Lamplighter (57 page)

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.

heldin(s)
mighty folk of ancient history who fought with the monsters, employing their infamous therimoirs to keep the eoned realms of humankind safe. Known by many collective titles, including beauts (common), haggedolim (Phlegmish), herragdars (Skyldic), heterai (Attic), orgulars (Tutin), sehgbhans (Turkic) and what we would call “heroes”.The time of their supremacy, when they were relied upon to stand in the gap between everymen and üntermen, is known as the Heldinsage. Said to have begun with the Phlegms—those most ancient forebears—and ended with the Attics, their heirs, it was the time of Idaho, the great queen of the Attics, and of Biargë the Beautiful, among many other glorious and infamous folk and their usually tragic stories. Not all of the weapons of the heldins were destroyed in the violent cataclysms that punctuated and finally concluded that time: many are said to remain, and are most highly prized by collectors and combatants.

 

 

 

T
HE next morning, gray and misty and eerily still, Rossamünd was already harnessed when the ritual call came—“A lamp! A lamp to light your path!” Without stopping for breakfast, Rossamünd went straight down to the Low Gutter, through the labyrinthine Skillions. Kneeling over the deserted grate that led to Numps’ desecrated bloom baths, the young lighter called and called Numps’ name till he was hoarse, but no pallid, welcoming, twisted face loomed on the darkened steps below.

Rossamünd pulled on the grate and found it was locked.

He gave one last cry, and ran to the lantern store, looking dusty and seldom used, but the glimner was not in there either. Rubbing his face, Rossamünd tried to marshal his increasingly anxious conjectures.

Doctor Crispus will know!
To the infirmary he went, and found the physician working as he always had, tending the few ill or wounded fellows there.

“Have you seen him?” Rossamünd pressed intently. “Is Mister Numps recovered from his grief?”

“Cuts and sutures! No, I have not had sight of Numps, young Master Bookchild,” the profoundly startled Crispus replied. “And well betide you, young sir, all questions and no greetings!” he added. “I had no notion you would ever be back with us!”

“Sorry, Doctor Crispus. Hallo, sir. I was just down in the Skillions looking for Mister Numps.”

The physician laughed, a tight nervous sound, and directed Rossamünd into his study. “All I can confirm,” the man said when the door was shut, “is that the astute fellow has taken to living in the damp cellars under our very feet. I put out food in his lantern store at the start of every week, and each time I have returned to do it again, the previous parcels are gone. It seems a satisfactory arrangement, though it probably cannot last. Nevertheless, I shall keep at it till events dictate otherwise. And for you, my boy, why are you here? I heard of the terrible things done at Wormstool. It does me a great good to see you hale.”

“The clerk-master has called Threnody and me back,” he said, sitting upright and tense on the seat Crispus offered him. “He says that the things that happened at Wormstool are too terrible to not inquire after properly. He also says he wants to investigate ‘irregularities.’ ”

“I am sure he does,” Crispus exclaimed. “Guilty minds are suspicious minds.”

“You received my letter, Doctor?”

“I did, my boy, I did.” The physician stared at his well-ordered desktop for a moment.

“I sent the same to Mister Sebastipole,” Rossamünd added, fishing out the letter from Sebastipole and passing it over. “This was his reply.”

Crispus took the missive and “hmmed” a lot as he read. “The gears of bureaucracy turn against us, Master Bookchild,” he said at last, waving the letter. “The most difficult thing in all of this topsy-turvy hubble-bubble is proof.”

“Have you discovered any, Doctor?”

“Regrettably, no,” Doctor Crispus said flatly. “Our not-so-temporary Marshal has reversed my position, and against all custom and decency that sawbones Swill is my superior: a surgeon over a physician! I am not certain that it is even legal. But that is the lay of things, and consequently my movements about the manse are severely restricted. So you and Mister Sebastipole and I can wonder and surmise all we like, but like the leer says, it is all useless without tangible proofs, and these none of us is in the position to obtain.”

“Miss Europe says the same.” Rossamünd’s shoulders sagged. Then a bright idea struck. “I could find proof. I got into the cellars before, I can do it again.”

“Lah! The boy is a heldin reborn!” Crispus exclaimed. “They cover their activity too well. If Mister Sebastipole could not find evidence or even traces of the same, what hope have you with your less cunning senses? No, no, no, Rossamünd. You are in things deep enough, I think! Having said that, you should destroy this letter—their finding proof against
us
. . . against
you
. . . would be terribly counteractive.”

“How is it that we are not able to stop such clear wrongdoing?” Rossamünd said in suppressed indignation.

“I am afraid, my boy, our foes are well ahead of us in the use and experience of cunning and shrewdery,” said Crispus resignedly.

“But it can’t be that they are allowed to go on making rever-men and ruining lives!”