Madam Opera grimaced tightly. “You do look well set up—perhaps too well,” she added with a sidelong glance at Fransitart. She gave Rossamünd a single pat on his head. “Step forward strongly, boy, like the hundreds have done before you. This world does not reward tears. Time to be on your way.”
Rossamünd wrestled on the valise, fixed his new knife to his new baldric, slung the satchel containing the food, turnery, the biggin and the repellents and the rest across his other shoulder, and pocketed his purse of small coins.
Master Fransitart held Rossamünd by the shoulders. “Good-bye, lad,” he said at last.
“Good-bye, Master Fransitart,” Rossamünd whispered. “Tell Miss Verline and Master Craumpalin good-bye,” he added.
Madam Opera made a small disapproving noise, but Fransitart smiled and replied, “I surely will, lad. Now! Step lively, new duties await ye!”
Rossamünd took up his old stock and the peregrinat, doffed his hat as he thought a man might and stepped reluctantly out into the foggy autumn dawn.
As he turned to go on his way, he caught a glimpse of some of the children who remained, woken early and watching from the high windows of the foundlingery. Among them was Gosling. Rossamünd was certain he would be fuming with silent jealousy.
Good riddance, he thought.
He followed the Vlinderstrat toward Hermenèguild and the river district, quickly reaching the point where tall shops and high apartments obscured Madam Opera’s Estimable Marine Society from view. His heart swelling with sharp, nameless regrets, he joined the dawning hustle of Sooningstrat.
4
ON THE HOGSHEAD
cromster (noun) one of the smallest of the armed, ironclad river-barges, having three-inch cast-iron strakes down each side and from four to twelve 12-pounder guns upon each broadside. Generally single-masted, though the biggest may have two masts. Below the open-deck is a single lower deck called the orlop. Forward of amidships (the middle of the craft) is typically hold space for cargo. Aft of amidships the orlop is reserved for the gastrines and their crews.
MISTER Sebastipole was waiting as he said he would be, standing in the fog at the top of the Padderbeck Stair. He was wearing his telltale coachman’s cloak and black thrice-high. He had his own satchel hanging across his body together with an oddly ordinary-looking box on a thick strap. Rossamünd tried not to stare at the box. Inside it would be the leer’s sthenicon. He had expected it to be much more unusual, and he was just a little disappointed to see that it was so very plain and ordinary. Sebastipole had been holding a small portable clock or some other such device when Rossamünd arrived, and now secreted it away.
“You are late, young fellow,” he stated flatly. “A lamps-man’s life is punctuality—’twould be best to start forming that habit soon, don’t you think?” There was no ire in Mister Sebastipole’s voice, just honest, unself-conscious reproof. Rossamünd had never encountered anything like it before.
“Uh . . . Aye, sir,” he puffed and set the valise down.
“Well, at least you have come lightly packed. Bravo.”
The lamplighter’s agent pulled out an oblong of sealed paper and another of folded paper. He handed the sealed paper to Rossamünd first, saying, “This is my endorsement to our mutual masters.” He gave him the folded paper, saying, “These are my instructions to you and to those who will meet you at the other end. Stow the first safely and read the second carefully.” The lamplighter’s agent folded his arms and stared with his disturbing eyes. “Your first destination is High Vesting and from there a fortress known as Winstermill. It is a manse, the headquarters of we lamplighters. You will be escorted thither from High Vesting. Your instructions say as much.” He squinted. “Hark me, now! Do not dally on your way, but make directly to Winstermill, for my superiors are awaiting you and others like you to begin your ’prenticing. Agreed?”
“Aye, sir.” Rossamünd carefully stowed the precious documents in his buff leather wallet.
Mister Sebastipole took out his little clock again, opened it and pursed his lips. With a snap of its lid, he declared, “Well, the sooner you start, the sooner away.” The leer pointed Rossamünd toward steps that went down from the high wall of the canal-side street to the Padderbeck itself.
The fog had become almost impossibly thick. Rossamünd could barely make out the tottering buildings festering on the other side of the narrow canal, their brooding window-lights of red and green showing only faintly.
“Down there—though you probably cannot see for all this fume,” the lamplighter’s agent continued with a frown at the muggy air, “down there along this very pier you will find a certain Rivermaster Vigilus waiting to take you aboard his cromster, Rupunzil. The vessel is sound and your way is paid.”
Rossamünd could see nothing but fog in that direction. “Ah . . . Aye . . .”
Mister Sebastipole gave a surprisingly warm smile and bowed. “Well, lad, the moment of departure has arrived, it seems, so I shall bid you a safe journey and leave.”
Rossamünd was stunned. The lamplighter’s agent might not have been the friendliest chap, but such a prodigious journey as that upon which Rossamünd was about to embark was, surely, better done with the leer’s company than without.
“I . . . I thought you’d be coming too?” he ventured.
Mister Sebastipole smiled again. “I have other tasks to attend to here in Boschenberg. You will see me again some day not too distant, I’m sure. Just head down the stair and along five berths. A lamplighter’s life is independence of thought and deed, my boy. You will need to get used to this as soon as possible. Welcome to the lamplighters!” With that the leer bowed again and walked back up Sooningstrat. Mister Sebastipole waved once from the top of a rise in the street and, with a turn, was gone.
Just like that, Rossamünd was on his own. Uneasy, he took up his valise and took the stairs down to the river. The fog was still too thick for him to see his destination. He passed a great post thickly painted white—a berth marker—appearing suddenly out of the gloom, then two more.
As the fourth emerged from the soupy morning vapors, he spied a vessel moored there—or the shadow of one at least. As he approached, the outlines of the craft became clearer. It was indeed a cromster, though one in very poor repair, sitting dangerously low in the water. It did not look at all steady or sound to Rossamünd, rather it looked ready to founder even in the calm of the Humour. He frowned. The foundling had not lived so closeted a life that he had not seen dozens—even hundreds—of cromsters plying the mighty river. None of them came close to luxury, but all of them were in far better repair than this tub of rivets.
Cromsters, like most other ironclad river craft, sat low in the water, with a hull and keel that did not descend too deeply into the murky wash. This was necessary since rivers, even as large a stream as this, were much shallower than any sea, but Rossamünd was sure that this one sat just a little too low. If the water lapped this near to the gunwale in the calm of a river, surely it would be spilling over it in great washes when the craft encountered even the smallest swells of the most sheltered ocean bays.
As he came closer, Rossamünd could see that mean, sickly-looking men were wrestling great barrels aboard the craft.
“Ahoy!” came a call, and a hefty shadow of a man rolled down the sagging gangplank to the pier. “Who might ye be, lubberin’ about on th’ pier in th’ shadowy morning mists?”
Rossamünd did not much like being told he was “lubberin’”—it was an unfriendly term seafaring folks used of those who were not. “I’m looking for Rivermaster Vigilus and the cromster Rupunzil!” he declared briskly.
The hefty shadow came closer and clarified itself as an unsavory-looking fellow, tall and thickly built, with broad, round shoulders and matted eyebrows knotting over a darting, conspiratorial squint. His clothes were shabby, though they looked as if they had once been of good quality. His dark blue frock coat, probably proofed, with overly wide sleeves, was edged with even darker blue s
ilk and lined with buff. This garment came down to his knees and covered everything but a pair of hard-worn shin-collar boots. The man emitted a powerfully foul odor, and altogether gave Rossamünd a distinctly uneasy feeling.
“And where might ye be from, young master,” this fellow asked, almost sweetly, his breath proving even fouler than his general stench, “to need to see such a fellow and such a vessel?”
“I be Rossamünd Bookchild from Madam Opera’s Estimable Marine Society for Foundling Boys and Girls.” Rossamünd gave a nervous half a bow. “Rivermaster Vigilus is meant to take me to High Vesting.” This stranger might have been smelly, but that did not mean Rossamünd had to be rude.
The unsavory fellow seemed to hesitate at this, then gathered himself. “So ye’re me lively cargo, lad?” he purred, giving a saucy wink. “Bit unfortunate about yer name, but there ye ’ave it. Still! Grateful to ’ave met ye all th’ same.” He bowed, removing his tricorn to show gray, greasy hair pulled back in a stubby baton. Patting his own chest, the captain continued. “I be Rivermaster Vigilus, yer ever so ’umble servant.”
This comment on his name was certainly among the more blunt Rossamünd had yet heard. Already low in his estimation, this fellow—this Rivermaster Vigilus—sunk lower still.
Obviously unconcerned, the rivermaster plowed on. “I’ll get ye safe to yer next ’arbor. I’ve plied this awful river for many a long year and I knows ’er bumps and lumps like th’ warts on me own rear!” He declared this so loudly that many of the crew chuckled or sneered. “Thank ’e, lads.” He gave a swaggering half bow in the direction of the crew. “This is me crew—sons of a madwoman all!” With a vague wave of his voluminously sleeved arm, he introduced the several dozen bargemen busy loading awkwardly large barrels marked Swine’s Lard into the hold. These fellows looked as rough and gruesome as their captain. Rossamünd frowned at them and at the rusting vessel they worked.
What was Mister Sebastipole thinking? This lot would barely make it to the Axles, let alone all the way to High Vesting!
The rivermaster must have sensed his concerns, for he cleared his throat and said, “Aye, not th’ lithest tub ye’ve seen, nor th’ ’andsomest crew, I’ll grant, but there ye ’ave it. She be me other vessel, ye see—me standby as I’ve ’eard it said. The poor ol’ ’Punzil is laid up in ordinary with a great ’ole in ’er ladeboard side. Distressin’ I tells ye, and costly too. But there ye ’ave it again.” The rivermaster gave a sad sigh and Rossamünd felt a certain sympathy for him. When a vessel was laid up in ordinary—that is, deliberately stranded out of the water for repairs—it was often a troublesome business. “Instead, this be the six-gun cromster ’ogshead,” he continued. “She’ll be our carriage to ’igh Vesting and our quarters till we get there. She’s steadier than she looks and sound and able to go into all waters—fit enough to ’ave made th’ voyage to ’igh Vesting and back ag’in many times, as sure as I’m standin’ ’ere!”
Despite all these claims they did little to allay Rossamünd’s fears. He knew too much about how a vessel should be—a benefit of being raised in a marine society. He looked the Hogshead up and down and spied the figurehead for the first time, protruded from the bow. It was of a snarling pig, so corroded and neglected that it looked as if it was rotting. He thought the name Hogshead—which he knew was also the name for a large, cumbersome barrel—profoundly fitting. A laborer rolled by them such a barrel, which emitted an odor so powerful and foul it made Rossamünd gag.
Pullets and cockerels! I hope I don’t have to spend my trip next to them—whatever they are . . .
“I was told my fare was already paid?”
The rivermaster seemed to do a quick calculation, then said, slowly, “Aye, young master, that it ’as.” He gave Rossamünd a quick grin. “Welcome aboard!” He steered Rossamünd up the gangplank and onto the befouled deck of the vessel. “I’ll ’ave to be about me business now. We make off shortly. Settle yerself out o’ th’ way. May your cruise be as pleasant as th’ Spring Caravan of th’ Gightland Queen.”
The cromster shuddered. Its gastrines, the engines of living muscles that would quietly propel her through the water, were being limbered—stretched and warmed ready for the hard work of turning the screw that pushed the Hogshead along.
Rossamünd stood by the helm and waited with apprehension. He surely wished Mister Sebastipole had accompanied him. Things seemed a little too odd.
“Ready to go, Poundinch!” a sour-looking man called to the rivermaster.
“Poundinch?” Rossamünd could not help but exclaim his thoughts. “Aren’t you Rivermaster Vigilus?”
“Ah, aye . . . well . . . I am one and th’ same!” The unsavory fellow rolled his eyes a little. He sucked in a breath. Then he said, “Poundinch is just another way of saying Vigilus, ye see. Different language, ye see, Tutin—like th’ Emp’rer hisself speaks: ‘vigil’ is th’ same as ‘pound’; ‘ilus’ is th’ same as ‘inch.’ Ye see? Me lads prefer the more comfortable sound o’ Poundinch, is all. They says it so much I gets in th’ ’abit of callin’ meself th’ same too . . . and ye can calls me it as well: Rivermaster Poundinch. How’d that be?”
Rossamünd squinted. He knew almost nothing of the Imperial language—Tutin, it was called—but something sounded a little off beam.
The musty rivermaster raised an apparently conciliatory hand and gave a mildly wounded look. “It’s all right, I won’t be offended. I often gets people axing—’tis almost a habit for me to ’ave to explain.”
Rossamünd knew what it was to have a difficult name—to be misunderstood by it. He pressed the confusion no further.
“So, now we’re all properly acquainted, let’s ’eave to.” Rivermaster Poundinch or Vigilus—whoever he might be—smiled, then called, “Cast ’er off, Mister Pike!” to his boatswain, who relayed the order with another yell. The rivermaster took up a speaking tube and hollered within, “We’ll ’ave ’er at two knots, Mister Shunt!”
The pier men threw ropes, the bargemen pushed off and with further shuddering the Hogshead moved slowly out and steadily down the narrow channel. Rossamünd quailed faintly with confusion, holding off an embarrassing, blubbering panic. Away from the bank wall of sandstone they went, away from the granite pier. Just like that, Rossamünd was on his way—uncertain, and unhappily alone with this frightful crew.
The Hogshead slowly trod past the shadow of another cromster on its right. That it was in much better repair was obvious even in the murk. Rossamünd squinted and took a step forward to see if he might read the other vessel’s nameplate, but was prevented by fog and the bustling of the bargemen. Yet, just before the other cromster disappeared into the obscurity, he thought he saw someone pacing beside it, on the pier, as if waiting for something or someone. He could not, however, be sure.
The Hogshead moved on.
The channel was one of the many man-made tributaries that had been dug from the main flow of the Humour many centuries ago—running into and out of the city, flowing down valleys of brickwork. Buildings often went right up to the channel’s edge, making the banks an almost continuous wall of drab bricks and dark stone in which streets and sludgy drains made deeply vertical gaps. Rossamünd watched it all pass by in a silence of profound agitation. The Padderbeck Stair and its pier disappeared into the gloom.
“Now, me lad!” the rivermaster’s voice boomed, offending the morning quiet, and startling Rossamünd from his unhappy funk. “Do as I tells ye, and we’ll be th’ best of mates, matey. So find yerself a spot on th’ prow and stay outta me way.”
The foundling obeyed, sitting right at the front of the Hogshead. The crew left him alone, free to fret on his future, as they made their way out of Boschenberg. The cromster passed beneath a heavy arch of black stone, its portcullis raised and dripping with condensed fog, and went from the dim gloom of the city-channel into the pale murk of the open waters of the Humour. In the dark sepia waters before them was a lane marked with squat quartz pillars that glowed wanly in the
vaporous morning. Rossamünd had heard that these were made using an ancient and half-forgotten art, followed step-by-complex-step but little understood. The shadows of other vessels passed them by with faint thrumming hisses; ships’ bells clung their warnings in the turgid damp.
In the middle of the river the Hogshead came about and went southward, going downstream. The fog began to thin, showing the sun low in the east, a bulging, bloodred disk. The cromster continued south, moving past mountainous onyx palaces, past grand villas and dark stately homes, past the wooden houses and low hovels, past even the Vlinderstrat and his old abode. Before them, athwart the Hogshead’s path, was a massive rivergate that spanned the entire width of the Humour. The Axle. Tall it was, with pale granite turrets and many high arches held up by great columns and guarded by ponderous iron grilles that descended right to the muddy bottom. Heavily fortified bastions towered by either side of each arch and strong points filled with soldiers and forty-eight pounder long guns at every midpoint between. Over five hundred years ago the Axle had been built out from the city’s second curtain wall to guard it from unwanted things on and in the river. All the traffic of the Humour had to pass through it, and to pass through meant you paid a toll. Rossamünd had seen the rivergate several times before—though he had never passed through it—and it still amazed and daunted him. He knew very well that doing so for the first time was a deeply significant thing for a Boschenberger. It meant you were leaving the lulling, familiar security of your city, your home. It meant you were entering the broad wild places, where monsters harried and mishaps threatened. It meant your life changing forever.
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