D Cornish - Factotum

Despite the acute pounding within his skull and the acrid burning in his throat, Rossamund sucked a great gulp of wind to clear the miasma in his lungs and sat up. Grinding his teeth against the agony in his neck, he went on hands and knees to her side, fumbling bandages from his stoup as he came. He could easily see the dark wet slash in the right panels of her proofing. "You are cut, M-miss Europe…," he said rapidly, fumbling in his stoup for the pot of sealing paste. Using bindings torn from Europe's own petticoats, he tried to stanch the laceration in her side, smearing strupleskin among all the red, wrapping the rudimentary bindings as fast as he could.Yet, for all this, the wound refused to be stanched.

His mistress laid a shaking hand on his arm. "S-save some for your own," she hushed, fingers vaguely gesturing to his neck where it hurt so powerfully.

"It is nothing!" Rossamund insisted, impatient while his mistress lay so damaged.

"It is a hole right through the… the side of y-your throttle, little m-man," the fulgar insisted. "Y-you ought to be dead."

Rossamund felt at his neck and, in a thrill of fright, found on the left side a long and terrible gash where the ball had scored his flesh. "I feel well enough…" Quickly, he bound the wound up with his stock, as much to hide it as to stanch it.

Stepping from the gloom beneath the balcony of the quadrangle the slender figure of Elecrobus Slitt approached, smoking pistols in hand and death in his eyes. "You set us a fine chase to find you, m'lady…," he said quietly, concern clear in his otherwise flat voice. "You have a fine victory here for me to report to my Baron Finance…"

"Yes, yes, man." Europe's voice sounded far away. "We may sing the… the glory of my success to y-your master later…"

"You may tell him sooner, fairest duchess-daughter," the percusor returned. "My master awaits you in his drag down on the street you first came in by. I suggest we be quick to go to him.You look sore and in need of a physic's help."

Rossamund's thoughts hurtled madly upon how he could make treacle in this blighted place. "There ought to be a kitchen here!" he commanded desperately, looking up into the balconies rising on every side like the sides of a grave to a pallid rectangle of early morning gray. "A pot! A fire! I can make plaudamentum! Vauquelin too!"

"Ahh… I think it will take more than vauquelin, little man."

Fumbling levenseep to her mouth, Rossamund would not give in. "I saved you in the Brindleshaws. I can again." Sobbing, staggering to his feet, he took the fulgar under her arms and began to haul her just as he had on the sandy forest road so long ago.

From the dim fume of firelock smoke and settling potive fume, Madigan emerged, bloodied and disheveled, her man, Threedice, limping close behind and clutching his arm as if it were broken.

"I have o-overreached myself…," Europe declared to her approaching friend.

"Nonsense, dear one," Madigan asserted softly, grim concern darkening the tender light in her eyes as she crouched to clutch her fellow fulgar's hand. "That wretched blade has poisoned my organs… M-my natural humours take their revenge…" Europe's smile was alarmingly wan.

"Indeed, sister," Madigan agreed. "We shall make a dash ahead of you to the house of your man, Oberon; he shall set you to rights. Meanwhile, this lovely boy"-she smiled briefly at Rossamund-"and these hefty fellows bear you to your waiting Baron."With that, she and Threedice departed, going with all haste out by the tunnel through which they had first forced their way in.

Smattered with gore, the handful of remaining lesquins promptly fashioned a litter of two poleaxes and the proofing cursorily stripped from fallen door wards. Upon this they-and Rossamund with them-lifted his mistress as gently as haste would allow. Europe gave a terrible cry, an animal sound born as much of frustration and the anger of fear as it was of pain. In shock, Rossamund clamped his teeth upon a sob.

The lesquins went to put her down again, but she insisted they go on.

Elecrobus Slitt at the lead and bearing the terrible therimoir, they took the Branden Rose from that hidden den, retracing the original path through the dark of the hall of posts, the secreted chute and the blasted posticum.

Looking often to the rudimentary bandaging about Europe's side-slowly reddening despite the strupleskin-Rossamund refused to heed the threatening crushing hopelessness that hovered in the darkness about the edge of his soul. Head ringing with a terror far greater than any felt in the midst of battle or facing a foe, he repeated, I saved her before, I can save her again under his breath until the words lost all meaning.

They progressed at times with necessary yet frustrating deliberation, lest they bump or twist Europe and harm her further, finally descending the stairs of the file of Messrs. Gabritas amp; Thring to shuffle out onto the peaceful street, gray in the primal gleam of dawn. Baron Finance was indeed there, standing anxiously by a large and proper carriage.

"Ahh, duchess-daughter!" he exclaimed in undisguised consternation as he beheld the Duchess-in-waiting on her makeshift cradle. "If only you had included me in your machinations, dear hope of our state, I would have sent Mister Slitt with you. He might have kept you from such a disorder as I find you in now!"

Lifting her head, Europe made a show of strength she did not truly have. "But, Baron, y-you were my yardstick," she said. "If I was able to keep my… my plan from you, then… then there was s-scant chance Maupin could… could discover it."

"All plans be dashed and secrets revealed!" Finance cried, taking her hand. "I have failed you, and your mother too!"

"Dear Baron…" Europe's voice was profoundly tender. "Y-you did not fail, s-sir, I b-bested you… that is all…"

The anguish on the Chief Emissary's face was more than Rossamund could bear to behold, and he looked to his own feet.

As hasty arrangement was made for Mister Slitt to remain with the lesquins and ensure that Europe's task of annihilation was complete, the fulgar was lifted with profound tenderness into the cabin and laid endwise across the soft seats.

Fighting to master himself among all these valiant men, Rossamund climbed in after, heedful not to rock the fit too much.

With scarce enough room for him in the cabin, Finance mounted up beside the driver of the park drag and shouted the fellow on. "Quick, man!" Rossamund heard his command clear and urgent. "To Bankers Lane, Risen Mole! Fast as you can and spare our lady your jolts."

A shrill keening high in the southern sky above dark roof-ridges and thorny chimneys drew their attention to a bright, upward-hurtling flare of pallid green.

The Duchess-in-waiting strained to see the sailing light through the cab window. "Ahh," she sighed, her head dropping heavily back down. "B-bravo… Lady Saphine of the Maids of Malady w-wins her fight in the coven cellar… Maupin and his allies are done in; y-you are safe, little man… for now."

Aye, Rossamund cried within, but at what cost! "I–I…" was all his mouth for a moment could say. "I have not kept you safe!"

Europe smiled feebly, cupping his cheek and chin in her soft hand-the very hand that had arced him so long ago in the Brindleshaws, the very hand that had spent itself to vie and defeat his foes, now so clammy and cold. "A life of adventure, a life of violence… A t-teratologist is not… not m-meant to be safe…"

"B-but you are!" he returned in an overpowering swell of grief and confusion, and insisted she swallow another dose of emunic reborate followed by a second vial of lordia.

"M… my organs are souring within me, Rossamund," Europe murmured, head lolling to the steady rock of the Baron's carriage, face afflicted with a gray pallor.