Eventually a round grille high in the gate emitted a gruffly quizzing voice. “Whot’s this ’ere, then? Whot’s yar business at this throodish hour?” It was a strange accent Rossamünd had never heard before—a little like Poundinch’s yet different again. It was hard to understand.

“I have a . . . a friend who’s hurt!” Rossamünd called up to the grille in his deepest, most certain-sounding voice. “We have escaped an attack in the Brindleshaws! We need help!”

There were slidings, there were scrapings. There was a muffled conversation.

“I see . . .” the grille returned eventually. “An’ whot’s a scamp like yarsalf doing up so late—or so eerly, if yar’ll ’ave it at that—in risky places an’ with no hat on his noggin?”

Rossamünd sighed. “I lost it in the river. Please, sir, my friend is very, very ill and she needs a physician quickly!”

“A lass, yar say? We cain’t have a sickly lass stuck out there. Stay yar ground.”

One of the gates opened and a short man came out. He was almost as broad across the shoulders as he was tall, and wearing, of all things, a chain mail shirt over the top of longshanks and jackboots.

“Let’s ’ave a look at ’er, then,” this stocky gatekeeper said as he stepped onto the road. He glanced about with a quick but shrewd eye and then down at the stricken fulgar. “Blast me! That won’t do at all. Pretty lass too.”

The stocky gatekeeper picked the fulgar up under her shoulders, as if her weight was of little consequence. She stirred, but little more. He directed an “Oi . . .” over his shoulder. This prompted another person to move out from the shadows of the gateway. It was a woman, a dangerous-looking woman glowering into the dark spaces all about, ready for a fight. She was tall and wore a strange-looking coat-of-many-tails. She looked to the other gater, then at Europe in his arms and, with no further prompting, stepped over with swaggering grace and took the fulgar by the ankles. As this woman obediently hefted Europe by her boots, Rossamünd saw that the backs of her hands were marked in strange brown filigree. It was the quickest glimpse but it fixed his vague attentions. Monster-blood tattoos! She was a monster-slayer too. Beneath her left eye was a line of spikes, spoors of some unknown profession.

Not too gently they carried Europe through the gate, the short fellow saying over his shoulder, “’Ere, grab ’er chattels an’ all, an’ follow me. I’m the gater,Teagarden—I look after the gate, see—at yar service. Whot’s yar name, boy’o?”

“Rossamünd,” he answered simply as he gathered up Europe’s fallen saddlebags. He could barely grip the straps. His hands cramped, neither shut nor open.

He was vaguely aware of a brief but pronounced pause.

“Oh. Yar pardon, lass. Mistaked yar fer a lad in this darkling hour.” This Teagarden fellow actually sounded embarrassed.

Rossamünd did not quite know what to say. His exhausted mind offered no assistance. “I, ah . . . that’s all right, I am a boy.”

Another pause, even more uncomfortable than the first.The woman bearing Europe’s legs gave Rossamünd an odd look.

Teagarden coughed in a perplexity of even greater embarrassment. “Ah yes, right you are, and I knows it too, boy’o. ’Tis the paucity of light, methinks, playing tricks. This lass with me be Indolene—she’s me fellow gater.”

Rossamünd, too wayworn to care, offered only what he hoped was a smile.

Behind the gate was a dim, confined coach yard. A yardsman hurried over with a lantern, his feet crunching noisily in gravel. The light was shone in Europe’s face while the two gaters took her to an entrance in the large, low house before them.

She still breathed! Rossamünd could see her cheeks puffing as he followed closely. However, her skin was a ghastly pale green, showing the deep blue spoor vividly. Great bruised rings sunk beneath each eye, while sweat ran freely from her brow and hair. She was unrecognizable. She was getting worse.

The yardsman gasped, ever so quietly. “Oi’ll be! She’s a lahzar!”

The lady gater seemed to scowl but continued in her work.

Teagarden whistled softly. “Upon me ’onor! Yar keep yar comp’ny strangely, boy’o. Still, thass neither here nor there—get her inside sharply, she looks fit to expire!”

The door they approached opened, casting an oblong of light on the scene. A lanky man in a maroon powder jacket and stocking cap stood there, looking tight-faced and beady-eyed. “What is all this huff and scuffle?” he demanded tetchily.

“We’ve got two new arrivals, sir,” Teagarden offered respectfully, “an’ this lady is poorly. Physic-needingly so, sir.

“Well, good, good, Teagarden, no need to wait for my permission, man, if you see a physician is needed.” The lanky man, who was obviously of some importance at this establishment, seemed the type to be peeved no matter how he was answered. “Bring them in, man, bring them in. Don’t wait for me to invite you. Hello there, my boy—you look most weary. Welcome to the Harefoot Dig. I am Mister Billetus, the proprietor.We will do all that we might for your mother, and for yourself too.”

This Mister Billetus, the proprietor, took Rossamünd by the hand and gave it a stiff shake. Europe was carried on within and down a passage of white daub and many doors. It looked very much like a servants’ entrance.

“Now, fellows,” Mister Billetus continued, “take the boy’s poor mother to the Left Wing, Room Twelve.” He addressed Rossamünd. “’Tis the only room we have left for persons of quality as yourselves. Quality which, if I may be so bold, I can see you have in spades. Will it do?”

Rossamünd had no idea if the room would or would not do. Any room was good as far as he thought. “Any room will do, sir. I just want her to be seen to by a physic . . .”

“Excellent, excellent. Of course, certainly. Go on, fellows,” Mister Billetus said, turning to the gaters and yardsman, “the mother needs seeing to—get her to her room! Properato!”

Teagarden seemed reluctant, but said, “Right you are, sir. Ah . . . ?”

“Yes, Teagarden?”

“Like I said afore, sir, she be a lahzar.”

The proprietor’s eyebrows shot up. After brief reflection he recovered. “Well, I didn’t make her that way, man. Money is money. Keep her hidden from my wife for now. What Madam Felicitine doesn’t know won’t hurt us! I’ll sort the rest. Off to their room, now, now!”

Holding a pale bright-limn, Mister Billetus led them through a labyrinthine confusion of dark passages and darker doors.

A boy joined them and Mister Billetus said to him, “Ah-ha! Little Dog! There you are, you scamp! Now hurry and quick to Doctor Verhooverhoven’s estates and bring the good physician back with you. No dawdling! Lives are in the balance.”

Despite his fatigue, Rossamünd thought it mightily untoward to send such a little fellow out while it was still dark. Little Dog did not seem happy about it either. Nevertheless he dashed off stoutly.

“The physician should be here within the hour,” Mister Billetus said with open satisfaction. “Good, good, to your room we go.”

Mister Billetus stopped by a door and looked at Rossamünd just as a cat might coolly regard an agile mouse. “You, er, can afford these lodgings, can’t you?”

Rossamünd’s heart skipped a beat. He thought on the expensive foods and fine upholstery of the landaulet—all of Europe’s flaunted wealth—and declared, with a quick-witted rattle of his own purse, “Absolutely.”

Billetus looked powerfully relieved. “Wonderful! So you won’t object to settling a portion of your board in advance, then?”

“I, ah . . . no.” The foundling hoped he was doing the right thing.

“Good, good. One night’s billet, board and attendance for a room of such elegance—and I do believe, by the cut of your clothes, that elegance is in order—the board for such a room is six sequins, paid in advance for two nights. If you leave after the first night, then we happily reimburse you. So, we should count this as your first night—since indeed it is not over yet—and say, with a carlin and a tuck, that you will be paid up to the morning of tomorrow night. Agreed?”

Rossamünd’s overtaxed mind cogitated the sums: There’s twenty guise to a sequin and sixteen sequins in a sou. So—two lots of six sequins was twelve sequins. A carlin is a ten-sequin piece and a tuck a two-sequin piece. Ten and two makes twelve—twelve sequins, again. I reckon it’s right—sure is a lot, though . . . He thought his head might burst. “Aye . . . I think. Uh . . . thank you.”

Mister Billetus held out his free hand, palm uppermost.

Rossamünd looked at it dumbly for a while, then realized the proprietor was wanting payment now. The foundling fingered about in his purse, finding only the gold Emperor’s Billion coin he had received on entering the lamplighter service, three sequins and a guise coin. He frowned, thought for a moment and then handed the gold billion to Billetus. The proprietor looked down at his payment with astonishment.

“Does—” Rossamünd’s voice caught in his throat. “Does that cover it?”

“Um . . . it’s a little . . . irregular, but yes. It’s certainly legal tender and covers the fare amply. It will even buy you breakfast for the mornings.” Billetus pocketed the coin while he opened the door.

The room beyond was large and of a luxury the foundling did not think possible. There were two beds, their highly decorative heads against one wall, billowing linen and eiderdowns of the softest cotton. The floor was wooden boards polished till they were slick, the white walls and high ceiling—richly decorated with flutes and twirls—made buttery yellow in the lantern’s glow. In the foundlingery a room of this size would have been used to bunk twenty, where this was meant for just two. Europe was being laid on the farther bed as Rossamünd and the proprietor entered. A worn-looking blanket—looking out of place in its fine surroundings—was stretched upon this bed to stop the coverlets from being ruined by the fulgar’s travel-grimed gear.

A maid, two tubs and several pitchers of steaming water arrived.

Mister Billetus excused himself and Rossamünd bathed behind a screen while the maid attended to Europe behind another. He almost fell asleep in the tub, but the maid, finished with her attentions on the fulgar, woke him with an impatient cough. Before too long he was clean—cleaner than he had ever felt in his whole life, dressed in a nightgown and lying in a bed, the very softness of which swallowed him whole. Europe lay, much like he, bathed and in her bed, in a borrowed nightgown.

“Is she better?” Rossamünd managed, vaguely aware that the maid was hovering about doing who knows what.

“She fares as well as she may, considerin’ . . .” she hushed. “You can sleep, little boy—her state won’t change just on your attentions.”

Lamps were doused. The maid left. In the dimness of a growing dawn Rossamünd watched the feverish Europe. He could not tell when or how, but in that soft, warm bed of the smoothest cotton, sleep finally took him.

The room itself was empty, inasmuch as there was no one else walking about in it. However, the bed near him, on his left, before that open window, was occupied.

In it, of course, lay Europe.

He clambered out of his own and went to her side. She lay on her back, her head cushioned upon many marshmallowy pillows, the covers tucked right up under her chin. Her long hair had been gathered under a maid’s cap just like one Verline would wear. Shivering as cold air blew in through the open window, bringing with it the smell of mown grass, he reached out, touching her smooth forehead with his forefinger.

The fulgar did not stir.

She felt cool now, in contrast to the feverish heat she had boiled with so recently. His curiosity mastering him, Rossamünd cautiously stroked her spoor, the small diamond drawn so neatly above her left eye. Every side was straight and of equal length, the corners clear points, its bottom just meeting the hair of the brow. He had heard—he could not remember whether it was from Fransitart or somewhere else—that these spoors were made by using some acidic substance which left a permanent, yet somehow scarless brand. Why anyone would want to do something to themselves that sounded so painful was very puzzling: was it just vanity, or was it a warning? As far as he was concerned, the next time he saw a mark like this upon someone, he would be very wary of them. He stared at her blank, sickly face, hugging himself in the insufficient warmth of the borrowed nightgown, rubbing one foot against the opposite shin, then the reverse, to relieve the chill of the floorboards.

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, hmmed 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 . . . !”

“Please,” the physician interjected in a low, insistent voice. “You’ll wake her.”

Madam Felicitine eyed him coldly but continued with deliberate calm. “She cannot stay here because if guests of genuine refinement were to learn that a person of violence and infamy was bunked in the suite next door, they would never return and advise others to do the same. I will not have this, oh no!” With a dark look at Doctor Verhooverhoven, she forced herself to be collected again. “No, no, the billet-boxes are the place for her, though I prefer the servant stalls for the likes of these, if they must stay here at all.”

She then looked gravely at Rossamünd, who was looking very grave himself. “Now it pains me, child, it truly does, but things must have their right place and order, people have their rank and station; some should not assert themselves above their betters. I know you’ll understand one day.”

“Now, now, dear . . .” Billetus tried again.

Her momentum building, the enrica d’ama went on. “That is quite enough from you, I would say! You, who let her—” That accusing finger now stabbed at Europe, unconscious on the bed. “—stay here!” Her arms now gestured wildly at the whole room. She began to go pale. Her cheeks wobbled apoplectically. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out? She simply has to go!”

Mister Billetus now fumbled and stumbled but offered very little else.

“Oh my bursting knees! Keep her in the billet-boxes if your tender heart won’t allow eviction!” the enrica d’ama hissed. “Either way, get her out of this room!”

In the awful, echoing silence that followed came a soft, icy voice. “My money glitters as well as another’s, madam, and here in this bed I will stay!”

Everyone looked in wonder to the bed where Europe had lain apparently senseless just moments before. She was still tucked in, her head still half-buried in the midst of the many, too-soft pillows, but her eyes were open now, bloodshot and baleful—and regarding Madam Felicitine with cold disdain.

Unexpected relief burst within Rossamünd.

At last Europe had woken.