Foundling (37 page)

enrica d’ama
said “enn-ree-kah dar-mah” or “enn-ree-ka deh-arm-ah,” lady of the house; chatelaine, woman in charge of the running of a home,
wayhouse
, hostelry or even a palace, with authority over all the servants and even any guards; not necessarily the owner of the home,
wayhouse
, hostelry or palace.

equiteer
said “eh-kwit-tear”; another name for a cavalryman. Horses are not used in great numbers outside of cities because
monsters
tend to find them the most tasty of the beasts of burden. Consequently the use of cavalry is limited. If one is to move a squadron of equiteers about the country, one has to be prepared to defend them against curiously hungry
monsters
thinking with their bellies.

equiteer boots
footwear typically worn by equiteers, made of
bright-black
leather and reaching to the knees. At the top of the boot, coming from the outer side, is a flaring panel of
proofed
leather called a shin-collar. This protects the knee, especially when bent as the
equiteer
sits in the saddle. Equiteer boots also have raised heels anywhere from 1 inch to 2½ inches high, which hook on to the stirrup and so provide a better seat in the saddle.

ettin
among the largest of the land-living
monsters
, looking like enormous deformed men (as much as fifty feet tall); strong of limb but not hard to hurt or even slay despite their size. They are not very bright; indeed, many are quite simple to outwit.When they are in a rage, however, they can do great harm, and gangs of them marauding for food in the winter months can be terrible.

Europe, Miss ~
experienced and well-known
fulgar
, who encountered
lahzars
in her childhood and was instantly fascinated. This fascination turned to obsession and she ran away from home, traveling secretly to
Sinster
to be transmogrified by the best
surgeon
available. Since then she has been all over the world, conquering
monsters
and men’s hearts wherever she lands. As
Rossamünd
noticed, the inside of her forearms are lined with tiny
X
’s,
cruorpunxis
showing her many-score kills. They are dainty little marks, showing Europe’s distaste for the vulgar, leering faces that are by far more common, their “prettiness” belying the violence and mayhem done to earn them. See
fulgar, lahzar,
the
Branden Rose
.

evander, evander water
restorative
draft that fortifies the body’s capacity to fight disease, infection or poisoning while also giving a lift in spirits.

 

everymen
everyday people; not
monsters
, which are called üntermen. This includes
skolds, sagaars, leers
but excludes those who have tampered with their biology in any way, that is
lahzars,
who are known as ubelmen.

excise master, excise sergeant
those working to collect the tolls and taxes lawfully demanded by their lord. See
revenue officers
.

explicarium
spurious list of invented or obscure words drafted to apparently make some fabulous, fabricated tale more palatable.

factotum
personal servant and clerk of a
peer
or other person of rank or circumstance.
Lahzars
have taken to employing a factotum to take care of the boring day-to-day trifles: picking up contracts, collecting fees for services rendered, looking to food and accommodation, writing correspondence, heavy lifting and even making their
drafts.
When on the road and looking for a place to kip for the night, a master/mistress and his or her factotum may find that restrictions of accommodation or finances mean that only one gets a room (and, consequently, a bed). The factotum must make do, and will usually share floor and bench space with other servants next to a kitchen or common room stove. Such arrangements are typical for most servants.

false-gods
mighty
monsters
standing several hundred feet high who appear only every thousand years or more and are meant to live deep, deep down at the bottom of the
vinegar seas
. They are reputed to be able to control people’s minds, and each one has secret septs and cabals among
everymen
, who worship and revere them and seek with ancient sciences to raise them up from the deeps. The
Emperor
and his regents have special agents whose sole task is to root out and destroy these septs and cabals, for whenever a false-god has risen from the depths it has meant doom for civilization, and history has taught that only the
urchins
and their kind can drive them back into the sea . . . and it has been a long time since anyone had anything to do with an
urchin
.

falseman, falsemen
also called liedermen;
leers
who can tell a person’s true emotional state, and so, most usefully, can determine whether or not that person is being truthful. The washes they use to change their eyes make the whites turn bloody red and the irises go a bright pale blue. See
leer
.

family name
also famillinom; the name of your sires that you are born into, the name of your whole family. Among
peers
this is the most important name, for it declares one’s pedigree.
“Bookchild”
is often given to orphans and foundlings as a kind of surrogate family name, but really it is a
forename
.

Farmer Rabbitt
happy tiller of the soil and herder of cows who has a smallholding on the edge of the
Brindleshaw
folklands (land set aside for common use) near
Silvernook
. He often goes into that town to trade and resupply his rather remote farm. His wife, Judy, is even merrier than he, and they make a jolly couple indeed.

Faustus
the red-star and actually a distant planet that nightly moves through the constellation of Vespasio and follows green
Maudlin
across the sky—who, as legend has it, is his lover—forever chasing and never catching. Faustus is regarded as the
Signal Star
of frustrated or jilted lovers and of lost causes.

Felicitine, Madam
~ one of the region’s minor gentry, and wife to Mister
Billetus,
proprietor of the
Harefoot Dig
. She married young and below her station, and is well aware of it. Painfully alert to the commonness of her surroundings, she works hard against
Billetus’
more relaxed attitude to keep the tone of the
Dig
one befitting a lady. She seldom enters the common room, allowing it to remain as a concession to “Mister Bill’s worldly ways.” Despite all this snobbery and friction, and after over twenty years of marriage, she and Mister
Billetus
are still very much in love.

fiasco
small case or box or compartmented bag in which a woman might keep her cosmetic unctions, beautifying creams and other such applications; sometimes also called a clutch bag.

Fiel, Fiele
said “feel” or “fee-ell”; a land so far over the oceans from the
Half-Continent
it is considered a myth. The few reports that exist of it say it is filled with even more fabulous and terrifying creatures than dwell in the
Half-Continent
.

firelock
any flintlock small arm, such as a musket or pistol. See
flintlock musket
and
flintlock pistol
.

first name
the very first name a person is given, nominated at birth, the name by which a person is most commonly known and called.

flintlock musket
or just musket or
firelock
; a long-barreled muzzle-loading firearm that fires a round bullet of lead about ¾ inch in diameter called a ball.You can hit what you are aiming at with a musket as long as it is no more than 150 yards from you, though the ball will still travel with ever-diminishing force for about 600 yards. After every shot the musket must be reloaded. The flintlock mechanism that makes this and other such weapons work is a hammer held by a spring, holding a piece of flint. When the hammer is released by pulling the trigger, it flies forward and the flint strikes an upright piece of steel known as the frizzen, which is thrown back, exposing the pan full of fine-grained priming powder beneath it. The flint causes sparks to fly off the steel frizzen and into the pan, catching the powder alight and sending the flash through a small hole in the side of the barrel called a touchhole. This flash ignites the gunpowder packed in the barrel itself, which blasts out the ball. When a flintlock is fired, there is a distinctive two-part flash as first the pan flares and then the barrel itself. The very quick have a chance to dodge the shot when they first see the flash in the pan. If the tales are to be believed, some
monsters
have also realized this.

flintlock pistol
a small arm with the same flintlock mechanism as the
flintlock musket;
often lavishly crafted, with the butt of the handle typically formed into a club so that, after the weapon has been fired, it can be gripped by the barrel (reinforced for such use) and swung about like a truncheon. An innovation for both the pistol and the musket has been the “
skold
-shot”: a ball treated in certain deadly
scripts
that make them far more harmful to a
monster
than a normal bullet, which rarely does any real or permanent harm. The only problem with
skold
-shot is that its chemicals slowly react with the inside of the weapon’s barrel, wearing it out far more quickly than conventional ammunition. This increases the chance of the weapon bursting, or blowing a hole in its side just when you least expect.The pistoleer is a type of adventurer who specializes in using flintlock pistols; these are dashing fellows with a taste for glamour and high excitement. Armed with
skold
-shot, they even have some effect as
monster-hunters,
although they have to earn well, as they need frequently to buy new pistols, worth about twenty-one
sequins
each.

florin
coin
money
; a 10
guise
piece or ½
sequin
.
fo’c’sle
or forecastle; forwardmost section of the upper deck of a
ram
, between the foremast and the bow. Given that the decks of a
ram
are flush (that is, flat), the correct term for this part of the vessel is the forward deck. In the vernacular of the
vinegaroon,
however, the old term remains.

folding money
bills of paper obtained from a bank or local ruler, where the equivalent value is purchased in coin and written upon the bill; lighter and more convenient than coins, they are also a whole lot more fragile.

forename
name a person takes on or is given or granted in later life. Nobility and the pretentious will give their children a forename as well as a
first name
when they are born, to show how special and important they are.

foundling(s)
also wastrel; stray people, usually children, found without a home or shelter on the streets of cities or even, amazingly, wandering exposed in the
wilds
. The usual destinations for such foundling children are workhouses, mills or the mines, although a fortunate few may find their way to a foundlingery. Such a place can care for a small number of foundlings and wastrels, fitting them for a more productive life and sparing them the agonies of hard labor.

Fouracres
hardy Imperial postman who has been on many adventures while delivering the mail and survived many an encounter with a
monster
. Sometimes called Fourfields, as a play on the word “acres,” he has also given the name “Quarterfields” as an alias when this has been necessary. Fouracres has worked in the
Empire’s
service as an ambler (a walking postman) for sixteen years. See
Imperial Post Office
.

Four Humours, the
~ these are considered the basic parts of a properly functioning
pith
(metabolism). Each is also paired with a season of the year and corresponds to the other four-part systems of understanding the universe. There is blood, of course, also called sange and represented by the letter
A
and paired with summer; then phlegm, represented by the letter
W
and paired with winter; followed by yellow bile, also called choler and represented by the letter
M
and paired with spring; and finally black bile, also called melanchole, represented by the letter
O
and paired with autumn.

Four Spheres, the ~
the first and innermost sphere is a person’s soul, his or her internal being. The second sphere is a person’s body. The third sphere is the world. The fourth sphere is the cosmos. Teaching on the Four Spheres also coincides with the
Four Humours
and the elements as shown in the
Körnchenflecter
:
Skolds
learn these along with all the other four-parts, so as to gain insight into the functioning of the systems about them and how to interact and alter them through their chemistry.

Fox Hole, the ~
also Voxholte,
Hergott
for “foxhole,” said “vokshalt”; elegant and refined hostelry in
High Vesting
famous for its height (seven floors!) and the size and opulence of its rooms. The exceedingly wealthy or famous like to stay there.

Fransitart, Dormitory Master ~
born of unknown parents, Fransitart lived with his little brother as a wastrel on the streets of
Ives
. The day after his brother died in his arms, Fransitart was hunted and taken by a press-gang, and put aboard the main-
ram Adroit
as a ship’s boy. There he met
Craumpalin
, who defended and befriended him, and they have remained true friends and brothers-in-arms since. How it is that Fransitart and
Craumpalin
have come to be serving in a state entirely different from the ones in which they were born is a story entirely all its own. Fransitart’s affection for
Rossamünd
has a lot to do with his grief over his younger brother.