D Cornish - The Lamplighter

A new lentum took them out of Wightfastseigh. The replacement carriage was a public coach rather than the post, better sprung, with windows covered in iron grille work, and carrying an extra backstepper, a quartertopman who held a salinumbus and rode alongside the splasher boy. It was a vehicle intended for travel in threatened places. It was also quieter on the road.

On this side of the fortress-city they began to pass wayfaring metal-mending tinkers, script-selling pollcarries and brocanders shopping their secondhand proofing; those who dared the dangerous way in hope that isolation might make people willing to buy their inferior goods. The life expectancy of such as these would not have been long and only desperation could surely drive someone to such work; Rossamund had a sudden glimpse of his privileges, when measured against the lot of these ragged gyrovagues.

As Ashenstall drew near, its window-lights and lanterns glowing merrily against the dour evenfall, the post-lentum eased its pace, its driver clearly intending on making that cothouse their night-stop.

"I have no desire to spend a night in the insalubrious squish of one of your cot-rents," Europe declared testily. She pulled down the grille and rattled her purse ostentatiously at the lenterman, shouting, "Drive on! Take us to the Prideful Poll. It will be well worth the anxiety if you persevere!"

There was a hasty discussion between the carriage-men and a quick conclusion.

The lentum pressed on, going faster now.

Rossamund could hear the horses' frequent whickering, even over the clangor of the carriage's hasty progress. They well knew the unfriendliness of the dark and-shabraqued or not-the tasty treat they presented to night-prowling nickers.

The sun was an hour set and the waning moon well up on its course when Europe pointed through the grille of the window at a square, keeplike structure with a rounded roof built into the cutting on the northern side of the highroad right opposite a great-lamp. Its own gate lanterns made a well-lit spot upon the road before the thick encircling wall. Suspended between them was a circular sign with the silhouette of a proud-looking head and large white letters beneath that read Prideful Poll.

Another wayhouse.

They drew into the slender coach yard and a warm welcome as strong gates closed out the nighttime fears. The next morning, though their rimples were decidedly fatter after Europe's financial incentives, the public-coach lentermen were unwilling to take her and her two young passengers down on to the Frugelle. The nighttime dash to the Prideful Poll was one thing, but a trot along that threatened place was "quite another tan of leather!" as the side-armsman put it. "No amount of counters will get us to shift down on to that there dour place."

Not at all inclined to argue, Europe dismissed them, declaring, "No matter, we shall take the next post east."

Post-lentermen were more game than public coachers.

As they waited, the woman and the girl sipped the Prideful Poll's best claret, while Rossamund stared from an east-facing window at the bleak view. Below was a gray arid plain strewn with countless tufts of dark vegetation. His Imperial Highness' Highroad, the Conduit Vermis, ran out like an anchor cable down on the flat, going steadily east, curving slightly south as it did. This stretch before him showed on the maps as the Pendant Wig. More than a league away Rossamund could see a tiny structure by the road-a cothouse: Patrishalt.The thrum of loneliness was a constant pang here-subtle threwd exquisitely balanced between threat and welcome. He could feel it through the glass, fluttering within him uncomfortably.

They did not wait long. The day's first post pulled into the cramped coach yard with a trumpet blast, bearing no passengers and keen to take some on board. Out in the yard the monotonous wind wailed its melancholy up from the eastern lowlands, bringing a faint stink of rot on its breath. With a quick inspection that all their luggage was intact, Rossamund entered the coach and they were away. Speed was a traveler's best defense out here.

The Wormway wound down the flanks of the hills, following a shallow cleft eroded by a seasonal brook.The post-lentum gathered momentum as it descended the face of the hills. It crossed the Lornstone, an old brick bridge that spanned a gully thick with sighing swamp oaks and stunted pines. On seven great arches the Wormway crossed the bridge and continued along on a stone dike that reached out for a mile into the Frugelle. The great flat was a continuous low thatch of thorny, stramineous stubble.Trees collected in dell or hollow, writhen, dwarfish things, their gray trunks rough and fissured. The unsettled threwd nagged persistently, not foe but certainly not friend.

The travelers' breath steamed inside the lentum cabin. Threnody shivered, glared at the glimpse of frosty sky showing through the grille of the lentum windows and wrapped her furs closer about.

Europe proved unperturbed by it all, rugged in a long, thickly furred huque, hair down in a long plait; she watched everything through her pink quartz-lensed spectacles with regal equanimity. Nothing reached her, and for this Rossamund was deeply grateful. For no matter how the lugubrious threwd pressed in or the chill gripped, the young lighter felt that all things might be compassed with the Branden Rose at the lead.

"My, this is a dreary land," she said, looking around at her two companions. "Yes?"

Rossamund nodded.

From her den of furs Threnody raised an eyebrow and barely shrugged.

"And dreary company too…" Europe arched her spoored brow.

Along his side of the road Rossamund discovered the low, half-buried strongworks he had first spied between Makepeace and Hinkerseigh. This time they were positioned at every third lamp, looking very much like sunken fortifications. But to what purpose? Rossamund wondered.

Built on the connection with the northeast running Louth-Hurry Road, Patrishalt was much like every other cothouse they had passed. With nothing to recommend it as a rest-stop, the lentum delivered a small amount of mail and carried on.

The country varied little, and by the time they achieved Cripplebolt two hours later, all three passengers were dozing. When the lentum was back on its way east with a fresh, new-shabraqued team, Rossamund tucked into the provender bought at Wightfastseigh. Threnody grimaced from over her duodecimo with open disgust as he chewed on the pork sausage in one bite and took a spoon of preserved apricots, plopping about in their earthen jar, in another.

Hiss-CRACK! A musket shot just above shattered the delight of his light repast. It was followed by a short series of thumps joining the din of travel, a pause and then Hiss-CRACK!

"What is happening?" cried Rossamund, ducking at the smack of the second discharge. A puff of gun-smoke burst above, on his side of the lentum, to be whipped away by wind of the vehicle's passage.

"I think you'll find they are warning off a passing nicker," Europe said calmly.

Threnody clambered over to the same side and joined him in a search of the passing land without, frustrated that her view was blocked by the window-grille. "I cannot see what they shoot at," she complained, leaning over Rossamund. "They'd better hit it, the cheeky bugaboo!" she hissed.

"For the nicker's sake let's hope they do." Europe peered briefly through the window-grille. "It would be a kinder death to have a musket ball in your meat than come to hand strokes with me."

There were no further shots and no beast assailed them. The lentum made good time on this flat straight road, and in the paleness of the eastern quarter of the evening sky they spied the rectangular towers of a settlement a-sparkle with lights easily seen from the straightness of the plain.The township of Bleak Lynche.