"Factotum" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cornish D M)

19

belch pot also known as a kluge pot-for no known reason remembered in history, in the Gottskylds, where it is reputed to have been devised, it is known variously as a kaputtenkessel (breaking kettle) or furzentopf ("farting pot"). Infamous devices used by bandits, rough wild folk, and some armies too, belch pots are makeshift artillery made of great clay pots or iron cauldrons filled with black powder and jagged, thorny flotsam, half sunk in the soil and set off by a burning fuse. Any soul caught direct in its burst is sure to be flayed to splinders. Used to shape and channel the direction of a charge of fulminant, they are typically destroyed in the blast; a favorite of irregular fighters all through the Sundergird, the clay version being particularly inexpensive and simple to fashion. IN the gaping, harrowed aftermath, Rossamund and the Branden Rose returned along the culvert way, the fulgar gripping the Featherhead's mask like a rare proof. "Such are the benefits of good fighting weather" was all she said of the butcher's bill of bodies. Beyond brief inquiry after Rossamund's health and the well-being of the two old vinegaroons, Europe remained disconcertingly silent, her expression taut with unsympathetic vigilance. She stepped callously over one hefty fellow still shuddering for breath, horned helmet wrenched loose to reveal within the nimbus of a fur collar his thick-jawed face, skin near white like that of the woman in the summer dress. A Heilgolundian. Hailing from far south beyond the Pontus Canis and across the Gurgis Main, where people fade for lack of sun, this dying man had come a long way to perish so uselessly.

Reaching for his stoup of tending scripts, Rossamund realized they were left with Fransitart and Freckle.

"Leave the hurt, little man!" The fulgar glowered at Rossamund fleetingly. "Others of their own will come back to retrieve them soon enough… or the crows to peck-it is of little concern to me which." Whether she swooned from unseen hurts or turned an ankle on some detritus on the road as she pivoted back to rebuke him, Europe abruptly buckled at her knees and staggered. She tottered backward, twisting partly as if to catch herself, her fuse clattering on the ground.

Rossamund sprang to her, his arms wide, catching the fulgar before she went down, bearing her weight, surprised at her lightness.

Gripped in his impromptu embrace, Europe regarded him silently, her scowl tempered by surprise.

So close to her, Rossamund could plainly see wounds through smears and tears: a bullet graze on the left side of her pate, clotted cuts on scalp, forehead, ears, down her neck.

"We have done well today, you and I," she said at last, a softer thought in her appallingly red-shot eyes as she found her own balance and stood to her feet once more. "Better than we ought…"

"I thought we were done for." Rossamund kept his voice steady against the unexpected dizzying rush of relief. Somehow, when all was set against them, they had won…

Brushing her hems and unruffling the sit of her collars, Europe said bluntly, "What have you done to your hands?"

Rossamund told her of his own fight, and at the mention of jackstraws the fulgar's eyes narrowed; at the mention of Cinnamon and Freckle they became ill-humored slits.

"How fortunate to be helped by bogles against the agents of those who accuse us as sedorners," she muttered darkly, gathering up her fuse and the fallen fictler's mask. "A splendid irony."

The young factotum gave a grim smile. "If the jackstraws had been more intent on ending me than carrying me away I reckon I'd be ashes by now."

"It seems our many friends think themselves in possession of a long reach, to send such a menagerie against us to pluck you away." She fixed him with a look partly satirical, partly in deadly earnest. "As for your paws, Rossamund, I recommend that before you next opt to play with sparks, you visit Sinster as I have done to get the necessary additions first." Her expression grew wry and she added, "Though I would recommend you kept your true nature a secret from all those fossicking transmogrifers while you were there…"

They came about the bend and his dismay deepened as he saw again the shattered bodies of Rufous and Candle lying before the low walls that had hid the ambuscade. Debris of the original blast was thrown wide, a great elliptical fissure in the road. On the right, the once-thick olive was rent and bedraggled, the wall before it charred, the corners broken and missing.

To the left, amid the lower pines, the landaulet was little more than a suite of beautifully upholstered seats, three wheels and a mess of lacquered firewood, its contents strewn about.

The sparrow gave a bright cheep! then leaped away, winging ahead and down the hill.

"We will be walking out, it seems," Europe observed, then hesitated.

From behind the low left-hand wall Craumpalin appeared to be floating unconscious and lolling up the side of the hill and toward the road. Fransitart was there too, toiling up behind, the wounds and scabbed blood on his face shocking in the yellowing of the late day. To Rossamund's delight, Cinnamon stepped out from the blind of the low wall, the nuglung humbly carrying the ailing old dispenser pig-a-back, hauling him like some overburdened porter.

"Oh, what fun…," Europe purred. Her sanguine gaze, fixed upon Cinnamon, barely shifted when Freckle emerged behind, leading Fransitart by the hand.

Twittering merrily, Darter Brown circled about the head of the nuglung-prince, settling finally on the wall to sing.

Reaching only to Rossamund's shoulder in height, Cinnamon regarded the fulgar with its great black, knowing eyes, turning its head to look with one eye then the next. It was clad like a gentleman, complete with white-and-black-striped weskit under its frock coat, with stiff shirt-collar, black stock, and buttons made of polished bone. Though the beauty of the coat was marred with many dark bruises, Rossamund could see that it was in truth made of the living petals of some dazzling blue flower fashioned together so closely as to look like woven cloth. A nebulous threwd surrounded the blithely creature, less potent than that which wreathed the Lapinduce, but clearer, kinder, more hopeful, stirring in Rossamund faint notions of ease and security and bringing too a sweet, clinging rind-and-honey scent mixed with the piquant stink of feathers.

Gently depositing Craumpalin on the road, it-or he perhaps, for it bore the facial colorations of a male sparrow and, moreover, there was a distinct he-ness about it… about him-he bowed to the fulgar, one arm bent at his middle, the other outstretched, clawed hand gracefully posed. "Hail, lady astrapeline," it called, its voice rising and falling like the melancholy music of the Duke of Rabbits, "protectress of our foundling child.Your enemies are many and far-traveled: I am glad to have arrived to help thee."

In her turn, Europe remained unmoved, chin raised, terrible thermistor-red eyes fixed upon this bogle-prince. Rossamund was sure he smelled the metal tang of building levin on her. "So here is Rossamund's deliverer," she said with menacing care. "I commend you on your fortunate timing, sir. I understand that ultimately it is to you that I owe my far-traveled enemies."

Cinnamon straightened, expression impenetrable. "Providence works as Providence wills, Lady of Roses," he warbled, "even through the littlest of us." He crooked a claw and Darter Brown flew to perch upon it. "And it was not I who had you take Rossamund the mighty gudgeon-slayer into your staff."