D Cornish - The Lamplighter

"Eyes front, you slugs!" barked Grindrod, as several boys turned their heads to see.

The vehicle dashed past the parade, peppering those standing nearest the drive with fine gravel flicked from its wheels, and pulled up sharply before the great steps of the manse.

Most of those on the podium made to continue, a bloody-minded show of their disregard for the impetuous arrival. Yet, as the Surveyor-of-the-Works finished his housekeeping plaints and before the Master-of-Clerks could return to reiterate, the Lamplighter-Marshal stepped forward and, to general relief, ended proceedings prematurely. Finally, with a blare of horns and a rattle of toms, the pageant-of-arms was done.

Grindrod dismissed the prentices with a simple order of "Port arms!" — perhaps keen himself to be on with the vigil-day rest. "Master Lately, be sure to report to the kitchens," he reminded Rossamund with no evident satisfaction. With that the lamplighter-sergeant walked abruptly off to join other sergeants milling at the edge of the Grand Mead to watch the small carriage.

Released from the painfully motionless dumb show of the pageant, the delighted prentices hurried off to get ready for the jaunt to Silvernook, all interest in the dyphr forgotten in their eagerness to be away.

Rossamund stayed. He was intensely curious to know of the passengers and in no hurry to start a long day of pots-and-pans.

Threnody too observed the carriage, her expression strangely intense. She gave a soft groan. "Yes, Mother, I have been a good girl…"

Rossamund looked askance at her.

She appeared not to have noticed he was there. He gave a subtle cough.

Threnody nearly betrayed her surprise, but with a haughty toss of raven tresses recovered. She cocked an eyebrow emphatically at the lentum and said bombastically, "Who is it that has so quickly come in yonder conveyance, you want to ask? Why, it's my mother, come to chastise her wayward daughter no doubt, and sermon me on the honor of our clave."

"Your mother?"

"Indeed. She cannot leave me be for a moment! I am not a week gone and she is come to crush me back into her shape."

The Lamplighter-Marshal now approached the carriage with Inkwill and a quarto of troubardiers. He was followed by the Master-of-Clerks and that man's attendant crowd. Dolours too had appeared, walking over from the Officers' Green, her favorite spot it seemed, from where she must have been watching the entire pageant unheeded.Two calendars had already emerged from the dyphr clad in the mottle of the Right of the Pacific Dove, and they acknowledged the bane's approach with subtle hand-signs. Rossamund recognized one as Charllette the pistoleer, though the other he did not know. Standing proud upon the manse steps, the marshal-lighter greeted the passenger within the carriage with elegant manners, giving a gallant bow as he handed her out.

"Well betide you, O Lady Vey. A hale welcome to you, August of the Columbines, and to your attendants, from we simple lighters." His declaration was gracious without being fawning.

The last passenger, a woman with hard eyes, hooked nose and a sardonic curl to the corners of her mouth, emerged and responded with equal decorum. "Well betide you, sir," the Lady Vey enunciated beautifully. She was tall, with black hair the hue of her daughter's, yet hers was as straight as Threnody's was curly. Like everyone that morning, she was dressed against the chill in a thick mantle of precious, fur-lined silk with a sumptuous fitch of bristling white dove feathers about her neck and shoulders. Lady Vey stepped away from the dyphr with all the poise and arrogance of a peer. She glared at the lowering sky and pulled her mantle close with a twirling, theatrical flicking of its hems.

So that was the Lady Vey, the great august of a calendar clave. So that was Threnody's mother.

"Ah! There is my laude, the Lady Dolours," the woman declared with a tight smile.

"Always her first, isn't it, Mother?" Threnody muttered. "Never a kind thought or concern for me…"

Dolours bowed low, with apparent deep and genuine respect.

"She has been abed with fever, gracious August," the Lamplighter-Marshal declared. "But our locum has seen to her as best he can."

"And Pandome, my handmaiden?" The august looked at the faces about her. "I hear she is badly hurt."

"Your handmaiden mends well in the infirmary… and your daughter too has been installed safely in her new role. We are glad to have her among us."

"Yes, very good." The Lady Vey looked over her shoulder and gazed around slowly. She saw her daughter immediately, as if she knew where she was all along. Something profound and complex transmitted between mother and daughter, something beyond Rossamund's comprehension. For all her tough talk and showing away, Threnody seemed to flinch, and hung her head in uncharacteristic defeat. The Lady Vey swept up the manse steps, unheeding of the bureaucrats and the attendants all deferring a pace to give her room as she slid past.

Threnody rolled her eyes, bravado quickly returning. "Off to my executioners," she said with ill-feigned indifference.

Rossamund frowned and blinked. "Pardon?"

"My mother is never happy with me," she sighed. "And I go to find out just how unhappy she is…"

"Oh."

Hardening her face and hiding her dismay, Threnody obeyed some invisible command and left to join the new arrivals.

Left alone as the day-trippers left for Silvernook, Rossamund went his reluctant way to the kitchens.

Mother Snooks did not want to see him. Looking haggard, she dismissed the young prentice from her sight almost as soon as he entered. "Be on ye way! Whatever wicked crimes ye have to serve yer wretched day atonin' for, it won't be done here. Go!"

Knowing full well that Grindrod had just departed on a south-bound lentum, Rossamund was puzzled as to what to do next. It was tempting to exploit this as a twist of fortune and take an easy day after all. However, if he did not serve one imposition now, he would only have to serve two later. Knocking at the sergeants' mess door, he asked Under-Sergeant Benedict instead.

"Well, Master Bookchild," the under-sergeant said, stroking his chin, "we must find you another task, else our kindly lamplighter-sergeant might set you more. If the Snooks won't have you, then perhaps Old Numps will."

"Who?" Rossamund asked.

"He's a glimner working down in the Low Gutter.You'll find him in the lantern store, Door 143, cleaning lantern-panes. You can clean them with him-a nice simple task for a vigil-day imposition."

Rossamund felt anxious. He had heard of the mad glimner in the Low Gutter. It was the same fellow Smellgrove had been telling of at Wellnigh.

"Be on your way, lad," Benedict instructed, "and work with Numps till middens. I'll report to Grindrod that your duty-we'll call it panel detail-was served. Don't look so dismayed."

Rossamund tried to blank his face of worry.

Benedict smiled and scratched the back of his cropped head. "The glimner might have the blue ghasts from a tangle with gudgeons, but from what I hear the fellow is harmless."

Rossamund did not share the under-sergeant's confidence.

Except for targets in the Toxothanon, Rossamund had never gone down into the Low Gutter. He had often wanted to explore its workings, but he now descended the double flights of the Medial Stair with flat despondency. A Domesday vigil wasted.