as Spedillo hauled in a trunk.
The fulgar nodded graciously.
'I am sorry to report that there were scant pickings,' Silence went on. 'Just the heaviest trunks and a farrago of matchwood that may once have been a fine cart of expensive fit. All of it has been picked over, horses and tackle taken, the fallen gone… We were desirous to remain and investigate but were encouraged to egress at the advent of several sullen, thick-browed gents, most probably associates of your original assailants,' he concluded ominously. 'I am sorry I could not be more illuminating.'
With an uncurling of her fingers, Europe dismissed the fellow with a soft, 'I thank you, sir.' That evening Europe and Fransitart and Rossamund were invited to join Gentleman Plume and the rest of the household in a 'grand supper,' or so he named it. Going by back stairs, Rossamund squeezed among the steaming and savory bustle of the kitchen-on the cusp of serving the first remove-to test. It was slow going, his hands stiff and unresponsive, but he got the treacle made. He returned via those same servants' steps to find his mistress already gone down to dine, and Fransitart with her. Craumpalin was left to sleep, chin to bosom, hoary beard lying out along his chest.
A biggin of plaudamentum in hand and changed into a glossy suit recovered from the wreck, Rossamund
