D Cornish - Foundling

Fouracres uncreased the puzzle of ruined papers carefully. He inspected the all-but-dissolved writing gravely. Soon he looked up again. "This is certainly a mess," he concluded, "but the seal is still intact on yer traveling certificate, and yer name, thank Providence. As ter the rest, well, I'll vouch for yer-what I call good, the Empire calls good.Yer mottle will help yer too." He pointed to Rossamund's baldric.

"Thank you so much, Mister Fouracres. I thought I was sunk."

"My pleasure, Rossamund, though I would recommend yer got them rewritten by the clerk or the Chief Harbor Governor as soon as yer can-and I'll help yer in that as well."

A meal of black coney pie arrived-and a jug of Juice-of-Orange with it-and they ate in silence for a time. Eventually Rossamund mustered the courage to ask, "Mister Fouracres, what was that creature back on the road there?"

The postman stopped chewing and looked thoughtfully at the ceiling. "I don't rightly know," he answered at last. "Never seen its kind before. Bit of a conundrum-I'll have ter ask around."

Rossamund held up his almanac. "I can't find it in here either."

"Well, that ain't surprising," Fouracres chuckled. "There's more kinds of monster than many a book could catalog." He quickly became sad and serious. "Not that most folks think they're worth a-cataloging anyways. Most folks would rather just see them killed and that be the end of it or at most see a list of glaring faces tattooed ter the limbs of a teratologist. Still, worth a look."

Rossamund returned the book to his lap. "Uh… Mister Fouracres, have you… ever killed a monster?"

"Unfortunately, Mister Rossamund, I have been forced ter do so, yes." The postman looked sad. "Yer see, if it's a choice 'twixt they or me, I choose me each time."

"Does that mean you have monster-blood tattoos, then?" Rossamund could not help from asking.

Fouracres hesitated, then frowned. "Well, no, actually. I don't go a-glorying in killings my hand's been forced to do. It's just a part of getting the post ter where it needs ter be."

"Oh."

The meal finished, the Juice-of-Orange drunk, they parted ways, Fouracres promising to be ready to take the reins on the morrow morning. They set out early, just as the sun had shown itself above the rim of the world. With Sallow detained elsewhere, Rossamund was trusted to make Europe's treacle. He proudly handed the evenly mixed brew to the fulgar, and then left her to meet with Fouracres and help prepare the landaulet. Europe soon emerged wrapped in a thick deep magenta coat, knee-length, with its high collar and cuffs trimmed with thick, bleached fox fur. Her hair was held back in loose coils and she wore pink quartz-lensed spectacles. She appeared very differently from when Rossamund first met her. She also still looked unwell and was, consequently, in a foul mood.

The night before she had settled the account with the proprietors by simply refusing to pay any extra beyond what she owed Doctor Verhooverhoven, declaring with the cold loftiness of a queen, "The boy's billion has covered expenses, as you well know. You'll not get a gander more out of him nor out of me."

Madam Felicitine went pale, but had said not a word.

Mister Billetus had just ducked his head and said, "Right you are, right you are. Hope your stay was as comfortable as could have been in the circumstances."

With a footman lugging out the fulgar's saddlebags and other luggage behind her, Europe stepped out into the coach yard. Rossamund and Fouracres were already seated in the landaulet, waiting, the foundling in the passenger compartment and the postman ready to drive in the driver's box. Europe stopped by the step of the carriage and stayed there. With a quiet apology a yardsman went to hand her aboard. She shooed him away, saying, "Leave off, man, it's not your job."

Rossamund had let his attention wander, filling his senses with the beauty of early morning. Only gradually did he become aware things were amiss. He looked dumbly at Europe, puzzled. She remained still, glaring straight ahead through those clear weird pink spectacles, her chin stuck forward arrogantly.

Rossamund blinked. What's wrong?What is she waiting for?

"Miss Europe?" he asked simply.

Her eyes flicked to him. "Well…?"

There was an uncomfortable silence. Somehow it dawned on the foundling what she wanted. I'm supposed to help her in like Licurius did!

He quickly jumped out of the landaulet, causing it to rock and unsettle the horse.

"Whoa! Steady, lad," Fouracres warned.

Ever so subtly, Europe rolled her eyes.

With a weak smile Rossamund handed the fulgar aboard and climbed back in once more, feeling very foolish.

"Drive on, man," Europe murmured.

Without a backward glance, Fouracres whipped the horse to a start. They went out through broad gates and turned left. Looking back, Rossamund could see farther along the wall to that pedestrian portal they had been admitted through three nights earlier. In his mind he bid farewell to his first wayhouse.

Fouracres turned the landaulet right at the junction and Rossamund was taken south this time. The Harefoot Dig disappeared behind the trees.

The Gainway took them through a woodland of younger, graceful pines, with areas of wild lawn between the slender trees. As they went on, large lichen-covered boulders now appeared here and there and the lawn became sparse and stubbly. An hour out from the wayhouse, the road began to slope gently down, and soon the trees gave way to a broad expanse of rolling downs and even larger lichen-grown stones. Every so often, thin, rutted paths would lead off from it, going to mysterious, adventurous ends. He saw one come to its conclusion at some distant dwelling. There were several of these about, he began to notice, small stone cottages built high upon lofty foundations, also of stone, with slits for windows and tall chimneys. Smoke wafted from some, that mysterious sign of homely life within.

"They're the houses of the eekers," Fouracres explained, "folk who manage to scratch out a living in the thin soil hereabouts. What they lack in material wealth they gain in liberty. The authorities don't tend to bother them much."

"But why are they so high off the ground?"

Fouracres gave a wry smile. "Ahh, to give the bogles a hard time getting them, of course."

With a slight arching of her brows, Europe looked knowingly at the postman's back. "You've dealt with some yourself, I suppose?" she said. This was the first thing she had said all morning.

The postman did not look at her. "Indeed I have, ma'am, though I am sure a near sight fewer than thee!"

"Hm." Europe lapsed into silence once more.

After two hours, with the scene changing little, they passed a milestone, a squat block of white rock upon which was carved High Vesting, and beneath that, 6 miles.

Behind this milestone grew a small, scruffy olive tree. As Rossamund looked, he was sure he spied movement within, a subtle shifting within the bush. He glared into its deep shadows. There, within, he was certain there was a figure obscured by boughs, a little person with a face like an overlarge sparrow and round, glittering dark eyes. A bogle! It shrunk noiselessly into deeper shade, but its eyes remained fixed on Rossamund, blinking occasionally with a pale flicker. The foundling stared back in breathless wonder, craning his neck as the landaulet rattled past and moved on.

"It's only a milestone, little man," Europe's curt voice intruded. "Surely you've seen one before?"

The horse whickered.

The eyes disappeared.

Rossamund sat back quickly. Thrilled as he was by such a sight, he felt no inclination to tell Europe of it. He did not want to see this one destroyed as the Misbegotten Schrewd had been. Thinking on the encounter just past, he decided he must have seen a nuglung, one of the littler bogles, so the almanac said, often having an animal's head on a small, humanlike body-what the almanac called anthropoid, or like a man. Rossamund almost couldn't believe it: he had seen a nuglung, a real one. There were stories from ancient times that told of some of these nuglungs doing good things for people, though folk now would never believe such a notion. His almanac was typically brief on them, saying, as it always did about any kind of bogle, that avoidance was the best policy. The foundling reckoned such advice probably helped the monsters as much as people.