Rossamund returned his gaze reluctantly. What he was afraid of he did not know… Europe's rejection? Her fury?
"She surely fathoms it's comin'," Fransitart pressed. "Prob'ly been countin' th' days…"
"Aye," Craumpalin added. "A spoiled tooth is best pulled quick."
Fransitart nodded, hmming in solidarity.
The young factotum smiled for but a moment; then, innards knitting, he finished dressing and firmed his courage to face his mistress with this final and unavoidable proof. By the guidance of the Patredike's amiable servants Rossamund went to the kitchen in the main house to test the morning's plaudamentum. He brewed with a distant and instinctive care while his old masters waited unobtrusively in an adjacent parlor, sipping sillabub made straight from the cow. When the draught was done, they were shown upstairs down a golden hall carpeted with blue and lined with tall alabaster urns fashioned after some ancient style. Rossamund's footfalls were a grim echo to the apprehensive pounding in his ears as they approached the eggshell-blue door of the temporary boudoir of the heiress of Naimes.
Gritting his teeth, Rossamund knocked-faintly first, firmer second-and entered.
In a suite of white ceiling and walls striped deep rose and pale geranium Europe was breakfasting alone. Already fully harnessed, she sat in a high chair by a thin-legged table, staring out the enormous windows to the panorama of half-lit vineyards and a sky scoured clean by the night's tempest. Appearing at ease in the friendly light of the full-fledged dawn, she barely acknowledged Rossamund or the two old men as she took her morning dose in its flute glass, shifting slightly in her seat, not turning her head.
"Miss Europe, Master Frans' mark has shown… It is a… cruorpunxis." Frowning, Rossamund held his breath.
In verification, Fransitart stepped forward and turned his sleeve to show the underside of his forearm.
Uttering a quiet unamazed "hmph," the fulgar barely cast a glance at the proffered limb. "It turns that our foe the dastard surgeon has correctly surmised your origin after all, little man," she said evenly as she sipped her plaudamentum, keeping her attention fixed on the vista.
Fransitart and Craumpalin retreated from the room.
"So rossamunderlings are truly real…," Europe murmured, as if to herself. "Your strength is not just some happy aberration… An unterman in service to a teratologist…" Finally she turned to behold him fully, her expression tight yet eyes inquiring.
He held her searching stare unflinchingly, hoping-aching-for her to take him just as he was.
She blinked slowly, bitter perceptions roiling in the depths of her gaze. "You worry I might fly into a rage? Slay you where you stand?" Her voice was low and dangerous. "And after this collect my prize at the closest knavery so to be held a savior for defending goodly folks from a most insidious trickery?"
Shrinking from her, Rossamund was not at all certain what he thought. "I…"
The fulgar's mien clouded. Draining the dregs of her draught, she stared again out the window. Steepling her fingers, she pressed the foremost to her lips. "I am not entirely the thoughtless invidist you might suppose me, Rossamund. I slay the monster out of need, out of right, out of…" She hesitated.
Rossamund stared in awe at her unfamiliar confusion.
"I slay the monster because long ago a silly hoyden, too well used to good living and in flight from her mother, sought to make much money where much money was to be made. Dazzled by the great prizes offered to teratologists, she mindlessly chose the knaving life and, being slight and terribly silly, thought a fulgar would be the best and simplest kind. No need for aptitude or muscle, just point and zzick! It has served her well, protecting her from monsters without the city and those within…" She closed her hazel eyes as if against some dark memory. When she opened them again, they were clear, determined. Reaching out, she touched his arm with surprising tenderness. "Nothing changes, Rossamund. You are my factotum, I am your mistress; the plot thickens, that is all."
A small warmth of hope unfolded within him, infusing its tender solace through every fiber of his being until he near sang with the relief of it. Of a sudden, he clasped her from the side as she sat, an awkward honest embrace filled with the smell of her, feeling just how wastedly thin the mighty Branden Rose was made by her lahzarine organs.
Startled by his action, Europe held her hands up in surprise, relented and held him in return with those same graceful hands. Releasing him quickly, she made a wry face. "A delicious irony, do you not think, little man, that it is you who has won my affections… A pretty paradox to figure through."
Rossamund smiled happily. "Aye."
The fulgar nodded briefly, yes, yes. "Mind on the knave now," she declared more firmly. "We have lesser creatures to find today." To aid the course for the secreted evil, Monsiere Trottinott had sent for his squires and parmisters, parcel-holders and various tenant farmers who worked his historied franchise. By midmorning, when Rossamund emerged on the heels of the Branden Rose, most of these various heads and local men of import were gathered in the square before the enormous manor, with others yet arriving by horse, cart or carriage. Most were dressed in frock coat and longshanks-the usual country-gentry attire.Yet a few were decked in more peculiar garb of voluminous white sleeves under proofed vests of red or black, deep brown or gray, and thick high-waisted skirts striped vertically and across with bands of brown and black or brown and blue, wearing their own hair long and pulled back with broad black ribbons. Piltmen chiefs, the Monsiere quietly called them, "the descendants of the original folk that once prospered in the lands about before my sires came." Keeping apart, these chiefs spoke to each other with the same strange lilting song in their words that many of the Trottinotts' servants shared and stared at Europe with guarded wonder. "Our Bright Lady Schurmer," they dubbed her, and honored her with many solemn bows.
A table had been brought out and placed with plush chairs amid the graceful trees of the wooded park in the middle of the grounds. Here Europe sat, proofed in her usual scarlet harness, sucking on rock salt and sipping agrapine as the warming sun eased over the high roof of the main manor. She looked like a queen holding court as showy country gents and shy taciturn laborers took their turn to tell her what they knew.
For his part, Rossamund was given the role of amanuensis, writing with a stylus all pertinent evidence into the Branden Rose's ubiquitous ledger. The details he accumulated were little different from the particulars related by the Monsiere himself last night: nocturnal commotions; vines ruined; sheep sucked dry of their humours; night-watching men attacked, bruised and half strangled. There was confusion about the number of their foe: some said a great swarming many; others told of a lone giant. Together they were unable to give a more substantial description than black, slimy and prodigious great thew.
"They… it… is gettin' bolder, miss!" a ruddy laboring parmister attested. "Waylaid us in our homes in the storm last night; hammerin' and hissin' and tryin' to tear out the bars of our winders. We already toil hard on the common diems, wi'out being made to risk on our rightful vigil…"
"Monsters seldom observe the scales of rest," Europe answered grandly, "and-good fortune for you-neither do I."
"They seem to have a taste fer soured milk, ma'am…," one bashful fellow with sad eyes and a fluttering, nervous smile volunteered, telling rapidly of night after night where pails holding milk on the turn were upset or drunk dry.
"Then that shall be our lure!" The fulgar clapped her hands just once. "Monsiere Trottinott, I shall need dishes of the stuff before the day is out… And perhaps-if you will allow it-some drops of sheep's blood with it as a further incentive."