Rossamund opened his mouth to answer but the girl plowed on.
"I tell you, if I hadn't seen the Branden Rose talking to you I wouldn't believe a jot of your impossible story." She hesitated. "Is this all really the truth?"
"Of course it's the truth. She wants me to become her factotum!"
"You!" Threnody barked an incredulous laugh.
He scowled, wanting to say several things at once but saying nothing at all.
For a few moments they sat in silence together.
Threnody took out a vial of sticky red liquid. About to take a draught from it, she noticed Rossamund's scrutiny and said testily, "What do you goggle at, lamp boy? It's just Friscan's wead. Have you never seen a girl drink her alembants before?"
Rossamund gave a wordless splutter and quickly looked out to the sodden view.
"I should have been a fulgar." Threnody spoke softly after she had secreted the vial. "They only need two treacles; did you know that? I have cartloads of potives to take. Wits need so many different treacles and alembants at so many different times it's a wonder we do anything else at all. If anyone needs a factotum, it's a wit." She glowered at the wintry garden patch, and Rossamund wondered what he was meant to say in reply. He had only rarely seen her take a sip of her many draughts: a far greater variety of red and blue and black liquors, taken far more frequently than Europe's.
"It does seem somewhat unfair…," he offered into her angry silence.
"And she gets to keep her hair."
"Well, you have kept your hair," Rossamund remarked cautiously.
Threnody looked at him acidly, as if he had made a foul and tactless jest, then out at the saturated roofs of the Low Gutter. Her expression was unfathomable. "Well, yes." She fiddled absently with a raven curl. "I have…"
Rossamund was beginning to regret coming out with her. He decided to try a different tack. "I've met a man called Mister Numps-"
Threnody cut him off before he could finish his sentence. "Of course, Mother does not think the Branden Rose is much good at all. In fact, she very much dislikes her."
It was best to remain silent.
"But really, she and my mother have a lot in common."
Rossamund waited. He could not fathom what these two women might share.
"They were at the sequestury in Fontrevault together when they were my age. The Branden Rose was set to be a calendar, you know, except that she was expelled. I grew up hearing all about her: about the scores of men that pursued her; about how she loves herself most of all. Mother says she is an embarrassment to her state, her mother and her entire lineage, that if Mother had such a proud heritage she would never carry on so." Threnody paused. "The Branden Rose was the reason I so wanted to be a fulgar," she murmured, looking sadly at her elegantly shod feet.
Between these revelations of Europe's mysterious past and Threnody's twists of mood, Rossamund could think of nothing to say. He looked dumbly out the open front of the lean-to to the dripping garden. A damp sparrow, all puffed and ruffled, was sitting atop a bare stake sunk deep in the moldy loam. It regarded him with definite, unsettling wisdom, as if it knew only too well the trials of being a boy making sense of a girl.
"So this Mister Numps is a glimner living in the Low Gutter," Rossamund tried again. "I'm going there this afternoon. You could come if you want." He immediately regretted the invitation.
Fortunately Threnody did not take him up on it, but stood and strode quickly to the doorway, tossing her hair over her shoulder. "Have you even been listening to me at all?" she demanded. "You would have to be the rudest, most ignorant boy I know!" And with that she left him.
Rossamund blinked hard, frowned, took a deep breath. Verline had been much easier and a thousand times more pleasant to be with than these bizarre, belligerent women. Rossamund might live till he was a thousand and still come no closer to understanding them. The sparrow chirped cheekily and left with a whir of wings. The young prentice could have sworn it winked at him before it vanished. Middens was a desultory affair. No one seemed to know why or when, but the Snooks had mysteriously departed Winstermill, and the new culinare-hired particularly by the Master-of-Clerks-did not possess the talent to make strict rations appetizing.The food was plain, the smells were unsavory and the company was decidedly unhappy. While Threnody and Rossamund had been outside, Smellgrove and Hapfauf's disagreement had ended in blows, and with other boys taking sides, half the prentices had earned themselves pots-and-pans. Now one side of the hall was not speaking to the other side.
Threnody ignored Rossamund utterly.
As soon as he could, Rossamund took up his salumanticum and made his way down to the Low Gutter to see Numps. After watching the man make his special seltzer he was hoping he might learn a chemical trick or two from the glimner today. He was cold and damp when he arrived but, once safe within the lantern store, he shook off his pallmain and left it and his thrice-high on a hook by the door to drip themselves dry. He was thankful to have his new scarf. One of the detractions of seltzer light was that it gave no heat, and consequently the store was often too cold.
"Hello, Mister Rossamund," the glimner chuckled. "Chill's biting my feet today." He lifted his legs to show spatterdashes buckled about his shins, his bare soles poking a little from the bottom. Numps waggled his toes on his healing foot. "Numps' frosty feet are bitten with the cold, but Mister Doctor Crispus says I can use them again."
Rossamund grinned. "Afternoon, Mister Numps. Another day for furbishing the lantern-lights?"
"Ahhh." Numps touched his handsome nose and chuckled again. He cupped his hand about his mouth and whispered loudly to no one particular, "I've got one on Mister Rossamund. He doesn't know it's not to be light-cleaning today, does he?"
For a moment Rossamund thought the glimner was actually talking to some third person. "What will we do today if we don't clean?" he asked.
The glimner just gave that merry little chortle in answer and stood.Wrapping himself in old oiled canvas and secreting a bright-limn and a small, plump satchel beneath it, Numps made to exit.
"Come along, Mister Rossamund," he said softly and stepped outside, rain swirling in from without. Putting his own dripping pallmain and hat back on, Rossamund followed, thoughts alight with puzzled wonder.
Producing the bright-limn to guide them, Numps took a left turn by the lantern store down through a riddle of narrow alleys, another left, then a right and along an ill-cobbled lane with a trickling drain that sneaked between the fortress wall and the black planking of a great storehouse. Beneath the high eaves of the store, it was more like a tunnel, and so cramped they were forced to walk sideways. Hammering rain found its way through splits and cracks to dribble from above. Rats and other nervous skitterers stared from time-gathered detritus or scurried before them, disappearing down unexpected gaps and grilles in the stonework on either side. While they went, Numps gave sweet voice to brief nonsense songs about fish and frogs at a tea party, men wooing milkmaids with whortleberry jam and some old general with a wooden leg and no army.
Creeping carefully, taking heed not to trip on the litter of planks, broken lamps, musket stocks, various tins and pots half-filled with stagnant water or worse, wire spools, wire knots, broken bottles and even a pile of unidentifiable bones, Rossamund stayed behind the glimner. Where is this place? he marveled, stepping over the remains of an older foundation, some agglomeration of brick and stone and cement. They were clearly in a forgotten precinct of Winstermill.