"Ahh… this has been a most excellent deliberation," the Lapinduce abruptly declared, breaking the chant of its throaty music. "You are most certainly an unwitting yet faithful student of the Sparrowlengis, your watchful sparrow-duke. He too thinks better of men than they deserve and defends them in obedience to the ancient treaties." It eyed Rossamund cannily, and he felt his very soul shudder. "Yet for me the blackest of all the blackest things I have seen is an everyman's evilness to a fellow everyman-"
"Or everymen-enemies only because they do not know better-flayed and splashed to the eight winds by a nicker's claws!" was the young factotum's own reflexive retort.
"Ahh." The monster-lord smiled narrowly. "Yet is their thoughtlessness an excuse?" It raised a blunt bony claw. "Who is responsible for one's thoughtlessness if not a soul itself? Enough evidence there is of our good support to change an everyman's opinion a score of times over should any care to look better, but they will not. The kingdoms of everymen stand much through the protection of our blithely frair, yet still they course and kill them."
"But there are those everymen who have thought better," Rossamund countered stoutly. "I have seen monster-slayers show kindness…"
"Little doubt you speak with your mistress in mind-the Brambly Rose, who has taken you into her care."
The young factotum's eyes went round with amazement. "How-"
"How again, is it?" The Lapinduce's blank expression held the shadow of a bestial smirk. "How is it I know that you serve Europa of Naimes, Duchess-in-waiting, the Brambly Rose? How is it I know that-as I have done-she saved you from the grasp of selfish souls knitting abominations in their high stone hall on the edge of Master Sparrow's autumn?" It arched a brow. "Why, Lentigo has told me…"
"Lentigo, sir?"
"The one you know as Freckle, who goes huc illuc to all points and serves none but Providence."
To this Darter Brown puffed himself and gave an affirming kind of chirp.
"He is here?" Rossamund looked about rapidly, thinking the plucky glamgorn might emerge from the shadows.
"Most certainly, quizzing ouranin! Lentigo has been and is now gone. Very anxious he is after your weal in the custody of one so infamous as is this orguline, the Rose of Brandentown. Ahh, a hindrance and blight to all euriphim is she… I would like to meet her before she all too soon perishes. She suspects, I think, that I am here. Many times has her square-faced servant-man stood under my trees to sniff me out… He failed, of course."
Suddenly the young factotum realized he had forgotten… Europe's treacle!
Anxious now to get back to Cloche Arde and attend his testtelating duties, Rossamund opened his mouth to ask his leave of this perplexing creature.Yet before he could press his plea, the Lapinduce spoke.
"An ouranin as manservant to an orguline…" the Lapinduce's bestial eye twinkled with a cold mirth. "Complexity, I see, follows you like flies do a dung cart. Ever it is like this for an ouranin; never fitting, always searching on and on through generations and on into history… Come, let me show you a fine trick."
Immediately the monster-lord stalked out of the dell, ears back, finding a path that wended deviously among the thickets.
Keen not to get lost in the hedging woods, Rossamund had to run to keep pace while Darter Brown dashed low before him. A goodly way into the park, breath rasping in windpipe, he found the Lapinduce had halted atop a sizeable mound. Ears tall, standing alert in the thick shadow of a geriatric pine, the monster-lord peered down with keen intent on something below. Creeping on soft clover to hunker by the creature's side, Rossamund could see through crooked branches a figure prowling down in the parkland gloom maybe only a half-a-hundred yards away, a heavyset fellow in a deep green soutaine and a black tricorn pulled over his white wig.
The young factotum's innards went still.
It was one of the Broken Doll's door wards.
Rossamund clenched every muscle, ready to leap into hand strokes.
"They have trespassed deep indeed in search for their lost chum… and for you too, I think," the rabbit-duke breathed. "They will not seek for long. Watch… "
The intruding fellow was scowling at the darksome nooks and threatening crannies, patently uneasy at his task. Calls came through the trees-other searchers on the prowl. Shouting his own reply over his shoulder, the door ward approached the base of the hillock where the Lapinduce and Rossamund were hid.
The Lapinduce closed its eyes and let out a slow hissing breath.
All around the threwd thickened, a settling dismal chill.
The young factotum shivered.
The door ward hesitated and stared anxiously about. There came another cry to the left, its unintelligible words possessing a warning. The intruder began to withdraw, the calls retreating with him until the woodland hush relaxed and the threwd eased to its usual gentle watchfulness.
"Come, ouranin," said the Lapinduce, "let us return to my court." "So what of you, oh ill-named one!" Stepping to its spinet stool and sitting, the Lapinduce peered at Rossamund keenly. "I did not save you to pass you back to bloodthirsting everymen." For a moment it sounded angry. "You ought depart from here to live in proper seclusion with the sparrow-duke and Cinnamon, so interested in your progress; let this generation and all its selfish single-mindedness pass into matter. I can grant you easy passage to your sparrow-lord to dwell in peace till all things are restored.Yet it is for you alone to choose your progress."
Rossamund breathed long and deep. How simple it might be to take up the Lapinduce's offer, to retreat and live safe, and make forays out into the cities to overturn every rousing-pit or massacar he could find. For just a moment Rossamund's soul soared with the idea.Yet, as quickly as it swelled, this hope sank again. "Europe has risked too much for me to desert her now," he breathed, swallowing back on the knot griping in his throat. "Fransitart and Craumpalin too…"
A melancholy shadow passed through the Lapinduce's ancient gaze. "An answer at last to my original question…," it murmured heavily. "Brutish and short are the lives of every men; do not expect your own with them to be different."
Rossamund looked to his hands-a man's hands, a monster's hands.
Born out of the mud from some other soul's parts…
"It is time for you to return to your chosen mistress," the rabbit-duke commanded abruptly. It coughed to summon Ogh and Urgh. "Follow them close and do not mind their bold divagations; they shall show you by their own route to familiar paths that will take you home again."
Rossamund hesitated. He glanced anxiously to the sliver of forenoon sun peeking over the towering eastern wall-so much higher from this sunken vantage. How did it get so high? Surely they had talked only for some moments.
Flicking its coat hems to sit properly on its stool, the Lapinduce lifted long hands to play. "I will likely not see you again, ouranin," it said without looking to him. Flourishing a blunt-clawed hand, it gave the spinet voice once more, a wild tune that had the urchin-lord's arms and deft fingers running along every octave. It closed its eyes and was lost in the music.
Reeling, Rossamund slowly heeded a gentle tugging at his right shin. Ogh-or was it Urgh-was pulling at his stocking with its teeth, while its twin was slowly hopping to the farthest of the three arches and out of the court. With a final, heavy-hearted glance at the furious playing of the Lapinduce, the young factotum followed, leaving the glorious monster-lord in its hidden musical court.
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