Lamplighter

by D M Cornish

  THE prentices were not even properly awake when the Lamplighter-Marshal, Sebastipole, the Marshal’s adjutant, accompanying secretaries and a small quarto of lifeguards left in three lentums that next morning. Preparing for parade with a heavy heart, Rossamünd marched out with his subdued fellows to find the entire pageant-of-arms in similar mood.The sudden departure of their beloved Marshal to duties in the Idlewild was not so uncommon, yet word had got about that it was a sis edisserum that had taken him away—and this was shocking. Rossamünd could almost sense resentment bubbling under this veneer of fine martial order as they gathered on the Grand Mead.

  The weather shared the oppressive mood.There had been frost that morning after a clear, cold night. But as the sun climbed to its meridian, powerful winds blew from south of southeast, their gusts only partly foiled by Winstermill’s ponderous walls. Clouds so thick they were almost black arrived on its threatening breath, and the tang of rain and lightning was heavy on the air.

  Standing preeminent before the entire population of the manse, Podious Whympre, Master-of-Clerks and next in line of command after the Lamplighter-Marshal, looked out upon all those now under his sway, peacock-proud, and peacock-preened. Laudibus Pile, Witherscrawl and his genuflection of sycophants stood close behind.

  Wooden screens had been pegged to the ground with guy ropes and stakes to spare Whympre and his tail any ruffling buffets of wind. His audience simply endured and, during the course of the pageant, many hats found wing in the gusts and crashed into the northern wall or sought the broad meadows of the Harrowmath.

  “Our beloved Lamplighter-Marshal has been recalled to the Considine,” Whympre began with clerkly sobriety. “The Emperor is concerned for the proper administration of his beloved highroad and seeks an accounting from our own faithful Marshal. A Most Honorable Imperial Secretary”—murmurs through all ranks—“arrived from High Vesting bearing the directive of the subcapital late yesterday evening with a sis edisserum marked by the Emperor’s own Chief-of-Staff.” He took a breath, waiting for the troubled rumbling of the assembly to still. “Therefore, our dear, dear Marshal was compelled to leave at first change of watch this morning and may well be gone for an extended time.”

  Though the lighters and auxiliaries already knew the Lamplighter-Marshal had departed, there was nevertheless a small roar of dismay at this final confirmation. It was unheard of—powerfully discomfiting to all—and only with the severest reprimands was a pretense of order maintained.

  “With his absence,” the Master-of-Clerks continued, “need must fall to me to take the daily toil of our glorious manse in hand. I shall endeavor to lead in his stead, in a manner truly befitting an outpost of the most Serene and Mighty Emperor. In that capacity I shall be forced to assume the rank of Marshal-Subrogat . . .” He continued like this for a numbingly long stretch. His loyal aides did the same, extolling the Master-of-Clerks, inflating his virtues, sounding as if they were trying to convince those gathered of the clerk-master’s fitness to lead. Within all this gabbling came the first significant announcement: the Master-of-Clerks was to allow vigil-day visits to Silvernook—beginning on that very day. Even as he said this, near a dozen lentums began to roll out from the yard, ready to take those interested in a day on the town. In their delight the wind of many lifted and they began to think their new executive officer a capital fellow after all. A happy mumbling stirred through the prentices, though Rossamünd did not share their easily won enthusiasm.

  “Button it shut, flabberers, or ye’ll all be staying in yer cells for the day!” Grindrod growled huskily, and stillness was purposefully restored. For the entire pageant till now the lamplighter-sergeant had been glaring up at the clerk-master, mustachios bristling in disgust. “What does he know of lighting?” Rossamünd heard him mutter to Benedict.

  The Master-of-Clerks mollified them all still further by adding that they could expect roasted mutton with thick gravy for mains and treacle crowdy for puddings, with rich bully-dicey to be served at middens for those left behind. Had it been allowed, all the other prentices and many lampsmen and pediteers and the clerks would have shouted for glee.

  “The hearts of the crowd are found in their bellies,” Threnody muttered after they were marched back to the Cypress Walk and dismissed by their unusually subdued officers.

  “Perhaps the change of command might be a turn for the good,” a prentice pondered a little too loudly.

  “Cleave yer tongue to yer teeth, Gall!” Grindrod bawled, sending the loose-lipped prentice white with fright. “Ye’re as shatterbrained as yer nuncle the lictor! Pots-and-pans for ye tonight and the rest of the long week! The marshal-lighter is as fine a man and officer as anyone could ever hope to share a generation with! And if a single one of ye goes down to Silvernook today, ye’ll have my mark as a baseborn runion fink not worthy of a lighter’s fodicar!”

  All the lantern-sticks were astounded at his outburst. None said another peep about the Marshal’s departure—good or bad—for fear of another flaring of temper. Not one prentice took the day in Silvernook either, and if any were disappointed by this, he dared not show it.

  Brooding, Rossamünd sat on his cot in his cell.Threnody, having invited herself in, was perched on his bed chest, her back against the wall.

  “Is it just me,” said Threnody, “or have the Lamplighter-Marshal’s troubles turned out rather nicely for our new - Marshal-Subrogat?”

  “I suppose they have,” Rossamünd agreed guardedly. “It cannot be helped that the clerk-master is next in rank.” Mister Sebastipole does have a notion that someone might be seeking the Marshal’s ruin. “How long would it take a message to get from here to the Considine and back?” he asked.

  “You would need a fortnight,” Threnody said huffily. “Why?”

  Rossamünd scratched at his bandage. “What has my head turning is Mister Sebastipole saying yesterday that someone in the subcapital must have already heard about the rever-man and was calling for an explanation. Barely a week has passed—”

  “You already knew the Marshal was leaving on a sis edisserum and you did not say?”

  “It was not my information to tell!” Rossamünd returned indignantly.

  “Oh truly? Very convenient.” Threnody rolled her eyes. “Will you always be this dim?”

  “I cannot say,” Rossamünd countered, an angry rush in his belly. “Will you always be this rude!” His mouth spoke before his kinder thoughts could marshal themselves to intervene.

  THE MASTER-OF-CLERKS

  Threnody gaped.

  “Oi, Rosey!” called Arabis down the steps of the cell row. “I saw your old middens-chum blubbering on the Mead.”

  Rossamünd leaped off his cot and put his head out of the cell door. “You saw what?”

  “Aye, what’s-his-name—the Numps or somewhat like it.” The older prentice shrugged. “The daffy cove looked mighty put out by something.”

  Numps! Blubbering on the Mead?

  Leaving Threnody flabbergasted in his cell, Rossamünd was up the steps, down the passage and out on to the Cypress Walk in a twinkling. Before he was clear of the Walk, he could hear a distant, agonized wailing coming from the Grand Mead, and very quickly he recognized it as coming from the throat of Numps. There were rapid steps behind: Threnody was following.

  Clear of the manse, he saw—at the farther end of the Grand Mead on the edge of the gravel drive—Numps, hampered between two hefty troubardiers of the Master-of-Clerks’ own foot-guards. The glimner was writhing and pulling against their restraint. Rossamünd had never seen him so wild and so awfully animated.

  Then he saw why.

  Upon the gaunt beams of the Scaffold, the great dead tree that stood at the northern end of the manse, great tendrils of still verdant bloom were hanging upon the gaunt branches to dry and slowly die. As Rossamünd well knew, glimbloom will not live long out of water, becoming parched and yellow, its tiny leaves finally rotting to slime. Between the ladders and the many, many barrows holding the bl
oom stood the Master-of-Clerks directing an industrious band of peoneers with remonstrative gusto. Beside him a man Rossamünd recognized as the portly works-general stood, shamefaced, determinedly avoiding the sight of the grief-racked glimner while Witherscrawl wrote Phoebë-knows-what in a portable ledger.

  The old dead tree was already draped with such a vast amount of bloom that it looked to have wondrously returned to life; and the stuff was so vigorous-green and thick it could have come from only one place: Numps’ secluded undercroft.

  A shout of anguish escaped Rossamünd before he even knew to stop it. He ran the length of the gravel drive, heedless of any shouts or reprimands, groaning, “ . . . This is all my fault, this is all my fault . . .”

  Doctor Crispus ran into the narrow scope of Rossamünd’s panicked vision, striding fast on his long, stiltlike legs, crying something to the troubardiers that Rossamünd could not understand in his rush.With a great waving of hands and arms, the physician remonstrated with the foot-guards—who did not relax their detention of Numps—before turning away sharply to confront the Master-of-Clerks.

  As Rossamünd got closer he could see that one of the men had a pincer grip on Numps’ arm while the other corralled him with the shaft of his poleax.Though the two foot-guards were much heavier men than the glimner, they were hard-pressed to keep him in hand.The prentice pulled up smartly before the struggling three, skidding on the quartz pebbles of the drive, cut to his heart at the expression of utter desolation wrenching Numps’already distorted, tear-washed face. Bent with agony, the glimner howled, “My friend! My friend! They’re killing my friend!” pushing and pulling at the grip of the foot-guards.

  “Let him go! What are you doing?” Rossamünd hollered.

  “Clap up your squealing, little sprat!” one of the soldiers spat. “Get back to your quarters!” For added effect the man shied at Rossamünd with a steel-shod boot, roughly shoving him away.

  Rossamünd yelped as the force of the push sat him on the gravel. All he wanted to do was set Numps free. A burst of Frazzard’s powder in the foot-guards’ vile puds would have served perfectly, but the prentice was without his salumanticum.

  Amid the horrible yawling, he heard a shout of anger behind him.

  “Poke at him like that again, you bamboozle-winded dung sop, and you’ll spend the rest of Chill confusing your head for your tail!” It was Threnody, arriving to intervene. She planted herself before the lofty foot-guard, hand raised to temple in a wit’s telltale attitude.

  The man looked down at her, his expression thunderous. “Shove it up your wheeze-end, little harridan!”

  His fellow foot-guard glanced at Threnody hesitantly; however, Rossamünd was sure he could see nervous perspiration twinkling on the fellow’s brow.

  “All this fuss and trouble is hardly worthy of you, my people,” the Master-of-Clerks declaimed, interrupting the contest of wills as he strode imperiously toward them. “The bloom must be left to die.They are well likely to be responsible for that wicked gudgeon finding its way in and causing our generous, unfortunate Marshal such embarrassment!”

  Rossamünd knew this was a bald, pettifogging lie: monsters did not care two figs for bloom. “That’s not tr—”

  The Master-of-Clerks raised his hand. “Silence! Stop your rabble-rousing and get back to your duties! I will not tolerate such affronts.What a foolish weight of grief wasted over a few dripping weeds. Foot-guards, stuff a rag in its nose and return this one to its place of labor—”

  “Your sturdy roughs have done their worst, man!” Doctor Crispus said with cold deliberation, glowering at one of the fellows as if he should know better. “As the manse’s physician, I declare this poor fellow has taken a great strain of soul today and now needs a gentler hand. By the rights granted me through the Accord of Menschen over the health of pensioned military persons, I demand he be released to my care and relieved of any more manhandling.”

  “We are not at war, sir!” Whympre contradicted.

  “I think you shall find that the Accord differs with you, sir.” Crispus was not to be so easily beaten. “As would the brave lighters out there on the road.”

  The Master-of-Clerks considered, eyes narrowing, lips pursing. “This is most decidedly irregular, Doctor. I would advise you to go back to your infirmary and keep your opinions within its four walls.”

  “The clerking of our Emperor’s manse is for you to determine, sir—the healing of its limbs is mine.” Crispus stood tall, looking down on the clerk-master with the peremptory authority of the learned. “Inside the infirmary’s four walls and out!”

  Tear-diluted spittle was running freely from Numps’ nose and mouth as he began to sag in the cruel grip of his restrainers.

  With a cold glare the Master-of-Clerks eventually nodded. “I can see the wretch is ridiculously distressed. Please! Take him and set him to ease if he needs it. He will see the wisdom of today as time brings clarity. Guard-Sergeant!You may let that Numplings fellow go.”

  The troubardiers obeyed and Numps collapsed. Rossamünd was at his side in an instant.

  “Lady Threnody.” The Master-of-Clerks gave a slight, barely respectful bow to the girl lighter. “If I see you attempt to strive again I shall call your mother here and have her take you away.”While the peoneers worked callously on, he strode into the manse, Witherscrawl, the works-general and foot-guards scuttering after.

  “Look at them leave to heel, like the curs they are!” Threnody hissed.

  Numps lay curled about himself, making strange gulping noises, whispering “Oh, my friend . . . oh, my friend” to himself between sobbing gasps, his eyes red and swollen, his cheeks gray and drawn. Oblivious to the sharp pebbles of the drive, Rossamünd knelt and embraced the glimner as best he could, an awkward, inadequate reach across the man’s convulsing back.

  Doctor Crispus was unwilling to provoke Numps further by taking him into the manse. Calling for two porters and a stretcher, he had the glimner taken to the lantern store. Rossamünd and Threnody accompanied them as, whimpering and unresponsive, Numps was set gingerly on his pallet in a small, nestlike domestic nook of the store.

  “I shall return presently with a soothing draught for the poor fellow,” Crispus instructed Rossamünd. “There is no circumstance under which this would have happened if the Marshal was still present,” he concluded heatedly.

  “My, how kitten does play with father cat away,” Threnody concurred. “The clerk-master behaves a little differently without someone to check him.”

  “Indeed, my dear. The worm has turned, I think.” With a bow, the physician left.

  Speechless with shame and regret, Rossamünd could think of no comfort as Numps lay curled about himself, rocking on his cot by the clean, cold light of the well-kept great-lamp. When he did finally find voice, all he could say for a time was, “Sorry . . . I’m so sorry.”

  But all he got in reply from Numps was, over and over, “My friend . . . you’re killed again . . .”

  “If I had known the Master-of-Clerks would treat your baths so, there is nothing that would have made me tell of them!” Rossamünd said bitterly, tears threatening.

  “There’s no way you could have guessed ahead to that fellow’s wretchedness, Rossamünd,” Threnody murmured, touching him on the arm and actually managing to bring some comfort. “I’m sure Dolours would say something much the same were she here,” the girl added as a qualification for her soothing.

  When Crispus returned, it was a bitter fortune that the glimner, so insensible with shock, went quickly to sleep under the influence of the physician’s soother. Crispus, Threnody and Rossamünd sat for a while by Numps’ side, watching over him.

  “What is going to happen to him, Doctor?” whispered Rossamünd.

  “He will recover, my boy.” The physician smiled kindly. “I have seen him through worse and will see him through again.”

  Rossamünd was in doubt. “He should have gone with Mister Sebastipole.”

  “I do not think th
e Considine is a good place for him either,” Crispus replied. “In fact, you would have a hard time getting him out of Winstermill. It was remarkable that he even ventured up on to the Mead today.”

  Rossamünd sat in silent thought. “Doctor Crispus, what will happen to Winstermill—to us all—without the Marshal here?”

  The physician sighed, deep and sad. “I have not one notion, my boy, though if today’s travesty is an indicator of our new leader’s method, then it just might be an unhappy end for us all.”

  “Here I was beginning to enjoy the life.” Threnody’s muttered words were heavy with irony. “I was telling Rossamünd before, good Doctor, that events have fallen very well for our dastardly clerk-master.”

  “Why, child, I suppose they have.” Crispus stroked his chin. “Yet I can hardly conceive of him orchestrating all the manifold trials that have beset us and the brave Marshal most of all.”

  “I have been a pupil of Mother’s long enough to know only a prod here and a coaxing there is enough to bring another down,” Threnody waxed sagaciously. “Their troubles do the rest for you.”

  The physician looked at her for a moment. “Is that so, child? I wonder at the rather bleak nature of the lessons your good mother holds.”

  Rossamünd marveled at this glimpse of the bizarre life the girl must have led before she joined the lighters.

  Inevitably Crispus’ duties called him away, and middens’ call coaxed Threnody back to the manse.

  Rossamünd was left to continue the observance alone. Sitting there in the quiet of the store, he began to arrange a plan in his grieving thoughts: a scheme to offer some small consolation to the harrowed man. It was quite simple, and required only a clear occasion to be done. He would go to the Scaffold and rescue what bloom he could. The best time was mains, when the manse was a little stupid with the filling of its myriad stomachs, and the vigilance of its watch directed more outward to the Harrowmath. Prentices were allowed a relative freedom of movement during meals, and he was going to make full use of the privilege. Rossamünd would take a smock and a barrow—of which there was a conspicuously ample supply all about this part of the Gutter—and, like a gardener, steal on to the Mead and take back the bloom. The plan fixed so firmly in his mind as the only way he might make any kind of amends, he determined to go through with it that very evening.