The Master-of-Clerks and Scrupulus Sicus, the Imperial Secretary, nodded.

The Lady Vey made a face as if to say, What does it matter if I have or have not?

No one else indicated either way.

Rossamünd knew of Ingébiargë. Craumpalin had told him of her more than once. She was meant to be a cannibalistic woman living in the remotest coasts of the Hagenlands who, by forgotten habilistics, had kept herself alive many thousands of years and made prey of any who passed too near. Such an unnatural length of life had apparently twisted her: she was gray-skinned, with red and yellow eyes more terrible than any leer’s.

“Some of you might dismiss this Ingébiargë as a fiction, but any vinegaroon who has sailed east beyond the Mare Periculum through the Beggar Sea, or harbored in the road-stead off the Stander Lates near Dereland’s western shores, will tell you she is a very real and very factual danger. If we could ask a mariner of one thousand years gone of her, he too would give the same ghastly report.”

The normally indulgent Master-of-Clerks, most likely aware of Secretary Sicus sitting immediately to his right, started to show impatience at this bizarre divagation.

The surgeon lifted his hands appeasingly. “Now please, sirs, attend to me, I do have a point. Ingébiargë, the great abomination, the shame of the Hagenards, known as an ever-living monstrous everyman—or woman.” He corrected himself with a peculiar look to the calendars and Europe. “Yet she is not the only one. The obscurest corners of history will reveal the occurrence of other such abominations, though most, when discovered, were destroyed before they could become the terrible canker Ingébiargë is to southern shipping to this day. For this Biargë is not some clever skold, as some might reckon, but rather a manikin—a monster in the shape and form of a person, and as such more assuredly an abomination.”

Fransitart had become a wan gray.

Craumpalin had a haunted glimmer in his eye.

“Pray, Surgeon Swill, you must bring us to your point of view, sir—the morning runs long,” purred the Master-of-Clerks, a hint of chill in his voice, though he never let slip his patient façade.

“Most certainly, Marshal-Subrogat.” The surgeon bowed a third time to the Officers of the Board and went on as if he had not been interrupted. “But how can such a wicked abomination happen? I see the question clear on your corporate faces: how can a monster be found in the form of an everyman? As you are all well familiar, we know so little of the where and the why of the monsters, of how they perpetuate themselves.What we do know is that most teratologica survive so long they can be considered—as the short generations of men reckon it—to live forever.Yet the monsters do replace their numbers.We know some repeat themselves, budding like so many trees, dropping bits of themselves to grow into replicas of the original. This can be most commonly observed in the kraulschwimmen of the mares or the vicious brodchin of the wildest lands such as the Ichormeer or Loquor.”

Here Swill paused, took a breath.

An awful, sick sensation was blossoming in Rossamünd’s gut.

Everyone expectant, the surgeon poured himself some wine from a sideboard, drank it all and continued.

“But what we have never seen is the creation work of the ancient gravid slimes, those places said to have been the nurseries of the earliest monsters, the eurinines—the first monster-lords—and used by them in turn to bring forth the lesser types of the theroid races.” As he went on, a quaver of fervent enthusiasm entered the surgeon’s voice. “Some of you might even know the history that was before history, the rumors of the beginnings; that these eurinines were granted by the clockwork of the universe to be able to put forth their threwd and make the muds fertile. Heated by the sun, worked on by the threwd, the very ground was made womblike and would pop to bring forth from the foul cesspits of the cosmos many of the worst and most notorious of the monsters that still stalk this groaning world today.”

Rossamünd did have some small understanding of the things said, but he had never heard the most ancient of histories put so directly. If he had not been in such a great anxiety, he would have eagerly listened to Swill wax learned like this for hours.

Wiping his mouth, Grotius Swill took up the cause once again. “Now these gravid muds continued to be used by the monster-lords, even through the rise and fall of ages, whereby they take the remains of some fallen nicker and bury them in the slimy womb-earth. After a time this spews forth some vital regeneration of those parts, another full-fledged monster to terrorize the homes of men.” He looked about shrewdly.

Not one person moved. Swill had intrigued them all.

“But here is the rub, you see. The movements of the races of men and tribes of theroid, all those risings and fallings, have left many threwdishly fecund places untended by their monster-lords, deserted but still oozing with foul potential. Yet unattended and unchecked by a eurinine’s will, these most threwdish of places we seldom if ever dare to navigate can still produce life, making strange beasties of whatever creatures might fetch up and die there. This abominable process we learned few call abinition, and this, lords, ladies, gentlemen”—Swill raised a salient finger into the air—“this is how Ingébiargë was made: a woman, some woman, nobody knows who, three thousand years ago perhaps, dies in one of these gravid places and falls, her remains swallowed by the hungry ooze. Sometime later out comes—what?” The surgeon shrugged and stared at his audience expectantly.

Expressions were blank, except Fransitart and Craumpalin: both were gray-faced, as ill-looking as Rossamünd felt. Despairing, Rossamünd looked to Europe. The fulgar was not paying him any mind, her astute, raptorial gaze fixed on the surgeon.

“Is it human? Is it monster? This thing sprung from the muds. We do not know for certain,” Swill pressed on, unaware of this calculating regard. “What we do know is that what is ‘born’—for the need of a better term—is reformed from the debris of human matter, birthed from the threwd, a wicked repeat of some lost and departed person. This we call a manikin, and whatever it might be, this reconstituted creature is certainly not human. I commend to you that if it is not human, then rationally it must be monster, and even if it is not, a manikin is not something we want walking free among us.” He paused and looked about the room with evident academic pleasure. “In the case we have before us today, things, I fear, go much deeper than simple sedonition. Rather, events must have proceeded upon similar particulars as I have just related. In some blightedly threwdish dell in the hinterlands of Hergoatenbosch, some poor lost fellow dies and falls. His remains are sucked up by the mud and slowly, by action of heat and threwd, maybe over centuries, they are remade, an abominable simulacrum birthed from the loam; another manikin. And what becomes of it? This manikin is somehow found and taken to a wastrel-house in the city to be raised as an everyman.Yet it is, in fact, not one of us at all.”

There was a baffled pause, people’s faces intent or dumbly wondering.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen, we all know the name Rossamünd—a sweet and apt name for some lovely, cherished girl . . . and, as it happens, the unfortunate and completely inapt name of this young lighter here”—Swill looked about keenly—“but who of you has heard of a rossamünderling?”

Vacant faces met him.

“None of you?” The surgeon’s satisfaction was evident. “I am not surprised; such a word has never appeared on any of the usual taxonomists’ lists. I, with all my reading, had not encountered such a word—until recently, that is, a happy accident of my persistent study. How does that interest us? Just so: Ingébiargë is a rossamünderling. All manikins are. You see, after much esoteric study I discovered in the most obscure of texts a most fascinating word: rossamünderling. It means ‘little rose-mouth’ or, more vulgarly, ‘little pink lips.’ More astonishingly yet, this word is a name the monsters of the east have for manikins. Rossamünderling—an ünterman in the appearance of an everyman. Rossamünd.” The man now pivoted on his heel, spitting in his passion, and pointed ferociously at Rossamünd. “For that is my point! That you—YOU, young Rossamünd whatever-you-are—you are that mud-born abomination! You are a manikin! You are a rossamünderling! A thrice-blighted wretchling in human guise!”

There was a great shout of disbelief, of horror, from almost every throat in the room. Threnody jerked away from him, staring at him in dismay.

Rossamünd could barely breathe. He did not know whether to laugh or cry or shout down the surgeon’s foolishness. Mastering himself, he stood and looked to his old masters, and something in their eyes struck him more than any preposterous accusation of some strutting massacar. For their faces declared more eloquently than explanations that the words of Grotius Swill, secret maker of gudgeons and clandestine traitor to the Empire, might possibly be true.

Europe’s gaze was narrow and inscrutable as she peered at Rossamünd.

Laudibus Pile sneered, stroking his chin in wicked satisfaction.

The Master-of-Clerks actually managed to look stunned, and the Imperial Secretary with him.

“Yet if you need proofs of my logic, I simply quote this fine young peeress,” Swill pursued, “the daughter of the august of our very own faithfully serving calendars.”

The Lady Vey sat erect, her face hard and supercilious with hidden distaste, not giving a hint whose side she was for. She turned this brittle gaze to her daughter, and Threnody dropped her head, either unwilling or unable to look at Rossamünd.

“This fine girl speaks of his great destroying strength,” Swill continued, “a bizarre aberration that immediately piqued my curiosity.Then she explains of his habit of always hiding his smell behind a nullodor. Why would one perpetually wear a nullodor, I asked myself, when one spends one’s life safe in the world of men? And the answer came: unless you were trying to hide that you were not a man at all!” The surgeon said this last with a very pointed look at Rossamünd. “And of course you did not want to be marked with the blood of your own kind,” he cried, “for not only would the idea be repugnant, you know that on your flesh a dolatramentis cannot show, for one monster’s blood will surely not make a mark on another!”

The young lighter’s thoughts reeled, and he blinked in dismay at the surgeon’s accusations.

“More so,” Swill pursued, “if what the august’s daughter says is true, then this one’s masters have conspired with it to hide its nature—a foul and deplorable act of outramour as has ever been documented!”

Fransitart and Craumpalin looked hard at the surgeon and refused to be cowed.

The Master-of-Clerks stared squarely at Rossamünd, a conquering glimmer in the depths of the man’s studied gaze. “What do you have to say for this, Lampsman 3rd Class?”

Rossamünd felt the blood leave his face and sweat prickle on his brow and neck. He could not let these puzzle-headed fallacies pass unchallenged. But what could he say to such outlandish poppycockery?

“Tell me, surgeon,” Sicus asked firmly, “how by the remotest here and vere do you propose to substantiate such a bizarre accusation? This young lighter as a sedorner is a charge I am prepared to hear out, but a monster who looks like a person! This is a very long line you plumb, sir. How do you intend to substantiate this obscure conjecturing?”

Swill balked, momentarily stumped, but rallied, a solution clearly blossoming in his thoughts. “If you would but indulge me just a little further, we could but take a little of this—this one’s blood; someone could be marked, and in a fortnight or so the proof would be there. Only a monster’s blood will make a mark on a person if pricked into the skin.”

Threnody gasped.

Sicus and Whympre and his staff were thunderstruck, and the Lady Vey too.

“I’ll not let ye cut ’im!” Fransitart cried, half standing but held back by Craumpalin.

Europe still did not move or comment, and the black-eyed wit kept his heavy-lidded scrutiny ever fixed on her.

To the universal surprise of the room, it was Rossamünd who spoke in Swill’s support. “Take my blood,” he said firmly, not quite believing what was coming out of his own mouth.Yet he was resolute. “How else can I show that this . . . that Mister Swill is wrong?”

“How else indeed? Bravely said, young fellow!” Swill enthused. “And to make it a truly impartial test, it would be best for one member each of the interested parties to be marked. In that way none can accuse the other of fabricating a result.”

“This is most irregular, surgeon,” Secretary Sicus cautioned.

“A serious and far-fetched charge has been laid at this young lighter, sirs,” the Lady Vey interrupted. “I say let a little blood be taken from him and the poor boy’s innocence and heritage be established.”

“As you wish it, m’lady.” Sicus nodded and made a dignified bow.

This sealed it.

Swill chose himself to represent the Empire and the lighters. Fransitart quickly offered himself on Rossamünd’s behalf.

A small dish, a small bottle, a guillion and an orbis were called for.

Grimacing, Rossamünd held out a finger, profoundly aware of the trust he was suddenly placing in a man he considered the blackest of all black habilists.

From the small bottle, Swill dabbed the young lighter’s fingertip with a thin, straw-yellow fluid, then dipped the guillion-tip in the same.

“This is libermane,” he explained to the room. “To make the sanguine humours flow easy.”

The surgeon deftly punctured Rossamünd’s fingertip with the guillion and more blood than Rossamünd expected began to drip out.

Feeling stupidly giddy, the young prentice let many drops of his blood splicker into the dish to form a little puddlet there.

“That will be sufficient,” Swill said when a coin-sized puddle of it had collected in the dish. With professional regard, he automatically passed Rossamünd a pledget to stanch the tiny wound.

“Hark ye, clever-cogs! I shall go first,” Fransitart insisted, looking very much as if he wanted to pound the surgeon to stuff. With a look of deep revulsion he removed his wide-collared day-coat and, rolling up the sleeve of his shirt, presented the inside of his wrist. “Right there’ll do fine, ye bookish blackguard,” he growled malignantly at Swill.

The surgeon swallowed nervously. “As you wish, Jack tar,” he answered and, taking up the orbis, dipped the guillion in Rossamünd’s blood and began to tap away on the old dormitory master’s blotched skin. Gripping the pledget to his finger, Rossamünd could not watch, and he looked up at the great antlers of the Herdebog Trought splayed above them. Even in these strange circumstances he still felt revulsion at the tap-tap-tapping of orbis on needle.

Swill seemed to have barely made a start when Europe stirred. She stood and stepped directly to Rossamünd.

The black-eyed wit straightened, looking ready to fight.

Distracted by Europe’s action, the surgeon hesitated then stopped his tapping.

Standing by the young lighter’s side, Europe looked with serene confidence at the powerful men gathered before her. “This has all been greatly diverting,” she said with a tone of mild amusement, “but I must now say, gentlemen and strigs, that it is time Rossamünd and I were going. His tenure with the lighters has, I think it is safe to say, come to an end.” She touched him lightly on the shoulder. “Come along, Rossamünd.”

“Stay where you are, Lampsman!” The Master-of-Clerks stood in turn.

Rossamünd hesitated out of martial habit.

“You cannot take him, madam,” Whympre contradicted disdainfully. “This is a court-martial of our Most Just Emperor, trying one of the Emperor’s own servants, and we,” he said, turning a haughty glance to the Imperial Secretary sitting officiously by, “we shall deal with him according to our own right rule.”

“Don’t come at me with that sneer in your nostrils, sir!” Europe warned. “You may have your dour Haacobin friend there”—she nodded to the Imperial Secretary—“but he is still just a clerk—whomever he might know, and you and he are together beneath me by more degrees than you have fingers or toes collected.”

The Imperial Secretary began to rise, declaiming loudly, “You flagitious shrew! How dare you interrupt an Imperial proceeding while—”

“You, Master Secretary, tread dangerous turfs!” Europe’s eyes went wide in indignation. “You are addressing Europa, Duchess-in-waiting of Naimes, Peer of the Haacobin Empire, Marchess of the Vewe, shareward of the Soutland states, descendant of Euodice—speardame of the immortal Idaho, and of Eutychë her granddaughter—spurn to Dido, and the Branden Rose, terror to man and nicker alike, and I will dare, sir, and I do!”

The Imperial Secretary opened his mouth to remonstrate, but Europe spoke him down. “If that will not silence you, impudent wretch, then I say simply QGU and now the matter is done!”

QGU? Rossamünd stared. Quo gratia! Europe was using her ancient right as a peer to overrule any court. She was using it for him . . .

The Lady Vey glowered at the fulgar scornfully.

The black-eyed wit took a step forward, but was stopped by a brusque wave of Secretary Sicus’ hand.

“Good day to you, Master Secretary,” she concluded. “You are at perfect liberty to go tell of my wielding of this venerable privilege to your cunning masters and all your fellow glaucologs up in Clementine, babbling away and filling the world with words; it will do you little good. For if it is a trading of status and influence you seek, I come ready prepared.”

To this not even the Imperial Secretary had a fit or contrary answer.

“Come, Rossamünd, we go.” The fulgar took him by the hand.

Rossamünd glanced quickly at the thunderstruck Board and fumbled the chair out from the table, tripping on one of the legs in his haste. Without a word needing to be said, Fransitart took a pledget from the table, rolled down his sleeve, put his day-coat back on, and he and Craumpalin followed after. The rest of the room were too stunned to act. Heading not too briskly down the passages of the manse—far be it for Europe to hurry—Craumpalin handed Fransitart a handkerchief to wrap the puncting-wound upon his wrist.

“We can’t thank ye enough, my lady!” the old dormitory master gruffed.

“Don’t wax too grateful, old salt,” Europe returned tartly, more intent on exit than gratitude. “I had not intended on rescuing the boy’s entire staff, but you may come if you wish!”

“We wish it, madam,” Fransitart said quickly. “We’ll not leave our boy to the world’s scarce mercies. Carry on—we shall get Rossamünd’s dunnage,” the ex-dormitory master insisted. “We shall be returnin’ presently!” Before any argument could be made he hurried off, no sign of any limp, Craumpalin close behind, both disappearing up the stairs to their temporary quarters.

Rossamünd hesitated with his old masters’ departure, feeling a strange conflict. The fulgar detained him with a touch to his sleeve. “Stay, little man. You are safest with me!”

They were out of the manse and walking the gravel drive to the coach yard when the Master-of-Clerks and the rest of the Board finally followed, gathering on the steps before the manse. Imperial Secretary Scrupulus Sicus gave a great cry, hollering for the day-watch to “descend and prevent these blighted rascals from escaping!”

Some haubardiers from the wall responded and hurried down from the battlements to the Mead to cautiously bar the way. They were clearly uneasy to be confronting a lahzar. Europe stopped before them and turned to face her pursuers.

The black-eyed wit stepped forward, grim satisfaction clear.

“Cease where you are, Madam Fulgar,” the Master-of-Clerks decried boldly. “Whatever the surgeon’s wild speculations, there is still the question of this lad’s alleged sedonition to be answered for!”

“Tilly-fally, sir!” Europe returned with a sneer. “Bestir me not with your lip-laboring. If talking with a nicker makes one a sedorner, then I would be guilty almost every other day! Stand your men aside! Do not force me to use more physical arguments!”

The black-eyed wit hesitated.

Laudibus Pile snarled and glared.

Podious Whympre puffed himself up, spluttered and even cursed, but did not continue his intervention.

The day-watch haubardiers happily stepped aside even before the order to do so was on the clerk-master’s lips.

Among them Rossamünd could see Swill at the clerk-master’s back, wrapping his own arm with a bandage, staring with inordinate, slow-blinking fascination at him.

Fransitart and Craumpalin returned bearing all their baggage. Somehow Doctor Crispus was with them, bearing some part of the load.

“Clear the way, thank you!” the doctor demanded, pushing through to the young lighter and the fulgar.

With some jostling and snarls, Fransitart, Craumpalin and the doctor were allowed to pass and Europe led them and Rossamünd away from the flabbergasted crowd. A lentum rolled up for them—Europe’s own hired carriage.

The Lady Vey and her calendars now emerged from the manse and stepped about Whympre’s party and out on to the gravel drive. With profound calm Europe and the Lady Vey regarded each other as they passed. Threnody stood alongside her mother, safe among her calendine sisters. She stared at Rossamünd with inscrutable intensity, the tracks of tears on her cheeks.

This difficult, abrasive witting girl had stayed true through it all, and Rossamünd wanted to thank her, to embrace her. Yet dazed, and baffled by the sudden turn of his fortunes, he remained close by Europe.

“Greetings, Branden Rose,” said the august.

“And to you, Syntychë,” Europe returned icily.

There seemed a self-satisfied gleam in the Lady Vey’s steady gaze. “We had heard you lost that foul fellow Licurius in a theroscade. How sad you must have been.”

Europe’s top lip twitched. Her iciness became a grim freeze. “Yes, I was,” she said, ever so quietly—and that was all. She let herself be handed on to their transport by the - side-armsman.

Desperate to leave this miserable fortress, Rossamünd mounted the carriage step. “Good-bye, Rossamünd,” he heard Threnody call as she was borne away to the coach yard. He was about to cry a farewell of his own when Doctor Crispus suddenly stepped before him, filling his view.

“Fare-you-well, young Bookchild.” The good physician extended his hand for a manly shake. “It has been a pleasure to have one of your quality serve here. May you and your masters,” he said, looking about the cabin, “find kinder stops along your road.”

Rossamünd swatted away tears. “Good-bye, Doctor Crispus! Good-bye!”

“Come with us, good doctor,” Europe offered, standing on the top step as Fransitart and Craumpalin hastily loaded their goods. “Though I do not know you, the boy trusts you and that says much for me. A man of physics standing ready by is always an asset.”

The physician nodded a bow. “I thank you, madam—your offer has its merits. But I would remain, for there are others here who need my care yet.”

Rossamünd knew Crispus was speaking of Numps. Poor, poor Numps hiding somewhere below them in the dank ancient cellars and pipes. Rossamünd was suddenly sharply aware he would probably never see the glimner again.

“I know you will keep care of him, Doctor,” he said low and fast. “Tell him good-bye from me if you see him.”

Luggage stowed, Fransitart and Craumpalin clambered aboard with admirable activity in such aged fellows.

“Leave now.” Crispus slammed the door of the coach shut. “Each moment makes tensions thicker.” He called to the driver, “Drive hard, sir, and safe! Get these good people to better places!”

A crack of whip and shout of starting and the carriage shot forward. Rossamünd held his breath, not quite believing he was actually winning free of this place. He caught one last confusing sight of Threnody staring after the departing carriage before they were through those mighty bronze gates. Only when the lentum clattered off the Serid Approach and on to the Gainway did Rossamünd manage to breathe evenly again. As Craumpalin more properly bandaged Fransitart’s puncted arm, Rossamünd looked to his old master. Fransitart turned his gaze to him. Deep conflicts showed there, old sorrows and new, a great agonized confusion. It was the nearest Rossamünd had seen his old dormitory master come to tears, and it terrified him more than any anger could.

“Master Fransitart?” Rossamünd reached out with his hand. Don’t cry . . . he wanted to say, but did not know how. A thousand thoughts collided. Who am I? Is what Swill says true? And as he looked again at his dormitory master, a small frightened voice, right down in his most inward place . . . Do you still love me?

“Don’t ye fret, lad,” the old salt said with a determined smile, taking Rossamünd’s hand, “we’ll fathom ye out of all this.” The dormitory master looked to Europe.

The fulgar sat straight and proud, staring out of the opposite window, taking small notice of the man.

“Listen to thy ol’ Master Frans,” Craumpalin encouraged as he finished his mending. “He and I ’ave been in worse dilemmas. We’ll see thee right.”

Yet as Rossamünd smiled to reassure the old dispensurist, it was only face-deep. The doubts persisted. Am I truly some kind of half-done monster? Am I a manikin? A rossamünderling? It’s like my stupid name . . . And a worse thought: Have Fransitart and Craumpalin been lying to me all these years? His smile failed altogether. WHO AM I? his soul cried. In a small voice he dared to ask, “Master Fransitart, who am I?”

The confusion in the old vinegaroon’s eyes deepened. His wrinkled lips pressed and squeezed together as, for the first time Rossamünd had ever known, Fransitart was struck speechless.

In the aching muteness Europe turned and looked at Rossamünd with a mild expression. “Why, little man,” she said, “you’re my factotum.”

. . . And with the sun just reaching its meridian, the carriage clattered down the Gainway, bearing him, his one-time foundlingery masters and the mercurial fulgar to Silvernook, then perhaps to High Vesting and unguessable ends.