Foundling

by Cornish, D. M.

  Pondering intently on these things, he did not notice three crusty folk sitting by the side of the road with their rambling carts and rickety donkeys till the sound of their chatter caught his attention. They were sellers of vegetables of many kinds.

  Fouracres hailed them as the landaulet passed. “Hoy! Gentle eekers, do yer have any letters ter send?”

  All three smiled with genuine, almost bursting joy, one of them crying, “Ah, bless ye! Bless ye, Master Fourfields. No letters from us today.” She marveled at the landaulet. “What a pretty pair o’ legs ye’re travelin’ on this ev’nin’! Much easier on the boot leather than yer usual ones!” She tossed a large pumpkin to the postman.

  “And blessings ter thee, Mother Fly! Mother Mold! Farmer Math! Sorry, I can’t stop, but these ‘pretty legs’ have places they’re taking me!” He grinned back, slowing the landaulet and catching the vegetable skillfully. “I’ll be back along here termorrer. We’ll have a good natter then. Thanks for the fruit, madam—t’will make for a fine soup ternight.”

  “Then I’ll save me quizzin’s fer anon,” the old woman returned in a hoarse too-loud whisper, rolling her intensely curious gaze over Rossamünd and, more especially, Europe.

  The fulgar did not even stir, but continued her cool stare at the country on the opposite side. The foundling, however, smiled happily at this rustic dame and her companions, who all returned his friendly expression.

  “Save them all, Mother, and get yerself waddling home at the right time,” Fouracres said cheekily. “Darkness comes too early this time o’ year, and the chance of bogles with it.”

  Mother Fly laughed a dry and crackling laugh. “And ye’d better pass on yerself, fancy-legs. Ye’ve still got a-ways to rattle before ye can make yer soup. Till tomorrer!”

  “Till termorrer.”

  With that they passed on, Mother Fly waving cheerfully.

  When they had gone a little farther, Fouracres informed him quietly, “They’re some of the eekers I was telling yer about. Good people, as hospitable as they get.” Rossamünd wondered how it was such happy folk as these could bear to live in those tottering cottages out in this bare, haunted place.

  They crested a small rise in the road and before them the land spread out and down in a large basin that found its way to the sea. Rossamünd assumed it must be the mighty Grume—though he had never seen it before. So much water, and as sickly a green as Master Fransitart or Master Heddlebulk or Master Pinsum had ever described. Rossamünd marveled and stared fixedly. The sea! The sea! The cloudy surface seemed to be shifting constantly, much more than the Humour ever had. Flecks of dirty white danced, reared up, then disappeared—the tops of waves—and the smell of it blew to them from the basin below. It was like no other odor Rossamünd had ever encountered. Sharp and salty, yet somehow sweet as well, almost like a hint of orange blossoms in spring.

  Europe wrinkled her nose with a look of mild distaste.

  Fouracres turned to them beaming with satisfaction. He breathed in deeply. “Ahhh! The stink o’ the Grume. Nothing quite like it. They say that the kelp forests just offshore improve its stink somewhat, that out in the deeper waters it does not smell so sweet. Makes me glad I’m not a sailor. Now look there, my boy. That is High Vesting.”

  Below and before them, on the shores of the Grume, was a cluttered knot of marble, granite and masonry that made the high protecting walls and buildings of the fortress-city of High Vesting. It was not nearly as big as Boschenberg, but somehow seemed far more threatening. Great white towers, taller than any buildings Rossamünd had known, stuck up from all the usual domes and spires. Out in the water giant blocks of stone had been laid out in a great groyne that protected the harbor. In this harbor, which the almanac had named the Mullhaven, were ships, actual ships! Even from here he could tell what kinds they were from his lessons under Master Heddlebulk.There were low, menacing rams; solid, blocklike cargoes and grand-cargoes; and sleek ships still running under sail in this age of the gastrine—many being guided and poked about the harbor by small gastrine craft known as drudges. He had been told of the great size of these vessels, but was not prepared for just how big they were. He could not wait to get to High Vesting now, to go down to its docks and stand near these monstrous craft. It might well be the last time he got to see ships.

  He looked back at Europe, who had been so quiet the whole way. She too was staring at the fortress-city and looked bored. She turned to the foundling and seemed to search his face, heavy thoughts stirring inexplicably in her expression. Her attention remained fixed so for only an instant; then she went back to gazing at their destination.

  As they drove down the southern side of the rise and into the basin, the Gainway became much broader, its paving smoother. On either side grew unbroken lanes of tall, leafless tress with smooth silver-gray bark and high curving branches. This late in autumn, their fallen leaves were piled in great drifts along the verges. Other roads and paths joined from the surrounding farms and villages, and with them more traffic. Some of their fellow travelers gave the landaulet a curious or suspicious inspection. Soon enough they joined the queue of vehicles and pedestrians waiting to pass the scrutiny of the gate wardens—who wore a uniform similar to the soldiers of Boschenberg—and enter High Vesting by her massive iron gates. Before long they would be within the walls.

  With vague apprehension Rossamünd wondered if, after all this time, Mister Germanicus would still be waiting for him.

  14

  AN OLD FRIEND RETURNS

  frigate (noun) smallest of the dedicated fighting rams, usually having twenty or twenty-four guns down one broadside (guns-broad). Nimble and fast, they are considered the “eyes of the fleet,” running messages, performing reconnaissance and guarding a fleet’s flanks. There are oversized frigates called heavy-frigates, having up to thirty-two guns on one broadside. These are popular among pirates and privateers.

  PASSAGE into the city had been easy. Fouracres had simply grinned at the gate wardens, said some pleasant words, and they had let them by with no more than a nod. Once beyond the gates Rossamünd’s head was swiveling left and right as he sought to see as much of this strange new place as possible. The buildings in High Vesting were generally taller than those in Boschenberg and made of a fine white stone, often with their foundations built of granite. Windows were taller, narrower, their panes rectangular rather than small diamonds. The streets, however, were wider and in better repair than those of Rossamünd’s home city.

  Fouracres steered the landaulet nimbly through the throng of other vehicles: wheelbarrows, sedan chairs, carts, wagons, coaches and carriages as fine as Europe’s, and some even finer. The smell of the Grume wafted up every south-facing street, brought upon breezes of frosty air. Europe covered her nose and mouth with a gloved hand.

  As they went, Fouracres made arrangements. “Now what is to be yer destination here?”

  Europe roused herself and spoke first. “I need to attend the offices of Messrs. Ibdy & Adby on the Pontoon Wigh,” she said.

  “Very well,” the postman replied politely. “. . . And, Rossamünd—yer mentioned something about Mister Germanicus at the Harbor Gov—”

  “You can leave what he does and where he goes to me, postman!” Europe interrupted with a scowl. “You’re my driver and you drive. He is my factotum, and even if only for now, he attends me! When I decide it is time, his needs shall be met. Till then, serve me!”

  Rossamünd blinked.

  Fouracres scowled in return. “Last I knew, madam, he and most definitely I worked for the Emperor! So till I make a declaration otherwise, yer can keep yer ‘serve me’s’ to yerself. I’m doing yer a favor, and I’ll see it through, but I ain’t yer servant by any more than common decency allows!”

  Europe, her eyes slitted and glaring, looked as if she could say more, much more, but then she sagged and returned to her blank stare at the passing scene. “However you want it . . . Just drive, will you?” was all she said.

  The p
ostman drove on while Rossamünd intently studied the right toe of his shoe, not daring to look up.

  They came to a great square: an enormous paved area cordoned off from traffic and filled with fountains and commemorative columns. At each corner was a massive statue of the Arius Vigilans—the Vigilant Ram—a heavily horned he-sheep in various poses of stout defiance or regal repose. These were the representative animal of Rossamünd’s people the Hergotts, and seeing them so boldly displayed made him feel proud. Glamorous crowds filled the area, their energy and foreign costume a spectacle of its own.

  On the opposite side of this grand square was their destination. Messrs. Ibdy & Adby, Mercantile & Supercargo was situated in a lofty building of glossy pink stone. Its front was an almost windowless mass of giant pilasters with an impressive door of dull brown bronze in their midst. Immediately above the door were two columns of windows, as narrow and tall as any other in this city. Rossamünd counted the windows by row. Thirteen! He had never seen such a large structure, but from what he could gather, there were several about High Vesting.

  As Fouracres stopped the landaulet in the common courtyard before the office tower of Messrs. Ibdy & Adby, Rossamünd, unable to contain himself any longer, asked eagerly, “May I see the rams? Miss Europe? I might never get to see them ever again.”

  Gulls cavorted above. To the south, out over the Grume, great bales of pale yellow cloud boiled and piled up into the sky. Their flattened undersides were a dark and ominous green-gray.

  Europe looked at him, then to the postman, who shrugged and said, with a weary smile, “May I suggest this, miss, that I wait here with yer fancy carriage while you do yer dealings and Rossamünd be allowed to have a peek about. Aye?”

  With a sigh, Europe pointed to a big clock upon the façade of an equally large building across the square. It was easily visible, and Rossamünd had been taught his timings at the marine society. It was a little after the half hour of two.

  “Be back here in one half of an hour, not later,” she allowed, sternly.

  “I will! I will!” Rossamünd’s heart raced as he leaped down. About to dash off, he remembered that morning and skittered back, holding out his hand to help Europe alight.

  “Well done,” she said, with a wry look. “You’re learning.”

  He beamed with joy and hurried off. He had a smile for every person he passed: elegant couples out for a Domesday stroll; stevedores bearing loads; striped-shirted vinegaroons taking shore leave; flamboyantly wigged rams’ captains in gorgeous frock coats doing much the same; important-looking men stuffed into stiff, ludicrously high collars talking on important things beneath feathered and furred thrice-highs. How wonderfully strange it felt to have that little time of liberty in this gorgeously foreign city!

  With awe he stepped through the great iron gates that split the mighty seawall and allowed access to the city from the piers and berths. The wall’s foundations were blackened by century-long lapping of the bitter waters of the Grume. All along its lofty summit were batteries of cannon; catapultlike devices called tormentums—for throwing great smoking bombs of the most venomous repellents; and lambasts—machines of war that flung spears dipped in various wicked poisons. As with all coastal cities, High Vesting was in deadly earnest about keeping the cunning monsters of the deep away.

  Rossamünd skipped past the seawall and down a long stone pier way. It was intersected by many long, high wooden wharves and lined with many smaller craft, some ironclad, some with hulls of wood. So many vessels were there, with their clutter of tall masts, that walking among them was like moving through a strange forest. Out beyond all this, however, out in the deeper waters of the Mullhaven, were the rams. It was these mighty vessels of war that he wanted to see. It was upon these that he had been expected to serve.

  At the end of the pier, moored on a low dock that went out to the right, he discovered a frigate. These were one of the smaller oceangoing rams, with a shallow enough draft to be this close to shore. It was about the length of a monitor, but sat much higher out of the water, so that it could survive the swell of the sea. Fascinated, he happily let his head swell with all the instruction he had received and reading he had done on them. He inspected the single row of ports out of which the cannon would be run, counted each one—twenty-eight in all; he admired the graceful curve of the bow, which gave these warships their name as it ran out and down to the ram; he read the brass nameplate fixed to the fo’c’sle. Surprise, it said. Rossamünd almost swooned. This vessel was famous! It was the fastest of its type in the whole navy, perhaps even the whole world. He had read of it in pamphlets and had even been taught of it at Madam Opera’s. It had served faithfully for over one hundred years!

  Then his gaze fixed upon an enormous, dark vessel out in the Mullhaven.

  A main-sovereign!

  These were the largest of all the rams and this one was absolutely gigantic, dwarfing all the vessels about. Its bow-ram did not jut nearly so far as the frigate’s, for it was thought too big and too slow to successfully charge other vessels. It relied instead on its thick strakes—the iron plates that armored the hull—and the two decks of 120 great-guns that armed either broadside. Rossamünd had always thought this an excellent number of cannon: it meant that for a main-sovereign to fight effectively, she needed a crew of at least fourteen hundred men . . .

  “Hello, Rosy Posy!” The cry intruded upon his technical romance.

  He knew that voice.

  Looking about, quickly he found a face he recognized aboard the Surprise. It was a fellow foundling two years his senior who had shipped off to serve in the navy eighteen months ago. His name was Snarl. He was taller, broader, looked stronger—but it was still Snarl. While at Madam Opera’s, he had been, after Gosling, one of those most active in tormenting Rossamünd.

  He looked up at his fellow foundling of old, squinting into the glare of sunlit clouds. “Oh . . . hello, Snarl,” he returned coolly. It should have been an occasion of pride to learn that one of his old bunk-mates was now serving aboard so renowned a ram, but the character of Snarl undid any feelings of such camaraderie.

  “Well, well, by and by, it’s ol’ Missy-boots himself, come to see me sitting high on me mighty boat!” Snarl swaggered along the gangway to stand directly above Rossamünd. He called to his fellow crewmen. “Look ’ere, lads, here’s a fellow I grew up with.”

  Some of the younger members of the crew looked down upon the foundling standing upon the pier. Some even gave him a genuine grin.

  Rossamünd smiled back cautiously.

  “As fine a grummet as ever there was, this one, all manners and kindness,” Snarl continued in his high-handed voice. “Got a girl’s name to go with it, haven’t you, Rossamünd?” Snarl had not changed.

  Rossamünd turned and walked back up the pier. “Good-bye, Snarl,” he muttered.

  He stepped onto a wharf with the brash laughter of the fellow society boy ringing after him. Though he had only been away from his old way of life for less than a fortnight, it already felt like a long time ago. To meet another child from there, rather than bringing it all back, only made this feeling of dislocation stronger. He wondered if Snarl had leaped from the decks of a moving cromster, watched a lahzar in a fight, thrown bothersalts in the face of some grinnlings or dragged an ailing fulgar to a wayhouse. Rossamünd marveled that he had seen and done more in the last two weeks on his own than in two years in the foundlingery.

  For a while he wandered about the many smaller craft berthed along either side, taking turns carelessly, trying hard not to brood upon this encounter. He had somehow thought that his fellow foundlings would all grow up once they had left the little world of Madam Opera’s and become a little more sober, a little kinder.

  He approached the end of yet another wharf. The clock over the square was still visible through all the masts. Rossamünd checked again as he had several times so far: it was time to return. He went to turn back when a powerful smell briefly overpowered the perfume of the Gr
ume. He knew that stink . . .

  Swine’s lard!

  A firm hand cunningly pinched the back of his neck. “Well, what’s this ’ere then, an’ ol’ chum returned to the fold?” It was Poundinch. The oily rivermaster loomed over the boy. “Miss us, did ye, Rosey-me-lad?”

  Rossamünd went slack and pale with terror, a deep, sinking terror that made him want to vomit.

  “Ah, look—’e’s gone all emotion’l at such an ’appy reunion,” purred Poundinch.

  Somehow Rossamünd found his tongue. “Ah—ah—hello, Rivermaster P-Poundinch.”

  “Hello, Rosey-ol’-boy. I’m called Cap’n Poundinch when I’m in these parts, tho’, so ye’ll need to reschool yer tongue.”

  The pressure upon Rossamünd’s neck increased subtly but so skillfully that he was compelled to step forward toward a gangplank before him. There she was, the Hogshead, listing slightly to the aft ladeboard quarter but still very much intact. That was where the oh-so-familiar smell had come from. It would always be the smell of dread for Rossamünd.

  “Huh—how did you escape the monitors?” he somehow managed.

  “Ah, Rosey-me-lad,” Poundinch purred, tapping his greasy nose with the scarred and grubby forefinger of his free hand, “that’s ol’ Poundy’s way—slipperier than swine’s lard, me . . . Aren’t ye ’appy for me?”

  “. . . Um . . .” was all the foundling could offer.

  Poundinch pushed him up the gangplank and followed closely behind. Rossamünd thought briefly of leaping into the water, but he had been instructed, over and over, that the caustic waters of the Grume were no place for a person to find himself bobbing about. With that escape route unavailable, he found himself where he thought he would never be again—upon the deck of the Hogshead. Only Gibbon was here, no other crew. He was chewing his black fingernails as he stood by the splintered stump of the tiller.