Lamplighter

by D M Cornish

  “This is most irregular, surgeon,” Secretary Sicus cautioned.

  “A serious and far-fetched charge has been laid at this young lighter, sirs,” the Lady Vey interrupted. “I say let a little blood be taken from him and the poor boy’s innocence and heritage be established.”

  “As you wish it, m’lady.” Sicus nodded and made a dignified bow.

  This sealed it.

  Swill chose himself to represent the Empire and the lighters. Fransitart quickly offered himself on Rossamünd’s behalf.

  A small dish, a small bottle, a guillion and an orbis were called for.

  Grimacing, Rossamünd held out a finger, profoundly aware of the trust he was suddenly placing in a man he considered the blackest of all black habilists.

  From the small bottle, Swill dabbed the young lighter’s fingertip with a thin, straw-yellow fluid, then dipped the guillion-tip in the same.

  “This is libermane,” he explained to the room. “To make the sanguine humours flow easy.”

  The surgeon deftly punctured Rossamünd’s fingertip with the guillion and more blood than Rossamünd expected began to drip out.

  Feeling stupidly giddy, the young prentice let many drops of his blood splicker into the dish to form a little puddlet there.

  “That will be sufficient,” Swill said when a coin-sized puddle of it had collected in the dish. With professional regard, he automatically passed Rossamünd a pledget to stanch the tiny wound.

  “Hark ye, clever-cogs! I shall go first,” Fransitart insisted, looking very much as if he wanted to pound the surgeon to stuff. With a look of deep revulsion he removed his wide-collared day-coat and, rolling up the sleeve of his shirt, presented the inside of his wrist. “Right there’ll do fine, ye bookish blackguard,” he growled malignantly at Swill.

  The surgeon swallowed nervously. “As you wish, Jack tar,” he answered and, taking up the orbis, dipped the guillion in Rossamünd’s blood and began to tap away on the old dormitory master’s blotched skin. Gripping the pledget to his finger, Rossamünd could not watch, and he looked up at the great antlers of the Herdebog Trought splayed above them. Even in these strange circumstances he still felt revulsion at the tap-tap-tapping of orbis on needle.

  Swill seemed to have barely made a start when Europe stirred. She stood and stepped directly to Rossamünd.

  The black-eyed wit straightened, looking ready to fight.

  Distracted by Europe’s action, the surgeon hesitated then stopped his tapping.

  Standing by the young lighter’s side, Europe looked with serene confidence at the powerful men gathered before her. “This has all been greatly diverting,” she said with a tone of mild amusement, “but I must now say, gentlemen and strigs, that it is time Rossamünd and I were going. His tenure with the lighters has, I think it is safe to say, come to an end.” She touched him lightly on the shoulder. “Come along, Rossamünd.”

  “Stay where you are, Lampsman!” The Master-of-Clerks stood in turn.

  Rossamünd hesitated out of martial habit.

  “You cannot take him, madam,” Whympre contradicted disdainfully. “This is a court-martial of our Most Just Emperor, trying one of the Emperor’s own servants, and we,” he said, turning a haughty glance to the Imperial Secretary sitting officiously by, “we shall deal with him according to our own right rule.”

  “Don’t come at me with that sneer in your nostrils, sir!” Europe warned. “You may have your dour Haacobin friend there”—she nodded to the Imperial Secretary—“but he is still just a clerk—whomever he might know, and you and he are together beneath me by more degrees than you have fingers or toes collected.”

  The Imperial Secretary began to rise, declaiming loudly, “You flagitious shrew! How dare you interrupt an Imperial proceeding while—”

  “You, Master Secretary, tread dangerous turfs!” Europe’s eyes went wide in indignation. “You are addressing Europa, Duchess-in-waiting of Naimes, Peer of the Haacobin Empire, Marchess of the Vewe, shareward of the Soutland states, descendant of Euodice—speardame of the immortal Idaho, and of Eutychë her granddaughter—spurn to Dido, and the Branden Rose, terror to man and nicker alike, and I will dare, sir, and I do!”

  The Imperial Secretary opened his mouth to remonstrate, but Europe spoke him down. “If that will not silence you, impudent wretch, then I say simply QGU and now the matter is done!”

  QGU? Rossamünd stared. Quo gratia! Europe was using her ancient right as a peer to overrule any court. She was using it for him . . .

  The Lady Vey glowered at the fulgar scornfully.

  The black-eyed wit took a step forward, but was stopped by a brusque wave of Secretary Sicus’ hand.

  “Good day to you, Master Secretary,” she concluded. “You are at perfect liberty to go tell of my wielding of this venerable privilege to your cunning masters and all your fellow glaucologs up in Clementine, babbling away and filling the world with words; it will do you little good. For if it is a trading of status and influence you seek, I come ready prepared.”

  To this not even the Imperial Secretary had a fit or contrary answer.

  “Come, Rossamünd, we go.” The fulgar took him by the hand.

  Rossamünd glanced quickly at the thunderstruck Board and fumbled the chair out from the table, tripping on one of the legs in his haste. Without a word needing to be said, Fransitart took a pledget from the table, rolled down his sleeve, put his day-coat back on, and he and Craumpalin followed after. The rest of the room were too stunned to act. Heading not too briskly down the passages of the manse—far be it for Europe to hurry—Craumpalin handed Fransitart a handkerchief to wrap the puncting-wound upon his wrist.

  “We can’t thank ye enough, my lady!” the old dormitory master gruffed.

  “Don’t wax too grateful, old salt,” Europe returned tartly, more intent on exit than gratitude. “I had not intended on rescuing the boy’s entire staff, but you may come if you wish!”

  “We wish it, madam,” Fransitart said quickly. “We’ll not leave our boy to the world’s scarce mercies. Carry on—we shall get Rossamünd’s dunnage,” the ex-dormitory master insisted. “We shall be returnin’ presently!” Before any argument could be made he hurried off, no sign of any limp, Craumpalin close behind, both disappearing up the stairs to their temporary quarters.

  Rossamünd hesitated with his old masters’ departure, feeling a strange conflict. The fulgar detained him with a touch to his sleeve. “Stay, little man. You are safest with me!”

  They were out of the manse and walking the gravel drive to the coach yard when the Master-of-Clerks and the rest of the Board finally followed, gathering on the steps before the manse. Imperial Secretary Scrupulus Sicus gave a great cry, hollering for the day-watch to “descend and prevent these blighted rascals from escaping!”

  Some haubardiers from the wall responded and hurried down from the battlements to the Mead to cautiously bar the way. They were clearly uneasy to be confronting a lahzar. Europe stopped before them and turned to face her pursuers.

  The black-eyed wit stepped forward, grim satisfaction clear.

  “Cease where you are, Madam Fulgar,” the Master-of-Clerks decried boldly. “Whatever the surgeon’s wild speculations, there is still the question of this lad’s alleged sedonition to be answered for!”

  “Tilly-fally, sir!” Europe returned with a sneer. “Bestir me not with your lip-laboring. If talking with a nicker makes one a sedorner, then I would be guilty almost every other day! Stand your men aside! Do not force me to use more physical arguments!”

  The black-eyed wit hesitated.

  Laudibus Pile snarled and glared.

  Podious Whympre puffed himself up, spluttered and even cursed, but did not continue his intervention.

  The day-watch haubardiers happily stepped aside even before the order to do so was on the clerk-master’s lips.

  Among them Rossamünd could see Swill at the clerk-master’s back, wrapping his own arm with a bandage, staring with inordina
te, slow-blinking fascination at him.

  Fransitart and Craumpalin returned bearing all their baggage. Somehow Doctor Crispus was with them, bearing some part of the load.

  “Clear the way, thank you!” the doctor demanded, pushing through to the young lighter and the fulgar.

  With some jostling and snarls, Fransitart, Craumpalin and the doctor were allowed to pass and Europe led them and Rossamünd away from the flabbergasted crowd. A lentum rolled up for them—Europe’s own hired carriage.

  The Lady Vey and her calendars now emerged from the manse and stepped about Whympre’s party and out on to the gravel drive. With profound calm Europe and the Lady Vey regarded each other as they passed. Threnody stood alongside her mother, safe among her calendine sisters. She stared at Rossamünd with inscrutable intensity, the tracks of tears on her cheeks.

  This difficult, abrasive witting girl had stayed true through it all, and Rossamünd wanted to thank her, to embrace her. Yet dazed, and baffled by the sudden turn of his fortunes, he remained close by Europe.

  “Greetings, Branden Rose,” said the august.

  “And to you, Syntychë,” Europe returned icily.

  There seemed a self-satisfied gleam in the Lady Vey’s steady gaze. “We had heard you lost that foul fellow Licurius in a theroscade. How sad you must have been.”

  Europe’s top lip twitched. Her iciness became a grim freeze. “Yes, I was,” she said, ever so quietly—and that was all. She let herself be handed on to their transport by the - side-armsman.

  Desperate to leave this miserable fortress, Rossamünd mounted the carriage step. “Good-bye, Rossamünd,” he heard Threnody call as she was borne away to the coach yard. He was about to cry a farewell of his own when Doctor Crispus suddenly stepped before him, filling his view.

  “Fare-you-well, young Bookchild.” The good physician extended his hand for a manly shake. “It has been a pleasure to have one of your quality serve here. May you and your masters,” he said, looking about the cabin, “find kinder stops along your road.”

  Rossamünd swatted away tears. “Good-bye, Doctor Crispus! Good-bye!”

  “Come with us, good doctor,” Europe offered, standing on the top step as Fransitart and Craumpalin hastily loaded their goods. “Though I do not know you, the boy trusts you and that says much for me. A man of physics standing ready by is always an asset.”

  The physician nodded a bow. “I thank you, madam—your offer has its merits. But I would remain, for there are others here who need my care yet.”

  Rossamünd knew Crispus was speaking of Numps. Poor, poor Numps hiding somewhere below them in the dank ancient cellars and pipes. Rossamünd was suddenly sharply aware he would probably never see the glimner again.

  “I know you will keep care of him, Doctor,” he said low and fast. “Tell him good-bye from me if you see him.”

  Luggage stowed, Fransitart and Craumpalin clambered aboard with admirable activity in such aged fellows.

  “Leave now.” Crispus slammed the door of the coach shut. “Each moment makes tensions thicker.” He called to the driver, “Drive hard, sir, and safe! Get these good people to better places!”

  A crack of whip and shout of starting and the carriage shot forward. Rossamünd held his breath, not quite believing he was actually winning free of this place. He caught one last confusing sight of Threnody staring after the departing carriage before they were through those mighty bronze gates. Only when the lentum clattered off the Serid Approach and on to the Gainway did Rossamünd manage to breathe evenly again. As Craumpalin more properly bandaged Fransitart’s puncted arm, Rossamünd looked to his old master. Fransitart turned his gaze to him. Deep conflicts showed there, old sorrows and new, a great agonized confusion. It was the nearest Rossamünd had seen his old dormitory master come to tears, and it terrified him more than any anger could.

  “Master Fransitart?” Rossamünd reached out with his hand. Don’t cry . . . he wanted to say, but did not know how. A thousand thoughts collided. Who am I? Is what Swill says true? And as he looked again at his dormitory master, a small frightened voice, right down in his most inward place . . . Do you still love me?

  “Don’t ye fret, lad,” the old salt said with a determined smile, taking Rossamünd’s hand, “we’ll fathom ye out of all this.” The dormitory master looked to Europe.

  The fulgar sat straight and proud, staring out of the opposite window, taking small notice of the man.

  “Listen to thy ol’ Master Frans,” Craumpalin encouraged as he finished his mending. “He and I ’ave been in worse dilemmas. We’ll see thee right.”

  Yet as Rossamünd smiled to reassure the old dispensurist, it was only face-deep. The doubts persisted. Am I truly some kind of half-done monster? Am I a manikin? A rossamünderling? It’s like my stupid name . . . And a worse thought: Have Fransitart and Craumpalin been lying to me all these years? His smile failed altogether. WHO AM I? his soul cried. In a small voice he dared to ask, “Master Fransitart, who am I?”

  The confusion in the old vinegaroon’s eyes deepened. His wrinkled lips pressed and squeezed together as, for the first time Rossamünd had ever known, Fransitart was struck speechless.

  In the aching muteness Europe turned and looked at Rossamünd with a mild expression. “Why, little man,” she said, “you’re my factotum.”

  . . . And with the sun just reaching its meridian, the carriage clattered down the Gainway, bearing him, his one-time foundlingery masters and the mercurial fulgar to Silvernook, then perhaps to High Vesting and unguessable ends.

  FINIS DUOLIBRIS

  [END BOOK TWO]

  NOTES ON THE EXPLICARIUM

  A word set in italics indicates that you will find an explanation of that word also in the Explicarium; the only exceptions to this are the names of rams and other vessels, and the titles of books, where it is simply a convention to put these names in italics.

  “See (entry in) Book One” refers the reader to the Explicarium in Foundling, Monster Blood Tattoo, Book One by D.M. Cornish.

  PRONUNCIATION

  ä is said as the “ar” sound in “ask” or “car”

  ae is said as the “ay” sound in “hay” or “eight”

  ë is said as the “ee” sound in “scream” or “beep”

  é is said as the “eh” sound in “shed” or “everyone”

  ö is said as the “er” sound in “learn” or “burn”

  ü is said as the “oo” sound in “wood” or “should”

  ~ine at the end of pronouns is said as the “een” sound in “bean” or “seen”; the exception to this is “Clementine,” which is said as the “eyn” sound in “fine” or “mine.”

  Words ending in e, such as “Verline” or “Grintwoode”: the e is not sounded.

  SOURCES

  In researching this document the scholars are indebted to many sources. Of them all the following proved the most consistently sourced:

  The Pseudopaedia

  Master Matthius’Wandering Almanac: AWordialogue of Matter, Generalisms & Habilistics

  The Incomplete Book of Bogles

  Weltchronic

  The Book of Skolds

  & extracts from the Vadè Chemica

  A

  abinition spontaneous generation of life from muds and clays warmed by the sun in powerfully threwdish places. Such soils are called fecund or abinitive muds, or in the uncommon vernacular, life-loams. Some more extreme theories hold that these life-loams, these dipherbiosës (literally “seats of life”) can exist even in the heart of an urban park or rural lumber plantation, that where plants flourish (even domesticated varieties) threwd can concentrate in boggy dells and the ground become fecund. When known beyond the esoteric provinces of the teratological habilists this concept is generally rejected as being too terrible to contemplate.

  Accord of Menschen, the ~ what we would think of as an “international” agreement upon the rules of conduct in warfare, standardizing procedures of victory, surrender, th
e treatment of the loser and of neutrals; a reratification of a much older document known as the Usages of War, a set of dogma governing behavior to foes, prisoners, noncombatants, and the wounded and infirm during war.Though it was primarily drawn up in reference to land warfare, naval officers will also cite it, though they have their own accord—the Articles of Conduct; however, this is not as comprehensive in its statutes.

  “ad captandum vulgus” a Tutin political term literally meaning “toward courting the crowd” but used more in the sense of doing things to please the people, to inspire confidence.

  alembant(s) broadly speaking, scripts that alter the biology of a person, such as the washes that make a leer’s eyes. Specifically, the term can be used to refer to the potives taken by lahzars to keep their surgically introduced organs from vaoriating (spasming).The best known of these is Cathar’s Treacle. See lahzar in Book One.

  almonder assistant to a dispensurist or a skold, who does much of the fetching and carrying and reordering and other less glamorous work.

  alternats, the ~ catch-all name for the secondary or subcapitals of the Haacobin Empire, being the Considine and the Serenine in the Soutlands, and the Campaline on the Verid Litus.

  amanuensis clerk who takes minutes, makes duplicates and triplicates of documents and writes notes on the details of official conversations.

  Approach, the ~ steep “driveway” that leads up to Winstermill from the Harrowmath. It is actually split in two, one way continuing east down to the Pettiwiggin and the other curving south to join the Gainway.

  Arabis, Arimis son of a poor peltryman, Paddlin Arabis from Fayelillian way, who died of exposure on a desperate winter’s foray along with his crew of trappers. Raised by his mother in deep squalor, Arabis was first prenticed to another peltryman; when things turned foul he escaped, living by his wits and making his gradual and circuitous way to the capital. There he chanced upon a recruitment drive for the lamplighters of Winstermill, and took the Emperor’s Billion there and then.