I am the very soul of stillness! I am the very soul of stillness . . . he chanted to himself.
There was a click close by.
With that one sound he became the very soul of dread!
There, just showing above one of the larger rocks, appeared the glaring head of a monster. Not more than five or six paces away, its long face was covered in mangy gray fur, with a pointed nose and equally pointed teeth, the top ones protruding over the bottom lip. A matted beard grew in limp strands from its chin. It had great, rabbitlike ears tipped with black fur that drooped out from behind its eyes. Large yellow eyes rolled about between slitted lids. This creature snuffled at the air as its ears twitched and swiveled.
Rossamünd had never imagined such a thing—how very happy he would have been to have Europe with him now! He clenched every muscle he knew he had, holding his wind for fear that even breathing would make him move too much. I’m not here, don’t see me . . . I’m not here, don’t see me . . .
However, the creature’s attention was clearly absorbed by the perfume of the john-tallow. It stalked away without noticing the foundling cowering in his temporary rock shelter. Remaining frozen, Rossamünd was nevertheless able to watch it through the gap as it stepped onto the road. Hunched and gaunt and taller than a man, the nicker bent down to smell the spot where Fouracres and the boy had only just been standing. Its long, furry arms ended in long, furry hands from which grew long, curved claws that clicked and clacked together with every move of its fingers. Its legs bent backward like the hind legs of a dog, and it used them to walk in an awkward, jerking way. The creature looked up the road, it looked down the road, sniffed at the ground again. Finally it started into the opposite trees.
But where was Fouracres? Daring to move a little, Rossamünd peered through his small gap in the rocks, looking for the postman out there somewhere in the trees.
Nothing.
Wanting to flee, wailing, into the woods, Rossamünd determined instead to be patient. He had survived the grinnlings—the nimbleschrewds; he could survive this.
With a soft snort, the creature pranced farther into the shadows on the other side of the road. It lingered there in the twilight under the eaves. While Rossamünd watched it, he began to get this strange niggling sensation to look to his left. He was reluctant to take his eyes from the creature, but in the end he did and looked over his shoulder. There was Fouracres sneaking back to him one slow cautious step at a time, his eyes never leaving the shadows of the opposite wood.
Relief! Sweet relief. Rossamünd could not recall ever feeling so glad, so lightened within, to see someone as he did just then. Encouraged, he returned to his vigil, in time to see the creature thread its jaunting way through the trunks and eventually disappear from sight.
Turning back to watch the postman, he found Fouracres, his eyes still fixed on the farther trees, almost up to the rocks. He no longer had the john-tallow: that would be stuck somewhere cunning as far from them as possible on the opposite side. Rossamünd went to move, but the postman cautioned him to remain as still as he had been.
“We’re not free of it yet,” he hissed almost inaudibly as he crouched down beside the foundling.
Taking the postman’s lead, Rossamünd stayed still and kept his watch through the gap. Muscles began to ache and an annoying hum started in his ears as he strained to hear any clue of the creature’s return. This waiting was getting very hard.
Seconds slowed to minutes, minutes slowed to hours.
Rossamünd gave Fouracres a pleading look.
“Keep waiting,” Fouracres insisted once more, and Rossamünd sat till he thought he could not take the buzzing of his joints or the ringing in his ears anymore. He had no idea for how long they waited, just that it was so very long.
Even when a carriage went by, they waited still. But when another clattered by only a few minutes later, the postman seemed satisfied, and at last released them, saying, “It’s safe enough. Let’s get away from here.”
Leading Rossamünd through the trees, still in silence, Fouracres allowed them to travel on the open road again only after they had put an hour’s distance between themselves and their temporary refuge. Once clear of the trees, they hurried the rest of the way and arrived at the Harefoot Dig, safe at last.
It was late afternoon.
Exhausted, but promising to meet the postman in the common room, Rossamünd went to tell Europe the good news.
The reclining, recovering fulgar received the revelation with her usual laconic grace. “You can trust this fellow?”
“He’s an Imperial postman, miss. His whole life is trustworthiness!” the foundling enthused.
“Well, if a girl can’t trust her own factotum, then who can she?” Europe closed her eyes, signaling the end of the matter.
Rossamünd rolled his eyes.
And what if a factotum can’t trust his mistress?
He returned to the common room too eager to enjoy his last meal, for tomorrow they would be leaving. Fouracres was waiting for him, a pipkin of small wine and two mugs already on the table. As they sipped the small wine, Rossamünd showed the postman the cracking, illegible mass that used to be his traveling papers, letter of introduction and the rest. Rossamünd still carried them even though they were next to useless, thankful at least that Mister Sebastipole’s instructions were so skeletal, for while they lacked detail, they had been easy to memorize. He thought that an Imperial postman, especially one as friendly and helpful as Fouracres, would be able to help him with this problem.
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 Rossamünd’s baldric.
“Thank you so much, Mister Fouracres. I thought I was sunk.”
“My pleasure, Rossamünd, 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 Rossamünd 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.”
Rossamünd 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.”
Rossamünd returned the book to his lap. “Uh . . . Mister Fouracres, have you . . . ever killed a monster?”
“Unfortunately, Mister Rossamünd, 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?” Rossamünd 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, Rossamünd was trusted to make Europe’s treacle. He proudly handed the eve
nly 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 Rossamünd 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. Rossamünd 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.”
Rossamünd 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.
Rossamünd 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 Rossamünd 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, Rossamünd 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 Rossamünd 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 Rossamünd 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 Rossamünd, 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.
Rossamünd 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. Rossamünd 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.
Opening a black lacquered box, Europe took out a soft drawstring bag with a stiffened circular bottom. It was a fiasco. Rossamünd had seen them before. In them he knew women kept their rouges, blushes and balms: the tools of beauty. He did not think a fulgar would need such things, but, when she had finished dabbing and daubing at her face with the aid of a small looking glass, even a young lad like himself could not help but be amazed by the simple yet profound transformation. He did not think a little rosying of the cheeks and lips and whitening of the nose could be so flattering.
“A girl’s got to look her best for the city,” she offered simply to his gawping.
Fouracres turned in the driver’s seat to say something and was visibly stunned, turning an unmanly red from earlobe to earlobe. He quickly resumed his original position and muttered over his shoulder awkwardly, “We’ll . . . er . . . be at High Vesting in an hour or so, miss.”
Europe smiled weakly. “Yes, we had deduced that for ourselves. A mere stone told us the distance about a mile back—but thank you for the thought.” She hummed happily and watched the passing scene.
Recovering his composure, Fouracres once more spoke over his shoulder. “So, Rossamünd, ye’re going ter be a lamplighter, are yer?”
The foundling did not know how to answer this. Was he a lamplighter or was he now Europe’s factotum? He looked at her quickly. Muffled in her thick coat, she paid him no attention whatsoever, returning to her usual regal reserve.
“That’s what I am supposed for, sir,” he ventured, glancing at Europe once more. “Though I am not really wanting it. Do you know much about them?”
“A little,” answered the postman. As he spoke, he would spend some of the time looking at Rossamünd from the corner of one eye and at the road with the corner of the other, or turn his back completely and focus on the path ahead. “I was thinking of becoming one myself, yer see, when the choices were afore me. As yer can see for yerselves, it didn’t take my fancy.”
Here was the proof of his dull future. “Too boring, Mister Fouracres?”
The postman paused, appearing bemused. “That’s not so much it . . . as the reverse.”
This was not the answer Rossamünd had expected. He sat up. “How do you mean?”
“I chose the quiet life of a strolling postman, for the lot of a lamplighter was a little too dangerous for mine.”
Rossamünd found he was holding his breath. “Dangerous? I thought they just went out, lit the lamps and went back home.”
With a chuckling snort, Fouracres looked sharply at Rossamünd. “That they do—on stretches of road traveling the fringes of civilization, at times of the day that bogles love best ter move about in, contending with bandits, poachers, smugglers, mishaps on the road itself, living with only a handful o’ others in isolated places. Then you have ter go about changing the water in the lamps themselves, regular as the seasons—that part, I’ll grant yer, ain’t interesting at all. Mmm, not the job for this fellow.” The postman pointed to himself with his thumb as he returned his attention to the road. “My hours are long and strange enough and my pay as low again as any should bear, without having cause ter make any o’ this worser by joining the lamplighter service.” He gave Rossamünd a cheeky, sidelong smile. “Ye, however, Mister Rossamünd, seem ter be made of sterner stuff. Well, good for yer. It’s a good thing yer harness is so fine, else yer might have something ter worry about. Howsoever, I’d get yerself a well-made hat afore yer venture up ter Winstermill.”
Rossamünd did not answer. His thoughts were turning on all the postman had just revealed. Bogles! Bandits! Perhaps the life of a lamplighter might be a whole lot more worthwhile after all? This clarified his path for him: now he was actually curious, even eager, to work his official trade. How do I tell Miss Europe this? The fulgar had said little more on her desire for him to become her factotum since the first day at the Harefoot Dig. He looked at her once more. Though her expression was resolutely aloof, she seemed sad—not momentarily unhappy, but troubled with deep, suppressed grief. How different she was from the talkative, boastful woman he had first met on the pastures of Sulk End. A tiny ache set in Rossamünd’s soul. He felt sorry for her loss of Licurius, however foul the leer had been, and he had an inkling that his devoted service might take that grief away. He was confused again.
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