Foundling (32 page)

 

 

Rossamünd’s eyes went wide. Europe—or “Europa,” as he had just discovered—was a duchess-in-waiting! He had been spending his time with a peer, a highly ranked noble, and one in line to rule a whole city-state! He had rescued, and been rescued by, one who was apparently so far above him in rank, she should never have to even think on him. It was little wonder she was so confident, so self-possessed. Europe had become an even profounder mystery.

Feeling faintly uneasy about being given money earned in the slaughter of an undeserving creature, Rossamünd buried the gift-purse down at the bottom of his satchel.

 

North out of High Vesting went the coach, only a day after he had arrived, and back up the Gainway, whipping past the vegetable sellers. Rossamünd was on the wrong side of the vehicle to be able to wave at them. They traveled faster than the landaulet had on the contrary journey and arrived at the Harefoot Dig by midday. Here the horses were changed and his two traveling companions went into the wayhouse to buy their lunch. Rossamünd remained within the transport and dined on some of the supplies Europe had provided. These included withered ox kidney on expensive dark brown crust and a sachet of small, crescent-shaped nuts that the fulgar had called cashew stalks, with a taste wonderfully salty and exotically sweet.

Soon enough the journey was resumed. They soon made it to Silvernook, passing through with only a pause to pick up mail. Then on they went and entered country Rossamünd had not yet seen. The woodland of the Brindleshaws extended much further north, then stopped quite abruptly as the hills dropped away sharply to an expanse of cultivated flatlands. They looked familiar to the foundling and, from what he could gather from the map in the almanac, he guessed this area to be just another part of Sulk.

Twice more the coach stopped: once by a great hedge, behind which Rossamünd could spy a grand manor house, to let off the silent woman; and a second time in the middle of what appeared to be a great expanse of swampy fields and nothing more. Here the sullen man disembarked, saying “Good afternoon” as he did, catching the foundling so unawares he was not able to respond in time. With both traveling companions gone, Rossamünd had the rare privilege of traveling in a hired coach on his own. He kicked off his shoes and lounged about on either seat, staring at great length at the passing scenes on either side. They went through several small settlements, each one guarded, fenced and gated.

As the coach continued on, the cold clear day became overcast in a thin sort of way, making the afternoon sun a dull off-yellow and turning the veil-like clouds gun-metal gray. The land was becoming wilder here, less well tended and fertile. There was something eerie about its arid breadth. Threwd brooded here, and while the day’s orb was setting, it was a great relief to see the final destination come into view. There, still a few miles distant around a long bend, window-lights twinkling, sat Winstermill Manse.

The name of Winstermill was—so Rossamünd’s almanac read—a corruption of a more ancient title,
Winstreslewe,
given to a ruined fortress upon the high foundations of which the manse now stood. It was built right by a long line of low, yet steep-sided hills and at the beginning of a great gorge which cut through this same range. The manse looked like a country house, yet so much larger, squatter, mightier and much more solid. It had a great many more roofs of heavy lead shingles rising higher and higher as they receded from the front of the structure like a complex range of ever taller hillocks. From the midst of these, lofty chimneys even taller than those of the Harefoot Dig pointed heavenward in baffling profusion like blunt spines. There were several round, crenellated strong points projecting out from a roof’s myriad slopes, the barrels of great-guns showing from some of them.

The manse’s outer walls were angled inward to help deflect the blow of a cannon shot; its lower windows narrow slits barely wide enough to admit light. The great gate was made of thick, weather-greened bronze. Lamps blazed above this threatening portal and an enormous flag, the spandarion of the Empire, a golden owl over a field of red and white, barely showing in the dark, curled and whipped above it all. This was a place made to stand against all threats, and Rossamünd admired its grim defenses.

Most significantly of all, for one about to become a lamplighter, was the long line of brightly flaring lanterns that marched away from Winstermill, threading eastward like a great, glittering necklace, disappearing into the distant dark of the gorge. It was such as these, raised high on tall posts of black iron, that he was surely expected to tend.

The coach turned off the main way, which disappeared into a tunnel made through the very foundations of the manse, and rattled up a steep drive to Winstermill’s bronze gates. These were already opening, and the coach was admitted without having to halt. Within the curtain of the manse’s outer fortifications, Rossamünd had expected to find a bustle of diligent folk marching about on serious business. Instead it was empty of any bustle, or even hustle, and no serious business seemed to be going on anywhere nearby.

A single yardsman came out to them, touching his hat as greeting.
“Winstermill!”
a coachman cried.
“Change ve-hickles if ye wish to travel further!”

Rossamünd alighted and looked about the well-lit yard. It was wide and flat and bare but for one stunted, leafless tree growing by a farther wall. His valise was quickly retrieved for him, and the coach clattered away, together with the yardsman, retreating somewhere beyond the side of the structure. Rossamünd presumed the horses would be stabled, and the drivers rested for the return leg the following day.

The boy was left all alone now, and stood before these august headquarters uncertain of what to do next. As he waited, he wrestled out the bundle of dispatches, ready to hand them to whoever should ask for them. Still no one sallied forth to greet him. In the end, if only to avoid the bitter cold, he walked to the most important-looking set of doors and, finding them unbarred, pushed his way within.

Inside was a large, blank room, square and empty. There was another door at the farther end and Rossamünd walked over to this and went through. Now he found himself at one end of a long wide hall with walls painted green like a lime in season and a single narrow rug patterned in carnelian and black running the whole length of the stone floor. A person in uniform stood about halfway down. Rossamünd strode along this lime hallway and offered up the dispatches promptly to this uniformed person—a tough-looking fellow with oddly cut hair.

As he did, Rossamünd addressed the man just as he had been trained to do, for serving upon a ram. “Rossamünd Bookchild, sir, recently arrived and ready to serve aboard—uh—to serve . . . you . . . here.”

The rough-looking fellow looked at him, and then at the wad of paper the foundling held, without curiosity. “Not for me, son. Hand it to one of those pushers-of-pencils inside there,” he said, with gruff authority, pointing to a pair of flimsy-looking, finely carved doors at the end of the lime hall.

“Oh . . .” said Rossamünd.

His initial flush of courage now spent, the foundling entered those ornamented doors nervously. Beyond was an enormous, square space with a ceiling high above, and the clatter of the opening door rang and echoed within. Along the distant farther wall was a massive wooden structure of drawers, cabinets and rolling stepladders—what he would learn later was the immense and complex document catalog, in which all the correspondence and paperwork of the lamplighters eventually found its final burial place. To the foundling’s left, and to his right, facing out from either wall, were two dark wood desks. A studious-looking man worked behind each, the one on the left looking up at him briefly as he entered, and the one on the right keeping his head down and his hand scribbling.

Between the two desks was a great blank area of cold slate, and Rossamünd, with each footstep clip-clopping too loudly, moved to stand right in the middle of this barren space. He looked to his right, then to his left. Both clerks continued their close attention to their work and offered nothing to the new arrival. With no idea of which way to go, Rossamünd repeated a little rhyme in his head to solve this puzzle, thinking either left or right with each subsequent word. The rhyme itself was a short list of faraway, semi-mythical and notoriously threwdish places, and it always fired Rossamünd’s imagination:

He finished on his right.
Right it is!
He went
clip-clop, clip-clop
and stood before that desk. Holding out the letters, he repeated himself, “Rossamünd Bookchild, sir, recently arrived and ready to serve as a lamplighter.”

This clerk looked up with a scowl upon his sharp, bespectacled face. He continued to write, even though his attention was no longer on the task.

“Not me, child!” he snarled. “Him!” He put his nose back to his scribbling.

He could only have meant the other clerk, way across on the opposite side.

Right it isn’t, then
. Rossamünd held back a sigh.

He turned on his heel and clip-clopped-clip-clopped to the left-hand desk and its equally diligent clerk. He spoke his introduction for a third time, and this clerk stopped writing, put down his pencil and stood.

“Welcome, Rossamünd Bookchild. My name is Inkwill. I am the registry clerk. You have been expected.” He took the dispatch bundle from the foundling and they shook hands. “It’s a good thing you have arrived now. After today we were going to give up on you. If you had got here tomorrow, we would have turned you away, I’m afraid. In the nick of time, as they say.”

As Inkwill the registry clerk sorted through the dispatches, he held up a tightly folded oblong of fine linen paper.

“This is yours, I reckon,” he said, waving the article at Rossamünd.

Puzzled, Rossamünd took it slowly. It was a letter made out to him in the script of someone he knew well and loved dearly:Verline. He had been carrying it the whole length of his travel from High Vesting, and could have read and reread it at his leisure aboard the coach. He was desperate to open it, but had to wait.

Inkwill put the dispatches down and sat again. He organized a wad of papers, took up his pencil and began to quiz Rossamünd with all manner of question: age, eye color, height, weight, origin, race; on and on they went. Often they were incomprehensible: political affinities, species bias. Whichever answer Rossamünd gave, no matter how incoherent, was filled in on the relevant forms. When each form was completed, Inkwill rewrote it twice more. Having completed this task, he then looked over the foundling’s newly redrafted documents and papers and read the covering letter with fixed attention.

Rossamünd’s eyes nearly bugged from their sockets as he waited, breath held, to see how these temporary certificates would be received.

“I see,” Inkwill said at last. “Witherscrawl won’t like these; neither will the Marshal . . . ’tis no matter. These are perfectly legal.” He gave a slight smile as his attention shifted to the boy before him. “Been through some . . . interesting times getting here, have we?”

Rossamünd nodded emphatically. “Aye, sir, an adventure of them.”

Inkwill’s smile broadened. “You’ll have to tell me sometime.” With that he took out yet more documents and began copying pertinent details from Rossamünd’s papers. When the registry clerk was done, and all the forms properly blotted and indexed, he politely told Rossamünd that he was to now make his way over to the other clerk.

“He is our indexer, and he is called Witherscrawl. He will enter you into our manning list, so that from now on you will be called on the roll, and be reckoned a lamplighter.” Inkwill stood and shook Rossamünd’s hand once more. “Welcome to the Emperor’s Service.”

“Thank you, Mister Inkwill,” Rossamünd returned, somewhat bewildered. “I will try and do my very best, just as I was taught to, sir.”

“Good for you. Now take this receipt and this excuse-card to Witherscrawl. I will see you tomorrow.”

With that, Inkwill went on with whatever it was he went on with, and ceased paying any attention to the foundling.

Clutching a wallet of new papers and certificates, Rossamünd stepped cautiously across the gap back to the sharp-faced, sharp-mannered clerk Witherscrawl.

“Um . . . Mister Witherscrawl, I . . .” he began.

With a sour look, the clerk snatched the receipt and excuse-card from Rossamünd’s hand.

“I, ah . . .” the boy tried.

“Shut it! I know my business!” The indexer looked down at the excuse-card with sinister deliberation and a cruel turn to his mouth. A hoarse growl wheezed in his throat. “Little weevil couldn’t do a simple thing like keep his most important papers safe . . . !” His beady eyes shot Rossamünd an evil glare. “Makes me wonder why we are even bothering to take him in. Sit down!”

With a start, and, as there were no chairs about, Rossamünd obediently sat on the cold stone floor.

Taking a pencil in both hands, Witherscrawl proceeded to write furiously into several books and ledgers, and onto several lists. When each entry was done, he would thump it violently with a wooden handle attached to a large, flat sponge. Rossamünd winced at every blow.

Witherscrawl eventually leaned over his desk and looked down upon the foundling, his eyes squinting meanly behind his spectacles. “You have certainly taken your time to get here,” he spat. “Gave Germanicus an awful messing around, you did. Too good for us, are you, to make your way promptly?” He poked a finger at Rossamünd’s face. “A lamplighter’s life is
punctuality
, boy! You had better get your habits about this, or your time with us will be brief—troubled and brief.”