'Of course…' The Baron Finance's expression took on the dogged cast of someone fully expecting that which he did not at all desire. 'To that end I can offer you intelligence of perhaps a deeper and better sort than your Mister Rakestraw has garnered. Though I am certain Mister Rakestraw's scarlets are competent enough, you ought to take the services of one or even two of my percusors. Messrs. Slitt and Camillo are most excellent for the purpose.'
Percusors! They always made it into pamphlets as the worst of all scoundrels: murderers for sport, money and state.
'What might your duchess say of such a common use of her political apparatus?' Europe inquired, arching a brow.
'I have always had the understanding, gracious lady, that your most excellent mother approves of whichever course I choose to travel, to maintain or increase the prospects of our sovereign state.' He leaned forward a little. 'And if I may, ma'am, I myself most heartily wish to see you preserved in so fraught an adventure.'
'Fraught, is it?' A wry grimace flickered at the edges of the fulgar's mouth.
Finance tapped his nose again. 'Your graciousness knows full well that to vie with the dark trades or one that they patronize is to clutch at great girth with small hands.'
'And you know well, oh Baron, that my hands are thew enough to grasp anything onto which they lay themselves. There shall be no safety for me or mine unless I put out the eyes of this froward gentleman. Your intelligence I gratefully receive, but yet again I must decline the use of your staff.'
Finance conceded with an elegant nod.
After the perplexing agent departed with many gracious words, Europe added to Rossamund, 'He will help regardless of my wish.'
Rossamund nodded. Help in what? Three days before the gala, with Rossamund deep in ever-quickening preparations, Mister Oberon performed an examination of his mistress. At its conclusion he sought Rossamund out and advised him to make emunic reborate, a treacle found in Europe's expurgatory and good for fulgars given to overexerting themselves in the stouche.
'Unlike plaudamentum, it keeps for a small while,' the transmogrifer explained, 'and is to be drunk a few hours before a fight. Please make sufficient doses to be taken over the next four days.'
And with that Oberon left. In the afternoon, with the sky remaining blue and unrepentantly clear, Mister Brugel the armouriere presented to Europe a most exquisite set of proofing. It was, he assured her in the most grandiloquent terms, the best protection money could gain while still holding easy movement. With Claudine and Brugel's female assistant to help with points, frogs and buckles, it took the fulgar more than an hour to fit.
Once all was in place, the Branden Rose immediately went up to the ludion, drawing a line of spectators after her. With dancelike spins and vaults over the glossy dark boards of the broad hall, she tested the freedom of the harness. Watching on in bliss, Brugel sat with his assistant on a row of leather campaign stools beside the large fireplace of green stone at the far end of the ludion as the Branden Rose proved the suppleness and robustness of his creation. In joy he would frequently spring from his seat and hurry over to the fulgar to point out the virtues of his design or clap and cry compliments to the lady's grace.
'Brava! M'lady! Brava!You are a jewel amid jewels! How well you set off my cuts!'
Over the usual layers of white petticoats was a black soe coat of flaring frock and high fan-shaped collar that protected the nape and base of Europe's head. Bound in at the elbow and forearm by sturdy vambrins of stiffened black soe, its sleeves were loose and puffed. Unusually, they were made of a different cloth: a glossy delicate grass green that shifted hues as it moved to a warm pale yellow, and patterned with daisylike flowers of fiery red. Over the hem of the coat was fitted a second skirt split into four panels: the sides and back were black, finished in a band of cloth-of-silver with silver brocade; its front panel was an apron of the same patterned mercurial material as the sleeves. This was held to Europe's body by a broad sash of glossy black wrapped about her whole torso, binding her chest firmly, fastened at the back with frogging and finished in a large bow. Atop this she finally donned what Brugel called an eighth, a short pollern-coat of buff that barely covered her bosom, fastening down the left and under her arm, its collar and frogging brocaded in deep red.
Eyes alive with a joy Rossamund rarely saw, the fulgar watched herself-or rather, the new harness-in the long mirrors, bending and flexing, stretching seams as far as she could, extending cloth as far as it might, seeking small adjustments. Standing with Claudine and Kitchen by the tall windows, Rossamund watched his mistress' dance with breath held.
When she was finished, it was to a small clatter of wondering applause.
'This will do nicely as my new Number 3, Mister Brugel,' she said matter-of-factly, a patina glowing on her wan brow. 'You have excelled as always.'
The armouriere beamed.
With that she departed the ludion to change into more domestic attire. In the gray hours Rossamund felt himself shaken awake.
'Mister Rossamund, sir.' It was Pallette, anxious, fretting at Rossamund's hand.
'Miss Europe is in trouble?' he asked, rubbing at the blear clouding his senses, squinting into the steadily brightening bright-limn the alice-'bout-house gripped so shakily.
'No, sir, no! She is well,' she returned, puzzled. 'It's Mister Vinegar-that is to say, Master Fransitart, sir-'
'What about Master Fransitart?' Rossamund sat up quickly, suspicions coming home to roost.
'Nectarius here says he let him out after we had all turned in last night, opened the gate again under promise that Master Fransitart be back by now, but he has not shown as agreed!'
Standing at the foot of the stairs in the vestibule hall, the nightlocksman, bearing his own bright-limn and looking sheepish with battered tricorn wrung in fist, told the same story.
'Did he say where he was going?' Rossamund demanded.
'Na-'
'He's in here, me hearties!' came Fransitart's own faltering voice, trying to sound strong as he called from the hiatus. There they found him, old and wan, grotesquely lit by the swinging limnulight. Head lolling, eyes red-rimmed and watery, the ex-dormitory master peered up at him groggily. Instead of a broken limb there was no limb at all, just a neatly capelined stump just below the shoulder.
'Master Frans!' Rossamund cried.
'He must've just turned in,' Nectarius grumbled querulously, 'while I was gettin' Miss Pallette 'ere.'
'Pallette, get Crispus!' the young factotum ordered. 'Nectarius, hold the doors for me!' Careless of the spectacle, the young factotum lifted the old vinegaroon from his couch and carried him bodily from the hiatus to his room, ignoring Fransitart's grizzling complaints that he could walk on his own!
The nightlocksman was so stunned at this small show of Rossamund's strength that he forgot to prop open the servants' port.
'The door, Nectarius!' Rossamund barked, not caring about the puzzled and uneasy looks the nightlocksman gave him as he struggled by and on to Fransitart's cot.
'Blood and bruises, man! Are you always the source of such dramas?' Crispus demanded of the old dormitory master as, clad in dressing gown, his hair a feral spray of white, the physician hurried into the pallet. 'Where is your arm at now, sir!' All mildness gone, he rebuked Fransitart with a martial rigor Rossamund had seen him use only against the Master-of-Clerks. 'The erreption of a limb is no simple occasion; implements must be thoroughly thatigated, vital vessels duly cautered! What backlot shambleman did this favor for you?'
Plainly addled by some kind of soporating spirit, Fransitart ducked his head and muttered a sullen obscenity.
'It'd be Master Meech,' Craumpalin interjected in a guiltily quiet voice, struggling with crutches to rise from his own cot.
'And pray who is he?' the physician demanded hotly.
'He served as a loblolly on the Venerable with us, got a dischargement back in seventy-one on account of his sick mother and his game leg; settled in this here city on Change Lane to take up taxidermy.'
'A taxidermist!' Crispus almost spat the word.
'Always loved stuffin' his animals.' Fransitart chuckled woozily. 'Had a whole cabin squashed with 'em by the end, an' 'is shop is to the top with 'em… I reckon he must give service to a great lot of folks, 'cause 'e 'as some right sharp bone knives handy…'
'Master Frans!' Rossamund added some chiding of his own.
