Lamplighter

by D M Cornish

  The young lighter gave a bemused, shrugging kind of nod. Rossamünd would never cast a stone at the unusual revelations of another.

  “I reckon them hob-possums fought for the Mama’s sake,” Aubergene continued. “Remember that little doll you said winked at you?”

  “Aye.” Rossamünd barely dared a wheeze.

  “Well, you were right! It was a beastie—some weensome bogle-thing made of sticks and bits that’s been just there on the mantel all the while, and up it jumped, leaped out the Mama’s door without a pause and wrestled baskets dead-near ten times its bulk. Something else joined it—we could scarce catch a sight of the fellow, but something heavy and all bristling beard came, and with great crashings and flashes like some fulgarine.This new nicker set our enemies on a run. I’ve never seen such a thing, never knew it was really so—just eeker talk, naught but bewilderment and nonsense. When all was quiet, the Mama called out in her old tongue—whether it was to her weeny bogle friend or bristle-beard or the birds themselves I could not reckon. Either way, magpies began to sing as if in answer, getting loud, sounding for all the lands like speaking—dead eerie and unhuman.The Mama became satisfied then and we were left in peace.” Aubergene looked out the window.

  AUBERGENE

  It was beginning to rain again, a pelting rat-a-tat on the mullions. Rossamünd found he had almost forgotten such a merry sound after two months without.

  “If nickers weren’t enough”—the troubled man nodded toward the wet—“this storm set itself against us and Poe daren’t let us out till Hugh was sure we were clear. The Mama said she’d have her ‘friends’ watch over us, but Poe refused her. The old dame shrugged at us all contrariness and secrets, but Crescens never caught sight or smell of any escort.”

  “I am”—Rossamünd could not think of how to put his sad relief—“glad some of us have survived, Aubergene . . . ,” he tried, feeling a little daft.

  “Aye, though I sorely wish I were at the Stool to defend her, though your deadly feats near won the day.” The man looked to him with evident pride. “You earned your name aptly I reckon, Master Harold, smashing every nicker that crossed you—though I’m sure you were dead-glad to have Lampsman Vey with you.”

  Rossamünd nodded. “She saved us both,” he said softly. “But it was not enough to help the—the others.”

  “No.” Aubergene dropped his gaze. “No, I s’pose it - weren’t.”

  Two days later, the remains of their comrades were recovered, brought back to Bleakhall and buried. Even the nonlighter folk of Bleak Lynche attended. Rossamünd had never attended an obsequy before; any foundling who died was buried privately, just for Madam Opera and the masters to see. Here, in the deepest cellars of Bleakhall, with the lighters gathered about, their heads and his own covered over with black mourncloths, he was privy to the whole somber process.

  With every burial came the ritual intonation: “A light to your path. A way in the dark.”

  Rossamünd was surprised, even in his sorrow, by the smallness of the tombs and the thoroughness with which they were sealed with plugs of clay once the corpse was interred. There was something bitterly oppressive about this hurried, repetitious rite, the lives of the passing grieved as a waste, their honor grimly asserted by House-Major Fortunatus and attested to by silent, angry nods from the lighters. “Lampsman 2nd Class Fadus Theudas,” the senior officer said, “true of heart and quick of shot, who sought to serve, so young and so well.”

  “A light to your path. A way in the dark.”

  Blinking back tears, Rossamünd looked furtively to Threnody, standing across from him at the memorial, and marveled that she and he had survived a theroscade together. The girl looked haunted as they slid the remains into small tombs deep below, glancing reluctantly at him with dark, imploring eyes.

  “A light to your path . . .”

  She was to be puncted that night. He had no desire to see her marked, for to do that would be to relive the horror and violence—and he simply could not. Providentially—when the time came that evening—he was not made to attend.

  After the burial day the young survivors were given light duties about Bleakhall, small tasks to keep them from dangerous brooding.

  Any unoccupied time Rossamünd and Threnody had they spent sitting together and talking in the room given to him in the wayhouse.

  “Rossamünd”—the girl lighter looked at him with sad earnestness, fingering the bandage that covered her still-forming puncting—“how did you slay those monsters?”

  “You were there, Threnody! I just did—I hit them and they died. Isn’t that the way it is meant to happen?”

  “Yes . . . but Sp-Splinteazle was not able to even bruise one and he is—was thrice your size.”

  “Sequecious skewered at least one,” Rossamünd tried. “Probably more!”

  “A huge man using a blade coated in aspis. Did your crook have a venificant on it?”

  “No.” He had no other answer for this but the one he had already given the house-major.

  Threnody squinted at him. “You catch heavy barrels and slay monsters with one blow.”

  Rossamünd had nothing to say to this.

  A welcome silence stretched out.

  “Will you go back to Herbroulesse now?” he asked eventually.

  “And let Mother win?” Threnody scowled. “Never. I am a lighter now, like you, and we shall serve on just as we ought. Once a lighter, always a lighter—isn’t that what they say?”

  “Aye . . . Maybe.” Rossamünd could not conceive of what his future might be now. What little enthusiasm for lighting he had managed to find had been slaughtered out at Wormstool. Between the violent malice of monsters and the ruthless ambition of men, where was he to go?

  A week after the attack they were talking quietly about unimportant things when Europe entered Rossamünd’s room, unannounced and without a knock. She had only now returned, and looked haggard beneath her fine clothes and manners.

  There was an uncomfortable hesitation.

  With a resigned sigh, Threnody stood, bowed stiffly to the fulgar and left the room.

  The lighter and the fulgar peered at each other, Europe’s expression impenetrable.

  Strange feelings boiled within Rossamünd’s bosom, but most of all, with her there he felt truly safe. Without thinking, he leaped from the bed where he had been sitting and flung his arms about the fulgar.

  Startled, she relented for a moment, hands placed lightly on his shoulders, but Rossamünd could feel her gathering discomfort and, shamefaced and awkward, he let her go.

  “I-I am glad you are safe,” he stammered, feeling small and stupid. He sat back on the cot.

  Europe nodded. “I know how funny you can get about a monster’s dying,” she continued circumspectly, “so you may or may not be glad to hear that I have found and slain every hob-thrush, botcher or gnasher I could.”

  She was right: Rossamünd did not feel any better for the news.

  “That old eeker-woman, Mother Lieger, even helped me—if you can credit that.” Europe pulled a wry face. “I must give part of my success to her guidance: she knew very well where the baskets might be hiding at—and a girl will never refuse aid however it might come. Here is me all along believing these foolish eeker-folk were in love with the nickers. Indeed, she even asked me to send you her greetings, and tell you that she declares it a ‘terrible wicked thing to have happened.’ ” She sighed a deep, heartfelt sigh. “Now the folk of Bleak Lynche want to fete me, and the house-major wants to cite my deeds for some kind of Imperial commendation . . . I refused them both, of course.”

  Rossamünd nodded sadly. “They wanted to give me a mark, but I refused them too.”

  Europe let out a small laugh. “Of course you did.” She sat on the edge of the bed. “By-the-by, I saw your glamgorn friend. It was loitering out there near the edges of the town and keeping downwind of the dogs.”

  “You didn’t do anything to him, did you?” Rossamünd sat up sharply. />
  “I cannot quite believe I am saying this but, no, I let the wretched thing be. I had little choice, actually.” She folded her hands in her lap. “Once it knew I was about, it left rather smartly.”

  Rossamünd lay back. “I feel so tired, Miss Europe. I don’t know why, but I cannot seem to raise much eagerness for anything.”

  “I can tell you why, Rossamünd.” Europe looked at him appraisingly. “You have stood victorious in a desperate stouche. Dark moods always follow. Your potential as a factotum increases almost every time I see you. Dear Licurius, in all his might, may well have struggled where you have won.”

  “But all I did was survive!”

  “I don’t think you comprehend what you have done.” Europe leaned toward him. “A wit, even a clumsy, new-cut one, should be able to win through a pack of monsters, else what would be the point of all the pain and inconvenience? But you, an ordinary little man, have not just won through, but—from what I hear—beaten to death three nickers, full-formed and ancient.”

  Rossamünd hung his head. “I was not counting.”

  “No,” the fulgar said, fixing him with serious eye, “but others are.”

  The reply from the Marshal-Subrogat arrived two weeks after that horrid Dirgetide day. It declared tersely that the circumstances of the sacking of Wormstool were too unusual for the limited jurisdiction of the ignoble end of the road. It demanded that Rossamünd and Threnody leave immediately on the return post, strangely omitting to summon Under-Sergeant Poesides or Aubergene or Crescens Hugh the lurksman. They had not been witnesses to the fall of the cothouse and were to stay and serve at Bleakhall until further directed from Winstermill. Having stated this in the firmest terms, the dispatch went on to deny any immediate relief to the beleaguered lighters of Bleakhall. The Master-of-Clerks did not see the wisdom in rushing men into the fray when he knew so little of the current situation.

  Under the escort of one of the scrutineers who had seen the aftermath, the two young lighters were to be on their way, messengers of the tragedy and bearers of a second urgent request for reinforcement.

  Though Rossamünd knew Europe had gone again, hunting somewhere out on the flat with her hired lurksman, he nevertheless looked out for her in hope, even up to the moment of departure. Before boarding the return post, the young lighter left a desperate scrawl for her with Goodwife Inchabald, a plea for the fulgar to follow after him to Winstermill. It was a lot to ask, but he was about to return to the den of that black habilist Swill, and the Branden Rose was the only one who he felt could protect him anymore.

  In somber silence, the post-lentum left for the Idlewild proper, farewelled by only Aubergene, sadly waving, and a silent Poesides. Not sparing of the horses, it hurtled west. What little was left of their belongings Rossamünd and Threnody now carried with them in the cabin. All the rest was charred to smithereens in the burning and collapse of his old billet—including, to Rossamünd’s great woe, his peregrinat and the remarkable valise given him by Madam Opera.

  Out of exhaustion and an unbearable gloominess at his enforced retreat to the manse, Rossamünd slept much of the journey. The return became a bizarre blur of unhappy, cataclysmic dreams; hurrying landscape glimpsed from the thin slot allowed between sash and door frame; strange, anxious faces at whatever stop they made; and tasteless meals he had no appetite to stomach. Threnody too sat in silent grieving, seemingly diminished without her fine furs and traveling bags.

  Rossamünd lost the reckoning of time. All seemed dark to him, whether day or night; he could have well done with House-Major Grystle’s hack-watch now. Consequently he was unable to share in the wonder of their escort, who stated that they had achieved Winstermill in a record four days—rather than six—and “that done at the end of the bad traveling season and all!” Four days, six days, ten days, twelve—this was no relief to the young lighter. He had once gloried that he had escaped the oppressive, now-corrupted place, yet here he was, returning to the manse after only two and a half short, violently terminated months.

  Now he feared he might never be allowed to leave this den of massacars again.

  Their arrival at Winstermill went unheralded, and from the coach yard they were met by Under-Clerk Fleugh and hurried directly through the manse to wait with their escort in the Marshal-Subrogat’s anteroom.

  “No happy welcomes for us, I see,” Threnody muttered as they were let through to the Ad Lineam, the hall-like gallery of tall, many-mullioned windows that took them to the Master-of-Clerks’ file, their feet slapping thump thump thump as they were hastened along.

  As if there was some kind of criminal inconsistency to be found in their accounts, Podious Whympre saw fit to meet with each of them separately. The Bleakhall escort was interviewed first; this was a long meeting that gave the two young lighters time to catch a breath as they sat under the impassive gaze of a foot-guard.

  “What do you think will happen?” Threnody wondered quietly.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What more can Odious Podious want to know?” she persisted.

  “I don’t care.”

  “Hmph.” Threnody folded her arms and leaned back as best she might in the high-backed chair.

  Their escort reemerged looking harassed and disappointed.

  Threnody was called for next.

  “Do well,” Rossamünd offered. The encouragement sounded weak in his own ears.

  “And you,” she returned with a dazzling smile, and disappeared through the portentous door.

  Finally, as the sun westered, shedding gold on the west-facing angles of the mess-hall window frames, Rossamünd was shocked from his doze by a summons. His time with the clerk-master at last. As he was let through to Podious Whympre’s file, he could hear the tail of the previous interview.

  “In such startling and tragic circumstances,” came the Master-of-Clerks’ smooth voice, “I have taken the liberty of sending for your mother.”

  “I do not want her here!” Threnody objected.

  “But she is here already,” Whympre returned evenly. “I shall have my man take you to her immediately. Ah, Master Bookchild, our little teratologist! It would appear you have an unfortunate aptitude for being right in the thick of troubles.” The Master-of-Clerks glowered at him almost as soon as Rossamünd entered the narrow, unfriendly room. “Thank you, Lady Threnody. That will be all.”

  The girl pivoted on her heel, her nose in the air.They exchanged a quick look,Threnody rolling her eyes and exiting without another word.

  Rossamünd stepped into the Master-of-Clerks’ file and stood at the far end of the great table that ran most of the length of the room.The first thing he noticed was the enormous antler-trophy of the Herdebog Trought, thrusting out into the upper atmosphere of the room. The trophy was hanging from the wall as if it had been Podious Whympre himself who had bagged the beast. Rossamünd gave a brief scowl of disgust. The musk of the horns cloyed the air in here, joining the sweet fragrance of that old wood and the sharp bouquet of the unguents in the Master-of-Clerks’ wig. Rossamünd hated this narrow unfriendly room, wallpapered in a fussy pattern of velvet and gold, with its too-high ceilings of dainty white moldings, too-tall windows looking out to the treacherous fens north of the manse. Its morbid silence hummed with distracting, lurking echoes. In the far-end wall, underneath an enormous painting of some ancient Imperial victory, were three doors. Remembrance made his gizzards tight as Rossamünd wondered which it was he had burst through on the night he slew the rever-man.

  The Master-of-Clerks sat tall and stiff, aloof in a great gilt chair at the farther end of the ostentatiously carved table. Dressed in the brilliant scarlet of the Empire, he had removed his thick black wig of long complex locks—an inconvenience when shuffling sheaves of paper. It was also a subtle reminder that neither Rossamünd—nor Threnody, nor their escort for that matter—were important enough to warrant the trouble of being fully dressed.

  To the left of the clerk-master, seated on a markedly smaller stool
of drab wicker, was Witherscrawl, with stylus in hand and giant book on lap.The indexer scowled through his glasses at Rossamünd, who could feel those beady eyes and ignored them. Laudibus Pile was there too, of course, sitting just behind his master, leaning forward, ready to expose false speech. Rossamünd refused to be daunted—he had nothing to hide.

  “Please sit, Lampsman 3rd Class Bookchild,” the Master-of-Clerks purred.

  There was not much new about the interview itself. The same kinds of questions were asked as had been asked by the house-major of Bleakhall: the why, the where, the how—and Rossamünd’s answers were the same. Whympre kept pressing for more detail on just how the young, prematurely promoted lighter had fought and beaten his foes. Rossamünd was troubled by the inkling that there was more to the queries than simple, official inquisitiveness. Nevertheless he answered every question truthfully.

  “All this loss of life is very alarming and vexing.” The Master-of-Clerks stroked his face and looked anything but alarmed or vexed. Indeed, he seemed more troubled by the destruction of property. The most significant thing he had to tell was that there was to be a formal inquiry of the Officers of the Board into the affair, “to be held here, hence the brevity of this evening’s fact-finder. A disaster of such magnitude requires proper bureaucratic process.” The man smiled coldly. “Also, I wish to investigate some . . . irregularities. The people of the Idlewild, and the Sulk End too, need to see that their Marshal-Subrogat is not a slouch at the important end of the day—ad captandum vulgus and all that, you understand.”

  Actually Rossamünd did not understand. What irregularities? The events were straightforward.

  “I shall allow you a day to gather yourselves, after which we will begin, first thing on the first day of the new week. Understood?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Shortly after, with his attention waning and sleepiness waxing, Rossamünd was dismissed. He was led to a small room on the first floor of the manse, away from Threnody or any other lighter. Missing mains, he lay on the foreign cot in the cold foreign room and slept.