Eager to have a task to punctuate the awkwardness, the young factotum sought upstairs for his stoups and a measure of levenseep to mix with the beverage. "Are you hurt this time?" he asked upon his return, knowing full well what it was like to suffer a fulgar's puissance.
"More in honor than in limb, sad to say," Rookwood replied, ducking his head. "That's twice you've picked me off the ground in as many days, sir-I am in your debt." Shamefaced as he might have appeared, he was sipping saloop heartily enough. "So tell me, Mister Bookchild, did you truly throw stinging powders about the pit?"
"Aye-"
"Wo-ho!" The fancy fellow chuckled, his vigor clearly returning. "And I thought I had pluck… I don't know what made you do it, but you caused a genuine uprising, people running and crying out." He peered at Rossamund admiringly. "I tell you, Pitter-patter More-Pins is terribly upset, as he kept telling me. Most of the pit's collection got free. Folks'll have to go to the Pin amp; Needle now for their pit-side thrills."
With a bemused smile, Rossamund shrugged as if it were all a matter of course, keeping his satisfaction at such news to himself.
Perhaps mistaking this as something less happy, Rookwood lifted a placating hand. "Never fear, my man, we have all done a fool's part in early life. I'll not begrudge you your eccentricities if you'll pardon my part in today's adventure." The fellow beamed at him as if doing him a great favor. Relieved soon enough of Rookwood's company-the white-haired fellow leaving in good spirits with a promise that they should try such an adventure again presently-Rossamund retreated to the peace of the saumery.
Steps rang on the stairs as Europe entered without a knock.
"I see you have been quick to refurbish," she observed lightly, eyes passing over the blanks where the cabinet pictures had once been. They came to rest on a copy of the "Notice to the People" from Winstermill, retrieved by Pallette from his old frock-coat pocket and fixed to the wall with court-plaster.
"Aye," Rossamund answered a little cautiously.
Europe stood for a moment while he made show of fossicking through a parts drawer. "I thought it necessary to show you the making of the traces and lesser draughts I require," she said suddenly. "Yet first I must know that I can trust the one to whom I show such learning." She paused pointedly, apparently absorbed in some mark on a parts drawer.
"I-" Rossamund hung his head. "Aye, you can…"
"Do you think me simple, little man?" his mistress purred, turning her keen gaze on him.
A dark thrill of compunction rippled through his soul. "I-uh-n-no…"
"Do you truly think I would believe even the least wit could lose you as easily as you have told to me?"
Rossamund had no response for this.
Europe took a seat on the sole highback in the room. "Pater Maupin is too well served for such a valued and missing servant to remain unfound… And you and I together know that you could not have ended your pursuer."
"No…" His voice was the merest breath of air.
Even this small admission was a profound relief.
The fulgar beheld him.
Glance by reluctant glance, Rossamund lifted his attention to look at her squarely and found in her canny hazel regard that she understood much yet held her words… Rossamund was grateful she did not press for more.
Abruptly, she produced a thin tome from her coat, hand-bound in scuffed and reddened reptilian hide. "This is an expurgatory, a lahzar's list-"
Rossamund sucked in a breath.
"I see you know of them." Europe's smile was thin. "You must never be found with it-suspicion is one thing but proof another. Stow it the same with cunning you are employing to keep last night's secrets…"
Rossamund stared at the small volume in awe as it was handed to him. Within was a collection of disparate papers, marked mostly in two hands: one he did not recognize and the other he instantly identified as Licurius' graceful script. The thaumacra were in order of incidence of use rather than letter-falclass="underline" saltegrade, unbordated felibrium, levinfuse, syntony, sangfaire and several more. Among the recipes were esoteric hints to sources of the best parts, impossible properties like falseman's ichor or kraulschwimmen gall, and their nearest alternatives, quotes of ancient lore and even scrawled obscenities against the unterman.
"Saltegrade is for before every fight," Europe explained. "Levinfuse is for the biggest stouches, felibrium I have to take at the start of each week and am currently running low…" She went through them all.
A little lighter in his heart, Rossamund stared at the script for saltegrade as if to press it into his mind, repeating the parts over and over under his breath, "Three parts Spice of Zichre… one part salt-in-gloom…" He looked up. "Miss Europe, I apologize for… for trying to save the Grackle… and provoking that Maupin fellow."
Pursing her lips, Europe considered him, her eyes clouded, her intent unclear.
"One might think," she said at last, "that with an Imperial Secretary, a military clerk and a massacar of minor talent as enemies, our tale had its count of antagonists without adding more."
Rossamund looked at her shamefacedly, but she did not notice, nodding rather to the black stink rising from the testing pan behind him.
"I think you will need to brew again, little man," the fulgar said mildly, "unless char is to be your latest innovation on my treacle."
11
Nuntio(s) official messengers of the Emperor and his regents, and, when required, bearing the authority of the one who sent them. Their private counterparts-used by magnates and peers-are the sillards (sing. silas). Both are distinct from scopps and mercers in that they are especially engaged by individuals for their exclusive service, rather than being available for general hire.
The new day-the knaving day-was an insubstantial gleam when Rossamund roused, washed, dressed, breakfasted and turned out in the coach yard with all the military haste of a pageant-of-arms at Winstermill.
"An unripe start for young and old, is it not, sir?" Latissimus muttered affably as he and the stablery hands heaved the tarpaulin-covered landaulet out into the yard proper, ready for hitching horses.
Rossamund smiled and breathed into his cupped hands, staring up at the icily clear sky.To the south the element was souring, as spring was wont to do in these lower climes-a poor promise for a day of travel. The clitterty-clatterty jink and rough panting of horses sounded on the Harrow Road, bringing his attention earthward.To his astonishment two taut fellows rode into the yard, each astride a horse of the richest velvet black harnessed in shortened petrailles. In his first shock, Rossamund thought them agents of Pater Maupin and the roust sponsors returning to reassert their demand for satisfaction, yet he quickly fathomed by the cut and mottle of their harness that these two were of a more official sort.
One rider in a black long coat and mitre was clearly a duffer. His companion, a man in courtly splendor, equally sable-clad but with fine lacings of pristine white and wearing a thick periwig of black, peered up at the house with veiled apprehension as he let one of the stablery hands take his horse by its bridle.
"Well-a-day, good sirs," Rossamund greeted them firmly, even as Mister Kitchen emerged from the house,Wenzel the footman in tow to do the same.
"Nuntio Malapropus," the splendid periwigged fellow enunciated, looming over them on his well-harnessed steed, attention turning back and forth between Rossamund and Kitchen, unsure of whom to address. "I am sent by his plenipotentiary graciousness, the Archduke, with a dispatch for the Lady Rose, Heiress of Naimes."
A nuntio! The young factotum marveled. Such as these were only ever sent from important folk to other important folk upon important occasions. Instructing Kitchen to usher the ducal messenger to the hiatus, Rossamund hurried to Europe's file two or three steps at a time.