Lamplighter

by D M Cornish

  Thrown by this, Rossamünd stuttered, “Um . . . A-are you M-Mister Numps?”

  The fellow looked up and blinked languidly once, showing a shadowy preview of a lopsided face. Rossamünd tried not to gasp or start in alarm, yet he still took an involuntary backward step. The fellow’s face, from the right-hand brow and down, was a-ruin with scars. His cheek was collapsed, the right-side corner of his mouth torn wider than it should have been. The cicatrice flesh went farther, down the man’s neck, mostly hidden by his collar and stock.

  “No one has called me ‘mister’ for three years,” Numps said with a sad inward look, speaking with that gentle voice from the left side of his mouth. “But I was a ‘mister’ before. Mister Numption Orphias, Seltzerman 1st Class . . . hmm, that’s who I was before. Just Numps now.”

  “Ah . . . well, hello, Mister Numps. I’ve been set duties with you.”

  The glimner frowned thoughtfully. “All right then,” he said mildly, and went back to fastidiously polishing the pane in his lap, pressing hard at some stubborn grime. Rossamünd could see that these stacks of glass panes were for the frames of the lamps and lanterns, big and small.

  “What can I do, sir?” Rossamünd looked about uncertainly.

  “Well, you can tell me what your name is, sir,” Numps re-turned, fumbling and dropping his cleaning rag, then picking it up again with a bare foot.

  NUMPS

  Rossamünd forgot himself a moment, transfixed by this simple, uncommon action.

  “My name is Rossamünd, Rossamünd Bookchild, prentice-lighter.”

  “Hello to you, Rossamünd Bookchild, prentice-lighter, lantern-stick.” Numps smiled shyly then frowned. “Oh, wait. That’s not polite. Shouldn’t say ‘lantern-stick’ to a prentice, should you? Just Rossamünd then, Mister Rossamünd,” he finished, grinning bashfully. “Aye?”

  “Aye!” Rossamünd returned the grin. This surely was no madman, just a simple, gentle fellow. He reached out his hand for shaking.

  Numps sprang from his seat, the pane falling to splinter on the boards. His broken face was aghast, wide eyes dashing up and down from Rossamünd’s friendly limb to the prentice’s horrified expression.

  It was only then that Rossamünd realized the fellow’s right arm was missing and not just the arm but the entire shoulder too. Not knowing what else to do, Rossamünd dropped his hand. “I’m so sorry . . . ,” he mumbled.

  “Oh dear, oh dear,” Numps whimpered and begun to shuffle those vulnerable bare feet about in the shards smashed over the floor. “Oh dear, Numps is dead.”

  “No! Stop!” Rossamünd cried. “You’ll cut yourself.”

  Yet this just seemed to distress Numps more, and he continued to shuffle and murmur, “Oh dear, oh dear . . .” A pan and brush were handy, propped against the shining great-lamp. Rossamünd snatched these up and flicked the broken glass from the floor and into the pan as quickly as he could. Yet he was not fast enough to stop the glimner from cutting himself badly, and the man began to splish about in puddlets of his own blood.

  “Mister Numps! Please sit, sir.” Rossamünd tried to nudge the fellow away from harm. He held him off with his elbow and swept up the remaining shards from beneath Numps’ feet, brushing up blood with them. “You must sit down, sir, please! Or step away!” Not seeing any other course, Rossamünd stood and gripped the man by one shoulder and what remained of the other and shoved him back with surprising ease against the wicker chair.

  Numps sat heavily without resistance, saying over and over, “Oh dear, oh dear, so much red. Oh dear, oh dear, ol’ Numps is dead . . .”

  “We must get your feet seen to by Crispus—no, wait, he is gone away . . .” Rossamünd managed to wrestle Numps’ feet into a better position to see their injuries. His right foot was slashed with small cuts, especially between the toes, and the blood flowed easy and terribly free. His left foot had suffered only minor scratches. “I’ll take you to Mister Swill—”

  “No!” Numps screeched. “Not the butcher and his butcher’s thoughts!” He wrenched his feet from Rossamünd’s grasp. The prentice was knocked against the barrel, bumping his head painfully. The glimner’s own chair tipped and fell, sending Numps sprawling head over end with a flail of limbs. He lay on the boards, his wounds still bleeding free.

  “But you need to have your foot mended,” the prentice pleaded.

  “No! No no no . . . ,” Numps insisted in return and began to sing. “Too much red, Numps is dead . . .”

  Rossamünd sat for an exasperated pause, rubbing the smarting egg already swelling at the back of his head. He could not see how he could force Numps to do anything the man did not want. I’ll fix him myself, then. I’ll use my salumanticum!

  He grabbed at the nearest, cleanest looking rags and pressed them to Numps’ bare foot, insisting the man hold them there. “I will be back with potives. Just press firm till then!” he said rapidly and, forgetting his hat, dashed up the avenue of metal and out Door 143. The rain, prodding him like fingers upon his crown, hurt his bruised scalp. The inclement weather had driven all others indoors.The windows of the Low Gutter glowed red, orange, yellow, green, while the noise of working still rang out above the fall of water.

  Rossamünd was quickly soaked as he dashed up the nearest stair to the Grand Mead, his hasty feet splicker-splack splicker-splack in the quickly growing puddles, his thoughts tripping with him, I didn’t mean to scare him, I didn’t mean to scare him . . .

  Across Evolution Green he ran, all the way down the Cypress Walk, turned right through the Sally at the side of the manse and dripped water all along the polished floor and down the steps to his cell. His salumanticum always sat beside his bed chest. He took it up and made hasty inventory of its contents. What he needed most was missing: the black powder called thrombis that made wounds clot rapidly. It was all used on Pandomë’s wounds. Indeed, he had attempted to restock his salt-bag soon after the attack on the calendars, but was still waiting for the correct permission papers from Grindrod.

  “Off to the dispensury, then,” he muttered to himself, and ran out of his cell and up the steps again. “Surely they’ll give some to me for an emergency!”

  The dispensury was accessed from the infirmary. Entering, Rossamünd recognized Pandomë in a nearby bunk, despite the bandages that hid most of her face. She was still senseless. With a shudder, the prentice thought of Numps’ ruined features.

  From the other end of the long room Surgeon Swill glanced at Rossamünd dismissively at first, then beadily, discomfortingly, causing the prentice to hesitate. Yet the surgeon said nothing and returned his attention to an attending epimelain.

  Through the dispensury door was a small white anteroom with a barred window at the farther end. He stepped up to this dispensury window.

  It was not attended.

  A velvet rope hung by, and the prentice gave this two hearty tugs, which set a hidden bell to violent ringing. Standing on tiptoes, Rossamünd peered through the bars. From the aisles of boxes, bottles, drawers and shadows emerged a sharp-nosed, flabby-jowled fellow with a high collar and a crotchety, querulous mien. This was the almonder, Obbolute Fibullar, script-grinder and assistant to Volitus—Winstermill’s dispensurist. He was a difficult fellow, about as opposite in temperament to Craumpalin as Rossamünd reckoned possible. The prentice cleared his throat and, as confidently as he could, made his request.

  “What d’you need thrombis for, lantern-stick, coming in here to drip and dribble all over my floors and on to my counter?” Obbolute leaned toward the bars and glared down at him. “Are you bleeding?”

  “No, sir. I am run out of thrombis,” Rossamünd returned, startling himself with his own, unexpectedly “what-else-do-you-reckon” manner. He held up his salumanticum as evidence.

  The dispensury door swung, but Rossamünd, intent on getting the needed potive, ignored this.

  “You can wave that salt-bag about and gum away rudely all you like, young fellow.” The obstructive almonder sat back. “I’ll need a
chit of authority from your commanding officer.”

  “But . . .”

  “Aye, aye, always ‘but,’ ” Obbolute mocked. “No chit, no parts! That’s the way it runs here. Time to learn it, don’t you think?” He looked up beyond Rossamünd, dismissing the prentice with that single gesture. “Ah, welcome back among us once more, sir. How went the course? Did you get the basket?”

  Rossamünd looked up quickly and straight into the mildly amused red and blue eyes of Sebastipole. The prentice had no notion that the coursing party had returned.

  “Well, my boy,” he said, ignoring the almonder, “glad to see you again. I have just come back from the hunt. A grim event when all was done.”

  “Hello, Mister Sebastipole,” Rossamünd replied. There was no time for chatter. Mister Numps’ foot must be attended to. His thoughts spun quickly. Terrible glimpses of Numps dead in a puddle of red ran through his head. “Please, sir. I need thrombis urgently.”

  Sebastipole looked at him strangely. He turned to Obbolute, producing a fold of paper. “I will be needing pule-blande, a six-months’ dose, and the same of gromwell too, for all it’s worth. And . . . pass me your stylus, man.”

  “Of course you will, sir.” The dispensurist half turned, ready to fetch these potives, all polite eagerness to this reader-of-truth. He pulled the pencil from behind his ear and pushed it through the bars.

  “And,” the leer continued, looking down to Rossamünd again as he scratched words on to the fold, “a salumanticum’s worth of thrombis too, or any other siccustrumn you might have.”

  Rossamünd could have cheered for joy and thrown his arms about the leer.

  Obbolute’s eyes narrowed as Sebastipole handed paper and pencil through the barred gap. A glimpse of temper trembled across the assistant’s brow. He clearly wanted to contradict this request, yet how could he? A chit had been provided and, more so, the leer was his superior.

  “I, ah—well, I,” he spluttered, his thoughts clearly at war, “what were you needing that last item for, sir?” He looked narrowly at Rossamünd.

  “Because this lighter needs it and you will not give it him,” Sebastipole returned, his sangfroid as much as his rank impossible to argue with. “Perhaps you will give it to me?”

  A hoarse grumble from his throat and a pointed pause was about all the contrariness Obbolute dared as he filled the order. The leer took the potives with a solemn thank-you that the almonder did not acknowledge. As they left the infirmary, Sebastipole gave Rossamünd the thrombis.

  “So tell me, young Rossamünd,” he said, “how have you recovered from our excitement upon the road?”

  At any other time the prentice would have been all for question-and-answers and exploring his confusions, but this was not that occasion.

  “I am well, sir . . . ,” he answered, looking over his shoulder down the passage to his path back to Numps.

  The leer squinted at him sagely. “Indeed? So tell me, what gives you such cause for haste?”

  “Someone has cut himself terribly, Mister Sebastipole, and I need to get to him right quick to stop the bleeding!”

  “Why did you not bring this ‘him’ to the infirmary?” Sebastipole pressed.

  “Because he most definitely refused to come, sir . . . refuses to be seen to by Swill—um, Surgeon Swill, I meant.” Rossamünd could not obey forms of right conduct any longer. “I really must go now, sir—please give me leave.”

  “Yes, yes! In fact I shall do one better.” Sebastipole put a gloved hand on Rossamünd’s shoulder. “Lead on and I will help how I can. Perhaps persuade this fellow to get to the infirmary where he belongs.”

  Rossamünd dashed back out the Sally, into the rain and down to the Low Gutter, Sebastipole just one step behind.

  “Where do you take us?” the leer called over the rush of falling waters. “Who is it that is hurt so urgently?”

  Through gasps and rain, Rossamünd called over his shoulder. “To the lantern store”—puff—“Door 143”—wheeze— “It’s Mister Numps—he’s cut his foot with glass . . .” He almost staggered in a muddy puddle.

  Sebastipole caught the prentice under his arm, saving him from the fall, and dragged him on. The leer quickened his stride, flying down the alley by the Pitch Stand, Rossamünd trying as best he could to keep pace.

  Throwing back Door 143 and springing inside, they found Numps sleepy yet still holding the rags to his foot.

  “Oh, Numption,” Sebastipole hissed.

  Rossamünd was amazed at the genuine distress held in that expiration.

  “Ready your thrombis, prentice—quick and steady. Now I understand your dilemma.”

  Hands a-tremble, Rossamünd opened the box and brought out a small sack of the “bonny dust”—as Craumpalin used to call it.

  “We must act apace!” The leer righted the toppled wicker chair and wrestled Numps’ leg upon it. “How did this happen?”

  “I just went to shake his hand.” Rossamünd’s confession babbled out. “Just to make his friendship, and he jumped and started and the glass fell from his hand and smashed about his feet.”

  Numps looked up with slow eyes. “Oh, Mister ’Pole, oh dear, you’re swimming in my red again . . . Oh dear, Numps is dead . . .”

  “Yes indeed, Numps, I find you all bloody like before. Easy, now. We’ll fix you right, just like then.” Once more Rossamünd was struck by the gentle anxiety in Sebastipole’s voice. He never expected a leer might show such tenderness.

  “There is glass still in the cuts,” the leer continued. “Do you have forceps? Or spivers?”

  Rossamünd shook his head, but had a thought. “I spied pliers on the rack there though, sir,” he said, even as he went to fetch them. “Here, sir.”

  “They will do.” Sebastipole snatched them. “With haste, Rossamünd, grip his leg under your arm and hold it firm and sure. This will not be easy—I am no man of physics.”

  The prentice obeyed with alacrity.

  Numps writhed and wailed as the leer poked and probed and tugged at the wounds. “Help me, sparrow-man! They tear me apart! Limb from limb!” The glimner cried, “Sparrow-man!” while Sebastipole shouted, “Don’t mind his calls, my boy, just hold him steady!” Rossamünd never let go of Numps’ ankle nor allowed his squirming to disrupt Mister Sebastipole’s delicate work.

  “Bravo, my boy,” Sebastipole muttered as he pulled out a wicked-looking shard, “you have yourself a strong grip there.”

  The make-do surgery was mercifully brief. With light-headed relief the prentice tapped hearty mounds of the thrombis on to a particularly nasty laceration under the knuckle of the big toe. It was from here that most of the blood had come. He watched as the dark powder quickly mixed with the gore, coagulating to a sticky, adhering mass wherever it did. When he was satisfied the thrombis had done its work, Rossamünd bound Numps’ foot as tightly as he could with all the swathes kept in his salumanticum. He sprinkled more thrombis between each bind till the box of it was all but empty and only Numps’ toe tips showed.

  Dazed from pain and distress, Numps remained supine among the old lamps.

  “When Crispus returns, I’ll ask him to come here and do what he can,” said Sebastipole. “Till then you’ll just have to hop about, Mister Numps. Fetch that handle cup.” He spoke suddenly to Rossamünd, and pointed to a ladle lying by a puncheon of water near at hand. “He will need fluid. One who has let free much blood always does.”

  Rossamünd filled the cup and carefully brought it over.

  Sebastipole let Numps drink with noisy thirsty gulps, cradling the glimner’s head as he did.

  Crouching by, Rossamünd watched, feeling it all his fault. “I’m so . . . so . . . sorry for . . . ,” he tried.

  “Don’t fret, prentice-lighter,” Sebastipole said. “Our Numps has never been right in the intellectuals since surviving a theroscade. He has hurt himself before. It was providential I met you when I did, wouldn’t you say? Had I not needed pule-blande so urgently I would have already
been in a meeting with the Lamplighter-Marshal.”

  “Will Mister Numps mend, sir?”

  “Doctor Crispus cites it the worst case of malingering horrors he has ever encountered,” Sebastipole continued, putting a friendly hand on the glimner’s shoulder. “We do what we can, do we not, Mister Numps, but it just isn’t the same, is it?”

  Clearly dazed, Numps still managed to answer. “No, Mister ’Pole, never the same, poor Numps, and poor glass too.” He started to look around the floor about him.

  “You know Mister Numps well, Mister Sebastipole?” Rossamünd asked, feeling a sudden surge of affection for the leer, so different from the other leers the prentice had encountered.

  “We are acquainted, yes,” Sebastipole said.

  Rossamünd hoped he might say more and waited, but the leer showed no inclination to speak further. He stood, helping Numps to sit against the glowing great-lamp. The glimner was shivering, and the lamp offered no heat.

  Retrieving his thrice-high from where it dropped, Sebastipole said, “Sit easy now, Numps. Don’t you tread on those clever feet of yours—we don’t want them to bleed again.”

  To this Numps nodded slowly. “Poor Numps’ clever feet. You put me back together again, Mister ’Pole.”

  “Indeed, we did what we could.” The leer looked pointedly at Rossamünd. “This young master and I shall find you a blanket.”

  Rossamünd followed as he went to the farther end of the lantern store.

  Sebastipole turned over a bright-limn sitting on a shelf and its soft glow soon revealed a pile of sacks neatly folded in a flimsy crate. He gathered several and deposited them in Rossamünd’s arms, declaring lightly and loudly, “These will answer nicely!” He fixed the prentice with his disconcerting eyes. “It was I who found him,” the leer said low and serious, “alone and horribly mangled after the other two seltzermen had been devoured or carried away.”

  Rossamünd’s ears rang as his attention became very focused. “Devoured, sir? Carried away?” he said, equally softly.

  “Yes, carried away.” Sebastipole paused, closing his eyes. “It was in the first year that our Master-of-Clerks arrived. I remember it so because one of his first acts was to insist on a thorough inspection of all the great-lamps along the road. Numps and others had been attending to a vialimn out east beyond the Heap, past the Roughmarch and Tumblesloe Cot. As you know, seltzermen go out in threes—two to work, one to watch with a salinumbus at the half cock—and return before the lantern-watch starts. But this day they did not arrive by the correct time, a remarkable thing, for as you know a lamplighter’s life is punctuality.” Wry and knowing, Sebastipole looked to Rossamünd, the blue of his eye showing strangely bright in the seltzer light.