D Cornish - Factotum

Rossamund heard the fulgar sniff in objection.

"Yet they are loved and there is hope, so we defend them…" Though there was little change in his face, Cinnammon seemed to brighten. "And now too do thee, little Rossamund.You see! Our gamble has been worthy. The everymen need all the friends they can against the sunderhallows and falsely gods." He gave a sharp chirrup! that ended conversation and set Darter Brown to expectant twitching. "Walk on, walk on," he declared, setting off again to lead them up an avenue of old conifers. "Thee and thine are close to succor now."

Wending about every fold and spur of the steepening combe into the round hills, they kept course beside a murmuring waterway, invisible in the dark to their left. Gully breezes stirred fitfully about them, rousing soft creakings and rattlings on either hand, bringing with them a profoundly earthy smell that hung heavier and heavier in the shifting valley air. By dim limulight Rossamund found that the meager cart trail became a channel through thickly knotted thorns, a soughing briar grove tingling with a subtle threwdish caution-not unfriendly, just waiting. Beyond the spiny writhen boughs and thickset trunks he glimpsed lights. It seemed to him that one glow was brighter and swung more freely than the rest. It was a lantern. Someone was coming out to them.

"Ahoo! Ahoo! Prince Cannelle?" a man's voice called, husky with caution.

Cinnamon halted, giving a birdlike chirrup! as reply.

The lantern light approached, resolving into a bright-limn lifted now in the hands of a slight young fellow with dark, intelligent eyes, a broad round nose and curly black hair tied back. Dressed in a heavy coat with a white stock about his neck, the fellow had a stylus secured behind his ear. Beside him was a heavier gent in a properly proofed jackcoat, wearing an anxious face with a nigh absent chin beneath white scratch wig and broad-brimmed catillium. He bore a brace of unfriendly two-barrel hauncets.

With them came Freckle, looking powerfully pleased with himself.

Both men were goggling saucer-eyed from Cinnamon to Craumpalin hunched upon his shoulders.

"My dear Prince Cannelle," the slender young man said with a gracious bow to Cinnamon, his words having the tone of formula. "May the earth heal beneath your feet, and peace guard you-and ah… your companions wholly." He straightened.

The bogle-prince, still bearing the insensible dispensurist, bobbed his own curtsy and replied with a formula of his own. "May your days be long and you ever tell blight from blithe."

"Yon Lentigo near gave us all a chordic failure with his hammering at our door!" the older, bulkier fellow grumped, the slightest northern accent in his words. He added under his breath, "If it weren't a-troubling enough ter have hob-thrushes come by at all hours unannounced, our fellow brings comp'ny… and hurt comp'ny at that."

Freckle grinned ever more broadly.

"Yes, thank you, Spedillo." The young man cleared his throat and returned his attention to Cinnamon. "You well know that you and little Lord Lentigo are welcome to Orchard Harriet at any juncture. I see tonight you have again brought us guests…," he continued with polite understatement, bowing to the strangers. His astonishment broadened in realization at precisely who stood before him.

Europe stepped forward and introduced herself bluntly, bundling Rossamund and Fransitart and Craumpalin together as her "staff." Waving aside the two fellows' evident bafflement-Just what is Lord Cannelle doing with a fulgar! — she continued with rare urgency. "I am in need of your hearth or stove, sir, so please, lead us on."

"Ah, yes, certainly." The young man floundered for a moment, half turning, then turning back. "Yes, certainly, indeed, our stove… and mayhap a bath too… I shall present your need to Fabia, our housekeeper. Come along, please, good Lady Rose." He bowed again, handing the bright-limn to his hefty companion, who huffed grumpily as he took it and led them.

Soon the thorn grove gave over to honey-perfumed blossoming thickets of low ornamental trees.The party breathed its corporate relief as the dark ramshackle bulk of a fortified house hove into view, only three of its myriad window-lights lit and the front door open in welcome.

"Orchard Harriet," the young man proclaimed of the spreading structure with clear pride. "And if I may, I am Amonias Silence, poet and amanuensis, and my surly compatriot is Mister Spedillo, gardener, provenderer, nightlocksman."

The other fellow went on without acknowledgment toward the house of Orchard Harriet. Unclear in the darkness, it appeared an inky conglomeration of oddly placed turrets, high-pitched roofs and craggy battlements. A short projecting wing stood out from the building's upper story, making a porch over the foremost entrance, the arched space overlit with a friendly lamp, its seltzer clean and clear. Taken to this door, they were ushered into a narrow hall, long and doorless, walls souring white, smelling of the slate that made its floor. It was a kind of obverse, a coat stand and boot-scraper its only furniture.

Still bearing Craumpalin slumped insensible on his back, Cinnamon looked odd in such a domestic frame, yet past the sparrow-headed bogle another more disconcerting sight arrested Rossamund's attention and stopped him smartly. At the far end of the hall stood an enormous looking glass, fixed to the wall, showing a ghastly reflection. Spreading out from his nose, his lower face, neck and a good portion of his quabard were dark with old blood; his left eye was already blackened and his fringe partly singed away; much of the thread-of-silver embroidery on the arms of his coat was charred. Turning his head left, then right, he found a clotted trail of blood from his ears. With such an appearance it seemed astonishing he was walking at all!

Europe caught a view of herself too, and even she betrayed shock seeing her dangerously pale, bloody, green-streaked face so starkly.

Mister Silence went hastily down the hall ahead of them, calling with all the gusto of a faraday as he went, and obstructing the shocking reflection.

Merry loud replies and heavy footfalls on rug and stone resounded from around some corner down the passage, and a middle-aged man with a shock of prematurely graying hair wearing a brocaded silk dressing gown of red and orange strode into view.

"Hulloo, hulloo, Master Sparrow!" the man cried to Cinnamon without the least shock at such an unlikely creature in his house. "Master Pococo!" he heartily welcomed Freckle in his turn.

Rossamund looked quizzically at the little bogle jostling beside him. Pococo? How many names can one creature have!

Freckle just squinted a grin at him and shrugged. "Many names from many namings of many peoples past…"

The man drew close, a cloud of consternation fleeting across his merry visage as he saw his more human, bedraggled and bloodied guests. "The embattled party arrives, beset but unthwarted and bearing the crimson trophies of victory!" He peered at Europe with cautious recognition. "You keep strange company these days, Master Sparrow!"

"Hello to thee, Master Mattern," the nuglung chirruped as Fransitart gave an almost self-conscious bow. "Wounded souls need needful rest and a hearth for heating."

"Rest and hearth they shall have, sir!" the fellow responded heartily, inviting them in further with a sweep of his arms.

Cinnamon carried Craumpalin down the passage, Fransitart hobbling after. Freckle helped him in his weariness, the glamgorn's bare feet going slap-slap on the cold slate.

"Good-eve-of-night to thee, Branden Rose!" The fellow addressed the fulgar cheerfully despite their intrusion. "You are the last manner of soul I would expect to find gracing our threshold. Needs press as the nicker drives, hmm?" He touched his nose knowingly. "City whispers of your change of heart bear out, I see."