Lamplighter

by D M Cornish

  “Somewhat, sir, but I was fully aware before and I am fully aware now.”

  The Marshal smiled genially. “Good man.” He shuffled some papers before him. “The good clerk-master has told me his take on yer tale, prentice, and is skeptical. I would like to hear yer own recollection and we shall go on from that. Proceed, young fellow.”

  Rossamünd cleared his throat, took a rattling, timorous breath, cleared his throat a second time and finally began. “I had missed douse-lanterns, sir, and found a way under the manse and it took me through all kinds of furtigrades and passages . . .” And so he told of the terrific events, passing very quickly over the how of his presence, avoiding any mention of the bloom baths or Numps, concentrating most on the battle with the prefabricated horror.

  All present listened in unmoved silence until his short recounting was finished. Upon its completion the Lamplighter-Marshal nodded gravely and smoothed his mustachios with forefinger and thumb. “I am not a commander who likes to set one fellow’s telling against another’s, yet ye seem a rather slight lad to be the conqueror of so fearsome a thing as a rever-man. More than this is how such a beastie ever won into places no monster has ever made it to before. How-be-it, my boy, ye were the only one present and my telltale finds no fault with yer summation.”

  Rossamünd had not been aware of any communication between the Marshal and the lamplighter’s agent, yet somehow Sebastipole had made what he observed clear to the Lamplighter-Marshal.The leer gave a barely perceptible nod to the prentice. “Indeed, sir, what he has told us has contained no lie.”

  He believes me after all! Rossamünd could have done a little caper for joy, but kept still and somber.

  Laudibus Pile darted a calculating, ill-willed squint at Sebastipole.

  “As it is, this is a most difficult situation, prentice.” The Lamplighter-Marshal became very stern. “Ye have placed me in a bind, for on the one hand ye must be applauded—surely awarded—for yer courage and sheer pluck at prevailing in such a mismatched contest as ever a fellow was set to.”

  Rossamünd’s heart leaped with hope.

  “Yet,” the Lamplighter-Marshal went on firmly, “the circumstances surrounding yer feat of arms are drastically irregular, would ye not agree, lad? To be out beyond douse-lanterns though not of the lantern-watch or the night-watch is a grave breach. Entering restricted parts of the manse, another grave breach. Perhaps we should simply all be glad for the blighted thing’s destruction. But a rule for all is a rule for one, and a rule for one is a rule for all, do ye agree, Prentice Bookchild?”

  The prentice swallowed hard. “Aye, sir.” Though he had never heard entering the underregions of Winstermill formally proscribed, this revelation did not surprise him—most things were out-of-bounds for a prentice.

  The Master-of-Clerks stirred. “If I may interject here, most honored Marshal, with the observation that my own telltale does not find all particulars of the prentice’s retelling wholly satisfying.”

  With a single, stiff nod, Laudibus Pile confirmed his master’s claim.

  “When falsemen disagree, eh?” The Lamplighter-Marshal became even sterner, hard, almost angry—with whom, Rossamünd could not tell, and he swallowed again at the anxiousness parching his throat.

  “In fact, sir,” the Master-of-Clerks pressed, “I might go so far as to state that one does not need to be a falseman to detect the irregularities in this . . . this one’s story. Perhaps your telltale does not see it so clearly? I am rather in the line that this little one is just grasping for glories to cover his defaulting.” He bent his attention on Rossamünd. “You have waxed eloquent upon your fight with the wretched creature, child, and the proof that you came to blows with something is clear; but I still do not follow how it is that you came to be in the passeyards at all or why it is that your journey took you to my very sanctum? You avoided the question before, but you shall not do so now.”

  “The passeyards, sir?” Rossamünd asked.

  “Yes.” The Master-of-Clerks flurried his fingers impatiently. “The interleves, the cuniculus, the slypes—the passages twixt walls and beneath halls, boy!”

  “Oh.”

  The Lamplighter-Marshal raised his right hand, a signal for silence, stopping the Master-of-Clerks cold. “Yer point is made, clerk-master. Prentice Bookchild, ye have a reputation for lateness, do ye not? As I understand it, ye have gained the moniker ‘Master Come-lately,’ aye?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “But, as I have it, ye do not have a reputation for lying, son, do ye?”

  “No, sir.”

  “So tell us true: how is it ye found such well-hidden tunnels as those ye occupied tonight?”

  Ashamed, Rossamünd dropped his head then darted a look to the Marshal, whose mild attentive expression showed no hint of his thoughts or opinion. “I was with the glimner, Mister Numps, down in the Low Gutter, and I forgot the time so—so I went by the drains so I could get into the manse after douse-lanterns.” He was determined not to implicate Numps in any manner, but with a falseman at both sides, it was an impossible ploy. Yet Rossamünd was desperate enough to attempt to dissemble. “I found them . . . through . . . through somewhere under the . . . the Low Gutter, sir—”

  Laudibus Pile’s glittering gaze narrowed. “Liar!” the falseman hissed caustically.

  “Ye will address an Emperor’s servant with respect, sir,” the marshal-lighter pronounced sharply, “be he above or below ye in station!”

  “He does not lie, Pile!” Sebastipole added grimly.

  “He dissimulates!” Laudibus snapped, with a black look to the Marshal then his counterpart.

  “Indeed he might,” Sebastipole countered smoothly, “but he does not lie.”

  “Enough, gentlemen!” The Marshal cut through, and there was silence. He returned his attention to Rossamünd. “Now, my man, whitewashing tends only to make one look guilty. Say it straight: we only want to find how this gudgeon-basket got into our so-long inviolate home, and so stop it happening again.Where did ye gain entry into the under parts?”

  “Through the old bloom baths.” Rossamünd dropped his head, feeling the most wretched blackguard that ever weaseled another. “Under the Skillions, where they once tended the bloom.” He did not mind trouble for himself near half as much as implicating Numps.

  The Marshal just nodded.

  “What old bloom baths?” asked the Master-of-Clerks sharply, forgetting his place perhaps, interrupting the Marshal’s inquiries. “How, by the blight, did you find such a place on your own? A place, I might add,” he continued with the barest hint of a displeased look to the Marshal, “that I have only heard of tonight! You cannot expect us to believe you discovered such a place in solus!”

  “In solus, sir?”

  “By yourself,” he returned tartly. “Who showed you where they are?”

  “I—” Rossamünd did not know how to answer.

  “Speak it all!” Laudibus Pile spat.

  “Silence!” barked the Lamplighter-Marshal. “Another gust from ye, sir, and ye will be exiting these rooms!”

  An undaunted, cunning light flickered in the depths of Pile’s eyes, yet he yielded and seemed to retreat deeply within himself.

  After an uncomfortable, ringing pause, the Master-of-Clerks fixed the prentice with his near-hungry stare. “You must tell us, prentice,” he said softly, “how then do you know of such a place?”

  “It is common enough knowledge that there are ancient, seldom visited waterworks and cavities underneath our own pile, sir,” came Sebastipole’s unexpected interjection.

  “I think, Master-of-Clerks,” was the Lamplighter-Marshal’s firm and timely addition, “that ye may leave this line of questioning now. The boy has been brought up short enough with the night’s ordeal ipse adversus—standing alone! What is more, it brings no clarity to the more troubling details.”

  The Master-of-Clerks became a picture of pious obedience. “Certainly, sir,” he returned respectfully, smoothing the gorg
eous hems of his frock coat. “I am just troubled that the existence of those old bloom baths is what has allowed the creature—if such exists—to find its way in. If that be so, then we will most certainly have to do away with the whole place,” the Master-of-Clerks declared officiously, “to be thorough.”

  From across the Marshal’s desk Rossamünd could see the tension in Sebastipole, the lamplighter’s agent’s jaw tightening, loosening, tightening, loosening with rhythmic distraction.

  “But the rever-man was shut up in some old room a long way from the bloom baths,” the young prentice dared.

  “So you say, child.” The Master-of-Clerks smiled serenely at Rossamünd, a sweet face to cover sharp words. “Yet if a mere prentice can find his way so deep in forgotten places, then why not some mindless monster, and these unvetted baths may well be the cause.”

  The Lamplighter-Marshal raised his hand, stopping Podious Whympre short. “There is no need and nothing gained from despoiling those old baths,” he said firmly. “They have been here for longer than we, and are buried deeply enough, and no harm will come from the quiet potterings of faithful, incapacitated lighters.”

  “You already know of it, sir?” the Master-of-Clerks replied with a studied expression. “This—this continued unregistered, unrecorded activity? Why was I not informed . . . sir?”

  “I do know of it, Clerk-Master Whympre,” the Marshal replied, “and I iterate again it is not the case of most concern. I could well ask ye how it is that there is a way down from yer own chambers into these buried levels.”

  The Master-of-Clerks blanched. “It is a private store, sir. I had no idea it connected to regions more clandestine,” he explained quickly.

  Other questions continued. Rossamünd felt unable to answer any of them to full satisfaction: did he have any inkling of where the gudgeon had come from?

  No, sir, he did not. It had, by all evidence, been locked in the room rather than having arrived from somewhere. In the end he simply had to conclude that he truly had no idea of the how or the why or the where of the gudgeon’s advent.

  Did he recognize where he found the gudgeon?

  No, sir, he did not.

  Would he be able to find the place again—or give instructions to another to do the same?

  Rossamünd hesitated; he could only do his best, sir. He described his left-hand logic to solving the maze and as much of the actual lay of the passages and the rest as he could recall.

  And all the while the Master-of-Clerks was looking at him with his peculiar, predatory gaze. Pile seemed to sulk, and said nothing.

  “I will look into this, sir,” Sebastipole declared. “Josclin is still not well enough; Clement and I shall take Drawk and some other trusty men and seek out this buried room.” With that the lamplighter’s agent left.

  “If you could excuse me, Lamplighter-Marshal.” Swill stood and bowed. “I must attend to pressing duties,” he said with a quick look to Sebastipole’s back.

  “Certainly, surgeon,” the Marshal replied. “Ye are free to go—and ye may depart too, clerk-master. Yer prompt action is commendable.”

  “And what of this young trespasser?” The Master-of Clerks peered down his nose at Rossamünd. “I hope you will be taking him in hand.Whatever other deeds might or might not surround him, you cannot deny that he has contravened two most inviolate rules, and it is grossly unsatisfactory that he has violated my own offices.”

  “What I do with Prentice Bookchild is between him and me,” the Marshal returned firmly. “Good night, Podious!”

  With a polite and contrite bow the Master-of-Clerks left, his telltale and the surgeon following.

  Grindrod was admitted in their stead, hastily dressed and looking slightly frowzy.

  “Ah, Lamplighter-Sergeant!” the Marshal cried. “Ye seem to have been missing one of yer charges, but here I am returning him to ye.”

  “Aye, sir.” Grindrod stood straight and, appearing a little embarrassed, gave Rossamünd a quick yet thunderous glare. “Thank ye, sir.”

  “Not at all,” the Marshal answered. “Ye make fine lampsmen, Sergeant-lighter. This young prentice has been doing the duties of a lamplighter even as his fellows sleep. Return him to his cot and set a strong guard over his cell row. Fell doings have been afoot. We shall discuss his deeds after.”

  The lamplighter-sergeant looked stunned. “Aye, sir.” Thunder turned to puzzled satisfaction.

  “Our thanks to ye, Prentice Bookchild,” the Lamplighter-Marshal said to Rossamünd. “Yer part here is done; ye played the man frank and true.Ye may turn in to yer cot at last. Be sure to report to Doctor Crispus tomorrow morning. Good night, prentice.”

  With that the interview was ended.

  Rossamünd left under the charge of Grindrod, feeling a traitor. While he was sent to sleep, he was aware of a growing bustle about as the soldiery of the manse were woken up to defend it from any other rever-men that might emerge from below.

  “I don’t know whether to castigate or commend ye, young Lately!” the lamplighter-sergeant grumped as he led the prentice along the passages. “Just get yer blundering bones to yer cot and I’ll figure a fitting end for yer tomorrow.”

  For another night Rossamünd readied himself in the cold dark and slept with his bed chest pulled across the door to his cell.

  17

  HASTY DEPARTURES

  sis edisserum Tutin term, loosely meaning “please explain”, this is an order from a superior (usually the Emperor) to appear before him and a panel of peers forthwith to offer reasons, excuses, evidence, testimony and whatever else might be required to elucidate upon whatever demands clarity. A sis edisserum is usually seen as a portent of Imperial ire, a sign that the person or people so summoned are in it deep and must work hard to restore Clementine’s confidence. A sis edisserum is a “black mark” against your name, and very troublesome to remove.

  ROSSAMÜND awoke with the worst ache of head and body that he had ever known and his bladder fit to burst. He hurt like the aftermath of the most severe concussion he had ever received in harundo practice. For a time he could not remember much of yesterday, though a lurking apprehension warned him the memory would be unwelcome. With the sight of his salumanticum discarded on the floor and the bed chest blocking the door recollection struck. A gudgeon . . . a gudgeon in the forgotten cellars of the manse, right in the marrow of the headquarters of the lamplighters! A monster loose in Winstermill!

  He dragged back the chest and opened the door to find Threnody there, leaning on the wall as if she had been waiting.

  “You missed the most extraordinary pudding at mains last night,” she said dryly. Evidently she had elected to speak to him again.

  “Aye . . .” Rossamünd knew by “extraordinary” she did not mean “good.” Threnody had always hated the food served to the prentices, and the new culinaire was achieving new acmes of inedibility.

  “You might be a poor conversationalist,” she continued as they went to morning forming, completely heedless of the thick bandage about his head, “but at least you’re interesting. Between Arabis having the others ignore me, and Plod mooning and staring all through the awful meal, it was a very long evening.” She peered at him. “Where’s your hat?” But by then Grindrod was shouting attention and all talk ceased.

  In files out on the Cypress Walk it was obvious the manse was in a state of agitation, with the house-watch marching regular patrols about the Mead and the feuterers letting the dogs out on leads to sniff at every crevice and cranny. Under a louring sky the atmosphere of the fortress was tense and watchful.

  “Do not be distracted by all this hustle ye see today, lads,” Grindrod advised tersely. “There was an unwelcome guest in our cellars last night, but the rotted clenchpoop is done in now.” He looked meaningfully at Rossamünd. “Just attend to yer duties with yer regular vigor.”

  At breakfast the other prentices stared openly at Rossamünd’s bandaged head.

  “How’s it, Lately?” asked Smellgrove
as Rossamünd sat down with his fellows of Q Hesiod Gaeta. “Is the bee’s buzz true?”

  “What buzz?”

  “That you came to hand strokes with a gudgeon last night,” said Wheede, pointing to Rossamünd’s bound noggin.

  “Ah, aye, it nearly ruined itself trying to destroy me.”

  “Pullets and cockerels!” said several boys on either side.

  Insisting others shift to make room, Threnody sat next to him. “Have any of you others fought one before?” she asked knowingly.

  Universal shakes of the head.

  “Because I can tell you,” she boasted, “that a full-formed lamplighter would struggle to win against one, let alone a half-done lamp boy.”

  “I have heard it that wits can’t do much to them either.” This was Arabis, listening at the far end of the bench.

  Threnody lifted her chin and pretended she had not heard him.

  “Tell us, Rosey,” asked Pillow, “how did you do the thing in?”

  “I burned the basket’s head out with loomblaze!” Rossamünd said, with more passion than he intended. “It went smashing down through the stair into the pits deep underneath.”

  There was an approving mutter of amazement.The looks of awe turned Rossamünd’s way were simultaneously intoxicating and hard to bear. He ducked his head to hide his confused delight, but one incredulous snort from Threnody and his small, uncommon joy was obliterated in an instant.

  After breakfast Grindrod did not say any more about Rossamünd’s yesternight excursions. However, he did seem to address Rossamünd with a touch more dignity as he sent him to Doctor Crispus for further examination. “Ye may take yer time, Prentice Bookchild: well-earned wounds need proper treating.”

  “Cuts and sutures, my boy, you certainly have a bump and a gash upon your scalp to show for some kind of scuffle,” the physician declared as he cleaned the nasty contusion on Rossamünd’s hairline and rebandaged it.

  “Swill tried to recommend callic for me last night,” Rossamünd said pointedly.