materially increased. Ah, mistake me not, Master Bookchild! Swill was an unalloyed monster; but truth is truth, whomever alights upon it… If that butchering novice was correct about your nature, then he might well have been correct about how… well, how you came to be, my friend. The power of fecund muds and turgid earths as the source of monstrous life-indeed of all life-was once widely held, especially by the Cathars and the Phlegms, that brilliant foolhardy race without whose learning I would not have a trade… And if he is correct about how they connect to you, well…'
'What, Doctor?'
'If they have it right, then surely it can only mean that in your members dwell the secrets to perpetual life!'
'Perpetual life?' Rossamund almost did not want to know the answer-though in truth, he guessed at it well enough. The Lapinduce had said something of living on while the current generation passed.
'Perpetual life! Perpetuity, continual existence, vita semper, to live on and on unaffected by time or aging… This is a subject the dark trades find powerfully fascinating. Should more massacars and fabercadaverists discover your proper tribe, my boy, I do not think there will be any obstacle that would detain such determinedly contrary from trying to get at you.'
'Such as ambushing us on some faraway road,' Rossamund returned grimly.
'Such as that, yes…' Crispus took off his brown-glass spectacles and wiped them with a brightly striped handkerchief, observing the young factotum from the corner of his eye. 'If you do not mind my saying it, that despite all this you are a most remarkably favored fellow, Rossamund, to be able to go on observing the course of history with your own eyes long after all today's scholars and matterns are slotted feet-first into the ground.'
'And watch my friends and everyone I care for leave this world while I go on and on…'
'Ah… yes.' The physician's crest fell. 'There is that… The price of perpetuity… Something perhaps the massacars have not considered.' He cleared his throat pointedly. 'Stimulating as talking with you inevitably is, I must prepare further for my oratory… I shall see you at middens, perhaps.' He bid Rossamund good morning and went inside.
Left to continue his constitutional alone, Rossamund found his attention caught by furtive motion at the gate. Sneaking between the very bars, a rabbit slipped into the yard to briskly hide itself among the roots and trunks of the glory vines along the wall. Its fur dagged and dirty gray, the creature was made for creeping unremarked along dull city slate and stone.
As Rossamund watched, another mangy coney passed nonchalantly across the mouth of the gate, disappearing farther up the Harrow Road.
Darter Brown hopped across the gravel to the glory vine to twitter at the first rabbit.
One ear tall and alert, nose twitching attentively, the rabbit-spy remained in its place, even when the young factotum sidled over to finally stand before it and cautiously look it in the eyes. One orb was glittering black, but the other was a filmy, sightless blue; the ear above it drooped unmoving down its neck-this creature had lived hard in this pugnacious city.
On a peculiar flash of intuition Rossamund gave it the merest nictation. Speaking low, almost under his breath, he addressed it. 'Hail, servant of the ancient and rightful duke of Brandenbrass.You would do me great service if you should keep watch of my mistress wherever she might go in this city.' He was no monster-lord, but it was worthy of a try.
The rabbit, however, did not move but simply peered at him, nose a-twitch twitch.
Rossamund gave a sad shrug and turned away. Yet, returning to the house, he chanced to see the little watcher wriggle back out through the bars of the gate and disappear down the Harrow Road with all the purpose of a scopp. Taking an audition in the hiatus of an armoniam player hoping to sweeten the mordant tattle of the glossary, Europe received the latest report of Swill and the Master-of-Clerks with typical composure.
'Choked upon their own rope at last' was all she said, a slight I-told-you-so look passing across her face.
Lost in the bliss of his art, the armoniam player played on.
Shivering, Rossamund clenched his teeth against the high notes. He wanted to say something to her-sorry for the tussle of words two nights gone, for the bad feeling it had brought between them.Yet he did not see that his was the fault, and fixing on this thought, said nothing.
'THANK YOU, SIR!' Europe called over the barely melodic shriek, interrupting the slightly put-out musical gent in the very midst of his transports. 'That shall make a perfect accompaniment, thank you,' she said, and bid the self-important fellow good day.
Even as the man left, the Baron Finance was shown into them, his rouged cheeks more rosy than usual with a natural glow of exertion. The Chief Emissary smiled warmly and gave Rossamund a brief, curiously knowing look as he bowed low in greeting.
'Gracious duchess-daughter! I was hearing such rumors of your misfortune.You went out to knave fully provisioned in your best fit, yet returned-to the great dismay of Pater Maupin and his associates-much lighter in luggage, by a red-doored canty-coach. Yet here you are now planning a great celebration. You have us all more perplexed, m'lady, than the swapping of springtime months!'
'Truly, Mister Finance?' the fulgar chided mildly, her face a placid blank. 'I would have thought you'd have plumbed such mysteries already.'
The Chief Emissary dipped his head. 'I have found it is far simpler to ask directly where one can, gracious lady…' He waited expectantly.
Europe took her time to answer. 'Master Maupin and his surgeon pet set a nice trap for us to spring on the Holt Street in the eastern Brandenfells,' she said matter-of-factly. 'By the attendance of the Seven-Seven sept and a base-born sciomane with her pack of jackstraws, I would say that he did not intend me to survive.'
Finance allowed frank indignation to play across his handsome features. 'And you know it was purposely set by Maupin, m'lady?'
'Surely with your long experience, Mister Emissary, you ought to have learned that an astrapecrith's full arts are subtler than just blasting life and limb. We, sir, are the great undiscovered falsemen!'
'Indeed' was all the Chief Emissary said at first, then added cautiously, 'One might hold that after such an affront you might have chosen to return with more furtive care.'
'I do not do furtive, sir,' Europe instantly corrected him. 'You of all souls ought know this.'
The Baron inclined his fastidiously powdered head in capitulation.
'Hiding my return, dear Finance, is not possible,' she continued. 'Hiding my intent now that I am here, however, is.'
The Baron smiled. 'As is penetrating Maupin's own schemes,' he returned.
Europe looked at him steadily, Go on writ clear in her expression.
Finance obliged her. 'After his clandestine assault on this house, Pater must have mistaken your prompt departure from Brandenbrass for knaving as weakness.'
'Silly fellow,' Europe put in.
'As you have figured it yourself, gracious heir, Maupin gained the interest and the backing of a dark commerce principal and a massacars' league. He holds this interest still, despite Swill's ruin at the fall of the fortalice out Sulk End way and with it the removal of ducal approval. Now that you are returned to us, Maupin has grown rather anxious to fortify his dens and is hiring as many sturdies and mercenary fellows as will place themselves under his banner. And with all this, he remains determined to have at Mister Bookchild here, blinking so perplexedly beside me.'
Rossamund schooled his lids to a facsimile of unruffled stillness.
'Pater has run himself out so far on the credit of the Archduke's favor in his desire to get at me,' Europe posited, 'I would think he had scant option but to burrow himself in so deep. Especially now that he knows his attempt at my elimination failed.'
'If I may, gracious daughter…' The Baron Sainte smiled as he went on. 'Whatever you intend, Maupin is nicely perplexed at your gala.'
The fulgar gave a cryptic smile. 'Nothing like a festivity to lift the common spirits distressed at distant Winstermill's fall,' she said.
