Rossamund wrestled the urge to interrupt and demand of Numps' fate.
'With only a lone epimelain to do the work with me-a dear girl who had stayed faithful through all the Master-of-Clerks' depredations-I sorted those who could walk out and those who needed carrying. Swill, the dog, would not help. Absent for the whole of last month, he had returned only a day or so before, come back from some dark errand, little doubt…'
Europe stirred on her tandem. 'Little doubt, indeed…,' she said.
'Coming from some hidden nook, he was clutching a wad of books and documentation. 'They're in the kitchen!' he was crying. 'In the slypes!' and kept uttering like a man in fever, 'He sent them! I do not know how, but that blighted child is having his revenge!' Who this child might be, I can only conjecture…'
Rossamund could not be sure, but he thought he saw the physician's harried regard flick to him ever so quickly.
'Swill useless, I sent the poor epimelain to get some other, sturdier help, but, alas!' The anguish on Crispus' face was distressingly candid. 'She did not return…' He closed his eyes against foul memory. 'If I had waited but a minute more, she would still be with us, for somehow in all the woe, our most wondrous Lady Dolours appeared, to pluck us all from the very clutches of doom. She and her columbines and that young Threnody lass you were chums with, Rossamund, had lurked a veritable army of nickers only days before: a great hoard come out from the east and north, bent on Winstermill, plundering cot and field as they drew closer.' He took a deep breath and his aspect grew tight. 'With the very advent of these doughty damsels a great frenzy of bogles spilled from the Kitchen Ends into the infirmary; swarthy, hirsute toadlike things right in the heart of impregnable Winstermill. Hard were the calendars pressed to keep us safe and lead us out, trying to bring that rascal Swill with them. But afraid of the calendars as much as he was of the bogles, he ran from the infirmary, raving like a mad man, 'I'm not the one you want! I'm not the one you want!''
A knock and Kitchen arrived with glasses of refreshingly dilute claret complete with pulped pear for them all.
'The brave calendars defended the sick even as they carried them from the manse proper,' Crispus continued after a lengthy sip. 'Out in the Broad Hall by the infirmary I caught my last glimpse of the clerk-master. Sans wig, he was among his troubardiers-and Laudibus Pile with him-all defending a stack of furniture and books set across the doors from the Broad Hall to the Ad Lineam, shooting pistols and fusils and jabbing their spittendes at the squabbling rabble of hobnickers beyond. Where the black-eyed witting fellow that Podius brought in was at, I do not know; I felt his work twice or thrice but never caught sight of him.' He took another drink. 'Winning out onto the Grand Mead, we found the Feuterers' Cottage and the gatehouse blazing torches. By this wicked light I saw the once-impassable gates thrown open and stormed by obscure beslimed things surging from the dense grasses of the Harrowmath. A great battle was unfolding on the grounds where we had paraded so often and boasted of our impregnability. Yet in the violence I could plainly see that it was no simple massacre; I witnessed monster at fight with monster!'
'Frogs and toads!' Craumpalin exclaimed quietly.
'Indeed, sir. As some sought to destroy men, so others strove to defend us. I have never known the like-I always thought the nicker universally black-hearted-as I know you shall agree, Madam Fulgar.'
Rossamund looked to the floor to hide a frown.
The Duchess-in-waiting simply nodded.
'Fighting a path through the hoots and howls and caterwauling harassments,' Crispus pressed on, 'the calendars seemed well learned in the distinction between friend and foe. The Lady Dolours was a wild thing, dashing here and there and laying all blighted beasts flat before her with equal measure of smokes and striving. Young Threnody too did her part, supporting the hurt, throwing back nickers when she had need-she seemed better at her witting than her poor reputation led me to believe.' He gave a quick, sad look to Rossamund. 'All about I could feel what I believe some call threwd, a great swaying contest of it. If I did not know any better, I might have said it was as if two wills of clear and contrary intent were contending against each other: malice coming from north and east, benevolence from the south.
'I watched a vasty brute-born of logs and barks and sticks and wider than it was tall-flail against a band of grinning things. On the Forming Square an umbergog with the head of some malformed ram stood in a deadly bout against an absurdly enormous, bloated pillboy, all hunched and heavy in its swollen insect shell; who fought for whom I could not discern. The lighters who could united with us in our exodus, picking up the infirm that dying calendars dropped. Ahh, what unhappiness, Rossamund, to run from calls of pain, not to them. Before us scourge Josclin fell beneath an ettin's stomp even as his chemistry burned the thing to its death. Brave Josclin-he performed marvels that night… Songs should be made of him… We found Swill too… Or, rather, what remained of him.'The physician drew a hand across his brow. 'Though his head remained whole, his members were torn asunder with such careless savagery that I believe not even the most skilled massacar could put him back together again.'
Uncertain of what he felt, Rossamund closed his eyes. The end of a foe-especially such a terrible and pitiless end-was not necessarily the great victory he had supposed it might be. It was instead a melancholy kind of relief; a threat was lifted but its consequences remained.
'The overweaning massacar missteps at last,' Europe murmured with evident satisfaction.
'It's a pity the nickers di'n't get to 'im before 'e got to spreadin' 'is conjecturings over 'ere,' Fransitart added darkly.
'They tried, Master Frans,' said Rossamund quietly, thinking bitterly of the poor doomed Herdebog Trought trying to rend its way into Winstermill, and the destruction of Wormstool. 'They tried…'
A dull thump of luggage fumbled by Wenzel the footman out in the vestibule hall gave the physician a cruel start.
'I reckon thee might do well to unbrace thyself with a nice calmer,' Craumpalin offered quietly, leg raised on a tandem. 'I could test thee bestill liquor if thee likes.'
'Indeed, sir; or perhaps Dew of Imnot might do me better, if you know how it goes-kinder upon my stomach,' Crispus concurred solemnly. 'I'll have out with my recounting, then take a draught after.'
Rossamund could stand it no longer. 'But what of Numps?'
'Yes, yes, my boy.' The physician adjusted his spectacles. 'I was just coming to that. He is well, that I will say.' He took a breath. 'Where was I? Ah! Such a wild hooting and bellowing was pressing at every hand, and the very air assaulted us with dark and dreadful thoughts. As mighty as the Lady Dolours undoubtedly is, she and Threnody and their surviving sister columbines appeared to falter. A dark and awful form stood at the gate, head ducked under the arch, a horned and thorny beast of wicked antiquity. Gathephar, one of the calendars called it in her dread.'
Those other monsters that Grammaticus fellow in Pour Clair wrote of must have called it away to join the assault! Doubly glad they had not found this dread monster themselves, Rossamund glanced to Europe, who remained attentive to the doctor's telling.
'Slavering, it reached for us, swatting Dolours aside. Smaller wretchers dashed among us. I was thrown to the ground-which is where I suspect this'-the doctor wagged his bandaged arm, his voice rising in the passion of his recounting-'occurred. We were in danger of being eliminated where we stood! Quite suddenly, all oppressions and griefs were lifted as if by some mighty though kindly hand. Something small burst through us from behind, clad in fine coat, processing greatly distended sparrow's head upon his shoulders. I thought us finally undone.'
'Cinnamon!' Rossamund breathed excitedly. How fast and far must the nuglung prince have traveled to be present for the assault? How did he ever know it was going to happen?
'Indeed it was, my friend!' Crispus exclaimed in his very own amazement. 'As I later learned. Such a diminutive creature, yet it sprang readily at this Gathephar, leaping so very high to strike at the monstrous thing with a long spittende, driving the Gathephar back after many fierce blows, to send it howling through the gate and away. For a moment the tide of baskets fell away. Delivered, we hurried out from that perishing fortress, this Cinnamon aiding Dolours, who still lived despite her buffeting.To our enduring delight we were joined by an assembly of survivors, women and children and various staff fleeing from the Low Gutter-and who do you think should be at their lead?' He paused as if seeking an answer.
His listeners just blinked at him expectantly.
