Foundling (30 page)

“So ye met me cargo, then?” Captain Poundinch’s rough voice intruded on the boy’s calculations.

Rossamünd grunted once and nodded.

“Ye see, whether ye knew nowt afore or not,” Poundinch went on, playing it as if this were just an amiable conversation between friends, “nows ye do—ye knows it all, I expect, or nears enough—and with that bein’ so, I cain’t afford to ’ave ye out o’ me sight. Don’t worry, mind, life aboard th’
Cockeril
will be a might more interestin’ than workin’ as a lamplighter.”

“
I
don’t think so,” Rossamünd muttered between gritted teeth. He felt cornered and cheated.

“Come, lad, that’s no way t’ be!” Poundinch sounded genuinely hurt. “I’ll be sparin’ ye all that walkin’ back and forth twiddlin’ with th’ lamps, as th’ day goes out and comes back in again, on and on. Who’d want that?”

“I would.” Rossamünd had been raised to serve on a ram, but not this way and most definitely
not
with a master like Poundinch.

“What? An’ waste all that wonde’ful learnin’ ye got from yer society?” The captain clicked his tongue disapprovingly and shook his head. “Turn left ’ere, Rosey-boy.”

They stepped onto a main dock way.

Rossamünd was getting angrier and angrier. The injustice of his own situation, and even that of Freckle, gnawed at him.
I don’t want this! I have been letting other people tell me where to go, what to be,
his thoughts fumed,
I will
not
let this beggar force me to do anything more!

With that, he sat down right in the middle of the wharf.

Poundinch almost walked right over the top of him. “What’s this ’ere!” he cursed. Giving a low growl like that of a crotchety dog, the captain then said, thick and heavy,

“Get up!”

Rossamünd did not stir. He refused to be forced against his will any longer. Master Fransitart, he knew with a certainty, would not have let himself be cowed in such a way. What is more, there were some people at the far end of the dock way that looked as if they might actually come to his aid.

“Geeetttt uuupp . . .” Poundinch seethed quietly, stepping over the foundling menacingly. “This li’l tantrum won’t do ye any good,
mucky li’l snot
!” The captain leaned low and Rossamünd heard the pistola being rattled near his ear as a threat. “Stand, frasart, or I’ll make ye one of me
cargo
instead of me crew . . . !”

The boy’s mind hummed now with a taut, thoughtless energy, poised at the debut of valiant effort. First leaning forward, then pushing up with hefty vigor, Rossamünd stood. His crown and the back of his head collided sharply with first the chin and then the already crooked nose of Poundinch, sending sparks through the foundling’s vision. The brute captain belched a stunned curse of the filthiest language and toppled clatteringly to the wooden planks of the wharf.

Rossamünd did not wait to see what was to happen next. He just ran.

Chancing one rapid glance behind as he fled, he saw the evidence of his work: Poundinch sprawled on the dock way, fumbling between his deadly flintlock and the blood sputtering from his nostrils.

Rossamünd dashed on, bounding over and skipping around all obstacles—on toward where he had spied those better-seeming people. They were no longer there! Regardless, he raced on. The sound of scuffling behind, then a steady
pound pound
told him that Poundinch was on his feet again and after him.

The chase was in earnest now.

With a stumbling skid, Rossamünd darted right, up a connecting siding. He quickly saw that he had made a wrong turn. Without hesitation he retreated. Poundinch loomed, blood smeared over his mouth and chin—
Too close! Too close!

“Get ’ere!” he shouted, but failed to close quickly enough on the nimble boy. Rossamünd scrambled on with a panicked yelp as the captain stumbled, his hands gripping at vacated air.

With Poundinch now so near, Rossamünd expected to hear the terrible, clapping report of the pistola and be sent to his doom with an oversized ball foiling his proofing and piercing his spine. He ducked his head without thinking, trying to make his legs move faster. He caught sight of the clock in the square, away to his left, half-hidden by all those masts. Though he was moving too quickly to be able to read its time, it gave him his bearings as he sprinted to the next connecting siding. Before him two figures stepped out, two looming shadows. Rossamünd did not know whether to plead to them for help or to avoid them as best he could.

“Stop ’im! Th’ thief stole me coin-bag
!” bellowed the quicker-witted Poundinch.

That decided it for the foundling. Well aware that most people preferred the assertions of a grown man to the excuses of a child, Rossamünd skipped desperately past one of the shadows—who seemed to ignore him, stepping past with a flash of deep magenta cloth—and nimbly into the grasping arms of the second.

He thrashed and squirmed wildly in that strong, steady grip, his panic making him deaf to the voice of his new captor. He looked back in horror to the charging captain closing in fury upon his prey.

“Let me go! Let me go!”
Rossamünd hollered.
“He’s a liar! He’s a liar! Let me go!”

“Rossamünd!” The stranger’s rebuke finally penetrated
.
“
Rossamünd!
I know he’s a liar. It’s me, Fouracres!”

In an instant the foundling’s whirling mind was stunned to a halt.

There was the postman, his normally grinning mouth tight with consternation, his tricorn knocked onto the wharf by the power of Rossamünd’s struggle.

Utterly confused, Rossamünd looked back in the direction of Poundinch, who called to Fouracres, “Well caught, good sir! Ye ’as done me a service!”

Yet between the cruel intentions of the captain and his victim stepped that deep magenta shadow. It was Europe.

They’ve come
—both
of them!

On came Captain Poundinch, clearly thinking the chase concluded in his favor, his boots pounding, pounding on the wood. “Thought ye could rob a fellow of ’is rightful prize, did ye?” he gloated, with a smugly grim sneer as he hurried to claim back Rossamünd as his slave once more.

Without a word, and without hesitation, the fulgar stepped into the path of the captain. He towered over her, yet she calmly reached out her hand.

Zzzock!
There was the briefest flash of green fire as she sent the suddenly amazed Poundinch, despite all his forward momentum, hurtling backward into the oaken side of a sailing ship. He hit it hard, the wind driven from his lungs with a belching cough. His eyes fixed in shock, he dropped through the gap between the hull of the boat and the planks of the wharf. There was a muffled splash . . . and that was all.

Her expression masterfully serene, Europe walked back to Fouracres and the now elated foundling. Taking Rossamünd by the hand, she continued back along the wharf. “Come on, let’s find this Mister Germanicus,” she said quietly.

As they led him out of the docks, Rossamünd’s heart was a song of freedom.
They’ve saved me! They’ve saved me!
She
saved me!

While they went, he answered all their questions, giving an excited account of who Poundinch was, of why the rivermaster had been chasing him, of what had been intended for him. Then he thought of Freckle—poor Freckle—more friendly and genuine than most people the foundling had ever met. His glee at his own liberation entirely evaporated.
Perhaps Miss Europe is still in a rescuing frame of mind?

He stopped and said, “Miss Europe? Mister Fouracres? I have a friend back on the
Hogshead
who needs saving.”

Europe let go of his hand and folded her arms. Pressing her chin against her chest, she looked at him shrewdly. “Really?” was all she said.

“Aye, Miss Europe, aye! I can’t be free and him not!” Rossamünd implored. “I can show us the way—I remember it, it isn’t far! The boat’s most surely still deserted. It was when I was there, and that was but a few minutes ago.”

Fouracres pursed his ample lips. “Ye’re asking a lot of us, Rossamünd.”

The foundling swallowed.

“And what of this Germanicus fellow?” quizzed the lahzar, with a deepening frown. “Is not your need to see him urgent?”

“But my friend
helped
me!” Rossamünd cried. “We’ve got to get him free!”

“You make friends too easily, little man,” Europe murmured.

Fouracres sighed. “But when in straits, yer prove yer mates,” he mused. “I for one will help yer. Miss Europe must shift fer herself. Lead on, let’s get this done before that brute swims his way clear!”

Rossamünd did not entirely follow what Fouracres was saying, but understood his meaning. Grateful, he started back along the way he had run, looking back at Europe.

She had not moved.

“Miss Europe . . . ?”

With a long-suffering look, the lahzar rolled her eyes. “All right, little man! I’m coming . . . I’m coming,” she said, and mouthed a sour complaint as she followed. She showed no inclination to hurry, despite the possibility of Poundinch’s emerging once more from the vinegar waters. The fulgar lagged as they hurried back to the
Hogshead
, getting tetchy when Rossamünd made a single false turn.

Yet he found the rotten, sinking cromster easily enough.

Nobody was apparent on deck.

With cunning grace, Fouracres crept aboard to check the hold below. Watching him from the berth, Rossamünd could well see how the postman had survived the dangers of his employment.

Europe sat on a bollard, crossed her legs and made as if where she was, was just where she meant to be.

The postman quickly reappeared and quietly declared the
Hogshead
uncrewed. “She’s a bit of a stinker,” he added, “and a sinker too, by all evidence.”

Rossamünd hesitated for just a moment, overcoming his revulsion for this vessel and all the unhappy things that had happened to him aboard her.

Covering her nose with her handkerchief as she came aboard, Europe refused to go near the hold. “You were on here for
how
long?” she marveled.

Fouracres went below again and called, “Which cage, Rossamünd?”

The foundling went to the hatchway and pointed to the prison that held Freckle, then to the third box-crate. “But watch out for that other one over there,” he warned. “It’s got a rever in it.”

The postman rapidly took a step away from the dangerous crate. “Yer what?” he barked. “I can see why yer didn’t much like being on this bucket!” Several times he turned a nervous eye to it as he crouched down and tinkered with the lock of Freckle’s own cage.

Rossamünd had no desire to go down into the hold while the rever-man remained, and stayed at the top of the ladder. It was only then it dawned on Rossamünd that Europe—or even Fouracres—might not appreciate rescuing a glamgorn, a monster. He almost panicked.
What will Miss Europe do?
Yet whatever might happen, he would rather chance this than knowingly leave Freckle in the certain misery of his current condition.

Though Rossamünd did not see how he had done it, Fouracres released the lock, saying, “There yer are, friend o’ Rossamünd, time ter be moving on.”

As he swung open the top of the crate, it was slammed the rest of the way as Freckle suddenly sprung from the top of his old prison, wailing delightedly, “Free! Free! Free! Poor Freckle’s had enough!”

At that same moment the rever in the third box-crate shook it mightily and started up a wretched wailing.
“Let us out! Let us out! Aeeiii!We want to eat him! Let us out!”

Not even Miss Europe, when she had fought the grinnlings, moved as quickly as Fouracres at these simultaneous eruptions from the box-crates. In a single step the postman both spun about and sprang away, a tomahawk swinging ready in hand.

Quicker than the eye, the glamgorn leaped right over Fouracres and shot up the ladder. All that Rossamünd saw of it was a small brown thing all legs and arms and those alien yellow eyes. These eyes caught Rossamünd’s own as Freckle dashed past—an extremely brief yet strangely meaningful contact—before the glamgorn sprang off the deck and disappeared into the murky liquid of the Grume.

Wide-eyed with shock, “Oh . . .” was all Rossamünd could think to say.

Fouracres blinked up at him in equal surprise and came quickly away from the rantings of the rever. “There yer be, yer friend is free. Let’s leave this wild, broken fellow ter his raging.”

At the commotion Europe had approached. “Rossamünd,” she purred with icy malice, “was
that
your friend?”

The foundling turned to her and, seeing her cold expression, looked at his feet. “Ah . . . a-aye.”

She gave him a look of mild contempt. “You made me come down here to rescue a bogle? . . . Licurius was right!” she growled quietly. “You really are a wretched little sedorner.”

“Look here!” Fouracres declared, reaching the top of the ladder. “There’s no need to be spitting such filthy words!”