by D M Cornish
As these pugnators pranced proud and upset much of the manse’s rhythm, the little varying schedule of prentice life remained. So it went, day come and day go, till Rossamünd was sure the whole of the east must be squeezed full with the monster-wrecking bravoes. As opportunity allowed, he would carefully and keenly review the arrivals, hoping—daring not to admit he hoped—to spy a flash of a deep scarlet frock coat with flaring hems. He could not rightly say why he was so keen to see Europe: he had known her only for the short side of a week, and she was the epitome of deeds he found very hard to reconcile. Regardless, he missed her.Yet with such frequency of arrivings and leavings, such a plenitude of lahzars, Europe, the Branden Rose, was never among them.
By the middle of the week something finally did break the prentices’ routine. The morning was clear and achingly cold; the cerulean sky flat, brilliant, puffed all over with clean white fists of cloud rushed northwest by a whipping wind that was bringing fouler weather with it. The prentices were out and swinging their fodicars about in a tidy and orderly manner, postilion horn-calls an irregular, intermittent music. Teratologists and their attendant gaggles had been steadily coming and going all day. Some would take a turn on the borders of the Grand Mead as they waited for connecting posts or the resolving of kinks of paperwork.
It was limes, and the prentices were formed up and formally sucking on their bitter lemon rinds and sipping tinctured small beer while Grindrod watched to make sure they swallowed it all. This would normally be the time that a quarto would be returning from lighting, had the prentice-watches not been suspended. Rossamünd was considering paying a call on Numps at middens when Benedict marched on to the ground.
The under-sergeant muttered for a moment with Grindrod, then summoned Rossamünd out of file, to the surprise of all the lantern-sticks. Benedict wore an odd expression—somewhere between bemusement and admiration—as he took the young prentice aside. “You have an eminent visitor, prentice-lighter, and have been granted the time to spend with them,” he said officiously, adding in a friendly undertone, “and might I say you keep some odd and powerful company, lad.”
“Who—” Yet before Rossamünd could finish asking he smelled a welcome, well-known perfume drift past. Heart pounding, he spun about. There, in all her healthy bloom, was Europe, the Branden Rose, the Duchess-in-waiting of Naimes, the one who had saved him from a foul end, the one he himself had rescued.
“Well hello, little man,” she said in her silken voice, smiling, amused, maybe even happy to see him. “Still fumbling your way through, I see.”
“Hello, Miss Europe.” He could barely manage a hoarse wheeze. It was such a strange sensation to see her familiar face in these now familiar precincts. Her hair was pinned up but without the usual crow’s-claw hair-tine; her deep scarlet frock coat was of another style, made from some kind of short-cropped hide—like the head of a new-barbered lighter—its glossy reds shifting and mottled. Over this she wore a short black pollern-coat with broad collars and sleeves of creamy-hued fur that was faintly spangled at its cuffs with darker spots. Her black boots were trimmed with fur, which made a fuzzy hem at the top of each boot and protruded between the buckles up the sides. This was Europe rugged against the cold.
Rossamünd did not know what to do with himself: some of him wanted to throw his arms about her in sheer delight. The significant part—that part which governs in the end what we really do rather than what we wish we might—was afraid. So he just stood and stared. “You’ve come,” he managed.
EUROPE
The fulgar raised an amused eyebrow. “So it would appear. I have come to knave myself to these kind lamplighters and the citizens of the Placidia Solitus, in so desperate straits they send their pleading bills all the way south to Sinster.” Her face was straight but her voice amused. “What’s a kind-winded girl to do when such plaintive notes are sung?” She was in finer fettle than of their last parting, rosy-cheeked with a shrewd twinkle in her eye. The surgeons of Sinster must have done their infamous work well. “Tell me, little man . . .” Europe leaned forward a little. “Why did you not write me? Did you not miss me?”
“I thought you would be too busy to read any letter of mine, Miss Europe,” Rossamünd answered.
“Why, I do believe he blushes!” Europe laughed. “That young lady certainly watches us keenly,” she said, shifting subjects. “She knows you?”
Rossamünd looked and saw Threnody standing alone on Evolution Green, the other prentices gone now, dismissed for readings. Her arms folded and her face shadowed under the brim of her thrice-high, she was clearly paying Europe and Rossamünd pointed attention.
“Aye, Miss Europe, that’s Threnody. She’s a prentice like me.” Rossamünd attempted a small wave.
Threnody flushed, turned on her heel and marched away without a rearward look.
“A girl as a lighter—how intriguing. I think she might have set her heart on you, little man.”
Rossamünd blushed deeper shades. “Hardly, miss! She’s never happy with anything I say and spends most of her time either ignoring me or huffing and puffing and rolling her eyes. Besides which, she’s older—”
Europe gave a loud peal of honest mirth. “My, my!”
At the start of the Cypress Walk, Threnody turned to the happy, incongruous sound, and Rossamünd was sure she glowered.
Touching the corners of her eyes, the fulgar asked with a smile still in her voice, “And how did she find her way here to vex you so?”
“She was a calendar before, but she has come here to get away from her mother.”
Europe gave a wry smile. “I know how she feels,” the fulgar murmured. “Mothers are best fled . . . Now come along, little man, I have been granted the rest of the day with you by your kindly Marshal. Let us get out of this cold.” She handed him a small, beautifully wrapped parcel. “It is just as well I brought this trifle for you.Your neck is bluer than a wren’s.”
Within the gaudy, fashionably spotted package was a magenta-red scarf made with fine twine.
“It’s tinctured sabine,” the fulgar explained airily. “You can only get it from this one little fellow on the high-walks in Flint. It looks good on you—matches prettily with the harness.”
Rossamünd was happily dumbfounded. Europe wanted to spend the day with him and she had given him a present. When they had last parted company she had not said a word in final farewell, nor even waved good-bye. Yet here she was seeking his company. He felt rather odd following the fulgar with a present under his arm. Heads turned as she led him down along the drive and through the coach yard: lentermen, postilions and yardsmen gazed, distracted, habitually disapproving of her trade but heartily admiring her face and grace.
“I have sent the landaulet back to Brandenbrass.” She chatted easily, oblivious to the stir she was causing. “It was too much trouble to find both horse and driver at once. It will be a relief not to have to fuss about stabling and repairs and thrown shoes. Let another worry about that . . .”
She led him up a steep flight of stairs to the guest billets. Like a small wayhouse, it lacked a common room but had private rooms in its stead, and secluded dinner rooms as well as a lounge for guests to receive guests of their own. This last was Europe’s destination, a small, warm apartment with comfortable chairs along each wall, thin windows looking out to the business of coach yard and Mead below. A well-fueled fire crackled in the friendliest of ways in the corner.
Summoning refreshments, the Branden Rose took off her pollern and sat on a long tandem chair, stretching out like a man, her back slouching, long legs crossed over at the ankles.
“So how is the life of a lamplighter turning for you?” she inquired complacently. “Still as adventurous as that pawky postman made it out to be?”
Perching himself on the edge of the settee adjacent to the reclining fulgar, Rossamünd put his hat beside him as his eyes roamed the room. “It has been mostly come and go and march and stop, Miss Europe, and very little time for reading or th
inking. But in the last couple of weeks there have been two theroscades. I have also met a glimner called Mister Numps and delivered a pig’s head to our surgeon for the Snooks.”
Europe fixed him with her sharp hazel gaze. “Tell me of these monsters attacking.”
Refreshments arrived in the hands of a bobbing porter and Europe ordered food for the two of them. As they waited Rossamünd recounted the two theroscades, starting with the horn-ed nickers assaulting the carriage and the deeds of the calendars. “That is when Threnody joined us.”
“The girl lampsman who was so fascinated earlier?” Europe asked, oh so casually. “She is a wit?”
“Aye, and she’s the daughter of the calendars’ august.”
“My. How very impressive. The Lady Vey’s progeny is a wit, a calendar and a lamplighter?”
Rossamünd ignored the sarcasm. “You know of her mother?”
“We have had occasion to meet, yes.” The fulgar raised her hand as if to say that was all she would tell.
Heeding this, Rossamünd pressed on with an account of the flight from the Herdebog Trought and Bellicos’ death, still so large in his memory. His telling was briefer, more subdued.
Europe sat a little straighter. “It is a . . . difficult thing to lose one you know to the wickedness of some unworthy nickery basket,” she said softly. “Do you wish you had become my factotum after all?”
“I’ve wished a lot of things since being here, Miss Europe,” Rossamünd demurred, “but I am signed to serve as a lamplighter now and have been given the Emperor’s Billion and all.”
“So you choose to be stuck on one stretch of road for the rest of your days? What a waste.”
The two of them looked at each other for a long moment until Rossamünd dropped his gaze. “I don’t want a life of violence,” he said.
“You’re living one now!” the fulgar retorted. “I tell you, child, this life is nothing but violence—even if you do not seek it, others will bring it to you.” She leaned forward and fixed him with a terrible eye. “Do not make the mistake, Rossamünd, of living easy behind the feats of others and all the while thinking yourself better for not joining the slaughter.”
Cheeks burning from her rebuke, Rossamünd shrank back, confronted with how little he knew of this pugnacious woman.
“How can we not be violent when violence breeds in the very mud and makes monsters of us all?” Europe persisted. “Stay here and you will be fighting just as you have been, always fighting: if not with nickers then with men.What did you think a life of adventure was?” She smiled condescendingly. “It is a life of violence. Come with me, and at least your foe will be clear.”
“Not all monsters are our enemies,” Rossamünd insisted doggedly.
Europe regarded him with an unfathomable expression. “Truly?” she said eventually. “You might want to shift yourself to Cloudeslee if you insist on spouting talk like that. Sedorners get short shrift in the Emperor’s countries.”
“But what about that poor Misbegotten Schrewd? He was just simple, not wicked, yet you killed him all the same. And you wanted to slay Freckle when he had helped me. I could never join you in that!”
Europe sat back, her gaze dangerously glassy, a threat in her tone. “Next you’ll be telling me those triply undone blightlings were right for killing my dear Licurius.”
“No!” he said quickly, eyes wide with horror. “I would never say that!”
There was a strained silence.
Europe sipped at a glass of deep red toscanelle and looked away. “You are a small and ignorant urbanite; once you have lived and watched and been forced to such things as I have you will not be so simple-headed.”
Rossamünd could not collect his thoughts sufficiently to answer. He was right but so was she, though he wished she was not. Mercifully they were interrupted by the arrival of meals.
For a time they ate and did not speak.
“Little man,” Europe finally offered between bites, “tell me of this pig’s head and that Snooks fellow, the surgeon.”
“Oh, the Snooks is not the surgeon, that’s Grotius Swill—”
Europe stopped eating. “Did you just say Swill? Honorius Ludius Grotius Swill?”
“Aye.” The young prentice stopped his chewing too.
“Hmm. I have heard of the man,” the fulgar said gravely. “He has an evil reputation in Later Sinster.What has he done to you?”
“Naught! I only took up the guts and head of a pig to him,” Rossamünd explained, and told of the attic surgery and the books and the flayed skin. “What is his reputation?”
“I heard that the fellow was caught dabbling in the darker habilisms and had traffic with folks all but the most scurrilous butchers avoid. Rumor is a poor transmitter of truth, but it was said that the Soratchë were becoming increasingly curious about his exertions.”
Rossamünd frowned at this revelation. “The who, miss?”
“The Soratchë: they are a loose confederacy of those do-good calendar-kind keen on foiling massacars.”
“Is Swill a massacar, then?” Rossamünd gasped. “We should tell the Lamplighter-Marshal!”
Europe raised a calming hand. “There was much conjecture in Later Sinster, but nothing proved. I am sure your kindly old Earl has things well in view. In such a tight place as this fortress, genuinely nefarious deeds would be hard to hide.”
Aye, but what if the fortress is not as tight as it should be? Rossamünd wondered. Even he could tell the manse was creeping to disarray in the failing grip of the overworked marshal-lighter, a punctilious clerk-master and men so stretched that there were none left to plug the breaches. Rossamünd shifted his thoughts. “Miss Europe?”
“Yes, little man?” the fulgar replied absently, taking out and chewing on a little rock salt.
“What was it like going to Sinster?” he asked. “What did you do there?”
Europe cocked her head and looked to him, a wry, energetic twinkle in her eye. “The journey was brief,” she said. “I left High Vesting the same day as you; took a fast packet down to Flint—where the doughty crew discouraged a curious sea-nicker with their fine gunnery and well-aimed lambasts. Then a barge up the Ichabod and I was under the transmogrifer’s catlin not more than two weeks after I first met you.”
“You saw a sea-nicker, miss?” Rossamünd’s imagination ran with the image of a ram firing its broadside at some enormous, marauding, eel-like thing with spines and needle teeth. He had never seen a sea-nicker or a kraulschwimmen, nor any such creature—not for real—just poorly executed etchings in his pamphlets.
“I actually saw very little of it but for a great amount of splashing and some distant screaming,” the fulgar answered. “I was directed to the seating deck soon after it appeared. It was a close-run thing for a time, but the fast packet was truly that and we outran the beast in the end. A good thing, for I do not think I would have been much help had the thing won its way aboard us. Even if I had been at my best, the puddles and splashes on deck would have taken my arcs to places they were not intended.”
“Did the surgeon mend you?” Rossamünd pressed.
“Yes, he did.” Europe straightened, rubbing her arm as if it ached. “I feel greatly improved. He told me to keep to my treacle and it will be less likely for my organs to vaoriate in future as they did that night in the Brindleshaws.” Bitterness returned briefly to her countenance.
“Vaoriate, miss?”
The horn of a post-lentum sounded, dulled by wall and window.
“Spasm,” she said distractedly.
There was a hasty knock at the door. It opened and a porter put his head inside. “The post’s ready, m’lady. Do ye need yer bags lumbered out?”
Europe nodded and handed him a chit so he might retrieve her luggage from a stowage closet below.
“Listen, Rossamünd, I am leaving on the last post today. I would sooner have you with me than not—your flair for a good treacle is hard to forgo.Yet as you say, you have taken the Emperor’s
Billion and a solemn oath on the day of joining. Imperial Service is not something that can be put on then off again like some ill-tailored jackcoat. If you proved faithless in this, then what trust could a girl put in you?” she said slowly, with deliberate calm. She stared at the floor, lips pressed thin. “However, I wonder if you young prentices should not first be schooled in the rotten core of the Empire you serve before being offered a shiny Emperor’s Billion.”
“A rotten core, Miss Europe?”
“Ask your Marshal, little man—he is more recently schooled in Imperial machinations than I. Such things I escaped a long time ago.” She paced out of the room without a rearward glance.
Down in the foreparts of the coach yard, the Branden Rose mounted the lentum ready to depart for the Idlewild and the mysteries of the east. Standing on the highest step, she stared darkly for a time at the spandarion rumpling in the fitful wind that moved above the battlements, and at the house-watch that moved along them.
Below, waiting, Rossamünd watched her silently.
“I go to do my usual labors—find a nicker, kill a nicker,” said Europe finally by way of farewell. “I may be wintering at the Brisking Cat on the highroad at the Sourspan Bridge. If you wish to write me, send to there and I shall get it either way.”
“I will,” the prentice answered. There was a pause. He wanted to say that he sometimes regretted not taking up her repeated offer of work, yet could not think how. Moreover, after his refusals such sentiments seemed a little late and a little foolish. Either way, he could never willingly accept a living made through a perpetual, thoughtless slaughter of bogles.
Europe peered at him knowingly.
“Do not be troubled, little man,” she said finally. “The last word is yet to be said on your service: just because you begin along one way does not mean it will be your end. Go back inside, Rossamünd. I will wait for thee, if thou wouldst come with me. Go back to your lampsmen chums,” she said as she entered the carriage. “And stay well clear of that Swill fellow.” The lentum door was shut with an impatient bang by the splasher boy.