The Foundling's Tale: Factotum Part 3

After six months with the lighters he was well used to having every point of his time organized for him, and was now at a bit of a loss. He fossicked through cupboards and drawers Pallette had dutifully organized to locate the meager count of his worldly goods. How he regretted the loss of his peregrinat in the conflagration of Wormstool; it would have been a comfort to read.

Fed a light supper of nine-cheese melted on sour bread in his room, Rossamund lay upon the bed at last, almost swallowed by its downy coverlets. Through the lofty third-story windows he could easily see the eastern sky behind the silhouette of treetops and ridge-caps, a sea of sloping h.o.m.ogenous slate and chimney pots. The heaven-haze was a delicate pink of staggering beauty, darkening into a deep violet as it rose. Picked out low against this were tiny, tightly fluffy clouds of glowing russet and pallid carnation. In awe, Rossamund just looked, silent, barely breathing till the view darkened and then vanished in encroaching night, and day-sounds gave over to spa.r.s.e cricket song.

To the thin tune of early spring insects, he stared at the dark ceiling, fingers pressing absently into the stiff facings of his quabard. He half expected to hear the m.u.f.fled cry, "Douse lanterns!" that rang every night to proclaim bedtime in the prentices' cell row at Winstermill. He wanted sleep, yet anxious, tumbling contemplations kept him in tossing-and-turning wakefulness until the dead of night-Who am I? What am I?-and it was only exhaustion and the lingering rocking of the Grume crossing that finally pressed him to sleep.

The new day was clear and cool. Still clothed, Rossamund was woken by Pallette bearing a great jug of water for was.h.i.+ng, accompanied by a young step-servant called Pardolot, arms full of wood and kindle to light a new fire. "You had not risen timely, sir, so I thought it best to wake you before the morning got on too much," she explained nervously.

"Thank you, thank you . . . ," Rossamund repeated blearily.

He hurried through the kitchen, blinking unsteadily in the stark morning light made brighter by the flawless pallor of the walls, the servants a.s.siduously avoiding his eye.

"In!" Europe declared when Rossamund arrived at the file door with her steaming treacle. She was dressed today in the wonderful scarlet coat he knew so well, though her hair was still down in a plait.

Obediently he stepped across the threshold and into the fulgar's sanctum.

It was long and large, the long venal red wall opposite perforated by many thin windows hung with velvet drapes pulled aside now to let in the bright daybreak. There were silk paintings of vile-looking nickers and a floor-to-ceiling mirror in between. An enormous exotic carpet occupied a large part of the dark wood floors, and at the center of this sat a desk of mahogany, its uncluttered top inlaid with a vast blotter of the black hide of some unnameable creature.

Telling Rossamund to remain, Europe took her morning dose, and-as he dutifully stood by and waited-continued to look through a great book spread over a large portion of her desk. It was a garland, filled with tinted plates of mild-faced people wearing coats and weskits and cloaks, similar to volumes Rossamund had once seen in Madam Opera's boudoir.

A light thunk of an opening door and Claudine, the tiring maid, appeared from behind a bom e'do screen in the corner of the file, coming from what presumably was Europe's own bedchamber. At Europe's instruction she began to take Rossamund's dimensions for what the fulgar called more appropriate attire. "Your other quabard is entirely the wrong hue," his mistress explained, speaking of his lamplighter's harness with its Imperial mottle of rouge and or-red and cadmium.

Gently prompted to turn about with such slow and nervous care that he hardly felt a prod or poke, the young factotum could see an enormous obsidian fireplace at the far end of the room, the warm, energetic firelight catching the glint of fine white flecks in the dark green stone. Above the dark mantel was a vast painting of a young girl, maybe four or five years older than him, with a trefoiled heart figured in white above her left shoulder. In the shadows at the girl's feet lay some slain, fearsome nicker while other deformed shades lurked and cowered behind. The girl's daubed expression was one Rossamund knew all too well: sardonic self-satisfaction. At first, for the briefest instant, and rather stupidly, he thought it was a rendering of Threnody: the same taut insolence and a deeper sorrow too. With a small shock he realized he was gaping at a portrait of a young Europe. Dumbfounded, he looked from the image to the real woman and back. The former was radiant with the blooming beauty of youth; plumper, she was dressed like a boy in a skirted coat of magenta with a high dramatic collar, her face pristine of spoors or the thinness of the lahzarine ravage.The whole manner of her pose was defiant, full of energy, even of hope. The latter sat in living flesh, intent on her medicinal drink and her fas.h.i.+on book, her beauty stretched, almost gaunt, yet undiminished.

"Today you will be meeting my man-of-business," the fulgar said suddenly, marking a page and closing the garland. "He is a bright fellow, a man of many parts, with clear ambitions in the magnate line. I do not begrudge him his plans for improvement-many have them, I suppose-and he completes his labors for me admirably." Finally, she looked at her new arrival properly. "This came for you," the fulgar stated blandly, holding out a folded paper.

It was a simple note from Fransitart.

Rossamund, We are safely harbored at the Dogget & Block, in the district of Fishguard. Any takenyman will know its bearings, as might your Branden Rose. Will look in on you in the middle of the afternoon watch if we do not have report from you first.

With respect There was a knock.

With an absent "In!" from Europe between gulps of treacle, a portly, thoroughly starched, clerical-looking gentleman entered the file. Dressed in a glossy blue-gray frock coat with darker collar and cuffs and sensibly restrained hems, he wore his own sandy hair above an extremely broad face; the slicked locks, parted evenly and jutting over either ear, were gathered in a small black bow at the back. About him hung a distinctly mercenary air.

"Ah, Mister Carp. Here you are, my man-of-business, even as we speak of you," declared the fulgar.

"Your return is happy and welcome, gracious lady," this Carp fellow offered-as starchily as his appearance promised-bowing low and long and taking no notice of Rossamund. "I came from my offices directly I got your word." Behind him came two equally stiff lackeys in glossy gray, each bringing an armful of folios and bow-tied papers.

Europe gave a brittle laugh. "Nonsense, man! I am fully aware my return is of great inconvenience to you all. Gone are comfortable days in my pay done at your usual rhythm."

"Ah, your grace," said Carp, smiling tautly, "you are anything but inconvenient-"

"Tish tosh," the Branden Rose returned evenly. "Now! This is Rossamund Bookchild, come here as my new factotum."

"Yes, yes. Kitchen explained as much upon my arrival," Carp said gravely with a look of cautious regard to Rossamund. And who are you? his pale eyes seemed to say. "We were all most distressed when we received news of n.o.ble Licurius' gallant fall."

Europe looked owlishly at the man. "I am sure you were," she said quietly. She stared at her man-of-business for a moment and then said, "Here, Rossamund, is the silver-tongued Pragmathes Carp."

Mastering a faint animosity toward this fellow, Rossamund bowed and did his best with gentlemanly civility. "Pardon me, Mister Carp, sir, but do you have a relative living up in Boschenberg?" he asked cheerfully enough, thinking that there might be a connection between the person before him and Madam Opera's manservant.

The man-of-business just blinked at him and remained silent.

Rossamund stared out of the file window and hoped neither Europe nor the uncivil Carp noticed his burning cheeks.

"Mister Carp," Europe declared, as the man-of-business directed his aides to deposit their loads and depart, "today you are to show Rossamund to the coursing house so he might tell them that I am arrived and am available for work." She glanced to Rossamund. "There is no benefit in sitting idly about giving needless scope to all manner of dour maunderings.You are to aid him fully, sir, in learning these clerical particulars." She leaned back in her seat.

Carp inclined his head. "Most certainly, good lady."

Daunted, Rossamund only nodded; he had no notion how to be both monster and monster-hunter at once. He could only hope that he might somehow steer his mistress' choices or drive the bogles away before she could get to them, just as Threnody said Dolours did with the unfortunate Herdebog Trought.

Europe sat up and produced a folio from a wide drawer in her elaborate desk. It was a sheafbook; a flight of pale golden egrets figured on the ebony cover, and it was filled with the ribbon-bound leaves of many different papers. "This is my vaingloria-well, the most recent of them. It is a testament to my apt.i.tude and proof of your representation of me." She looked at Rossamund steadily. "Take this, present it to the underwriters at the knavery and inform them that I am here. That is my task for you today; a simple beginning. Mister Carp will put you aright if needed, will you not, man?"

"Most certainly, good lady."

The fulgar drew forth a key from some secret place upon her. "You must fit yourself appropriately for going forth on the knave with me." A hint of kinder feelings played about the corners of the fulgar's eyes and mouth. "What arts do you think will suit you in the stouche?"

Puckering his mouth, Rossamund frowned. "Potives work best, I reckon," he said with an emphatic nod. "They do for many more foes than one blow of a stock or one shot of a firelock can."

"Truly . . . A ledgermain, are we?" Europe replied with a twinkle in her eye. "Mister Carp will write you out a folding note to twenty sous"-at this the man-of-business s.h.i.+fted his weight just a little-"for you to take to Perseverance Finest Parts on Foul Soap Lane after your excursion to the knavery. Set yourself up with whatever you deem necessary to meet the need, Any change you may keep for future expenses."

Rossamund could hardly credit what his ears were hearing.

Twenty sous!

"May I bring Master Craumpalin with me?" he asked breathlessly. "He knows all there is to know about the properties of scripts."

"If it will help you to spend, then, yes, you may."

What a turn! To be let free at a dispensary with a learned dispensurist and almost as much money as Rossamund could earn in a year of lamplighting.

At Europe's instruction, Carp went to a heavy bureau in the corner behind her and there drew up a bill of folding money. Pa.s.sing the new-minted note to Rossamund, the man-of-business could not help the warning, "Disperse this wisely, young fellow-we will want receipts."

The young factotum goggled at Carp's fine pen work on the bill, at the import of the words the man had inscribed there.

Europe folded her arms in an easy manner. "Now go!" she proclaimed, with a light and easy twirl of her fingers. "See! Do! Spend! And if you are able, find me a new driver for my landaulet."

Before he left, he wrote a note to his old masters at his own writing desk in his new room, with stylus and a ream of fine, thick parchment. He sought to frame a grandly formal missive with capitals and all, just as an agent of a mighty peeress ought.

Dear, dear Masters Fransitart & Craumpalin, Please do me the Honor of meeting with me at your Chosen Establishment, the Dogget & Block, on this very day at the Second Bell of the Afternoon Watch, and from there to join me in the Purchase of Many Scripts and Many Parts from Perseverance Finest Parts, Foul Soap Lane.

Your Servant

Most Faithfully,

. . . Here he steadied himself and marked his name, re-fas.h.i.+oning it after his memory of Sebastipole's own fine manu propa:.

4.

TO BRANDENTOWN.

elephantine(s) named for their great corpulence, these folk are the highest rank of magnate in central Soutland society. Much of the Half-Continent pivots on the idea that certain folk are better than others, that some are worthy and most of all should lead and succeed, whereas others are not worthy and ought to suffer at their betters' expense.This is very much the stated position of the peers, lords and princes-an inherited notion fundamental to their understanding of themselves and their place in relation to other lesser folk, the wellspring of their callousness and arrogance abetted by all levels of society and the source of their social power. Though dukes, marches, counts and barons may in their heart of hearts look down upon the elephantines, vulgarines and other magnates, the raw power that money affords induces the former to concede and treat them as equal.

OUT in the wood-smoky morning, aboard a dyphr driven by Mister Carp, Rossamund ventured into the city at last, glad to have business to keep his cares at bay. His money stowed securely in his wallet and his trunk freshly doused in Exstinker, Rossamund was ready to explore.

Riding down wide avenues of fine city manors in a dyphr was quite different from riding in a lentum or takeny, a more lively bobbing motion putting wind in his ears and lifting his soul. Out in the spring-warming hush, over the creak of the springs and harness and the clash of wheels on flagstone, he discerned an all-surrounding hum of activity, a sustained buzz of energy and momentum such as he had never known before, not even in the civilian ma.s.s of Boschenberg. How big is this city? he marveled, clutching his thrice-high determinedly to his head.

"So you are to be Licurius' subst.i.tute." The man-of-business broke his silence with an ironic smile as he coaxed his gray mare left. He was wearing his copstain-or stovepipe hat-at a jaunty angle on his head and a merry flush on his cheeks. "Where do you hail from?"

"I was raised in Boschenberg . . ."

"As I can see from your cingulum," Carp interjected, meaning Rossamund's black-and-brown checkered baldric.

"But lately I have come from Winstermill."

"Never heard of it," Carp declared with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Rossamund was incredulous. "The great fortress of the lamplighters at the beginnings of the Idlewild?"

The man-of-business twisted his mouth in contemplation. "Perhaps I may have heard it spoke of in pa.s.sing, but certainly nothing memorable. Of the Idlewild I am somewhat informed-an eminent client of mine has a small interest in a going concern at Gathercoal; but of this Winstermill, nothing. Is it newly raised?"

Rossamund could scarce contain an indignant splutter. "It was built long ago, right on the foundations of old Winstreslewe! Has never once been breached."

"I do not doubt you, young fellow." Carp made a noncommittal gesture. "But it is not Brandenbra.s.s, is it? As they say, the world is Brandenbra.s.s and Brandenbra.s.s is the world, the very center of the cosmos-or did you not know that? Everything comes here and everything goes out again-and clever souls position themselves somewhere in between to skim the gleanings."

"Oh" was all the deflated young factotum could think to say. Brandenbra.s.s shared most of Boschenberg's trading lanes and was her greatest rival.

The man-of-business peered at him, an impertinent glimmer in his eye. "I wonder how old Boxface would find it, superseded by a child-it's almost comical." He actually laughed, a sound of honest flabby delight in his thick throat.

Near speechless, Rossamund kept his gaze fixed down the route of high, pale gray buildings. "I beg your pardon, sir?" he forced as politely as he might through gritted teeth.

"No, no, mistake me not, m'boy," Carp quickly a.s.serted. "It is truly rather fitting.The Branden Rose was never one to tread convention's path.Why would she not as soon employ a boy-factotum over some wizened old bleak-souled sensurist like Licurius, stolen from her mother's employ?" The man was growing loquacious the farther they went from his patroness' scrutiny. "You seem a much cheerier fellow than that laggard. I declare, he was getting grimmer by the day, last I knew him. Did you ever see those ghastly images he paints-or painted, rather? A regular graphnolagnian."

"Aye." Rossamund stared at the man-of-business fully in his shock; yet it fitted well that those wretched daubs he had banished from set and saumery were the work of so cruel a fellow.

PRAGMATHeS CARP.

"He was quite famous among certain circles, so I hear, veritably hailed for the deftness of his marks and his attention to detail." Carp clucked in his cheek, and the young factotum liked him just a little for that. "A dubious honor if ever there was."

Nodding, not knowing what else to say, Rossamund inadvertently caught the eye of a filthy onion-seller toiling along the walk, bowed under a pole strung thickly with a great weight of onions. The seller glared at him, then stepped forward as if to offer a sale.The young factotum quickly looked away.

"How did you come by such a fancy name?" asked Carp as the dyphr pa.s.sed on, turning down a broad way br.i.m.m.i.n.g with market crowds.

Closing his eyes, Rossamund groaned inwardly. "It was written on a card that came with me when I was found on the doorstep of my foundlingery," he sighed.

"I see," the man-of-business uttered, as if for him this explained all he wished to know. "And have you, perchance, come to Brandenbra.s.s afore?"

Rossamund said he had not.

The farther Carp took them from Cloche Arde, the busier the streets became, and tighter too, long direct roads dissecting the city into small sections run through with alleys and lanes. Turning right off the Harrow Road as it bent west, mucky smokestacks, thin and very tall, began to show above the high rooftops blotched with lichen, leaking strange smokes into the morning smog.

"Ahh, old Brandentown," the starchy fellow waxed encyclopedically, "historied beauty of the Grume-of the whole Sundergird no less!-whose long-gone metropolitans sought to transact business with the Tutin invader rather than resist him, thus preserving much of the autonomy we still enjoy today. Such a superb mercantile tradition is the shrewd and potent praxis-the great egalitarian system-upon which even one as small and ign.o.ble as I can rise to heights unattainable by any other man in other lands. Employ your money wisely here, Rossamund Bookchild, and you will surely find yourself elevated to a patron of the peers themselves . . ."

With a flick of reins, Mister Carp took the dyphr quickly about a crossway, a circuit where the road they were on met several other streets at oddly obtuse angles. A fat memorial pillar was raised at its center; flower sellers gathered at its base, and every corner was crowded with many-storied shop fronts. Bustling through, they clattered straight down a street signed simply The Dove and Rossamund suddenly found that they were running right by a stone-and-iron wall that enclosed a rather wild-looking park. From the elevation of his bobbing seat Rossamund could see a broad common beyond, its darkling trees s.h.a.ggy with yellowing lichens and pallid trailing mosses, its gra.s.ses left to grow thick and wild. It seemed still and empty yet strangely pensive too, affording no glimpse of a street or buildings on the other side, just dim, brooding shadows. Any strolling folk kept to the farther side of the road.

"We call it the Moldwood Park," Carp explained. "Good for kindling, bird's nests, a million rabbit holes and not much else. It is said that its middle is a proper woodland-all that is left of the forest that grew natively here before our Burgundian ancestors arrived-not that I would know this for myself, having never ventured in."

"It's threwdis.h.!.+" Rossamund exclaimed reflexively. It was a subtle, suppressed feeling of watchfulness, a warning caution constrained on every side by human habitation. In the heart of an everyman's city: how can this be?

The man-of-business gave him a quick, curious look. "It is an uneasy place, I grant you. People are daunted by antique stories of terrible consequences for those who have tried to clear it, though I am told thorough surveys have turned up nothing unpleasant. The place is a cleveland, protected by an ancient permanare per proscripta-a legal ban-and so it has been left, as you see, generally ignored by all but the very needy, the very cold or the very hungry."

"The hungry? Hungry for what?"

"Why, the rabbits, sir! Rabbits-scrawny, barely eat-able rabbits-burrowed in walls, hiding in parks and forgotten nooks, but most of all in the Moldwood here.There is a reason, Master Bookchild, that such a beast is the sigil on our stately flag, for the city is veritably plagued with 'em-and their droppings, into the bargain! So much so that rats have a hard time establis.h.i.+ng themselves. A good thing, mayhap, for our indigent and hungry ma.s.ses-bunny daube is ate most nights of the week in downtrod districts. The city is famous for the dish." Carp took a pinch of spice aura from a tiny silver vinaigrette as ward against the stink of this down-at-heel neighborhood, then offered some to his pa.s.senger.

Rossamund declined-such flash manners were not for him. Feeling eyes upon him, he peered up at the sagging tenements on the opposite side, their stained sills hung with was.h.i.+ng. A nursing mother in over-laundered gray stared down at him sullenly from a high window.

"People live willingly next to it?" he marveled.

"Those who cannot afford the higher rents elsewhere, yes."

"Are they not bothered by the . . . by being so close?"

Carp made a puzzled frown. "I should think none has ever asked them-they should be thankful for a roof at all. It is as some say, young fellow: the starveling has no fancy . . ."

At the dyphr's hectic rate they were soon past this peculiar park, going through the high arch of a bastion-the Cripplegate-its heavy iron-studded doors open wide to the ceaseless human flow. Gate wardens leaned on muskets and watched all with complacent scorn, their fine spit-and-polish making many of the amblers look squalid. Pa.s.sing along a congested thoroughfare of narrow-fronted countinghouses, Carp worked with frowning application to avoid the dolly-mops in bright versions of maid's clobber and low-grade clerical gents laughing and chatting and careless of horse or carriage. Finally the relentless momentum thrust them onto a vast rectangular circuit rus.h.i.+ng with impatient traffic. Magnificently tall buildings rose even higher on every side, casting their long shadows in the thin morning light. Imposing like a bench of magistrates, most were fronted with soaring colonnades topped with rain-streaked friezes of stone that depicted portentous moments of great matter.

"The Spokes," the man-of-business explained as they launched into the mayhem of traffic that swarmed here. "That august building upon our right," he continued, pointing to a great square structure of dirty gray stone topped with a green-copper roof bright lit by the rising sun, "is where we need to be today.The Letter and Coursing House, postal office and knavery in one."

Post-lentums, town coaches, takeny-carriages and jaunty dyphrs barely avoided each other as drivers dodged balking horses, slow-moving planquin-chairs or white-suited scopps. These tireless children dashed to and from every cardinal with their precious messages, leaping headlong from the walkways without ever a look for rus.h.i.+ng carriages. Several times Carp was forced to pull up sharply, his horses snorting in dismay. From the sumptuously furnished window of a park drag next to them, one gigantically corpulent fellow impatiently hollered, jowls wobbling, spittle flying as he blindly harangued the delays and glared at Rossamund as if he were the cause of not just the current impediments but of all the world's ills too.

Standing bravely at strategic places among the anxious commotion were grim-looking fellows dressed in long coats of black and doing their utmost to make order of the chaos. Duffers, Mister Carp called them, the strict constabulary of Brandenbra.s.s. Their waists wrapped about with checks of sable and leuc and wearing black mitres like a haubardier's, they raised and dropped lamps as signal; when one lifted a clear light, humanity flowed left but ceased to go right; when a blue light was high, the reverse occurred.

Gripping the sideboard, Rossamund did all he could to hang on, his knuckles white, as the dyphr hastily circ.u.mvented a wide pond right in the center of the grand circuit. A great many ibis waded in its reedy soup and used a weather-grimed statue of old bronze and stone-some neglected commemoration of ancient victories-in its middle as a perch. A faint wakefulness seemed to hover over the water, though no one else appeared to heed it.

"That brackish bog has a proper name," Carp cried over the racket-Rossamund wis.h.i.+ng the man would keep his eyes better fixed upon their progress-"but none of we goodly locals calls it by anything else but the Leak."

Rossamund saw a line of shackled folks, their heads and hands jammed in flat wooden casques and ranked in full and shaming view upon a stone stage at the edge of the pond. Pa.s.sing people hissed and waved white kerchiefs at them.

"What did they do?" he asked, twisting in his seat to see, yet too far to read the bill of fault nailed to each casque.