D Cornish - Factotum

Out in the wood-smoky morning, aboard a dyphr driven by Mister Carp, Rossamund ventured into the city at last, glad to have business to keep his cares at bay. His money stowed securely in his wallet and his trunk freshly doused in Exstinker, Rossamund was ready to explore.

Riding down wide avenues of fine city manors in a dyphr was quite different from riding in a lentum or takeny, a more lively bobbing motion putting wind in his ears and lifting his soul. Out in the spring-warming hush, over the creak of the springs and harness and the clash of wheels on flagstone, he discerned an all-surrounding hum of activity, a sustained buzz of energy and momentum such as he had never known before, not even in the civilian mass of Boschenberg. How big is this city? he marveled, clutching his thrice-high determinedly to his head.

"So you are to be Licurius' substitute." The man-of-business broke his silence with an ironic smile as he coaxed his gray mare left. He was wearing his copstain-or stovepipe hat-at a jaunty angle on his head and a merry flush on his cheeks. "Where do you hail from?"

"I was raised in Boschenberg…"

"As I can see from your cingulum," Carp interjected, meaning Rossamund's black-and-brown checkered baldric.

"But lately I have come from Winstermill."

"Never heard of it," Carp declared with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Rossamund was incredulous. "The great fortress of the lamplighters at the beginnings of the Idlewild?"

The man-of-business twisted his mouth in contemplation. "Perhaps I may have heard it spoke of in passing, but certainly nothing memorable. Of the Idlewild I am somewhat informed-an eminent client of mine has a small interest in a going concern at Gathercoal; but of this Winstermill, nothing. Is it newly raised?"

Rossamund could scarce contain an indignant splutter. "It was built long ago, right on the foundations of old Winstreslewe! Has never once been breached."

"I do not doubt you, young fellow." Carp made a noncommittal gesture. "But it is not Brandenbrass, is it? As they say, the world is Brandenbrass and Brandenbrass is the world, the very center of the cosmos-or did you not know that? Everything comes here and everything goes out again-and clever souls position themselves somewhere in between to skim the gleanings."

"Oh" was all the deflated young factotum could think to say. Brandenbrass shared most of Boschenberg's trading lanes and was her greatest rival.

The man-of-business peered at him, an impertinent glimmer in his eye. "I wonder how old Boxface would find it, superseded by a child-it's almost comical." He actually laughed, a sound of honest flabby delight in his thick throat.

Near speechless, Rossamund kept his gaze fixed down the route of high, pale gray buildings. "I beg your pardon, sir?" he forced as politely as he might through gritted teeth.

"No, no, mistake me not, m'boy," Carp quickly asserted. "It is truly rather fitting.The Branden Rose was never one to tread convention's path.Why would she not as soon employ a boy-factotum over some wizened old bleak-souled sensurist like Licurius, stolen from her mother's employ?" The man was growing loquacious the farther they went from his patroness' scrutiny. "You seem a much cheerier fellow than that laggard. I declare, he was getting grimmer by the day, last I knew him. Did you ever see those ghastly images he paints-or painted, rather? A regular graphnolagnian."

"Aye." Rossamund stared at the man-of-business fully in his shock; yet it fitted well that those wretched daubs he had banished from set and saumery were the work of so cruel a fellow.

"He was quite famous among certain circles, so I hear, veritably hailed for the deftness of his marks and his attention to detail." Carp clucked in his cheek, and the young factotum liked him just a little for that. "A dubious honor if ever there was."

Nodding, not knowing what else to say, Rossamund inadvertently caught the eye of a filthy onion-seller toiling along the walk, bowed under a pole strung thickly with a great weight of onions. The seller glared at him, then stepped forward as if to offer a sale.The young factotum quickly looked away.

"How did you come by such a fancy name?" asked Carp as the dyphr passed on, turning down a broad way brimming with market crowds.

Closing his eyes, Rossamund groaned inwardly. "It was written on a card that came with me when I was found on the doorstep of my foundlingery," he sighed.

"I see," the man-of-business uttered, as if for him this explained all he wished to know. "And have you, perchance, come to Brandenbrass afore?"

Rossamund said he had not.

The farther Carp took them from Cloche Arde, the busier the streets became, and tighter too, long direct roads dissecting the city into small sections run through with alleys and lanes. Turning right off the Harrow Road as it bent west, mucky smokestacks, thin and very tall, began to show above the high rooftops blotched with lichen, leaking strange smokes into the morning smog.

"Ahh, old Brandentown," the starchy fellow waxed encyclopedically, "historied beauty of the Grume-of the whole Sundergird no less! — whose long-gone metropolitans sought to transact business with the Tutin invader rather than resist him, thus preserving much of the autonomy we still enjoy today. Such a superb mercantile tradition is the shrewd and potent praxis-the great egalitarian system-upon which even one as small and ignoble as I can rise to heights unattainable by any other man in other lands. Employ your money wisely here, Rossamund Bookchild, and you will surely find yourself elevated to a patron of the peers themselves…"

With a flick of reins, Mister Carp took the dyphr quickly about a crossway, a circuit where the road they were on met several other streets at oddly obtuse angles. A fat memorial pillar was raised at its center; flower sellers gathered at its base, and every corner was crowded with many-storied shop fronts. Bustling through, they clattered straight down a street signed simply The Dove and Rossamund suddenly found that they were running right by a stone-and-iron wall that enclosed a rather wild-looking park. From the elevation of his bobbing seat Rossamund could see a broad common beyond, its darkling trees shaggy with yellowing lichens and pallid trailing mosses, its grasses left to grow thick and wild. It seemed still and empty yet strangely pensive too, affording no glimpse of a street or buildings on the other side, just dim, brooding shadows. Any strolling folk kept to the farther side of the road.

"We call it the Moldwood Park," Carp explained. "Good for kindling, bird's nests, a million rabbit holes and not much else. It is said that its middle is a proper woodland-all that is left of the forest that grew natively here before our Burgundian ancestors arrived-not that I would know this for myself, having never ventured in."

"It's threwdish!" Rossamund exclaimed reflexively. It was a subtle, suppressed feeling of watchfulness, a warning caution constrained on every side by human habitation. In the heart of an everyman's city: how can this be?

The man-of-business gave him a quick, curious look. "It is an uneasy place, I grant you. People are daunted by antique stories of terrible consequences for those who have tried to clear it, though I am told thorough surveys have turned up nothing unpleasant. The place is a cleveland, protected by an ancient permanare per proscripta-a legal ban-and so it has been left, as you see, generally ignored by all but the very needy, the very cold or the very hungry."

"The hungry? Hungry for what?"

"Why, the rabbits, sir! Rabbits-scrawny, barely eat-able rabbits-burrowed in walls, hiding in parks and forgotten nooks, but most of all in the Moldwood here.There is a reason, Master Bookchild, that such a beast is the sigil on our stately flag, for the city is veritably plagued with 'em-and their droppings, into the bargain! So much so that rats have a hard time establishing themselves. A good thing, mayhap, for our indigent and hungry masses-bunny daube is ate most nights of the week in downtrod districts. The city is famous for the dish." Carp took a pinch of spice aura from a tiny silver vinaigrette as ward against the stink of this down-at-heel neighborhood, then offered some to his passenger.