D Cornish - Foundling

Rossamund frowned at him, not knowing how to answer.

"Hello, lad, sorry about being so abrupt. Just had ter make sure I got t' yer in time. My name is Fouracres." The man reached out a hand for Rossamund to shake.

The boy did just that, as Fransitart had taught him to, looking up at the man's face seriously. "Hello, Mister Fouracres. I'm Rossamund.You're a postman, aren't you?"

The fellow nodded smartly. "Yes, lad, that I am-bit obvious, ain't it? Rossamund, yer say? Well, Mister Rossamund, those other slothful souses in there might not want to help, but I may be of service to yer."

"How so, sir?"

"Well, I'm needed in High Vesting, yer see, and I couldn't help hearing yer needed a driver to take yer ter High Vesting, so I think: two people, same problem, one solution. I'd like ter offer me services to yer as the driver yer need. I'm not as well practiced as these daily-driving gentlemen-I'm a walker, yer see-but I still know how to switch a rein."

Rossamund did not care what the man's credentials were: he could drive, that was all he wanted to know. He accepted Fouracres' offer with glee.

The postman bowed humbly. "Just wait by the front of the office, and I will join yer as soon as I'm able," he offered with a grin.

With many an exuberant thank you, sir! Rossamund went back through the Imperial Postal Office and waited on the street out in front. It took a long time for the postman to emerge. As Rossamund waited, with people and vehicles bustling by, he began fretting that he had been duped by the unwilling people inside the coachman's cottage. His fears proved unfounded, however, for Fouracres arrived soon enough, hat on head, bag full of dispatches on his back and a satchel over his shoulder-ready to leave. Before much longer they were walking back out the gates of Silvernook and returning down the road to the Harefoot Dig.

Rossamund had found a driver!

Fouracres whistled a cheery tune as they strolled past the high hedge-walls of the gentry. He walked with an easy stride and smiled at anyone who passed. Rossamund trotted happily beside him along the weedy strip that ran between the lanes, right down the middle of the road.

"So, Mister Rossamund," the postman finally said, "how is it that yer could be at the Dig with a fancy carriage but no driver?"

Rossamund thought for a moment. "There was a driver, sir, but he was killed by the grinnlings."

Fouracres looked at him. "Grinnlings?"

"Aye, sir. Those nasty little baskets that attacked us-the ones with sharp teeth and the clothes and the great big ears…" Rossamund stopped short and, looking quickly at the postman's own organs of hearing, hoped he had not offended him.

Fouracres seemed not to have noticed any insult. "Aaah, them! Nasty little baskets indeed! Hereabouts they call them nimbleschrewds. They've been a'murdering wayfarers here and there in the Brindleshaws for the last three months or so. I'm sorry ter hear they got yer driver too."

"He fought hard, Mister Fouracres, killed many, but they got him in the end. I watched it happen-they just smothered him."

The postman nodded approvingly. "Well, there yer have it! To kill one or two is a doughty thing, but ter go slaying more, my word, that's a mighty feat indeed! But tell me: what was it that coaxed yer and yer driver to linger in that part of the woods-it being common knowledge they be haunted?"

The foundling did not know how to answer. He screwed up his face, scratched his head, puffed and sighed. In the end he just told the truth. Starting with Madam Opera's, he told the entirety of his little adventure to the postman, who listened without interrupting once.

"So the ettin's dead, then?" was all he said when Rossamund had finished.

"Aye, it was killed, sir, or as near enough to it, from what I saw," Rossamund replied glumly. "I was there to watch, but I had nothing to do with it, really. It was a cruel thing, and I didn't know what to do…"

Fouracres seemed sad to hear this himself. He sighed a heavy sigh. "Ahh, poor, foolish ettin," the postman said, distractedly-almost to himself. "He did not want to listen to me… I warned him this would happen… There yer have it, lad: cruel things like this are done all the year long."

"Did you speak to the schrewd, Mister Fouracres?" Rossamund was stunned.

"Hey? Oh, that I did, and often," the postman answered, after a pause. "He is-was-on my round, yer see, between Herrod's Hollow and the Eustusis' manor house. I told him no good would come of his enterprise, but he was powerfully put upon by those nasty little nickers ter keep it up. Who did the dastardly deed?"

"It was, um, Miss Europe, sir, and her factotum Licurius-but he died at the task, sir. He was the driver."

"Aah, the Branden Rose… I had heard she might have been hired for the job, with that wicked leer as driver, you say… a fitting end for him, perhaps?" The postman gave Rossamund a keen look. "I've not had anything ter do with either, but I know the lahzar by her work and the leer by his blackened reputation. Is the Branden Rose as pretty as they say?"

Rossamund shrugged but offered no more. "What were the grinnlings doing to the schrewd?" he persisted.

"Huh?" The postman looked momentarily distracted. "Oh. Well… if yer go by what the big schrewd said, it was the nimbleschrewds'-grinnlings, you called them? — idea to haunt the Brindlestow and stand-and-deliver travelers. I think they thought his great size would scare people more. It was inevitable really: such a scheme could never last so deep within our domain." Fouracres sucked in a breath. "I've seen the Misbegotten Schrewd about long before now. He ought'er have known better, but those grinnlings-I like that name, very fitting-those grinnlings must have come in from the Ichormeer or some other wildland up north. I say that 'cause, if it was their idea, then they can have only been ignorant of the ways of men or just plain stupid."

Rossamund listened with rapt fascination. Here was a man who had not only seen monsters, he had talked with them! Why couldn't they have made me a postman so I could wander around and talk to monsters too? To Fouracres he said, "I can't believe you actually spoke with the Misbegotten Schrewd!"

"Well I did, many times. Great talks they were, very illuminating." Fouracres became sad again. "It's a great shame he had ter go the way he did-that ettin was a nice enough fellow."

Angry tears formed in Rossamund's eyes. He kicked at a stone and sent it cracking into the trees. "I knew it! I knew it! But she just went and killed him anyway!"

"Now there, Rossamund, master yerself," the postman soothed, bemused. "It's a bitter truth of our world that monsters and the vast majority of folks can't live together-certainly not happily. In everyman lands, monsters give way; in monster lands, everymen give way. It's a law o' nature."

"But you lived happily with them!"

"Some I did, that is sure, but certainly not all I met were worth stopping ter chat with. Besides which"-Fouracres leaned closer-"I ain't the vast majority of folks."

Rossamund wiped his nose. He was angry still. Things would never be as simple as they were at the foundlingery. "I would have liked to have been his friend too!" he growled.