Foundling

by Cornish, D. M.

  Madam Opera’s Estimable Marine Society for Foundling Boys and Girls was situated on the Vlinderstrat, between a rat-infested warehouse and a stinking tannery. The Vlinderstrat had once been a rather fashionable avenue in the rather fashionable suburb of Poéme, in the proud riverine city of Boschenberg. The building itself was tall and narrow, made of dark stones and dark, decaying wood, sagging under the many additions to its original structure. It had been in Madam Opera’s family through a great list of generations. Rossamünd had heard this list read out once, and it went on so long he fell asleep during the telling.

  A hundred children who had once been unwanted or lost or both lived here to be taught a trade and skills so that they might be wanted as adults. And the organization that wanted them most was that seemingly bottomless sink of manpower—the navy. It was the Boschenberg Navy that sponsored the running of this marine society and several others. It was the Boschenberg Navy that provided the foundlingery with its masters, men like Fransitart and Craumpalin, each one an aging vinegaroon pensioned off to serve the few days left to him as an instructor to discarded children.

  Every marine society boy and girl was taught to long to join the navy. It was widely known that a fellow could set himself up for good with the prize money won when pirates or enemy vessels were captured; that you joined a family when you joined the crew of a ram (a very appealing idea to the foundlings at Madam Opera’s); that every landlubber thought you were a grand chap for serving your state so honorably; and that you were better paid and better fed than most folks doing similar work on land. Rossamünd was no different: he too had learned to desperately want a life on the vinegar waves.

  The vinegar waves. The thought always made him wistful.

  Though he had never seen the sea, Rossamünd knew that its waters were tainted with caustic salts that gave it lurid colors and made it stink like strong vinegar. He could hardly wait till the day when he got to fill his lungs full of the sharp odor of the sea.

  The navy was not the only employer of marine society boys and girls. Other agencies happily took on Madam Opera’s children: the army, with its smart uniforms and regular mealtimes; the mathematicians, with their numbers and demand for genius; their rivals, the concometrists, who measured the length and breadth of everything; and various miscellaneous trades and guildhalls seeking apprentices or workers.

  The agents arrived to make their selections at a set time in a year. The hiring season started in the early weeks of Calor—the first month of summer, the first month of the year. It ended in the last weeks of Cachrys—the second month of autumn, before the weather became unfriendly for easy travel. This was a time of great anticipation and glee, the older children always eager to make good their escape, the middle children keen to become the top dogs of the foundlingery and the younger ones excited simply by the atmosphere of expectation and change.

  Rossamünd had watched it happen many times already over the years, but this year it was his turn to take part; yet for some inexplicable reason, each time the hiring agents had come, he had been passed over. He did not know why and no one said; the agents just came, reviewed a lineup of all the older children, asked questions of the masters and Madam Opera and read out the tally of their choices. He knew he was not very tall or impressive-looking, like others around his age. He also knew that he was clumsy, that he had trouble tying the knots Master of Ropes Heddlebulk taught, that there were times when his mind would wander and duties be left incomplete. Yet Rossamünd did know a thing or two. Not only had he learned simple dispensing from Craumpalin, but he knew a good deal of history too.

  The Emperor ruled all that mattered, and the Emperor’s Regents had control of the scores of ancient city-states that made up the Empire, city-states like Boschenberg, clinging to the coasts and fertile places. It was an Empire founded sixteen hundred years ago by the great hero-empress Dido, although the current dynasty—the Haacobins—were usurpers and not of Dido’s line. Rossamünd had read of the many battles on land and sea. City-states warred with each other and with their Imperial master for yet more control. He knew of soldiers—musketeers, haubardiers, troubardiers and the rest—and especially about the great rams (giant ironclad vessels of war that prowled the vinegar seas, their decks congested with mighty cannon). He knew the names of famous marshals, legendary admirals. He had read of the skolds, of course, and had even seen a few of those who had served his own city. He was fascinated by the lahzars.

  But most of all he knew about monsters. He knew that there was an Everlasting Struggle, the ever-present battle between humankind and the bogles and nickers and the nadderers—the sea-monsters. Much of what he read grandly declared that humankind was winning, that the monsters were in steady retreat, that one day they would be exterminated from all the Empire. Yet occasionally Rossamünd read some article nervously suggesting that in fact the bitter fight ’twixt man and bogle was at best locked in stalemate, at worst that humankind was losing. A terrible thought—people driven into the sea by slavering, relentless terrors.

  Yes, Rossamünd did know a thing or two, yet six times now this hiring season, men from the navy board and other agencies had been around to review the hopefuls. Six times now children had been selected to go and lead adventurous lives, so many now that the eldest and most of the second-eldest were gone, never to return. Six times now Rossamünd had been passed over. One of the eldest children in the foundlingery he might now be—if still not one of the tallest—but this was little compensation for the shame of being left behind. He had been left behind by Providence-knows-who as a baby, and now, it seemed, he was being left behind again.

  He was certain that he could not stand yet another year stuck in the cramped halls of moldering wood and old, cold stone.

  Gosling too was waiting to be chosen for work outside the foundlingery. It was his only chance to achieve all the things for which his high birth had destined him—as he often boasted. In the last five months child after child had been selected to take up his or her long-awaited occupation, but not Gosling. In a raging sulk he had set about a regime of spiteful pranks, most failing owing to Fransitart’s shrewd vigilance. But it was Rossamünd he specially tormented.

  Two weeks after the incident at harundo practice, Gosling somehow found him reading a small book about rams. Rossamünd had hidden himself away in the tiny garret library of sagging wood precariously extended from the roof of the main building. It was all but forgotten by most. Dust was so thick on the floor that Gosling had been able to sneak up behind Rossamünd and poke him as hard as he could. Rossamünd was not startled: he could always smell Gosling well before he saw or even heard him.

  “Whiling away the hours, are we?” Gosling snarled, unhappy that he had failed to spook his victim. He snatched away Rossamünd’s reader and made to ruin it.

  Rossamünd had played this game before. He simply folded his arms and frowned.

  “Preparing to go abroad aboard your precious rams, eh? Fat lot of good reading these has done!” Gosling leaned right into Rossamünd’s face. “Don’t think you’re any better than me, m’lady. You’re still here too! No one wants you.” Gosling stood straight, his arms folded and his nose in the air. “My family will be coming back for me soon, you’ll see. Then I’ll show you who’s better.” Gosling had been saying this ever since he had been taken into the foundlingery. His expression took on an even nastier curl. “Not even old Fransi-fart will make you feel better then, when you’re left behind and watching me go back to the quality I was born to!”

  “Do not say his name like that . . .” warned Rossamünd.

  “Or what? Or what?! What a fine bunch you and he would make—Rosy Posy and ol’ Fransi-fart! What a stink!”

  Rossamünd scowled. “He treats you as good as anyone—and better than you deserve! Call me what you like, but leave your betters out!” As true as it might be, this sounded lame even to Rossamünd, and had no effect at all on his tormentor.

  “He’s a pocked-faced old ignoramus, and
when Mamma and Papa come back for me, I’ll get them to buy the whole stinking, tottering place and then kick him and the rest out to rot! Or . . .” Gosling finished with a malicious grin, “burn this all down to the cellars!”

  Rossamünd was speechless. He glared and spluttered. He failed to defend the honor of his dormitory master, or Verline or anyone else.

  Gosling swaggered off, sneering and making noises like a baby. “Oo, I’d better stop. Madam Rosy is going to make me eat my nasty little words. Oo . . .” Just before he disappeared through the warped wooden door, he hurled Rossamünd’s reader at him. Rossamünd ducked, but it still managed to glance his left cheek.

  That’s the last time! Rossamünd vowed to himself.

  Days gathered into weeks. Rossamünd despaired utterly of ever receiving an offer of employment. Then, with the end of the hiring season three weeks gone, and the cold month of Lirium well under way, an official-looking stranger arrived at the foundlingery. He was shown about the institute by Madam Opera. News of the arrival and the tour flashed around the foundlingery more quickly than the burst of a skold’s potive. While sitting alert in Master Pinsum’s matters, letters and generalities class, Rossamünd spotted the stranger watching proceedings from the door, giving the distinct air of seeing all and missing nothing.

  When gaps in his duties allowed, Rossamünd continued to watch the stranger furtively, silently nursing his urgent, yearning hopes for a new life of adventure and advancement. He observed Gosling doing the same from a different vantage. Perhaps here was someone with an offer of employment for one of them? Perhaps for both? Perhaps, on this very ordinary midautumn afternoon, one of their lives was about to change forever . . .

  But after the seventh bell of the afternoon watch, it was Rossamünd who was summoned to Madam Opera’s rather large, riotously cluttered boudoir-cum-office.

  Gosling would not be pleased.

  3

  THE LAMPLIGHTERS’ AGENT

  sthenicon (noun) a simple wooden box with leather straps and buckles that fasten it to the wearer’s head, covering the mouth, nose and eyes. Inside it are various small organs—folded up nasal membranes and complicated bundles of optic nerves—that let the wearer smell tiny, hidden or far-off smells, and see into shadows, in the dark or a great distance away. Used mostly by leers; if a sthenicon is worn for too long, the organs within can grow up into the wearer’s nose. If this happens, removing it can be difficult and very painful.

  DOWN many well-trod flights of creaking, wobbling wood or frigid, slippery slate stairs Rossamünd went, through the all-too-familiar narrows of the foundlingery’s halls and passages, all the way down to the emerald-painted door of Madam Opera’s downstairs apartments. Children were normally summoned to the madam’s sacred apartments only when in the worst kind of trouble.

  Rossamünd’s head spun. Am I in trouble after all? Was it just chance that this stranger happened to be there? He stood in the musty parlor before the green door, where all comers were to wait until summoned.

  Tap, tap went his boyish knuckles on this hard wooden portal. He was let in immediately by the manservant Carp. Within, the madam sat like some august queen, almost obscured by the piles of loose papers, ledgers and registers that rose in clumsy stacks upon either side of her solid blackwood desk. Her chestnut hair had been knotted high into a hive of snaking coils. She had clearly gone to some lengths with her appearance. The stranger was there, standing silently by the desk. He wore a dark coachman’s cloak that hid all other attire, even his boots, and he held in his hands an excessively tall tricorner hat of fine black felt known as a thrice-high. There was something wrong with his eyes. Not wanting to be caught staring, Rossamünd flicked his attention between Madam Opera and the stranger’s distracting orbs.

  “You sent for me, Madam Opera?” Rossamünd croaked in a small voice, bowing uncertainly.

  The madam beamed at him. This was unnerving. She rarely beamed. “I did, my dear boy. Come closer, come closer.” A hand waved at him, the handkerchief it clasped fluttering like a small white flag and filling the small office with the scent of patchouli water. “Today is a very important one for you, young master Rossamünd.” Madam Opera glanced almost coyly at the man alongside her, as though they shared a special secret.

  Rossamünd felt his heart beat faster.

  “Mister Sebastipole here has come as an agent all the way from High Vesting, and has declared that he would very much like to meet you.” Madam Opera stood, an action which made the stranger straighten automatically. “Mister Sebastipole, I would like you to meet young master Rossamünd. Young master Rossamünd, Mister Sebastipole.” She curtsied as she offered these greetings, her arms stretching out to encompass her two guests.

  The stranger nodded, the corner of his mouth twisting slightly. “Rossamünd. What a—ah—fine name for, I am told, a fine lad.”

  Adults were often remarking on his name, and it was by these reactions that instinctively Rossamünd would gauge a person’s trustworthiness. Had he not been unsettled by the stranger’s eyes he might have thought this Mister Sebastipole was subtly mocking him. Rossamünd dared one quick, determined stare. A thrill spread through his entire body: the man’s eyes were completely the wrong color! What should have been white was bloodred, and his irises were the palest, most piercing blue. This man in front of him was a leer! “Mister . . . S-S-Sebastipole.” Rossamünd bowed awkwardly. For a moment he could hardly think: everything he knew about these men was now tumbling through his brain in much the same confused way as the Hundred Rules of Harundo. Leers were trackers, trackers of men, and even more so of monsters. They drenched their eyes with forbidden chemicals to enable them to see into things, through things, to spy on hidden things, to tell even if a person was lying.

  Rossamünd gulped. Unable to help himself, he looked surreptitiously for the man’s sthenicon. He was fascinated by them, and longed to try one on. It was a rare thing to meet a leer in the city, and Rossamünd had certainly never encountered one before. What could a leer want with me?

  This fellow had come from High Vesting, Madam Opera had said. High Vesting was one of Boschenberg’s colonies and the harbor of her naval fleet. Perhaps this terrible-eyed stranger worked for the navy. Rossamünd tried to quell the rising excitement that threatened to overwhelm him. Oh, to become a vinegaroon—that was his heart’s desire!

  Madam Opera continued gravely. “Now, Rossamünd, Mister Sebastipole is here to offer you a chance for employment—an opportunity I understand you very much desire. I want you to take his proposal seriously and consider well what a fine offer this is. Please go on, sir.” She waved her hand ingratiatingly.

  Mister Sebastipole cleared his throat and narrowed those intense eyes. “Well, young master Rossamünd; I have come to represent my masters in Winstermill and High Vesting, who in their turn represent their masters, who represent their master—that is, the Emperor himself.”

  Rossamünd was impressed. Somehow, he could tell that Mister Sebastipole had meant him to be.

  “I am told you are quick of eye, good with letters and know a little of the chemistry,” the leer continued. “Would you agree this is so?”

  Rossamünd hesitated. This did not quite sound like the navy. “I . . . I suppose I would, sir.”

  Mister Sebastipole continued. “Very good. You see, our Imperial charge—handed even from the great Imperial Capital of Clementine itself—is the care, the maintenance and clear passage of one of our Most Imperial Master’s Highroads: the Conduit Vermis, which follows its course from Winstermill through the Ichormeer—that some call the Gluepot—and on eastward to far-famed Wörms.”

  Rossamünd blinked. This definitely was not the navy.

  “I have come to offer you the employment of a lifetime—that is, to work the lamps with us and tread the paths of this great highway to keep it safe for all happy travelers. In short, we would like you to become a lamplighter. I am pleased to say that this good lady, Madam Opera”—he half turned his body and g
ave the slightest bow toward the woman—“agrees you would be excellent for the job.”

  Something about the way the lamplighter’s agent said all this sounded very final.

  Rossamünd’s head was spinning once more. A lamplighter? They wanted him to become a lamplighter? What happened to the navy? Now he would never see the sea . . .

  “Um . . .” Rossamünd tried his best to look grateful. “I . . . ah . . .” This was not the plan at all! Stuck on the same stretch of road day after day, night after night, lighting the lamps, dousing them again, lighting them again. No chance for prize money. No chance for glory. Could it get worse? He had no choice. It was either become a lamplighter or stay at the foundlingery. A glance at Madam Opera showed her genial expression becoming stiff with impatience. He was stuck between two very unpleasant choices—the stone and the sty, as Master Fransitart might say.

  “Thank you, Mister Sebastipole,” he managed, giving another awkward bow.

  “As you should!” Madam Opera beamed and clapped once and loudly. Nothing about Mister Sebastipole’s face altered at all. He clearly had not anticipated the slightest resistance to his suggestion. Madam Opera stood and shepherded Rossamünd toward the door. “Go and ready yourself. Fransitart will know what to do . . . Now, Mister Sebastipole,” he heard her murmur as she closed the door behind him, “you will stay for a sip of tea?”

  And that was that.

  The necessary arrangements were made. Rossamünd was to meet Mister Sebastipole in two days’ time, at the Padderbeck, one of Boschenberg’s smaller piers upon the mighty Humour River. His luggage was to be limited to no more than one ox trunk and a satchel. He was to be dressed in hardwearing clothes for a long journey, and a sturdy hat too. Unfortunately, he did not have any. Nor did he possess a suitably sturdy hat. As for the rest of his belongings, the collection of his entire life—they fitted neatly into two old hat boxes. For the rest of the day and all through the next, interested staff of Madam Opera’s Estimable Marine Society for Foundling Boys and Girls, the Vlinderstrat, Boschenberg, were a-bustle as Rossamünd was prepared for his great going forth. Even the madam herself joined in, drawing up a list of what he needed, entitling it Rossamünd’s Necessaries.