by D M Cornish
Yes, Rossamund 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 Rossamund 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 Rossamund he specially tormented.
Two weeks after the incident at harundo practice, Gosling somehow found him reading a small book about rams. Rossamund 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 Rossamund and poke him as hard as he could. Rossamund 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 Rossamund's reader and made to ruin it.
Rossamund 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 Rossamund'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 Rossamund.
"Or what? Or what?! What a fine bunch you and he would make-Rosy Posy and ol' Fransi-fart! What a stink!"
Rossamund 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 Rossamund, 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!"
Rossamund 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 Rossamund's reader at him. Rossamund ducked, but it still managed to glance his left cheek.
That's the last time! Rossamund vowed to himself. Days gathered into weeks. Rossamund 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, Rossamund spotted the stranger watching proceedings from the door, giving the distinct air of seeing all and missing nothing.
When gaps in his duties allowed, Rossamund 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 Rossamund 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 Rossamund 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.
Rossamund'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, Rossamund flicked his attention between Madam Opera and the stranger's distracting orbs.
"You sent for me, Madam Opera?" Rossamund 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 Rossamund." Madam Opera glanced almost coyly at the man alongside her, as though they shared a special secret.
Rossamund 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 Rossamund. Young master Rossamund, 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. "Rossamund. 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 Rossamund 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. Rossamund 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." Rossamund 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.
Rossamund 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 Rossamund 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. Rossamund 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, Rossamund, 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 Rossamund; 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."
Rossamund 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?"
Rossamund 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 Worms."
Rossamund 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 gave 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.
Rossamund'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…" Rossamund 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 Rossamund 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. Rossamund 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 Rossamund was prepared for his great going forth. Even the madam herself joined in, drawing up a list of what he needed, entitling it Rossamund's Necessaries.
Masters Fransitart and Craumpalin took Rossamund to see Gauldsman Five, the gaulder. His was the best place in this part of the city to get clothing sturdy enough for Rossamund's journey, for Gauldsman Five made the best proofing. All proofing could turn sword strokes, and could even stop a ball fired from a musket or pistol. The simplest piece of proofing was costly, but the better the quality of protection the higher a garment's price. Proofing was, however, also absolutely necessary for folk looking to venture beyond the city walls, where monsters and brigands and other horrors waited. It was made from cloth-anything from hemp to silk-treated with a chemical potion known as gauld, which made it very hard to tear or puncture. Broad straps of gauld-hardened leather and thin padding of soft, spongy pockweed were then sewn into the lining as the unproofed cloth was turned into garments. After this the whole array was soaked in gauld, and then cooked and soaked again and so on. Each gaulder had his own methods and process, and his own secret recipes. Rossamund thought it almost too wonderful to believe that he might be getting such amazing clothing for his very own. He was speechless with glee as he left the marine society.
Gauldsman Five's shop and fitting rooms were a whole suburb away, in the Mortar, on Tin Drum Lane, and the visit there would be a little adventure in itself. Indeed, any excursion from the foundlingery was a significant event. Rossamund had been out from Madam Opera's only a dozen times in his whole life, usually to go down to the Humour with the other foundlings to practice rowing and swimming. In fact, before today, his most thrilling excursion had been a trip to the house of Verline's sister Praeline in the shadows of Boschenberg's outermost curtain wall.
Fransitart, Craumpalin and Rossamund went north along the Vlinderstrat, turned right onto the Weegbrug and then left onto the crazily curving Pantomime Lane. They strolled past alehouses, dance halls and puppet stalls, veered right once more onto the Hurlingstrat, dodging ox wagons and omnibuses, went through the Werkersgate and there, on the left hand, was Tin Drum Lane. Gauldsman Five's establishment was about a third of the way along, tall and narrow like almost every other building in Boschenberg. Only those of quality were allowed in the front of the shop, where there were plush closets in which the wealthy and powerful could try on and admire their new proofing. Such ordinary folk as two marine society masters and a foundling had to use the poor man's closets by the great gaulding vats at the rear of the shop. As they entered this filthy place, Rossamund watched greenishorangey-yellow steam hiss angrily from one of the vats as an aproned man poured in a thick black liquid. A foul miasma churned in the dank air.
Fransitart spoke quietly but urgently with some grimy fellow, who spoke to another grimy fellow, who spoke to another, and before long a finely dressed man in a powdered wig appeared from a door leading to the front of the shop. Though his simply cut clothes were made of expensive materials, he had a splotched and haggard look about his face-the mark of a vinegaroon. He was one of Gauldsman Five's tailors. Fransitart must have known him and, from his look of consternation, the tailor must have known the dormitory master too.
"'Ello, Meesius," said Fransitart, a terrible light in his
eye.
"Coxswain Frans?" Meesius the tailor went pale. "Is that you? And… and with Craump'lin too?"
Coxswain? Rossamund had always thought Fransitart had been the gunner-in charge of all the cannon and their right firing.
"Aye"-Fransitart nodded gravely-"I've come to claim me debt."
Tugging on the bristles beneath his lower lip, Craumpalin gave the tailor a knowing wink and flashed an almost threatening grin. "Lookee, Frans," he said softly, "he still knows us!"
Meesius the tailor went even paler. "A-after all these years…?"
"Aye." Master Fransitart was as quietly menacing as Rossamund had ever known him to be. "But I wants it in harness. Bring us yer best travelin' wear for this 'ere lad."
There was an awkward pause.
Rossamund was bemused that his two masters could be such overbearing rogues.
With nervous sweat on his brow, the tailor hesitated.
Craumpalin folded his arms and glowered. Fransitart remained perfectly still.
Meesius cleared his throat. "W-well." He gestured to Rossamund impatiently. "Come over here so I can get thy measurements."
Rossamund looked at his masters, and Fransitart gave the subtlest nod. The boy went over to the tailor, leaving Fransitart and Craumpalin by the vats.
"Lift thy arm!" Meesius growled under his breath. With a leather tape he measured Rossamund's neck and arms and even the girth of his chest with many rough proddings.
"… I daren't keep him back any longer." Master Fransitart's voice carried softly across the vat-room floor.
"Ye dare not. And anyway, the lad is desperate to get on."
"Aye, Pin, aye." The dormitory master sounded resigned and strangely sad. "Well at least 'e'll be stoutly protected."
At this both of the old men went quiet.
Meesius disappeared for a time, then returned with a sour look, bearing two pieces of high-quality proofing. The first was a fine proofed vest with fancy silk facings and linings called a weskit. The second piece was a sturdy, well-gaulded coat-called a jackcoat-made of subtle silken threads of shifting blues. It came in at the waist and flared out to the knees. Rossamund was stunned at its beauty.
