by D M Cornish
Rossamund's inquiry of the horribly scarred and one-eyed Casimir Fauchs after his masters was met with the information that Fransitart and Craumpalin were not in-rather they had gone out to find a former-time sweetheart of one of them or some such thing, that it was unknown where they had gone to or when they might be back.
Assiduously avoiding the eye of the collection of musty-looking patrons, Rossamund sat in a dim corner stall facing the door and, with a jug of pale duke to sip and a crust of bread to gnaw, waited for his onetime masters to come in. Toward the rear of the establishment was a gang of ticket-of-leave men-shore-going vinegaroons living large. These merrymakers, already sodden by the day's middle, banged out a gusty chant:
Twofold, threefold, fourfold, five, Once I caught a nick alive! When I tried to wring its hide, It knocked me down upon me side. As I went to stand up straight, It put its jaws about me pate. Happy then to quit the scene, I tore the basket tooth from spleen. Now its head hangs on the high, Its mark a-puncted on me thigh…
Clashing mugs and whole demijohns together, they looked for all the here and vere just how Rossamund thought landed limey Jack tar sea-dogs should.
An old, rudimentary horologue mounted sideways on the wall above the small tapery to prove the excellence of its workings quietly tapped away the count of life.Through the magnifying dome of the glass face of the clock he watched the hands wind off half an hour… yet no show from his masters. I'll wait five minutes more, he told himself several times until forty-five minutes were gone, still without the advent of either aged vinegaroon. After yet another false hope-some shuffling white-haired street seller stepping in for a tot still wearing his cumbersome tray-Rossamund paid for his beer and walked to the rush and commerce of Tight Penny Circle. There, among the strange red-bricked, blue-roofed market halls, he found several scarlet-doored takenys.Their drivers, sitting high at the rear of the conveyances and dressed in weskits of horizontal red-and-white stripes under coats of blue or bottle green, were simple to mark in the flurry.
"Phlynders amp; Pugh Commutation Agents, please, mister takenyman," he declared firmly, reading the address given on the master of the Widgeon's recommendation. "It's on the Mill Strand, Subtle Bench-"
"I fully reckon where it is, Master Squidgereen!" the takenyman scolded, and whipped off with a tumbling lurch.
Through all fashions and repair of architecture Rossamund was taken southeast, passing under no fewer than three bastion gates on the way. By one stood the famed Old Gate Sanguinarium with its axiomatic pensioners, the destination of most over-prime vinegaroons. Stiff as an Old Gate pensioner went the expression, even north in Boschenberg. Peering up through the takeny's window at the moldering stonework and blank windows, he did not like the idea one mite of Fransitart or Craumpalin ending up here to wait out their last days shut away.
Emerging from between the high buttresses of the mill works and imposing cartel buildings, the takeny found the sea, turning right down the crowded waterside way of Mill Strand. Instead of being protected by a sea wall, the entire district was raised well over twenty feet from the lapping harbor on a great man-made tableland of masonry. Rossamund stared in wonder at edifice upon edifice of enormous smoke-belching mills and famous mercantile concerns. Plain-gulls and mollyhawks spun and circled in vast flocks above it all, riding on the updrafts of vented steams, adding their squawking discord to the clanging thunder and human bustle of modern industry. Rossamund thought he could almost feel the great hammering of the gastrine-driven hammers pounding out all manner of metal and stone. He wrinkled his nose at the piquant confusion of stenches: the vinegar sea, foundry fumes, creosote, animal sweat and animal dung, and traces of a more chemical nature straight from a skold's testtle.
"Phlynders amp; Pugh, Mill Strand!" the takenyman cried, and abruptly halted, letting Rossamund alight after a fare of a quarter and two cobs-nine guise-before a row of tall and rather similar mercantile clericies.
Alone in the chaos of load-bearing laborers, ponderous ox wagons and mule teams, clerk-carrying dyphrs or flash private lentums, and ubiquitous hurrying scopps, it took Rossamund a moment to properly figure his destination from among the constellation of small signs arranged on every door up and down the street. His quest was not aided by the presence of many large bills pinned or pasted to the broad door posts, the newest declaring:
Finally finding his goal, he climbed the steps and entered a crowded and poorly lit file of pale green where, after a fair wait in line with folk buying tickets to all points of the compass, he was met with a latticed screen of wood similar to those in the Letter and Coursing House. Despite the affable "Good morning, sir," of the clerk behind it, Rossamund handed across the letter in reluctant expectation of the more common clerical surliness. To his great gratitude he found that the commutation clerk had indeed already heard of the exploits of the Branden Rose and her excellent retainers aboard the Widgeon and was delighted to render a return of the crossing fee.
"I hear that you spared us much greater losses, sir," the clerk declared, his yellowed toothy grin obvious through the lattice as he beamed at Rossamund.
The young factotum dipped his head under such approbation. "Well…We had little choice but to fight," he mumbled awkwardly.The refund made-two sous eight-Rossamund inquired after the location of Hullghast Articled Ordnance.
"You think to attend the launching of the Warspite?" the cheerful commutation clerk replied. "Capital notion, sir! It is a good stiff walk south just down the way from here a little. You will make it out easily as you get near."
Taking the fellow's directions down the drab clerical street and out onto the fortified rim of the high seaside suburb, Rossamund heard his destination well before he arrived: a profound throbbing as if of mighty gastrines rumbled in his innards, and with it a mute yet growing discord of clashing mill hammers and rattling traffic, the din of heavy industry never ceasing, not even for a Domesday. With every stride closer was slowly added a merrier note of happy voices, and soon enough Rossamund found a mass of people gathering on the seaward side of a great heap of domed and turreted works. Most were squeezed against a tall iron fence that stood on the high seaward edge of the great foundation, kept from spilling onto the road by a platoon of implacable duffers stalking the fringe of the crowd. Cordoned in their midst, safe behind links of velvet rope, many quality folk were stood upon a temporary podium that gave them better view over the hefty railings: the silkened men in periwigs and wide satin-edged tricorns standing gravely as they waited, the fine ladies wrestling with the mild ocean winds that threatened to ruffle their dainty parasols and their dignity.
"Is this the launching of the Warspite?" he asked a portly chap in cheap finery.
The man just scowled at him-his expression clear, What else would it be! — and pulled away suspiciously as if Rossamund were some kind of grabcleat pulling a trick.
Dodging the severe gaze of an approaching duffer, Rossamund squeezed among the assembled to stare down through the bars of the fence. Tall as houses, great gates in the foundation wall had been slid aside, and from them protruded a slipway-a heavy frame of wooden rails slanting well out into the milky brey of the harborage of Mill Pond. Festooned with flags and ribbons and other bunting, it held the mastless hulk of a near-completed ram, leaning down to the water in a suspense of cables and balks, ready to slip into its native element. From the size and shape of her ram, Rossamund could well see that it was a drag-mauler. By her dimensions he reckoned her likely to be one of the largest of her rating afloat. From fo'c'sle to poop, carpenters, iron-working sheeters and vinegaroons made busy upon its uniformly flat main apron; posts, chasers and all the standard deck furniture were yet to be added.
Below this was the dark sand of the actual shore. Here was the genuine fringe of the Grume, the natural beach-or what was left of it. A myriad of pipes poked from the wall face, dribbling all manner of effluents down the foundation's bleached slabs. Piles of dun green kelp were washed up in rotting thickets right along
the sand, making dams of the seeping city filth. Flies of several tribes swarmed about the decaying matter while combers picked through the putrescent sea-mat for flotsam, discarded treasure and rare biological matter, perhaps to sell to parts-sellers or other more ambiguous buyers. Catching a whiff of the rot, Rossamund marveled at the olfactory resilience of the weed-picking combers.
Immediately below, other humbler people in white smocks labored to pretty the sand about the slipway's footings, employing wide rakes to push and pull the kelp into great piles that the combers happily foraged.
In this cleared space many of the lectry folk-the middle classes-unable to fit on the walk above were descending a narrow stair cut in the stone of the sea wall and daring to collect on the scant beach below, enduring the stink to get a better view of the launching. Seeing some of the younger folk cackling and squealing as they let themselves be chased by the corrosive ripples that lapped at the black sand, Rossamund decided to join them. Pushing as politely as he could, he managed to find the heavy gate of the stair, and with an inward leap of delight hastened down the steep steps, amazed that he might be able to actually walk on sand, on a real beach! Now cheerfully ignoring the weedy stink, he was at once struck by the novel sensation of his boot soles sinking into the soft silt as he twisted through the thinner gathering on the shore and drew near the towering slipway.
Above them all sat the long, mastless bulk of the nascent ram, silent, waiting, fat-bellied, its tumblehome lines pronounced, where they hung high and fully exposed out of water.
Warspite! — Rossamund mouthed the name, awed by the enormous screw of bright polished silverine alloy taller than two tall men. He started to count the bent heads of the pins that held the iron to the hull but, still on the first strake, lost his place somewhere just past two hundred.
With a great commotion of cheers, of fife and drum, the solemn, wonderful spectacle made of the launching of yet another ram began. One by one, the balks were removed by enterprising men with great hammers and lifted away by sheers, until the pristine, glossy rust brown vessel was held back from its final release by only a single massive cable.
Two-thirds of the way up the dribble-stained foundation by the slipway jutted a balcony of blackened iron beribboned in black and white and emerald green. Upon this three enormous men now appeared: elephantines, the presumed owners of Hullghast Articled Ordnance. Each took his turn to speak, bellowing through wide copper trumpets held up for them by lesser men, addressing the people both above and below with jowly movements of their flabby jaws. Crowded in the scant space behind them, their staff-a gaggle of the usual bureaucrats and secretaries-listened and nodded their approbation in fixed and glassy-eyed rapture. Among them Rossamund identified three lean spurns-one a wit, and two fascin-wrapped scourges-standing taut and ready, and with them two falsemen reviewing the crowd critically. Automatically, the young factotum shrank from their gaze.
With a final flourish of music, and a "Hurrah!" from the throng and a splash of sour wine on its sharp ram, the iron-clad man-of-war slid stern first with surprisingly little noise into the Grume, the workers on its deck riding the motion with practiced ease. A great swirl of milky green waves and the half-done vessel was free, all the pent potential of its gastrines in their element at last, the shackled beast set free. Soon they would be turning, taking the weight of the screw and the vast bulk of wood and iron for the first time.
The former longing to serve a'sea beat a weak memorial in Rossamund's bosom, making time with the drumming. Yet his enthusiasm for a life in the Senior Service was surprisingly diminished, a memory of hope. Bidding mute farewell to this old dream, he watched sheer-drudges come to tow the new-launched ram to a watery berth where masts, cannon and all the appurtenances of a fighting vessel would be added.
The elephantines were wheeled away through doors in the stone at the back of the balcony, the band packed instruments in carriages and trundled away, and the multitude dispersed until Rossamund was one of the few still watching on the sand.Wishing to hear the soft lapping of the vinegar removed from the pounding of industry, he decided to take an amble south, away from the slipways and the piers and the sheer mill-side walls. With great expectation he took off his boots and, for the first time ever, walked unshod upon an ocean shore. He squeezed the swarthy sand with his toes in delight, grinning unselfconsciously at the cool air puffing against his cheeks. Insensible in his glee to the filth and kelp-rot, he walked about the many slight curves and bays in the seaside and through the high leg-frames holding aloft the cable housings of tidal millwheels. He jumped over the faucetlike openings of creeks and drains, stopping to examine the ooze and the rippling filament algae in their effluent while swallows darted overhead, dashing to and from modest nests poked into rotten stonework cavities and under eaves, soft clicks in the sky as they snapped at near-invisible bugs.
Farther yet he went until the throb of gastrine enginry became muted to something almost tuneful. In quiet joy he watched the stocky red crabs that diddled jaunty sideways dances, waving cheerfully at him with their singular large claws. With a twist of iron he found half entombed in the silt he prodded at the kelp, washed from the coastal deeps where great forests of the weed grew and made the inshore waters less caustic. A hiss of flight caused him to look up and see a blue heron, neck bent back on itself, swoop in to harry a crab. With a mighty whoop, Rossamund danced down the strand, waving his hat and driving the bird off before it could make a meal of the pitiable critter. He laughed for pure delight as the heron flapped a quick retreat, winging past him with a single croak and a glare of wounded dignity. This, he decided, would have to be the best Domesday vigil of his brief span in the world.
With a hungry lurch in his innards, Rossamund chewed an insubstantial morsel-a crust end from the Dogget amp; Block-and pressed on south. Enjoying the lack of urgency beyond his own empty innards, he watched a row of weed-bunts and their diligent kelp-gathering crews draw about the sagging frame of a disused cofferdam and pass a wallowing prison hulk, ugly, black and rusting. He could not help but imagine the poor souls-deser ving and undeserving together-mouldering in its dark holds: souls like those miserable shackled people he had seen in the spokes.
A mute fluttering dart and a Tweet! above him drew Rossamund's attention. He looked up to find his little sparrow-spy hopping along the stone arch of the gateway to another flight of steps. It peered down at him in turn, beadily unafraid. In a kindly, thoughtless gesture, the young factotum offered his last morsel of crust to nibble. To his amazement the diminutive bird landed boldly in a bluster of nervous wings on the knuckle of his thumb and pecked with remarkable strength at the morsel, black defiant eyes regarding him closely.
Marveling at this plucky bird, Rossamund suddenly declared, "You need a name!"
The sparrow blinked at him.
Nothing clever came to mind.
He is brown, I suppose…, the young factotum observed rather obviously. And he dashes and darts about, he pondered a little lamely, sooo… Darter… Brown?
"Darter Brown." He spoke it out.
It was an odd name, yet the self-important little creature chirruped brightly as if in approval.With something akin to excitement it leaped up to perch on Rossamund's hat brim, causing the thrice-high to list over his eyes.
Rossamund drew his coat collar about his neck and continued his little seaside adventure. Back on the sand he walked farther south, following the meager convex strand, Darter Brown flitting along before him, chasing fat, lazy maritime flies. Going about an outward kink in the shore, they came across a boneyard of vessels left rib-exposed in the tidal muds, stripped of iron, masts and cordage. Their chines protruded corpselike from the silt, skeleton wrecks wallowing unwanted to rot in the shallows, sheltering wading flocks of dappled sandpipers and red-legged stilts.
Maybe a hundred yards away on the inward bend of the kink, a group of well-dressed gentlemen were loitering on the sand, looking powerfully out of place in their urban finery. Something oddly
furtive in their manner gave the young factotum pause, and one striking fellow caught his particular attention. Standing maybe forty yards apart from the main group, this gent was resplendent in a long frock coat of slick carmine with black longshanks and high bright-blacked boots; his hair-tied in a whip-stock-was of the most surprising milk-white. Though he knew of white-blond hair, Rossamund had never seen such a thing, and its singularity was magnified by the peculiar location in which it was discovered. Words he did not catch were traded between this white-tressed gallant and the group. A second individual stepped from their midst, his baton-tailed hair a more ordinary brown but his attire of iridescent forest green no less splendid. There was a shout and the group stood away, scaling the begrimed sea wall by a long, jointed ladder that they must have brought themselves, leaving White-hair and Brown alone on the black strip. Another call and the two were suddenly flourishing pistols, one in each hand, brought out quick like true pistoleroes testing their speed. The quadruple hiss-CRACK! of their discharge came as a single stuttering report, their flashes of smoke whipped away by the rising winds.
At the sound Rossamund naturally ducked as if a mere bundle of drying kelp could protect him, hands fumbling for his potives in their unfamiliarly new digitals.
Darter Brown took wing and vanished over the wall.
Both had shot, yet only White-hair went down, folding in on himself like the closing of a well-made test-barrow. With a kick of sand in his foe's direction, Brown-hair sprang laughing up the ladder, his chums peering down from above sharing the joke. Once he was safely at the top, the ladder was hauled away and the white-haired duelist left writhing on the shore alone.