D Cornish - Factotum

Alighting by Cloche Arde's shut-fast gate, Rossamund overpaid the takenyman-"Well, a goodly night to thee, good sir!" — and hefted his purchases from the cabin and the back-step trunks and wondered how he might gain entry. Beyond the dark, lonely shadow of Europe's abode, pale violet-gray clouds roiled, massive rising structures edged in radiant yellow light making the sky a glory of splayed sunbeams.

After a quick observation he discovered a blackened chain hung in a groove at the side of the right-hand gate post. Pulling this in assumption that it would summon a gate ward or yardsman, Rossamund stood back to wait.

A flurry above him.

A sparrow perched upon the petrified snarl of the bulging-eyed, blunt-snouted dog statue that capped the right-hand post, observing him frankly.

He peered at it narrowly. Was it that sparrow, the sparrow-spy of the Duke of Sparrows that had dogged him all the way from Winstermill to Wormstool, come here to watch and bring more mischief? His first reaction was to cry at it to leave him be! and drive the bold and beady-eyed mite away. Yet a curious, almost threwdish, inkling made him change his plan. "Hello, my shadow," he said softly to the tiny bird.

It blinked at him in a familiar and forward way, but remained silent.

Buoyed by the delights of the day, Rossamund carried on as if in amiable conversation. "Does the sparrow-king fare well?"

This time the creature did respond, a single chirrup that sounded ever so disturbingly like "Yes!"

At the report of footsteps approaching behind the garden wall, the sparrow took wing with an irritable squeak.

"Until again," Rossamund murmured.

"Did you speak, sir?" A sour voice startled him. It was Nectarius, the sleek nightlocksman. He was bearing a truncated double-barreled fowling piece and a vigilant expression.

"Ah-just to myself, Mister Nectarius," Rossamund stammered.

"Forgot our key, did we?"

"I was not given one in the first," the young factotum answered unconcernedly.

Let in the gate, Rossamund hefted the several small yet cumbersome chests of his parts-shopping booty thoughtlessly under either arm-much to Nectarius' bemusement. Making some shuffling excuse that they were "really not that heavy…" he proceeded hurriedly to the saumery to make treacle.

With a happy flourish he opened his compleat to the thaumacra for Cathar's Treacle and, feeling like a proper skold, gleefully-though needlessly-followed its cues for the making. If he had known how, he would have whistled while he worked, yet instead took up a joyously tuneless humming.

The treacle brewed to perfection, he went-potive, papers and all-to the fulgar's file. Here he found Europe, legs perched carelessly upon desktop, looking as if she had remained in that attitude since their morning's meeting. She downed the plaudamentum and gave a satisfied lip-smack. "Your excursion was a success, then?"

"Aye."

"Do you have a driver for the landaulet?"

"Not specifically…"

"However do you mean, specifically? Have you found a driver or no?"

"Not a proper lenterman, no…"

"Well, who then?"

"I thought… I thought Master Fransitart could do it, with Master Craumpalin to help him."

Europe's expression contracted skeptically. "Truly? You thought, did you?"

"They are far less expensive than hired lentermen," he explained quickly, "and aren't afraid to face dangers when they come." He paused, casting about for something more sellable. "Besides which, Master Craumpalin is a brilliant dispensurist."

The fulgar closed her hazel eyes. "As you like, little man," she said softly, stroking the diamond-shaped spoor on her left brow.

"I have my receipts from buying potives too."

Europe took the papers, cursorily at first but then, looking more closely at the chits, hesitated. "Shall such displays of free will be a feature of your service to me, Rossamund?" she said, with a return of familiar wintriness.

He blinked at her uncomprehendingly.

"Who is this Pauper Chives?" she demanded, mispronouncing the name to sound like the herb.

"Oh, Master Craumpalin holds Mister Chives"-Rossamund pointedly pronounced the "ee" of Chives-"to be the best saliere in all the city!"

"And your dear master would know, would he?"

"Aye, Miss Europe," Rossamund declared firmly, "he surely would."

The fulgar raised a wry brow. "Look at your precious loyalty flaring," she said coolly. "I would hope you defend me with the same solemn vigor when others speak ill of me."

"Aye, I would, Miss Europe."

She regarded him for many long breaths. "What, pray, is that?" The fulgar indicated a curl of pamphlets thrust up under Rossamund's left arm. In a fit of enthusiasm he had bought them from a wandering paper-seller as he left Pauper Chives. The most obvious had its title clear: Defamiere.

"That is not a scandal, is it?" she demanded. "I thought you more discerning in your reading tastes than to peruse such gossip-mongering poison."

"I got it as a handful with these other pamphlets. They were sold as a lot for five guise by the pamphleteer down on the Sink Street, some still warm straight from the pressing."

"Scandals are the vomit of famigorators and the sputum of pox-riddled gossips, fit only for weathercocks and flimsymen," she said, her mild voice contradicting the spirited words. "I myself have been the subject of more than one barbed article within their pages… and most of all in that particular paper you grasp there. Almost none of it is true and even less of it maintained with proof. If you are to insist on plunging into the sordid sheaves of the sewer press, then at least read something with some pretension to wit-Quack! or the Mordant Mercer might suit you better. Otherwise I would stick to the more sensible readers you have there." She nodded to the next pamphlet-Military amp; Nautical Stores-in Rossamund's slipping grip. "Now! Dine with me, and then your day is done." Released from duty at meal's ending-parched flake in seethed winkle sauce washed down with a fresh grass-wine that Europe hailed absently as an excellent accompaniment-Rossamund stared out from the set window as night grew at the green and yellow window lights on either bank of the Midwetter, glad to be lifted away from the claustrophobic city.

Changing out of harness, he snuggled into the unfamiliar downiness of bed in that pitch-colored room and took out his compleat and the pamphlets, ready to lose himself in their delights. Morbid curiosity guided his hand to the large magnum folio of the Defamiere. A dark thrill thrumming in his innards, he flicked over the first pages, but was soon slowed by the manner of titles he read: cruel jibes and asinine gossip that by comparison made his usual pamphlets lofty works of literature. Little wonder Europe despised it so.

One self-righteously horrified heading line stopped him flat:

It was accompanied by a crude cartoon of a rather fictional Europe, shooting lightning from one hand and hugging a monster with the opposite, while the trefoiled heart of Naimes hovered in the air beside them. About all the blighted fabulist has got right is her crow's-claw hair tine, he thought angrily, barely able to credit what he saw.

The article was brief; written by a certain Contumelius Stinque, it said: The "bee's buzz"-as the vulgar cant goes, and come to me this very day from the bumpkin lands of the Sulk End-is that the Branden Rose is rumoured to have wielded QGU in the defence and release of a suspected yet unproven sedorner. With firm reputation for Erratic Conduct, the particulars of the terrible astrapecrith's newest and most appalling deviancy remain obscure. A Private Voice for the Lady-Rose told of the loss of a most Valued Servant, and it can only be guessed that this may well be a cause of this latest aberration. The identity of the sedorner (accused) remains undisclosed.