D Cornish - The Lamplighter

All through the rest of the day, he was in anxious expectation of discovery. At morning parade he waited for the Master-of-Clerks to arrive and announce the wicked theft of bloom-rubbish from beneath the Scaffold.Through morning evolutions Rossamund kept looking guiltily over at the gaunt tree, convinced a mercer would run up and announce that "some unknown miscreant had meddled with the rightfully exposed collucia plants!"

None of this happened.

By middens, Rossamund was eager to restore the rescued glimbloom to Numps.

The glimner was still in bed, sitting up, sipping at some fine-smelling broth-probably a kindness of Doctor Crispus-and looking utterly spent from all his grieving. Gratified the man was cared for, nevertheless Rossamund felt his heart ache to see Numps so woebegone.

"Mister Numps," Rossamund ventured, "I–I tried to save your bloom yesternight, but… but this was all I could get. The rest was too high off the ground." He proffered the bloom-packed lark-lamp and the glimner's eyes went so round Rossamund feared they might pop right from their sockets. For a terrible beat or three of his anxious heart, the prentice thought he had woefully miscalculated, and simply added to the glimner's distress.

"You rescued poor Numps' poor friends," the man managed brokenly. He took the small lamp in shaking hands and gradually his hauntedness gave way to profound delight as joy blossomed into ecstasy. "Oh, my friends!" Numps cried, in both shouts and tears. "Oh, my friends!" The unscarred side of his face became wet with weeping, yet the riven side stayed dry, his ruined eye tearless.

Despite the dramatic events, many of the lantern-sticks were largely unperturbed by the Marshal's departure. Grindrod and Benedict did their utmost to preserve the routine.The next day the prentices had just completed the usual afternoon reading on Our Mandate and Matter with Seltzerman Humbert when Benedict hustled into the lectury declaring in amazement, "They're holding Billeting Day early!"

Almost the moment these words were out, the grandiose figure of the Master-of-Clerks, the Marshal-Subrogat himself, appeared at the lectury door, gracing them all with his presence. He held his chin at a dignified tilt. As always, the man was served by his ubiquitous retinue: Laudibus Pile; Witherscrawl, and now Fleugh the under-clerk; the master-surveyor with diagrams of the manse permanently gripped under his arm; and two troubardier foot-guards.With them also came a lanky, frightening-looking fellow dressed all in lustrous black: heavy boots, black galliskins over tight leggings, black satin longshanks. His trunk was swathed in a sash of sturdy proofed silk, neck thickly wrapped in a long woolen scarf yet-most oddly-his chest and shoulders and arms were bare, despite the aching chill, showing too-pale against all the black. His head was bald, and a thin dark arrow pointed up his face from chin to absent hairline, its tines splaying out over each brow. He was a wit. More disconcerting still was that his eyes were completely black-no white orbs, just glistening dark.This was some strange trick of chemistry Rossamund had not heard of.The combination of this blank, pitch-dark stare with Pile's snide, parti-hued gaze stilled the whole room as they moved within.

With a thump of determined footfalls Grindrod appeared behind them all, muttering to himself, his face screwed up in silent invective. "Sit" was all he said.

The prentices obeyed with meek alacrity.When all shuffling and snuffling ceased, the Master-of-Clerks paced before them, hands behind his back, puckering his lips and squinting at the platoon as if shrewdly appraising them all.

"Brave prentices," he declaimed, "you have worked at your practicing with admirable zeal and laudable facility. Fully confident in your fitness, I am convinced you are ready for full, glorious service as Emperor's lighters, and have decided it timely for you to be granted your billets and to be sent promptly to them."

That had most of the prentices scratching their heads, pained frowns of lugubrious thought creasing several brows. Does that mean it's Billeting Day or what?

How would he know what the state of our fitness for service is? was the spin of Rossamund's own thinking. He has naught to do with us!

With a harsh, self-conscious throat-clearing, Grindrod stood forward, clearly struggling to contain his temper. "Sounds an admirable conclusion, sir, but the lantern-sticks bain't ready for the work. Ye let a half-trained lad out on the road by himself and ye might as well toss 'im straight to the fetchman!"

"Pshaw! I'll not have your womanish obstructions, Lamplighter-Sergeant-of-Prentices." The Master-of-Clerks enunciated Grindrod's full title in the manner of a put-down. "They are required out on that road to make up for the appalling losses incurred under my predecessor."

The Lamplighter-Sergeant went purple with indignant rage, but the Master-of-Clerks carried on, not allowing the man an opportunity to press any further dissent.

"Staffing at the cothouses must be restocked. We have twenty-one-no, twenty-two"-he corrected himself with an enigmatic look to Threnody, sitting straightbacked at the front of the room-"hale souls trained in the lampsman's labors, and as ready as anyone can be, surely, to wind a simple glowing weed in and out its chamber. It is a terrible waste of a resource and one I have decided can be better employed filling these gaps on the road than lolling about here being taught the same thing over and over. It is not difficult work, Sergeant. If they have not come to grips with the task by now, I fail to see how another month will make it so."

"Another month is all the difference, sir!" Grindrod glowered. "They're bare-breeched bantlings who set to whimperin' at the slightest speak of bogles! Ye should be hiring those blighted sell-swords bivouacked outside the Nook, or get them lardy magnates in the Placidine itself to spare a platoon or two of their blighted domesticars! Either way, sir, trained, professional men-at-arms used to the rigors of war. Ye might not know, sir, hidin' behind yer ledgers and quill pots, that it's war out upon the road, sir, and it's we lowly lighters who are in the van!"

The Master-of-Clerks bridled for a moment and then, with admirable equanimity, said soothingly, "I'm sure you're a fellow who knows his business well enough when teaching a poor lad his first clues, but it now falls to me to choose their best uses. That is to be the end of it, Lamplighter-Sergeant-I do not want to be put in the position of having to take you in firmer hand. Indexer Witherscrawl," he said, dismissing Grindrod with a turn of his gorgeously bewigged head, "read the tally if you please."

The sour indexer stepped forward, glared at the prentices-at every single one-and especially at Threnody. "Harkee, ye little scrubs! Here is the Roll of Billets, of who will go to where and when they will leave. Listen well-I shall tell this only the once!"

What! The prentices could not quite believe this: they were to be denied the full honors of a beautiful and especial ceremony. There were supposed to be martial musics; the whole manse was meant to turn out in respect at the boys' success in prenticing and their coming into full rank as lampsmen. A susurrus of deep displeasure stirred about the boys.