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

PLUTO SIX

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.

Roosting high in the rafters, Pig the pied daw watched on, startling them both by swooping down upon the lizards that crawled the walls and the rodents that scurried in dark corners. Pluto would scold the bird, shouting at it, "You rat with wings!" as it upset pots and tools in its quest for food. Each time it would retreat to its lofty roost to peer at them smugly, some fat rodent or plump reptile in its stocky bill. Darter Brown joined them too, a quieter observer, restlessly swapping perches from Rossamund's head to the top of the easel to up beside Pig.

Especially attentive, Baltissar-as friendly and as placid as he might be-was not allowed in. Whimpering, the beast peered mournfully at Rossamund through the speedily diminishing gap of the closing aletry door.

"He normally reserves such silliness for Pococo or Master Sparrow," the fabulist said. "What use is a tykehound who is fond of tykes? as Mister Gutter likes to jest."

"How is it possible?" Rossamund asked.

"Master Cinnamon civilized him… and saved his life too." Pluto became suddenly sad and inward. "It was when… when poor Philemon's dear wife, the… the Countess was… was taken, snatched by some wretchling nicker from the very steps of their home at Temburly Hall near on a decade ago. Baltissar fought in her defense but could not save her. By chance or Providence or the turnings of Droid-or whatever you might care to name such functions by-Cinnamon came along, too late to deliver the countess Plume, but in time to preserve this cheeky fellow here." The fabulist patted the unhappy dog on the crown before finally shutting the door. "He-like his master-has never been the same since… How I wish you might have known the Count and Countess before… before; she was like a clear day in winter and the truest of friends, he was a man of information and letters, taught in many obscure things and able to teach in turn." She looked at the brushes clustered in her hand.

"How is it you can call any monster friend after that, Miss Six?" Rossamund dared quietly.

"Do you hate your friends because you were attacked by other men?" the fabulist returned.

Rossamund opened his mouth, hesitated, shook his head.

Pluto regarded him gravely, then quickly brightened. "A cheerier face, please, Master Bookchild-I'll not paint you with such a pensive mien, sir."

At the end of each occasion he sat, Rossamund would ask to see his portrait, and each time Pluto refused.

"Only when it is done," she insisted, and remained politely obdurate over the subsequent painting days, covering the image with a strapped-down sheet of leather and locking the door to her aletry when the day's daubing was complete.

As time went on, Fransitart occasionally joined them out on their walks. It was clear the simple life did well for him, and he often set Pluto to bright laughter with the more agreeable of his salty stories.

Europe, however, kept her slow needful constitutionals close to the manor and absorbed herself in the scheme for their return. Impatient to recover, the Duchess-in-waiting had Rossamund test for her-and Craumpalin too-all manner of little-used mending draughts, or sent to the kitchens for whatever hearty and balancing broths they could conjure. So ambitious was she to heal that she consented even to ingesting the rare weeds left for their curing by Cinnamon. By the middle of the month, her complexion restored, her cheeks almost rosy, Europe decided that the time for the return to Brandenbrass and all its troubles had come. As the glowing pink of sunrise spread a brilliant rose patch over the deep purple clouds, showing darkly against the brightening golden green and blue of the western sky, Rossamund, his mistress and his former masters departed.

"I will send you the painting as soon as I am able," Pluto called, risen rosy-cheeked and early to wave them farewell.

In the early cool, they were taken from Orchard Harriet's happy seclusion aboard the Plume brothers' sturdy lentum. Spedillo at the reins and Silence as his side-armsman, they wended the green miles through seldom-seen glades and wooded vales. Rossamund smiled at fresh memories of their last Grand Supper of eight gizzard-splitting removes the night before, where Gentleman Plume refused to let his guests be glum and made fun for them all.Yet as they bent left at a junction that went down a long stony gully road to the purple gray wolds of mercy jane, Rossamund's cheer began to falter. Other conveyances began to join them, heralding their return to common life.They skirted by the high palisade of a martial encampment teeming with companies of musketeers readying for summer campaigning.The sight, like a slap, reminded Rossamund of the Archduke, of Pater Maupin and the coming strife.

A bare mile beyond, they arrived at Flodden Fild, a drab, treeless yet prosperous town behind strong walls, its walks thronged with many clean, contented people-high-bonneted ladies and ruddy-cheeked country gents in ill-fitting wigs. With them strutted an uncommonly high count of pediteers in Branden mottle, their officers in fussy harness making great show of themselves, greeting the many stiff-backed quality fellows in sleek coats and high hats riding by on sleek, leggy horses.

On their passage through the town, Rossamund thought he spied a bill on a wall, the paper blazoned with a heading line that included the name Winstermill! yet lost sight of it before he could read it fully. With final farewells they were deposited at the bustle and din of the Thrust and Flurry, hostelry and local coach host on Broadstairs Lane, to charter the next carriage bound for Brandenbrass. Folk waiting with them in the plainly adorned parenthis seemed agitated, speaking together in fervently murmuring groups.

The depth of Europe's purse promptly secured them a lentum-and-six for Brandenbrass, and they did not remain long in that unsettling coach host. Out the opposite side of Flodden Fild they hurried, every stride of the horses taking them farther from peace and closer to strife.

In the rocking, increasingly dusty cabin, neither Rossamund nor his companions were disposed to conversation, and spoke seldom beyond the necessities. Her hazel eyes obscured behind pink spectacles, Europe watched the rapidly passing view. Fransitart did much the same, frequently fondling the sleeve of his left arm-his puncted arm-as they bumped along. His still-splinted leg cushioned on the seat opposite and the crutch made especially by Spedillo resting by his side, Craumpalin nodded in slumber, his snores daring to interrupt the brooding, rattling silence of the cabin.

"We were reckonin' ye'd think it better to leave the lad behind or some such." The old dormitory master breached the impasse. "Them cunning poltroons may 'ave other surprises in wait to get at him… Have ye thought he might be better off living in some wild place than the shoaly dangers of that there city?"

"Yes, I have." The fulgar closed her eyes and touched fingertips to the bridge of her nose. "Many times…"

"Better to forgo the bait than struggle in the snare." Fransitart peered at Rossamund, a haunted expression deep in the ex-dormitory master's weary eyes.

Europe bridled even as Rossamund opened his mouth to speak. "This is not open to the ballot of some vulgar Hamlin parliament, sir. If my service is unpleasant to you, you may quit it. Perhaps living by Maupin's leave is more to your liking?"

Fransitart scowled but kept his counsel.

"I would have thought, Master Vinegar," the fulgar said mordantly, "that a vinegaroon of your length and quality of service would be better used to following commands."

"Aye," the old vinegar growled. "Well, per'aps this old vinegar is getting weary of living by another's leave!"

Staring glumly at the bland sunny scene of dashing hovels, high-houses and ancient manors, Rossamund felt as miserable as he ever had, the cheerful light to him dismal and ominous. He watched a vast flock of starlings surging distantly over the elevated pastures, a harmoniously writhing mass so dense it looked like some roiling fast-moving mist, skimming the hilltops-a whole city of birds dancing in the sky.

Oh, that I could swoop with them.

As the day drew on, they crested the escarpment above the Milchfold and beheld Brandenbrass the Great, a many-spired crown sprawled along the coast and bejeweled with a hundred thousand lights-the glittering den of their foes. Rossamund smiled wryly. He had once, in a straightforward and carefree time not too far gone, thought cities a place of simplicity and safety.Yet as they drew down to the plain of the Milchfold, he regarded this great seat of civilization much as he was sure all monsters did, as a dark fastness of bloodthirstiness and brutality, the brink of all woes.

On the flat of the Fold they went rapidly, and in the encroaching gloom of early evening passed into the brutal city, entering under the Moon Gate into the elevated northern suburbs about the fortress of Grimbasalt. Come away so quickly from the freedom of Orchard Harriet to these narrow beetling streets, Rossamund was daunted by the sad, crowding business, the relentless pursuit of… of… whatever this ceaseless chasing served. Every face seemed turned to them, every eye watching for their return, every mouth ready to bring report of them to Swill and Maupin and their coterie of bloodthirsting allies. Muffling his nose with his still-torn vent against the stink of sluggish drains and close lanes and all ambition's decay, he glimpsed again a bill blazoned "Winstermill!" but now was too tired and too downhearted to care.

The lentum-and-six took them slowly into the yard of Cloche Arde, the high-house's solid grandeur bringing him some measure of comfort. There they discovered another coach arrived ahead of them. Rossamund was certain he could see an oddly familiar figure stepping from it-a tall, skinny man wearing his own snow-white hair slicked and jutting like a plume from the back of his head and small bottle-brown spectacles.

"Doctor Crispus!" he cried, leaning dangerously over the sash.

The physician's face was drawn, his expression deeply anxious and not a little bewildered. Under his smudged, yet still sartorially splendid pinstripe gray coat, his arm was wrapped against his trunk, bandaged against a break. "Well betide you, Lampsman Bookchild! Well betide you all!" he called. "Happy advents! This is your dwelling; my reconnaissance is proven true!" His face grew suddenly grave. "I have just come today from Vesting High…"

"And we from the hills," Europe answered a little more cautiously as he handed her out from the coach cabin. "You are an unlooked-for arrival, sir… Has the clerk-master given you some long-deserved leave?"

A strange, unreadable expression clouded the physician's face. "No, madam, no." He bowed low. "I bring the most pressing and astonishing news… Winstermill has fallen. The lighters of the manse are no more."