He sighed long-sufferingly.
Behind him, Europe sat by the broad sitting-room windows, wrapped in a coverlet and brooding over her ledger and a slowly accumulating collection of missives.Through the help of the ever-cheerful Amonias Silence or the ever-grumpy Spedillo trotting between Orchard Harriet and Coddlingtine Dell, the fulgar had managed to get several cryptically addressed messages out to various agents in the city and had that very day received replies.
"I am making designs for our return" was all she said on the matter.
She would not allow Rossamund to see what she wrote, yet kept him close should she need an errand run. These were not frequent, and so he spent much of his day looking at the great variety of paintings hung here and throughout the grand manor.
Passing through on a task of her own, Pluto hesitated, and, approaching Rossamund, politely remarked on his fascination with the image. "Would you care to join me out in the woods and vales to wander and draw?" she suddenly asked.
Rossamund declared that he very much would, and, careful to take his leave of Europe, he left her to her secretive plans.
Going forth in a heavy proofed long-coat of sage green and glossy copstain stuck with the feather of some mighty hunting bird, Pluto also took a two-barreled hauncet in holster at her hip. She advised Rossamund to do the same, and he proceeded in frock coat and weskit, and brought his digitals too. Giving him a small card-covered drafting folio and a stylus of his own, the fabulist took him roaming through combes tangled with only partly tamed pine woods and myrtle copses, to see, to draw, and climb the high bald hills to look east out over the pallid waters of the distant Grume. Tiniest oblong shapes, barely discernible, seemed to bob and twinkle distantly out on the waves, squadrons of rams and convoy of cargoes on their way to or from Fayelillian.
Immersed in the joy of leaf and branch and singing birds, Rossamund near forgot his cares as Pluto shared her delight for all the humble things, pointing out the names of everything she knew the names for-weeds and bugs and fallen feathers from the great variety of woodland birds that twittered and dived and scooted above, welcoming Darter Brown among them with song.
Following her lead, Rossamund pressed flowers medicinal and ornamental within the pages of his compleat or applied himself to her patient instructions to draw with a frustrating lack of success in his drafting book. Oftentimes they would lie staring down at tadpoles dancing in a pond or insect larvae playing for life in a tiny runnel chattering down the stony shoulder of some hill. On other occasions they would watch transfixed at safe distance azure-crowned asps or great dun snakes belly across one of the many obscure paths Pluto knew, or stand among a flurry of tiny lavender moths feeding on the pollens of the little white flowers that festooned the wild turf of the wooded hills. Many times they would sit on a highland meadow to gaze up at the wondrous shapes made in the vapors above by the large white springtime clouds and just breathe the curative, untrammeled aromas. Every day they ate lunch together in a small glade of tiny white flowers that grew at the base of a cliff higher up the valley.
"Oh, Rossamund! If only people could behold the native wonder of humble things!" Pluto would cry in her precise, kindly voice that Rossamund could have listened to for hours. "See how perfectly the seeds hang from the brome stalk! See the exquisite construction of the legs on that emperorfly! Or that pillboy working with such patient industry on his rotten log!"
If she could, the fabulist would hold up the honored item to him until she was satisfied Rossamund could see what she saw, and then set about drawing it with rapid yet remarkable accuracy from as many poses as the thing would allow before it crawled away.
This was the stripe of adventure he preferred, out among the earth and sap, in quiet, wondering awe. Many times Rossamund wished he might stay for good, away from strife and vengeance, half hoping that Cinnamon would return so that he could go with him into the uncomplicated wilds.
"Pluto?" he asked as they sat one morning upon a gray lichen-grown rock protruding from the naked northern slopes above the Harriet. "Have you ever killed a soul?"
Staring out at windy hills and wooded vales, the fabulist thought long before answering. "I may have… Yes." Her eyes narrowed in contemplation. "Twice have we been put upon here at the Harriet, as its denizens called it. By desperate brigand bands of Widden-folk, and twice have I joined the defense, shooting from windows, but I never was certain of the fall of my shot." She sighed heavily. "If it is a choice between keeping my friends in peace or letting them suffer malice and violation, then I will always choose the former. My foe would surely have to accept fair portion of culpability if in bringing murder and violence to my door they find themselves hurt or killed in their turn. The moment a foe attacks you, whether they acknowledge it or no, they implicitly accept that you might best them and they instead might well die. In such event you-or I-surely hold no blame." She beheld him with a sad and thoughtful look. "Have you, Rossamund?"
Bitter memories of those men he had felled only a few days before repeated like a series of flashes in his mind's eye. Bowing his head, Rossamund nodded. "Aye."
Pluto clucked her tongue. "So young to learn the bitter truth of adventure's cost," she said with a rueful sigh.
To this the young factotum did not know what to say. "A foundling has no fancy," he offered finally.
The fabulist smiled at him sympathetically. "A soul does what a soul must," she concurred, and returned her attention to her drawing.
Eventually Rossamund did the same. Pluto took him out on most clear days, going greater distances with each new excursion. Yet on sudden rainy, miserable days that would sweep in from the Grume-driven north by the spring storms out in the wider gulf of the Pontus Canis-and make excursions out in the natural wonders impossible, Pluto insisted that the young factotum sit for his portrait.
"You shall take the finished canvas with you," she said, "or I shall have it sent to you if it is not completed in time…"
Rossamund found himself sat, boots dangling, on a tall stool in the fabulist's high, stony painting room-her aletry. Found at the back of Orchard Harriet, its walls were perforated with a great many windows, its thick roof beams hung with all manner of mirrors on cables and guys that could be tilted to give the fabulist the right kind of light. Every corner or gap was stacked with canvasses already stretched and waiting to hold pictures; the very air was saturated with strong waxy odors of pigments and the volatile pungence of thinning oils.
Dressed in his fine yet clearly bruised harness cleaned as best as possible, Rossamund was told gently but firmly to remain still and quiet as Pluto stood before him, palette in arm and gripping a posy of brushes, to work intently behind a great easel bearing a modest canvas. Rossamund did his utmost to fulfil this request, using his experience from standing long in pageants-of-arms to keep hand and arm, rump and foot from cramping or falling asleep.
At times the fabulist would draw her arm in wide expressive arcs or lean in and dab assiduously for what seemed an interminable time, constantly standing back to squint fixedly and tilt her head in critical regard of her labor.