D Cornish - Factotum

"Such and more, yes," Cinnamon agreed. "The utterworsts might have slain him else. Those vile festermen have brought as much misery to everymen as e'er they have to us."

The young factotum watched the ancient nuglung in patent wonder, struck by Cinnamon's incongruous proportions and queer alien beauty and the fragrance of feather and blossom mingled with that of fresh-turned loam that surrounded him. The nuglung bound Rossamund's hand, palm now covered with the physicking spit, in thick weeds-weevil lily, he called it-all fixed with a final binding of more usual bandage from the stoup. Cinnamon did not offer such aid to Europe, and the fulgar did not seek it.

"That's what caused yer blast," Fransitart called over the din of frogs that had begun to croak and trill all along the drain. Musketoon in hand, the old salt was hobbling beside the large elliptical crater. Abruptly, he kicked at an oddly bent plate of metal half buried in the upheaved soil, the iron piece torn and jagged as if mere paper. "A belch pot!" He spat and muttered something foul. "Breech-full o' cannon char…"

Rossamund's eyes went round.

"If it weren't for them poor daft horses halting short an' liftin' their heads when they did," the old dormitory master went on in wonderment, "I doubt we would be about this world any more… A miss is as good as a mile, 'ey, lad!" He smiled ruefully, forgetful of his wound and stretching the gash in his lip. "Oh…" The ex-vinegaroon hastily stanched the flowing wound with a wad of weeds he had in his hand. "They were a right parsthel of blackheartsth!" he declared bitterly through the leafy muffle.

"Blackhearts, indeed, Master Vinegar," the fulgar returned flatly.

"Are you hale for the walk, Master Frans?" Rossamund inquired of the old salt, who looked a little heartier with levenseep fortifying his humours.

"I have some wind left in me yet, lad, afore ye send me off to the tumblehome." The old fellow grinned wanly. "Lead on, Master Sparrow, sir. I'd rather a hard stroll to a better harbor than an easy sit here out o'doors vulnerable to any wild body."

As a final provision for their departure, Europe produced her small black-lacquered whortleberry box and offered one to Fransitart, then to Rossamund.

"For Cinnamon and Freckle too," the young factotum said bluffly as the cheerful vigor of the dried berry swelled within.

Even in the dimming day he could feel his mistress' incredulity. "Do nickers and bogles gain benefit from them?"

A little offended, Rossamund answered softly, "Well, I do…"

To this, the fulgar smiled the thinnest curl of a smile.

"Chortlingberries!" Freckle called them with equal delight, not even pretending to chew.

Despite his expressionless beak, a kind of grin seemed to light Cinnamon's face when the morsel was offered. "Periachares!" He gave a very bright birdlike chirp as he eagerly snapped down the withered thing, Darter Brown joining him in happy mimicry. With a tweet! Cinnamon gathered Craumpalin in his arms like a baby, the little nuglung's great strength clear as he shouldered a man twice his size on his back. His large bird's head bobbling as his regard twitched from one sight to the next, the bogle-prince set off, a slouching, tiny-legged lump with the dispensurist sagging on his back, looming over the little bogle and looking ready to tip to the road at any breath.

To the clamor of raucous frog song, the six of them made their way out from this terrible place, the most bizarre caravan surely to ever have wended the world.

Well ahead, Freckle and Darter Brown took turns to look farther, the sparrow streaking off and winging back to mutter in Cinnamon's hidden ears. At times the bogle-princeling would reply, uttering inexplicable phrases in sparrowlike song. Mists of minuscule bugs surged across the road, spinning about them in celebration of the arbustral evening, flying into eyes, up nostrils, into mouths opened to breathe.

A little way about the ever-bending path they found the curricle used as part of the trap set against them, its wheel still off, dragged no small distance in fright by the stolid gray pony still in its harness and gnawing ruminatively at the roadside herbage.

Putting Craumpalin ever so carefully down upon the weedy verge, Cinnamon stepped to the pony, reaching out for it to nuzzle his small black palm. "Meadows now thy stall shall be," the nuglung crooned, a strange flutter of authority stirring about him as, surprisingly familiar with carriage quipage, he unharnessed the poor beast. "And cloud and star thy stable. Make wild grass and unplucked weeds your fodder. Be wary now of men and blighted things and dwell untrammeled by thy former burdens."

At this the pony started, nostrils flaring, eyes rolling nervously. With a whinny and a kick, it galloped off down the road and away.

"No more heave and haul for her!" Freckle gurgled. "No more switches switching or bindings binding."

"A clever trick, Master Bogle," Europe offered wearily. "Might it not have been wiser to keep it for our own use?"

"We have limbs enough to hold our loads, oh Lady Lightning, and need not burden a beast," said Cinnamon, hoisting the senseless dispensurist once more onto his shoulders and walking on without a backward look.

As the leaden western sky transmuted to sullen crimson, and the east waxed brooding dark out over the pallid waters of the distant Grume, the nuglung took them deeper into the jagged shadows of the wood hill.

Patently untroubled by the dark, Freckle kept well ahead.

Yet stumbling over roots and rocks, Rossamund, by all evidence, did not share such a sense. For his more human eyes-and for Europe and Fransitart too-he fetched his limulight from pocket and gave it to the ex-dormitory master to let the soft blue yellow effulgence guide their questing feet.

"Now, that's a handy article," the old salt whispered.

"Mister Numps gave it to me." Rossamund spared a thought for the poor seltzerman hidden in the slypes and undercrofts of Winstermill's ancient foundations away from the conspiracies and schemes of Podious Whympre.

"The one named Numps does well enough in his hiding holes," Cinnamon declared, startling Rossamund with his sudden proximity. "The clerking-master thinks him beneath his thinking, but I and my lord keep our watch on him. Many are the sparrows of Winstreslewe…" The saucers of his black eyes glittering in the gloaming with occult primordial thoughts, the nuglung raised his heavy beak to sniff at the air.

Rossamund opened his mouth to speak, to dare to ask what he feared was the unaskable. "Lord Cinnamon, why did you have me live with everymen? Would I not be safer with the sparrow-king?"

Head now turning to him, those eyes regarded the young factotum blinkingly for several breaths. "Safer? Why, yes, thee would certainly have been safer… and more so should you choose to retreat to him now that men hunt thee." Cinnamon paused as if this was actually a question that needed answering.

Here once again Rossamund had a choice amid all the go and the do to pick his own path, to live with the Duke of Sparrows, removed and untouchable.

"We have wanted thee to learn of love for everymen," the bogle-prince continued candidly. " ' Twas a gamble, 'tis true, yet the lessons of the blightlings-if they were to find thee and keep themselves from eating thee-would have been for nought but malice, for cruel destruction and all frames of sly-born misery. With my lord, the Sparrowlengis, thee might neither find love nor hate, but learn only of the everymen from afar as thoughtless and brutal and best to be avoided." Cinnamon stopped and turned to face him fully. "There is much mischief and violence in everymen-as you know right well," the nuglung said solemnly, with the merest flicker of a glance to Europe not far behind.