D Cornish - The Lamplighter

"She would lecture at me and I would disagree and we would start screaming and I would be sent away somewhere with Dolours till Mother could bear to see me again."

"But what about the Emperor's Billion?" Rossamund pressed.

"What about it?" Threnody snapped. "My mother has a larger mandate than that! Our clave's Imperial Prerogative takes precedence over simple tokens."

"Imperial Prerogative?"

She gave him the by-now-familiar are-you-really-that-stupid? look and said after a sigh, "It allows us to do and be without the states troubling us. It is granted by the Emperor himself, and not every clave has one." She finished with a proud sniff.

Before them the Conduit Vermis descended into a broad, shallow valley of scruffy pastures hemmed to the north by a spur of bald hills and to the south by the rolling, pastured fells of the Sparrow Downs. It was an unremarkable land. Rossamund stared at the distant downs, wondering if an urchin-lord truly was there watching and sending out its little sparrow-agents from its leafy courts.

As the day grew longer, traffic began to pass going the other way. There were other post-lentums with returning dispatches; barouques and landaulets, perhaps taking the well-to-do to High Vesting or Brandenbrass; dyphrs dashing on errands; crofters commuting in curricles between land and town.They also began to overtake slow-moving higglers with their trays of fripperies, stooklings with their enormous bundles of sticks, laborers with their barrows, vendors with their donkey carts; and always, whether in their direction or against, the ox drays and mule crates of the merchants.

Another lamppost flicked past.

It was going to be a long stretch to Wormstool.

"Ah," Threnody exclaimed, of a sudden, stirring Rossamund from his sorrows, "I am sharp-set-it must be time for middens."

The prentice craned a look out the window at the gun-metal sky. The sun hid behind the even cover of clouds. He could not tell what hour it was-surely well past midday, yet his stomach told the time more truly with a noisy poppling gurgle.

Threnody gave out a peculiar laughing bark. "Your gizzards think so too, it appears!" She extracted a ditty bag from among her cushions and wraps, and shared her pong with dried-and-salted pork and a handful of millet, all washed down with a brown bottle of small beer.

Sick of the little varying diet of the Emperor's Service, Rossamund took some food and ate perfunctorily. Dull grief would not let him eat. However, once started, he found his appetite returned and he supped heartily enough.

At the meal's end, Threnody took out a vial of sticky red Friscan's wead.

Rossamund stared fixedly out of the window as she drank, not wanting to invite some petulant overreaction.

With shadows growing long as the bulk of Tumblesloe Heap brought an early sunset, and their rumps sore from too much sitting, they passed the lantern-watch of Dovecote Bolt wending west, fodicars on shoulder, winding out the lonely lamps. The lampsmen hailed the lenterman, but paid no heed to the passengers.

Gloaming finally gave up to darkness as they followed the glittering chain of new-lit lamps and arrived at the cothouse itself. Dovecote Bolt was a high-house: whitewashed walls upon exposed stone foundations, with a fortified stairway to the only door at the very top of the structure, a high wall extending behind it and a crowd of glowing lanterns at its front. It was built close by a sludgy ford over the beginnings of a little stream known as the Mirthlbrook. Just before the ford the post-lentum turned, went through a heavy gate and halted in the modest coach yard at the rear of the cothouse.

The splasher boy opened the door, unfolded the step and said with a parched croak, "First stop. And an overnight stay till tomorrow's post."

As luggage was retrieved, lampsmen appeared from within bearing bright-limns to light their way and dour expressions to greet them. The seven-strong garrison of this modest cothouse seemed very tight, veterans with a long record of service together. However, they had little cheer for new-promoted lampsmen, looking especially hard at Threnody as she mounted the stair and entered the guardroom. It occupied the entirety of that floor, and with benches and trestles, doubled as a common room for meals. The two young lamplighters were directed to the cramped office of Dovecote Bolt's house-major, found in an attic-space loft of the steep roof.

Introducing himself as Major-of-House Wombwell, he spoke to them in a stiff yet welcoming manner.

"Good evening to you, young… er-prentices!" he said, eyeing Threnody with a confounded expression. His eyes became wider as he saw the small spoor upon her face. "Why have you come to us from our glorious manse? Wellnigh is the usual range of your watch, is it not?"

"Ah," said Rossamund, "we are on the way to our billet, sir."

"To your billet?" The house-major bridled. "Preposterous! Billeting Day is not for another month."

"It has been called early by our dear new Marshal-Subrogat," Threnody explained with affected amusement.

"Marshal-Subrogat?" the man quizzed her.

"Aye, sir," Rossamund answered, getting a word in before Threnody for fear of some rash statement from her. "The Master-of-Clerks has filled the place of the Lamplighter-Marshal."

"So it is true, then: the Lamplighter-Marshal is called away and that old fox Podious is top of the heap. They even let lasses serve as lighters now, I see-troublesome times are here…"

The house-major asked them some further questions on minor details of Winstermill's running and then they were dismissed.Threnody, much to the bemusement of the lighters, was granted access to the kitchens to make her plaudamentum.

"Blighted Cathar's baskets as lighters-by my knotted bowels, who'd reckon it?" Rossamund could hear the house-major mutter as they left him.

"Would you need help with your treacle, Threnody?" Rossamund offered as they were shown down to their cots by the cot-warden: a surly, scabby-faced lighter-one of the permanent house-watch, too old now to walk the highroad.

The girl paused, contriving to look bemused, amazed and annoyed all at once. "No thank you, I will boil my own," she huffed, and left him to find the kitchen.

When she returned, they were served mains by the same surly cot-warden now acting as kitchen hand. Incongruously the meal of boiled beef, onions and rice from the tiny kitchen tasted better than anything made by Winstermill's vast cookery.

Left well alone on their cots by the lampsmen,Threnody read as Rossamund contended with a bout of the blackest sorrow.

When the lamp-watch arrived from Sallowstall, their thumping and calling reverberating through the boards above, Threnody made trouble by asking for a privacy screen. Churlishly, the old cot-warden and two of the lighters answered her demand, setting a dusty old screen for her with much ungracious puffing and banging and stomping. Finished, the cot-warden left them, muttering grumpily, "Anything else yer highness wants doing…" Behind the screen, by golden lantern-light, Threnody did those mysterious things girls did before going abed. When she was done, she pushed the screen away and got into her rough cot. She was in a voluminous white nightdress, her hair gathered and hidden beneath a sacklike, ribbon-tied crinickle. Rossamund had never seen her in this way. She had been careful never to show herself after douse-lanterns back at Winstermill. The nightclothes and hat made her look curiously vulnerable. He prepared for sleep more publicly, his wounded head throbbing as it had not done for some days.

Sleep was hard-won that night. Rossamund wrestled with his troubles as he lay in the cold listening to Threnody's easy breathing. Fed a hasty breakfast the next morning, they were allowed barely enough time for brewing Threnody's treacle. A slap of reins and a shout, and the lentum went on, the weird song of unseen birds echoing across the foggy valley their only farewell. Feeling empty and exhausted, Rossamund bid the Bolt a silent good-bye. Threnody slid over to Rossamund's side of the carriage and, pulling back the drape, stared at the low northward hills where Herbroulesse was hidden, still dark despite the morning glow. "Till anon, Mother," she murmured, and kept her vigil till they were well past the cothouse and the lesser road too.