D Cornish - Factotum

Rossamund turned about quickly.

Standing in the entrance, the Branden Rose was out of her fighting harness and now wrapped in a flowing house-cloak of stiff satin of such dusky red that it seemed in its folds to be black. Her chestnut hair was down in a left-hand plait hung over her shoulder, reaching to her waist.

"I–I was just wondering at all your remarkable things, Miss Europe… especially this screen here."

"Yes, yes, very pretty." The fulgar took a place at the end of the table. "I am told they are called a bom e'do or some such. This and the one in your room are part of a whole set given to me by some besotted Occidental princeling from Sippon. He thought they might buy my affections." She paused. "They did not… Apparently one alone costs more than an average man is worth a year."

"Thirty sous each?" Rossamund exclaimed after some brief internal arithmetic as he took the seat shown him at the opposite end of the table.

"Oh, no, little man, not quite that average," Europe replied with a slight smile.

Shrinking within, the young factotum was spared his blushes with the arrival of food.

Dished at Kitchen's direction on to fine Gomroon, with genuine shimmering silverware arranged beside, was food such as Rossamund had never known: tepid pyet ponce-or magpie stew-and seethed eagle wings accompanied by pickled winkles in butter-boiled cabbage on the side.

"Look thee at this fancy fare, Frans." Rossamund heard Craumpalin's faint mutter across the table to Fransitart. "Smells as if it'll go down hearty."

"Why, thank you, Mister Craumpalin," Europe said with an amused look to the old dispensurist.

"Thank'ee in ye turn, miss," Fransitart replied evenly. "Ye keep a handsome table."

The cook snorted reproachfully as she served a healthy spooning of cabbage onto the ex-dormitory master's fine white plate. "Of course it is…," Rossamund heard her mutter. "Handsome table, indeed!"

With slow grace, Kitchen poured tots of fine claret into the biggest, most delicate-looking glasses Rossamund had ever beheld-half water for him. When all was served and the other servants disappeared again to their manifold labors in other parts of the stately home, the steward went to stand faithfully in the corner near Europe's right hand.

She, however, half raised a hand and said, "You may leave us to talk, man."

After a pause, the steward obeyed.

"I will brook no disturbance," his mistress added as Kitchen quietly closed the servants' port at the back of the room, leaving them alone with their meal and the great quandary of Rossamund's true nature.

Yet, now it had come to it, Rossamund did not know how to broach the questions he had held back for the last two days, and poked at his fancy meal in a dilemma of possible starts. From the edge of his sight he could sense Europe observing her guests silently, watching over the rim of her ample claret glass while the old vinegaroons did indeed eat hearty. Knotting his courage, Rossamund tried to speak again the question still unanswered at their exit from the lamplighters' mighty fortress. Who am I? What am I?

"Sirs," Europe said suddenly, "I might not have a falseman's knack, but it was obvious that you, Master Vinegar," she said to Fransitart, "and you, Master Salt," to Craumpalin, "were heartily discomfited by things said during that farcical inquiry. From such a show I would dare to say there is truth in the pratings of that surgeon. If you have a deeper inkling into Rossamund's history, now is the time to be out with it."

The ex-dormitory master became still, fork poised between plate and mouth, its load slipping sloppily back to the dish. He looked wearily to Craumpalin. It was the merest glance, yet laden with deep, long-lived understandings.

The expression on Craumpalin's face in reply was clear. "I reckon the lad's ears are ready to hear, Frans."

Slowly, gravely, Rossamund drew in a breath and held it.

Folding his hands against the edge of the glossy red tabletop, Fransitart looked at them for a moment. "This is something we… I might 'ave told ye a long stretch of years ago," he began with cracking voice. "I have pondered long an' often about how to steer me words-a truth half spoke is worse than none-but I'll not let that quill-licking basket Swill have th' last say on th' matter." He took a toss of claret and a breath. "Th' tale of it starts when I first took to me station at th' foundlingery…Whether th' deed were intended as a mercy or a mischief I can't rightly say, but… but th' very day I bore up at Madam Opera's"-he lifted his glass to the late marine society proprietress burned up in the foundlingery fire-"I spied a little bogle fumblin' with a parcel on th' Madam's very doorstep. An odd boggler it was, with the head of an oversized sparrow and all dressed in fine clothes like some midget Domesday struttin' fluff. I hailed th' mite with some angry remonstration, makin' to scare it off. Th' basket just looked at me cool as sit-on-yer-tail an' did not budge."

Cinnamon! Rossamund could hardly credit it. "I have seen such a fellow myself!" he exclaimed. "Freckle said he has been watching out for me…"

"Freckle?" Europe arched her diamond-spoored brow. "The bogle I saw skulking about Bleak Lynche after Wormstool fell…The bogle you had me free from the Hogshead…" Her voice trailed off in displeasure.

"Ah-aye…"

Fransitart looked at them a moment before he went on. "Well, that Freckle bogle sounds blithely enough-ye ought not to judge a bugaboo too quick, as I knew well enough even then."

Europe shifted in her seat yet said nothing.

"Be that as it is," the ex-dormitory master pressed on, "I was determined to fright it away; a city is no place for a nicker, nor a nicker-blithely or otherwise-th' right one for a city. So I lay alongside this sparrowling, me cudgel in hand to make me point more clear"-the old dormitory master raised his hands in demonstration-"an' I hailed it, 'Avast, Master Sparrow! What's yer mischief with that bundle? Clear off if ye value yer crown. Worse folks than me p'rambulate these streets!'-or some such I said. Yet far from affrighted, th' basket stood an' faced me though it was not more than half a fathom tall. Looking me a-loft an' a-low with its big blinking peepers, it spoke an' tells me, 'Ye take good care of this 'un'-I can't do its voice right, Rossamund, all twittery and tuneful and wi'out me salty glot-but 'Take care of this 'un', it says. 'This one'll be eaten by worse than me if I let 'im stay out in th' good-lands, so to th' world o' wicked men an' kind he must come.' That's when I realized just what manner of parcel it was in its clutches."

Rossamund's throat constricted and tasted unpleasantly sharp. Somehow, he already knew what his old master was going to reveal.

"That parcel, Rossamund-," said Fransitart, looking to him. "That parcel were ye, lad…"

Rossamund's mouth went dry. He forced down a mouthful of watery claret.

"This sparrow-thing puts ye all tiny an' quiet in me arms," Fransitart continued, "an' it says, 'His name is what he is.' An' it points to that hatbox bit with th' scrawl of yer forename on it, Rossamund.Yet afore I can ask any more, open springs the foundlingery door an' there is th' Madam-rest her-arms akimbo an' glarin' like she did. Afore she could fathom its true nature, Master Sparrow harefoots it down th' Vlinderstrat an' was gone. But th' Madam? She only had eyes for ye, lad, an' takes ye, name-card an' all, an' writes ye up in her book, Rossamund Bookchild. She weren't nothin' if not efficient." He respectfully raised a glass again, Craumpalin doing so with him.

Blinking, Rossamund stared at the old men, astounded at the long years Fransitart had lived enduring such a secret.

Europe leaned back in her seat, owlish gaze calculating.

Such a frank confession left them utterly vulnerable to her mercurial mercies.