Foundling (21 page)

Suddenly he decided it was time to be dressed. He found his clothes in the cupboard, cleaned and pressed. Everything was there but his shoes. Rossamünd got dressed, searching quietly all about the room as he did.

Under his bed?
No
.

Under Europe’s bed?
No
.

They were not in his closet, and so he went to the one that held Europe’s effects. Her clothes had been washed too, and the cupboard was filled with the odor of the aromatics used to clean them. With this hung a sharp, honeylike scent he was beginning to recognize as Europe’s own. He was sure he was doing something quite rude by even thinking of looking through the fulgar’s belongings. He closed the closet quickly.

The door at the farther end of the room, of a wood so dark as to appear black, opened. In breezed a maid with a flurry of swishing skirts. When she saw Rossamünd standing by the fulgar’s bed, she seemed uncertain. She curtsied expertly, despite her burdens. “I’ve brought the doctor to see you, young master.”

Rossamünd ducked his head shyly.

A very serious and surprisingly young man entered the room. He was richly attired in a wonderfully patterned frock coat, flat-heeled buckled shoes known as mules, and a great white wig that stuck high in the air and left a faint puff of powder behind it.

“
This
is Doctor Verhooverhoven, our physician,” the maid said, indicating the young man with a tray she carried, a tray holding two bowls of pumpkin soup that smelled so delicious Rossamünd was immediately distracted by it. “And this, doctor, is uh, is . . .”

“Rossamünd,” said the foundling matter-of-factly.

“Ah . . . right you are, my . . . boy,” said Doctor Verhooverhoven, squinting at him. “Delighted. How are you feeling?”

“Good, thank you.”

“As it should be. I want you to have some of this soup that Gretel has kindly brought you,” the doctor said as the maid placed the two bowls on a small table by the fire with a simpering blush. “I have fortified it with one of my
personal
restorative drafts, so it will see you righter than ever.” He half turned to the maid. “You may leave now, Gretel. If I need anything, you will be the first to know.”

The maid ducked her head, grinned at Rossamünd and left again.

Doctor Verhooverhoven ambled over to the sickbed, hands behind his back. He stood over the unconscious lahzar and rocked back and forth on his heels. He checked the pulse in her neck, felt the temperature of her forehead,
hmm
ed a lot and scrutinized her closely through a strange-looking monocle.

Rossamünd sipped at his soup, which right then was about the sweetest thing he had ever had, and watched Doctor Verhooverhoven watching Europe.

At length the doctor turned his shrewd attention to the boy. “She is not your mother, is she, child?”

About to help himself to a mouthful of wonderful soup, Rossamünd stopped with a slight splutter and fidgeted. “I—ah . . . No, sir—I never actually said that she was, though, sir. Others did . . . How did you . . . ?”

Doctor Verhooverhoven adjusted his monocle. “How did I know, you were about to ask? Because you’ve got the Branden Rose here, my boy—heroic teratologist, infamous bachelorette and terror to the male of our species! She is not, if reputation serves, the mothering type! How, by the precious here and vere, did you come by her?”

The Branden Rose?
That name was familiar to Rossamünd, though he could not remember why. Perhaps he had read just such a name in one of his pamphlets? What a remarkable thing that would be to have fallen in with someone famous! He hung his head, feeling strangely uncomfortable. “She . . . saved me from a thirsty end—will she get better?”

“She ought to, child, with my skillful ministrations. I have been here since early this morning.You slept, my boy, while I scraped away the necrotic tissue and stitched that nasty gash about her throat. I have also balanced her humours and bled her a little against the disease of the wound. The only thing she needs now is that awful stuff her kind take—
plaudamentum
I believe it is called. I have sent out word for our local skold to be found, so it can be made. From my readings—which have by no means been extensive—a lahzar cannot go terribly long without it, two or three days at most . . . or things begin to go sour within.” The physician rolled his eyes dramatically. “But, how-now, I need not frighten you with such detail.”

Unfortunately, he
had
frightened Rossamünd, though probably not in the way he had expected. Filled with urgency, the boy stood. “Do you mean her treacle, sir?”

“Ah-ha! That’s the one. Cathar’s Treacle! Just the stuff. When did she last have any?”

“Some time last night. I don’t know when exactly, though, but I can brew it for her now, sir. I don’t want her innards to go sour, and she’s got all the makings.”

The physician looked dubious.

“I made it for her the other night,” Rossamünd insisted. “If I’ve done it before, I can do it again . . .” The confidence in his own voice surprised him.

“Are you her factotum? You seem to me to be a little young for it.” Doctor Verhooverhoven tapped at his mouth with his forefinger, eyebrows wriggling inquisitively.

“. . . No—sir, I’m not.” Sometimes Rossamünd almost regretted he found it so hard to lie.

“No? Ahh. We shall wait for this other to arrive then, shall we? She is a skold, and I am of the understanding that she knows how to make such a concoction.” The physician took a high-backed chair from a corner and sat down on it by the fire.

“But why does she need it so badly?”

“A good question, my boy! A good question. Are you sure you want the answer?” Doctor Verhooverhoven looked very much as if he wanted to give it.

Rossamünd indicated that he did want the answer.

“Of course you would. Well, you see—as I have read—when someone wants to become a lahzar, they usually take themselves off to a gloomy little city in the far south called Sinster. In that place there are butchers—‘surgeons,’ they insist on calling themselves—who will carve you up for a high fee. Are you following me?”

Rossamünd nodded quickly.

“As you should, as you should. So, having gone this far—so the readings report—these surgeons take
whole systems
of exotic glands, bladders, vessels and viscera and sew them right in with all the existing entrails and nerves. Some say these new glands and such are grown for just this purpose, while others hold that they are ‘harvested’ from other creatures—no one agrees and the surgeons of Sinster aren’t telling. Either way, when it is all done, the person is stitched back up again. Now—here comes the answer to your question—all these strange and exotic glands are wrong for the body. Consequently it reacts, eventually most violently, unless something is done to stop such a thing.
That
is the job of the plaudamentum—the Cathar’s Treacle. Do you understand? They have to spend the rest of their lives taking the stuff every day to stop their natural organs from revolting against these introduced ones. This morbidity—this organ decay—once it takes hold, will eventually prove fatal. If this lady doesn’t get hers soon, she will die. How-now, I think you’ll find that covers it, anyway.Yes?”

As Rossamünd took a breath to answer, he was distracted by an animated, angry-sounding conversation approaching the other side of the door that was then interrupted by a sharp knocking.

Doctor Verhooverhoven stood at this and called mildly, “Enter, please!”

The door was opened rapidly and a strange woman stalked in, wearing the elegant day-clothes of a refined lady, and on her face a frown of politely restrained anger.

Closely behind followed Mister Billetus, looking worried and chattering nervously even as they entered. “. . . Now, dearest, one guest’s money is as good as another’s. With these nickers making the High Vesting Way impassable, you know our visitors have been few. Every bit of custom is needful, m’dear, I . . .”

“Yes, yes, Mister Bill, not in front of those who do not need to be troubled with the finer points of running such a grand establishment. Good afternoon, Doctor Verhooverhoven.” The woman grimaced at the physician in a mockery of a polite smile. He, in turn, bowed graciously, a puff of powder coming from his wig. She put her attention on Rossamünd and said stiffly, “And you must be the smaller of our most recent arrivals. I am Madam Felicitine, the enrica d’ama of this humble yet
refined
wayhouse.” As she said “refined,” she looked sharply at Mister Billetus.

Confused, Rossamünd simply stood blinking. “Enrica d’ama” was a fancy term for the ruling lady of a household, especially of a court. It was used only by those trying to be very grand.

“It has come to my notice,” the enrica d’ama continued, addressing the physician, yet pointing angrily at the inert fulgar, “that we have here, in one of our finest apartments, a pugnator, one of the fighting riffraff. Is this true, sir?”

“Yes, gracious madam, it is—though to me her calling is of little concern. I heal all comers.”

“Don’t try to charm me, doctor. You share in this little sham of my husband’s, though how he thought I would not know what was up soon enough is insulting at the least.” She gave the harassed Billetus another quick glare. He offered an apologetic look to both Rossamünd and Doctor Verhooverhoven, but did little else.

To Rossamünd the scene was quickly becoming very strange and uncomfortable.

Doctor Verhooverhoven looked bemused. “I assure you, madam, that I am not aware of any sham so as to have a part in it to play. I have come as asked, to tend to an ailing guest. This is not the first time I have done this, as you well know.” He finished his statement with a gracious half bow.

“Certainly not, but this is the first time you have invited here another almost as bad!” She turned to the door and called, “You may enter now, Gretel.”

Gretel the maid came in as bidden, looking sheepishly at her mistress. Closely behind her shuffled a stranger: a short, meek-looking young woman—a girl really, younger than Verline—wearing a variation of clothing Rossamünd had seen many times before. A
skold
! Upon her head was a conical hat of black felt that bent back slightly about a third of the way up. All skolds wore some style of cylindrical or conical headwear as a sign of their trade. About her throat and shoulders was the cape of white hemp with a thick, gathered collar that skolds pulled over their faces to protect themselves from the fumes of their potives. Upon her body she wore a vest called a
quabard
—light proofing Rossamünd had seen in the uniforms of the light infantry of Boschenberg. One side was black and the other brown, the mottle of Hergoatenbosch, just like Rossamünd’s baldric. About her stomach, over the top of the quabard, was wrapped a broad swath of black satin tied at the small of her back in a great bow. About her hips hung cylinders, boxes, wallets and satchels—most certainly holding reagents and potives and everything else that skolds used in their fight against the monsters. Her sleeves were long and brown and flaring. Her wide skirt of starched brown muslin was also long, and it dragged upon the ground, hiding her feet. Her black doeskin-gloved hands were clasping and unclasping uncertainly in front of her.

He had already seen several skolds in his life, for many served at Boschenberg’s docks to ward off any nickers that might rise out of the Humour and along the city’s walls. Even so, Rossamünd knew less now about them than he did fulgars. What he
did
know was what everyone knew: that they made all kinds of potions and drafts even more powerful and fabulous than those concocted by Craumpalin and other dispensurists, who were more concerned with health and healing. The chemistry of a skold, however, was designed for harm and violence. He knew that they had served as the Empire’s monster-fighters—“pugnators” Europe had called them—for centuries before the advent of the lahzars. This young lady must have been the skold Doctor Verhooverhoven had mentioned, the one to make Europe’s treacle for her.

For a pugnator she seemed very nervous.

With a look like triumph, Madam Felicitine returned her attention to the physician. “
Doctor
Verhooverhoven!” she demanded. “What business have you inviting such knavish individuals to my peaceful establishment? You know my delicate sensibilities won’t tolerate such liberties, nor will they suffer the presence of such as these!” She pointed a bigoted finger at the skold, whose face reddened.

The physician looked very ill at ease.

“Dear wife,” Billetus ventured bravely, forgetting her warning on saying
things
in front of
those who did not need to know,
“their account is well paid. They have been no real trouble, rather quiet in fact, as needs must. What possible harm is one hardworking, well-paying lahzar occupying a room she and her factotum can afford?”

The enrica d’ama’s thin lie of civility failed her at last. “
Oh frogs and toads! Because of the principle! She cannot . . . !”