Foundling ft-1

by D M Cornish

  That was all of it.

  Rossamund read them over and over to see if he might have missed anything, hoping fervently that this mysterious Mister Germanicus would know how to find him, for he had no idea how he could find Mister Germanicus. Gleaning little, he sat back, leaning on a pile of hessian and hemp rope, fretting. From this position he could keep a close eye on the suspect crew-this Poundinch fellow most of all-and even be on the watch for monsters. Though he did not know what he would do if he found one, he still wanted to know if it was coming.

  Occasionally he consulted his almanac. The maps showed that the Humour wended its way through many miles of apparently featureless regions-places the topographers had not bothered to name. They had marked instead, in the large blank areas on either side of the river, simple descriptions: "broad pastureland" on the east side, and "a great partial wilderness" on the west. They had also marked the Humour with its other names in parenthesis: "Humeur," "Swartgallig," "Sentinus"-names given by other races in other times. Only two places were noted along its course ahead of them. The first was Proud Sulking-a city like Boschenberg, of which he had some idea. The other was somewhere called the Spindle, positioned just before the Humour emptied into a large body of water to the south called the Grume. This was the enormous bay upon whose shores were noted many other cities and many other ports. He knew something of the Grume too, but what was the Spindle?

  He rose and cautiously went to Rivermaster Poundinch to ask him.

  "Been readin' th' charts, I see," Poundinch observed amiably. "Gets th' feelin' with all yer gawping at th' Axle, that ye tain't been out of th' city before. Am I right?"

  "Only twice to visit the sister of… of a friend. She lives in Blemish, which is a tiny village just outside the walls." These had been most magical visits to the small cottage of Verline's younger sister, and Rossamund could not remember more wonderful times. He sighed. How he was going to miss Verline. He was determined to scratch down a letter to her when he arrived in Winstermill.

  "Sounds quaint, lad. As for th' Spindle, well, it's another, further rivergate, just as menacin' as those Axles there." The rivermaster poked a thumb over his shoulder at the dark, shadowy line of the rivergate they had left behind. "But it belongs to a different city, that being Brandenbrass-which is moi 'ome, by th' way. Th' Spindle is about three days from 'ere, and after that, I will takes us out onto th' Grume. We then turn left, and travel east to 'igh Vesting. All up ye'll be with us for a little under a week."

  He looked sidelong at Rossamund. "Been on a cromster before, lad? 'Cause, if ye like, when we is well clear of th' morning's fog, I can show ye about th' 'umble dimensions of me own vessel."

  Despite his strong stink and his original gruffness, Rivermaster Poundinch now seemed a very friendly fellow, as pleasant as Rossamund could have hoped for.

  "Aye, a few times, sir," he answered, "though I've not actually been on many craft, sir."

  Of all the fascinating things about watergoing craft, Rossamund was fascinated by gastrines. These were large boxes in the bowels of ironclads housing great muscles that turned the vessel's screw-or propeller-and their limbers, which were much smaller versions of a gastrine that were used to warm up the greater. Without limbers the muscles of a gastrine would soon tear and bruise and seize up. "Could I see the gastrines, sir? I've been told they have to be mucked out every hour or they get sick."

  "An' who told ye that?"

  Rossamund's chin lifted as he answered proudly, "Dormitory Master and Ex-Gunner Fransitart, one of the masters of the marine society." Rossamund liked to use his dormitory master's full title, but he almost never had an opportunity.

  "Frans'tart, eh…?" Poundinch frowned long and plucked at some rogue hairs on his patchily shaven chin. "I reckon I remember 'im-a terrerfyin' fellow, if me memory serves. Knew 'ow to get us to shoot straight, that's fer sure! Well, ye were told rightly, m'lad, an' I'd expect no less from Frans'tart."

  "You knew Master Fransitart?" Rossamund was agog at this. "What was he like? Did you serve at the Battle of the Mole with him?"

  "Aye, aye." Poundinch chuckled. "Only briefly, not nearly so long to know 'im well, but long enough to get a feel for 'im-and th' switch of 'is rod…" He muttered this last bit into his neckerchief, but the foundling heard it anyway.

  "Didn't you like him, sir?"

  "Aye! Oh, aye! Ol' Poundy likes ever-ry-one. I find it's mores a matter of who likes ol' Poundy. Frans'tart was as fine a petty officer as a navy or th' ladies could ev'r want!"

  Ladies! Rossamund had sometimes wondered if there had ever been a Goodlady Fransitart. "Was he married, sir?"

  Poundinch guffawed. "Oh ho! No, there was no wife that I knew of. He weren't like th' marryin' kind to me. Now that's enough on 'im, lad. Let me con-cerntrate on th' steerin' for a bit, an' then we'll take ye to 'ave a peep at them there gastrines."

  Remaining by the rivermaster, Rossamund tried to imagine Fransitart plying his old trade with noble vigor and cavorting with the refined ladies of lofty and fashionable courts. How strange it would have been to see him pacing the decks of some great ram bawling orders stoutly amid the smoke and terror of a sea battle. The kind of sea battle Rossamund was never to get a chance to see. He had his new trade, far inland. He thought again about Sebastipole's too-brief instructions.

  "Rivermaster Poundinch?"

  "Aye, lad?" Poundinch looked down at him.

  "Would you know where the"-Rossamund frowned as he read aloud from the instructions-"the 'offices of the Chief Harbor Governor' are?"

  "Er… I gather ye're meaning in 'igh Vesting?"

  "Aye, sir."

  "Well, most cert'nly, I do. Need to be shown to 'em, when we get there, do ye? Ol' Poundy can do that for ye in a trice!"

  Gratified and relieved, Rossamund doffed his hat and bowed to the rivermaster-as he had seen men in the streets do-and said earnestly, "I am most obliged to you, sir."

  Poundinch burst with powerful laughter, sweeping off his own hat and returning the formality. "Why, 'tain't nothin', me good sir."

  The Hogshead proved more solid than she had first appeared, pushing sturdily through many of the submerged snags that hindered their progress. Rossamund was informed that the fifty-odd crew slept on the upper deck-right down the middle of the vessel, between the guns-and, as there was no room in the hold, he would be expected to do the same. He did not mind, for the hold was more cramped than the marine society and stunk horribly of pigs, sweat and other worse unnameable things. There were no cabins upon the flat, flush upper deck except for the hold-way about halfway down the vessel, a low boxlike structure with doors which opened onto the ladder that descended into the hold. There were also the twelve bull-black twelve-pounder cannon in staggered rows down either side and taking up a goodly amount of room. Six cannon were in a line on the steerboard or right side and six down the ladeboard or left side of the vessel. Rossamund admired them.

  Despite his anxieties, he found that he was actually excited to be on his first real voyage-the movement of the cromster in the water, the bustle of activity and the routine of the watches, the silent throbbing of the gastrines. The Hogshead was no oceangoing ironclad, yet it was much more thrilling than the small craft on which Rossamund had made day trips in the past.

  In map-reading classes back at the foundlingery, he had been taught about the oceans-the vinegar seas. He had been taught that they were a rainbow of different colors: reds, greens, azures, yellows, and black-shown on the charts as the Pontus Nubia. These lessons made him long to see the sea, and now that he was almost upon such waters, he sorely regretted that an oceangoing life was not to be his.

  By the third bell of the middle watch the fog had lifted sufficiently for Poundinch to trust the course of the Hogshead to Mister Pike and make good on his offer to show Rossamund the gastrines. The ladder creaked frighteningly as the rivermaster led him down into the hold. It was painfully cramped below deck. Poundinch stooped low and even lower to pass beneath the beams. The
stench of the place made Rossamund's eyes water. He never thought anything could be so putrid, so foul. He was determined to make a brave showing, however, and pressed on. The rivermaster did not seem to mind, or even notice.

  Poundinch waved vaguely to the forward parts, where the barrels were lashed and obscured with canvas tarpaulins. "No need to be showin' ye that, just filthy ol' swine's lard. It's aft ye wants to be-follow me, lad, and see all th' wonder of this beauty's gastrines."

  Rossamund followed and there they were-the gastrines. His sense of disappointment was much the same as when he had spied Sebastipole's sthenicon box. As that device was just a small ordinary box, so these gastrines were just very large, ordinary wooden boxes bound with copper-but at least these were big. They almost reached the planking of the deck above. Running down either side of them were much smaller boxes of hardwood, two on each side for each gastrine. These were the limbers. From the top of each rose great cranks and several many-jointed shafts that pivoted perpendicularly and entered the side of the gastrines. They were still now, the limbers not being in use. With such a crowd of machinery there was barely enough room to press along the grimy, curving inner walls of the hold to pass. Rossamund was amazed at the sturdy pulsating of the muscles within the gastrines; he could sense it in the air all about as they squeezed past, feel it powerfully in the planks and beams beneath his feet and at his back. What surprised him most was the warmth that came from the great brass-bound boxes, a sickly heat which made the rotten air of the hold thick and clinging. In a cramped space at the stern they met a wizened man in an apron surrounded by a complicated array of levers, his long, thin white hair dripping in the humidity. He looked up at the rivermaster with a silent, surly question in his eyes. Poundinch introduced him to Rossamund as Mister Shunt the gastrineer. It was the gastrineer's task to feed, muck out and care for the gastrines, make sure they were always limbered properly and keep them in good health. He ranked highly in a vessel's crew.

  "Hello, Mister Shunt, sir," said the foundling.

  Shunt the gastrineer ignored him.

  "Well, there ye are." Poundinch patted the nearest box. "These be gastrines. Not much to look at, eh? But a powerful sight more constant than a sailing vessel, and no mistake. I'll leave ye with dear ol' Shunty 'ere, so's he can talk technicalities with ye. Come straight up when ye're done, mind-no dalliancing about down 'ere."

  The rivermaster retreated.

  Rossamund carefully pressed a hand against a gastrine. It was most certainly hot, like the brow of someone in a fever. The mighty throbbing of the muscles working within transmitted up his arm, and he felt his whole body bump-thump, bump-thump in sympathy. He admired the powerful-looking levers, many of which were half as tall as him again, each one governing certain actions of the gastrines and limbers. He looked to the gastrineer with a smile.

  "Git!" cursed Shunt.

  "Ah… aye! Sorry, Mister Shunt, sir, I…" Rossamund pulled his hand away from the side of the box.

  The gastrineer rolled his eyes horribly. "Git!" he grated again, stabbing a hand at the foundling.

  Rossamund blinked in surprise, then realized with horror that there was a weapon in the man's hand-a curved and cruelly barbed dagger. He had never been threatened with a real weapon before. It was enough to send him stumbling back up the ladder and running back to his couch of canvas at the bow.

  "I see's ye've got yerself well acquainted with our darlin' gastrineer," chuckled Poundinch as Rossamund fled past him.

  Rossamund refused to do anything so embarrassing as cry-though he very much felt like it and might have once. At that moment, hugging his knees to his chest and scowling back any tears, he would rather have been back in the foundlingery's suffocating halls.

  With the dark of his first night aboard descending, Rossamund decided to sleep at his original station at the prow on a pile of old hessian and hemp distinct only from the other piles of old hessian and hemp as stinking less. No one objected, and so he settled in for sleep. If it rained he would rather get wet than endure the disgusting hold.

  The night passed mercifully dry, yet dreams of a knife-wielding Shunt, the incessant clanging of the watch bells and the stomping of the crew's bare feet kept Rossamund from restful sleep. By the ringing of the morning watch at around four o'clock, he gave up on the prospect of proper rest and was rewarded eventually with a beautiful, brilliant pink sunrise.

  Red dawning, traveler's warning, he thought gloomily.

  The Hogshead was now clear of Boschenberg and its jurisdiction and roaming an ungoverned stretch of the Humour.The land on the eastern side of the river remained flat open pastureland. Upon the west it was becoming more rolling and rocky and decidedly more wild-looking. Such places were known as ditchlands, the borders between everymen's kingdoms and the dominion of the monsters. Rossamund could well imagine bogles and nickers prowling about the stunted trees and ragged weeds, seeing who they might devour.

  As the day progressed, Rivermaster Poundinch ignored everyone and contributed little to the running of the vessel. Occasionally he would growl a command, but usually he lounged silently at the tiller, his chin in his chest as if he was dozing.

  Rossamund was taken by loneliness. At that moment, alone among all these self-interested cutthroats, he would have welcomed even Mister Sebastipole's stiff manners and disturbing eyes.

  Poundinch came alive suddenly at the end of the forenoon watch and the beginning of the afternoon when dinner was served by the taciturn, sour-faced cook, and again when there was gunnery practice. Early in the afternoon watch, when the river seemed clear of other craft, he roused himself and bellowed, "Right, lads! Gunnery practice! To yer pieces!"

  A bosun's whistle was blown and the crew hustled to the six cannon on the ladeboard side of the Hogshead. Poundinch strutted at the helm post, bellowing orders, directions, abuse. "Run them out, ye mucky scoundrels! Come on, Wheezand, I've seen me grandmamma, rest her, move faster than ye, and she's been a-molderin' in th' ground these last ten years! And I should know. I put her there meself!" At this he gave a bloodcurdling chortle and many of the crew joined in.

  Rossamund chuckled nervously with them, eagerly awaiting what he hoped would be a spectacle. He had always wanted to see the cannon worked. The foundlings of Madam Opera's had never been allowed near one, regardless of their training in the naval crafts. Suddenly he realized that there were benefits in leaving the foundlingery and its strict policies after all.

  BOOM! One after the other the pieces were fired, at a rotten stump or anything that happened to be passing by-the smaller the better, to improve the bargemen's aim.

  For Rossamund it was indeed both thrilling and deafening, and completely distracted him from his anxious woes.

  Boom! went the guns once more, the crash of their firing hitting him with a thump right in his chest, each blast filling the air with creamy, fizzy-smelling smoke that billowed and lazily drifted away. The whole vessel shuddered with each cannonade, while across the other side of the Humour great vertical splashes were thrown up, or part of a tree would collapse, sending cattle fleeing from the riverbank.

  After the fourth broadside, the crew were piped to cease and routine resumed. Rivermaster Poundinch went back to his languor and Rossamund remained alone at the bow, humming within in boyish joy at what had proved a spectacle indeed. That evening was clear and bitterly cold. A three-quarter moon was rising, swollen and yellow in the dark green sky. Muffled in his scarf, his jackcoat buckled right up, Rossamund lay belly down on the deck of the bow and stared at the black water. For some time, he had been listening to the loud concert of a thousand frogs all singing along the banks and watching a small, pale shape dashing upon the water's surface. At first he thought it was a weak reflection of lunar light playing on the bow wave but, as two bells of the second dogwatch rang, it moved oddly, darting out away from the vessel then back again. The hairs on Rossamund's neck bristled and a shimmer of terror thrilled through his belly. He stared as the pale shape broke t
he surface-it was a head: a pallid lump, unclear in the jaundiced light, showing a long snout full of snaggle-jawed teeth. Its glittering black eyes rolled evilly and fixed him with a terrible gaze. His first monster…

  Rossamund had enough wit to grope for his satchel, which he never kept far from him. Perhaps now was the time to use one of his precious repellents. Just as he gripped the strap, the pale lump in the water gave a long bubbling snort and disappeared under the bow and away to the right, toward moon shadows and the root-tangled bank. Rossamund shook with fear. He did not move for a long time but just lay staring at the right bank, trying to blink as little as possible for fear that the pale beast would spring upon him in ambush from the water. His horror was heightened when a gurgling howl rang in the dark. For Rossamund it was pure terror. Among the crew, however, it caused but a minor stir and nothing more.

  For the second night, curled up tight in pungent hessian, Rossamund got little sleep.

  5

  … AND OFF AGAIN

  Rivergates (noun) great fortifications built across rivers and broader streams to protect a certain valuable place or as an outworking of a city's more terrestrial battlements. Certain riverside duchies and principalities have long used their rivergates to control trade, not just into their own domains but into those domains beyond as well.

  The next day, when Rossamund mustered the courage to tell Poundinch of the previous night's pale monster, the rivermaster showed little alarm, or even interest in, the sighting.

  "Just one of those things, me boy, and nowt to trouble yerself over." The rivermaster stroked his scabrous chin for a moment, pondering. "River's full o' strange but 'arm-less surprises. Be takin' my word on that 'un-ol' Poundy knows these waters."