Lamplighter

by D M Cornish

  He stood to put the plan into motion. The smock would be from his own trunk. Of all its intended uses, he reflected, impersonating a groundsman was probably not among them. The wooden barrow—found in the lantern store itself—he hid in a gap between the Principal Stair and front boarded wall of the store, wedging it behind a rain barrel, and with it a rusty fodicar to aid him in hooking the bloom down.

  Preparations done, the prentice looked in on the insensible glimner one last time and returned to the manse.

  The evening was as blustery a one as Rossamünd could recall. Clouds blossomed and expanded, unraveling from horizon to horizon over the whole Harrowmath: low, mountainous-dark, and turned an oddly luminescent, muddy hue by the westering sun they hid. Southerly, loam-perfumed winds blustered over the shorter walls of the Low Gutter; wild, freezing vortices spun across the Mead and down the Cypress Walk, prodding Rossamünd with every gust, bringing to his cold aching ears the angry hiss of the tempest-tossed grasses on the plain.

  Gripping the thin linen smock and its meager extra warmth about him, the prentice skipped down the postern stair and scurried along the poorly lit lanes of the Gutter. His healing crown aching under the bandages, he wished he still had his hat to protect his head from the blustery buffeting. This was a bad night to be in the open, but it was a good night for clandestine or nefarious deeds. He reckoned upon less chance of discovery or questions by this route, and his reckoning proved right. Not one other soul crossed his way but a gray grimalkin, one of the tribe of mousing-cats allowed free roam of the whole fortress.Wise enough to leave the vermin to themselves on such an ugly eve, it blinked knowingly at him from its shelter beneath a stack of unused hogsheads, puncheons and barrels.

  Past the bill-posting trees, across the All-About, by the Magazine and between the warehouses and work-stalls he went, arriving at the lantern store in a state of thrumming anxiety. He hastily pulled the barrow from behind its rain-barrel nook. Rossamünd pushed it up the long cartage-ramp—the Axial—to the edge of the Grand Mead, the axle creaking quietly and the wheel making a pleasant, continuous crunch on the gravel.The Mead proved as empty of people as it had been that very first evening the coach had deposited him at Winstermill. Back then he had thought the manse huge and vacant, but now he knew the Mead’s current state of inoccupation made a lie of the fortress’s hectic daytime activity. Honey-hued window-lights flickered invitingly—glimmering like watching eyes in the gatehouses, the Cursory, the Feuterers’ Cottage and the Yardsman’s Row. Snatches of ribald songs reached him modulated on the wind’s frenetic breath, but the great, walled valley before him was deserted.

  Rossamünd paused. He knew that it was possible hidden eyes were looking from cavities in the structures where the most faithful house-watchmen kept a diligent eye.There was very little he could do about these unseen observers but hope his thin ruse of a groundsman on a late errand would fool them.

  Rossamünd took a steadying breath.

  Lit behind by one of the few lamps on the grounds, the Scaffold was unmistakable: a stark shadow of limbs so unnaturally perpendicular that Rossamünd could well see how it earned its name. The dying bloom still thickly furbished every branch as high as the peoneers’ ladders had reached, warping and writhing violently in stormy gusts. Touched with a ghastly yellow hue, the plants were clearly drying, their vigor failing. Steeling himself, Rossamünd pushed the barrow steadily along the left-hand edge of the drive, walking with a show of purpose directly to the dead tree, hurrying only when he crossed the brightly lit ground before the manse’s front doors. Under the tree, the hanging bloom was far too high for him to get with his diminutive reach. Even the corroding fodicar was little help, the single hook requiring impossible precision to snag the wildly wind-dancing tendrils. Over and over Rossamünd swung and poked at these elusive targets till he was near to sobbing with the futility of the task. Too often when he did achieve a hooking, the failing plant would tear and shower him with its wilting leaflets.

  Frogs and toads! Confinations will be starting soon.

  It had been his great Plan with a capital P to fill the barrow with great armfuls of the stuff, but now he was hard-pressed to gather a handful. He threw the fodicar down in disgust and it bounced butt-end first off the iron-hard roots of the Scaffold, flipped over several times and skidded clatteringly to a stop against the wall of the manse.

  With a clinch of dread at such a din, Rossamünd froze—he had never meant to hurl the fodicar so hard or so far—and instantly realized he need not have toiled so fruitlessly. For there, all about the fodicar’s final rest were intact fragments of bloom, ripped from the tree by the gale, scattered now like summer-fallen blossoms on the Scaffold’s leeward side.The prentice’s entire soul leaped for the joy of it, but quickly squeezed to fright again as the noise of watchmen stirring in one of the many structures on the Mead’s edge reached him. With terror’s thrill, Rossamünd dashed the barrow over to the fodicar.Voices were becoming more distinct, sounding nearer, coming from the coach yard around the corner. He grabbed at all the bloom he could reach, dumping it rapidly in the barrow. The crunch of a footfall on gravel was all too clear.The prentice snatched up the fallen lantern-crook, took grip of the barrow’s handles and hurried off across the Mead, dark excitement broiling in his innards. At any moment he expected to be hailed. He forced himself not to run.With every step nearer the Axial, he dared to hope he might escape unseen, and hope and dread seesawed desperately till—at last!—he was trundling down the ramp descending to the Low Gutter. Only when he was back by the gap between the Principal Stair and the lantern store did Rossamünd finally begin again to breathe.

  Not waiting to discover if he had been seen or followed, the prentice fumbled off his smock, tipped all the bloom from the barrow on to it, put the barrow back behind the rain barrel, and the fodicar with it. Rolling up the smock and hefting this bundle over his shoulder, he scampered back through the comparative calm of the Low Gutter, up the Postern Stair and into his own cell just as mains was ending.

  Never had he prized the privacy of his cell as much as then. In the quiet of the tiny room, with the door shut, Rossamünd spread the smock out, and heart a-thump with hope, sorted through all the scraps of bloom. He was quickly and bitterly dismayed to find much of the stuff terribly yellowed. Yet among all the dying bloom-shreds he found six still-healthy tendrils, limp but not beyond restoring. He could have whooped for joy.

  His messmates began moving and stomping about outside, shifting about the cell row as they readied for bed. Rossamünd got into his own nightclothes and, with a quick check out the cell door, made three rapid forays. Some of the other prentices gave him odd looks but none stopped him. Bare feet slapping on the cold slate, he carried water from the cistern, via his biggin, to pour into the chamber pot. Thus the aquatic environment the bloom required was in some way restored. Rossamünd took his time tenderly arranging the survivors so that each was properly submerged.

  His nerves were so tightly strung, a soft bang at the door spooked him mightily.

  “It’s douse-lanterns, Bookchild,” came a hard, warning voice.

  Intent on tending his haul, Rossamünd had missed the day’s-end cry. All clatter and flurry, the prentice tried to hurry the last two precious sprigs into the chamber pot.

  The cell door opened and in thrust the lamplighter-sergeant’s head. “Did ye not hear the—” he began, then saw the bloom. Grindrod’s eyes went wide, but sharp anger was quickly replaced with understanding. “Where did ye get those, prentice?”

  “I—ah—from the—the—” Rossamünd floundered: it was theft either way—a flogging offense, twelve of the best under the lictor’s hand.

  “From the Scaffold?”

  “Aye, Lamplighter-Sergeant.”

  “Good man, Master Lately. As ye were.” The merest hint of an untypical smile showed on Grindrod’s face. “Douse yer lantern, the day’s deeds are done, lad . . . and keep those well out of sight. What our new Marshal doesn’t fathom wo
n’t turn into trouble.”

  Confused, relieved, Rossamünd pushed the chamber pot under his cot, tumbled all the dead bloom together with his smock, stuffed it into the bed chest and turned his bright-limn. In the fading light he readied for sleep. His heart still pattered fast and he lay awake for a long time, astounded at his own audacity and wondering why Grindrod had just abetted him in his crime.

  Immediately after the sunup call “A lamp! A lamp to light your path!” rang through the cell row, Rossamünd was out of his cot and pulling the chamber pot with its leafy guests out from under his bunk. He had continued to use the pot for its intended purpose during the night, having learned from Numps that one’s night waters were good for the bloom. Seltzerman 1st Class Humbert had reluctantly said the same when, amid much snickering and guffawing from his fellows, Rossamünd had sought to confirm the fact during readings. Nevertheless, one of the bloom sprigs had not survived the night, and he was down to five.

  While the others lads washed, Rossamünd hid the pot between his bed chest and the wall under his valise and salumanticum to foil the questing chambermaids on their morning rounds.

  Food gobbled (farrats, raisins and small beer) and barely more than an awkward “good morning” exchanged with Threnody, Rossamünd was rushing back to his cell, an idea illuminating in his mind like a thermistor’s bolt. He fished out the chamber pot from its hide, took out his lark-lamp, prized off the lugs and opened the top of the bell. Into the glass-bound cavity he managed to fit all five fronds, stuffing the sixth in with all the dead bloom wrapped in his smock and hiding it again in the bed chest. He filled the lark-lamp with water from the cistern and by breakfast-end had the bell-top secured back in place and the lamp safely back in his bed chest.

  All through the rest of the day, he was in anxious expectation of discovery. At morning parade he waited for the Master-of-Clerks to arrive and announce the wicked theft of bloom-rubbish from beneath the Scaffold.Through morning evolutions Rossamünd kept looking guiltily over at the gaunt tree, convinced a mercer would run up and announce that “some unknown miscreant had meddled with the rightfully exposed collucia plants!”

  None of this happened.

  By middens, Rossamünd was eager to restore the rescued glimbloom to Numps.

  The glimner was still in bed, sitting up, sipping at some fine-smelling broth—probably a kindness of Doctor Crispus—and looking utterly spent from all his grieving. Gratified the man was cared for, nevertheless Rossamünd felt his heart ache to see Numps so woebegone.

  “Mister Numps,” Rossamünd ventured, “I—I tried to save your bloom yesternight, but . . . but this was all I could get. The rest was too high off the ground.” He proffered the bloom-packed lark-lamp and the glimner’s eyes went so round Rossamünd feared they might pop right from their sockets. For a terrible beat or three of his anxious heart, the prentice thought he had woefully miscalculated, and simply added to the glimner’s distress.

  “You rescued poor Numps’ poor friends,” the man managed brokenly. He took the small lamp in shaking hands and gradually his hauntedness gave way to profound delight as joy blossomed into ecstasy. “Oh, my friends!” Numps cried, in both shouts and tears. “Oh, my friends!” The unscarred side of his face became wet with weeping, yet the riven side stayed dry, his ruined eye tearless.

  19

  BILLETING DAY

  fetchman also fetcher, bag-and-bones man, ashcarter or thew-thief (“strength-stealer”). Someone who carries the bodies of the fallen from the field of battle, taking them to the manouvra—or field hospital. Despite their necessary and extremely helpful labors, fetchmen are often resented by pediteers as somehow responsible for the deaths of the wounded comrades they take who often die later of their injuries. Indeed, they are regarded as harbingers of death, sapping their own side of strength, and as such are kept out of sight till they are needed.

  DESPITE the dramatic events, many of the lantern-sticks were largely unperturbed by the Marshal’s departure. Grindrod and Benedict did their utmost to preserve the routine.The next day the prentices had just completed the usual afternoon reading on Our Mandate and Matter with Seltzerman Humbert when Benedict hustled into the lectury declaring in amazement, “They’re holding Billeting Day early!”

  Almost the moment these words were out, the grandiose figure of the Master-of-Clerks, the Marshal-Subrogat himself, appeared at the lectury door, gracing them all with his presence. He held his chin at a dignified tilt. As always, the man was served by his ubiquitous retinue: Laudibus Pile; Witherscrawl, and now Fleugh the under-clerk; the master-surveyor with diagrams of the manse permanently gripped under his arm; and two troubardier foot-guards.With them also came a lanky, frightening-looking fellow dressed all in lustrous black: heavy boots, black galliskins over tight leggings, black satin longshanks. His trunk was swathed in a sash of sturdy proofed silk, neck thickly wrapped in a long woolen scarf yet—most oddly—his chest and shoulders and arms were bare, despite the aching chill, showing too-pale against all the black. His head was bald, and a thin dark arrow pointed up his face from chin to absent hairline, its tines splaying out over each brow. He was a wit. More disconcerting still was that his eyes were completely black—no white orbs, just glistening dark.This was some strange trick of chemistry Rossamünd had not heard of.The combination of this blank, pitch-dark stare with Pile’s snide, parti-hued gaze stilled the whole room as they moved within.

  With a thump of determined footfalls Grindrod appeared behind them all, muttering to himself, his face screwed up in silent invective. “Sit” was all he said.

  The prentices obeyed with meek alacrity.When all shuffling and snuffling ceased, the Master-of-Clerks paced before them, hands behind his back, puckering his lips and squinting at the platoon as if shrewdly appraising them all.

  “Brave prentices,” he declaimed, “you have worked at your practicing with admirable zeal and laudable facility. Fully confident in your fitness, I am convinced you are ready for full, glorious service as Emperor’s lighters, and have decided it timely for you to be granted your billets and to be sent promptly to them.”

  THE BLACK-EYED WIT

  That had most of the prentices scratching their heads, pained frowns of lugubrious thought creasing several brows. Does that mean it’s Billeting Day or what?

  How would he know what the state of our fitness for service is? was the spin of Rossamünd’s own thinking. He has naught to do with us!

  With a harsh, self-conscious throat-clearing, Grindrod stood forward, clearly struggling to contain his temper. “Sounds an admirable conclusion, sir, but the lantern-sticks bain’t ready for the work. Ye let a half-trained lad out on the road by himself and ye might as well toss ’im straight to the fetchman!”

  “Pshaw! I’ll not have your womanish obstructions, Lamplighter-Sergeant-of-Prentices.” The Master-of-Clerks enunciated Grindrod’s full title in the manner of a put-down. “They are required out on that road to make up for the appalling losses incurred under my predecessor.”

  The Lamplighter-Sergeant went purple with indignant rage, but the Master-of-Clerks carried on, not allowing the man an opportunity to press any further dissent.

  “Staffing at the cothouses must be restocked. We have twenty-one—no, twenty-two”—he corrected himself with an enigmatic look to Threnody, sitting straightbacked at the front of the room—“hale souls trained in the lampsman’s labors, and as ready as anyone can be, surely, to wind a simple glowing weed in and out its chamber. It is a terrible waste of a resource and one I have decided can be better employed filling these gaps on the road than lolling about here being taught the same thing over and over. It is not difficult work, Sergeant. If they have not come to grips with the task by now, I fail to see how another month will make it so.”

  “Another month is all the difference, sir!” Grindrod glowered. “They’re bare-breeched bantlings who set to whimperin’ at the slightest speak of bogles! Ye should be hiring those blighted sell-swords bivouacked outside the N
ook, or get them lardy magnates in the Placidine itself to spare a platoon or two of their blighted domesticars! Either way, sir, trained, professional men-at-arms used to the rigors of war. Ye might not know, sir, hidin’ behind yer ledgers and quill pots, that it’s war out upon the road, sir, and it’s we lowly lighters who are in the van!”

  The Master-of-Clerks bridled for a moment and then, with admirable equanimity, said soothingly, “I’m sure you’re a fellow who knows his business well enough when teaching a poor lad his first clues, but it now falls to me to choose their best uses. That is to be the end of it, Lamplighter-Sergeant—I do not want to be put in the position of having to take you in firmer hand. Indexer Witherscrawl,” he said, dismissing Grindrod with a turn of his gorgeously bewigged head, “read the tally if you please.”

  The sour indexer stepped forward, glared at the prentices—at every single one—and especially at Threnody. “Harkee, ye little scrubs! Here is the Roll of Billets, of who will go to where and when they will leave. Listen well—I shall tell this only the once!”

  What! The prentices could not quite believe this: they were to be denied the full honors of a beautiful and especial ceremony. There were supposed to be martial musics; the whole manse was meant to turn out in respect at the boys’ success in prenticing and their coming into full rank as lampsmen. A susurrus of deep displeasure stirred about the boys.