D Cornish - The Lamplighter

Puttinger nodded gravely. "Our brothers is pushed too hard out east and are letting the schmuttlingers through. It is like the people is saying: the Marshal is struggling."

"The Lamplighter-Marshal will have it in hand, and no fear," said Assimus. "We just do as he directs and we'll win through. It's just like that dark time back in-when was it? Ye remember, Putt? When all those nasty spindly things came out from the Gluepot and with them schrewds in hordes and we went out to help… It was 'cause of the Marshal we got 'em then, and we still have 'im now and we'll get 'em now-easy as kiss me hand!"

"Yes." Puttinger did not sound convinced. He stowed the sprither and stepped away, looking suspiciously into the menacing shadows.

Rossamund had read of nickers and bogles-"huggermuggers" Assimus had called them-gathering in numbers in determined assault on some remote or ailing community. In days-now-gone maraudes of monsters would ravage everyman heartlands, even into the parishes and right up to the walls of a city. Such terrors were so rare now as to be mythical, yet it was still the greatest fear of the subjects of the Empire.Within every bosom dwelt the vague dread of cities overrun with murderous, civilization-ending bogles, of gashing pain and effusions of blood, of a world without humankind. Without vigilance, ancient history could too easily become present calamity. It was this dread that made Imperial citizens so determinedly vengeful whenever a sedorner was ferreted out from among them.

Yet here on the edge of the Idlewild, even Rossamund had heard the growing rumors of monsters setting on people in the lands about with alarming regularity; read of it in the few periodical pamphlets he had managed to buy from the paper hawkers who drifted through the fortress. At first he had thought it just a part of rural life, but if weary veterans of the sinew of Lampsmen Assimus and Puttinger were troubled, then Rossamund was moved to be doubly so. He was surely glad to be in the company of a bane, even a weary one.

In the carriage debris a part-crushed hamper had been rescued. By the light of the great-lamp, as the calendars and the lamplighters reluctantly gathered close for safety, Charllette rummaged among the cracked, dribbling pots and smashed, smeared parcels, sharing any unspoiled vittles she found. The pistoleer called Rossamund's portion "a nice bit of coty gaute." He examined it skeptically: it looked like pie filled with odd-smelling chunks.

"It's quail pasty, lamp boy," Threnody said testily. "Just eat it."

Rossamund did so and, even though it was congealed-cold, it tasted rather good.

In the encroaching dusk, green Maudlin rose over the eastern hills and showed how long the night had been. In due time the lamplighter-sergeant returned with a guard of four sturdy haubardiers of the Wellnigh House watch leading a dray pulled by a nervous ox. The animal was draped in a flanchardt, a covering blanket of proofed hessian. It was turned about and took the exhausted, injured or unconscious calendars, their two dead sisters, and their damaged effects back to Wellnigh House. It was agreed better to return to the cothouse rather than go on to Winstermill; better to get indoors as soon as possible while the night still lingered, and with it the threat of more monsters. The proper treatment of wounds would have to wait until the morrow.

"Amble ye by the dray, Master Come-lately," Grindrod commanded. "Keep yerself available to tend their hurts."

So Rossamund walked, as did Assimus and Puttinger and the haubardiers, staying by the ox dray, ready if a script was needed. On the farther side of the woodland Rossamund saw the crumpled bodies of the park-drag driver and his side-armsman. They had been mauled then tossed from the stampeding vehicle to land dead on the side of the highroad. Wrapped in canvas tarpaulins, they were laid on the dray alongside the remains of the two calendars.

The round hills of the Tumblesloe Heap loomed black against the starlit gray.The lanterns became more frequent: at last the cothouse was near. What swelling relief it was to finally spy the beacon flares and window-lights of the small twin keeps of Wellnigh House at the base of the hills. A pair of squat towers stood on either side of the Pettiwiggin, each fenced by a thick drystone wall. These were connected by a hanging gallery known as the Omphalon, a bridge with walls of solid wood and a steep-sloping roof that spanned the road. In this raised gallery were the lighters' quarters, and the sight of lanterns winking from its narrow windows set Rossamund's thoughts to bed and sleep.

At last they entered the walled lane between the two keeps. Here they passed ornate warding censers, great brass domes that squatted in heavy three-legged stands on either side of the road. Within these domes, day and night, nicker repellents were burned, their poison fumes seeping through holes bored in the dull metal. On Rossamund's very first night at Wellnigh House he had sucked a lungful of their foul fetor and for an instant thought his end had come, but the wind had mercifully blown another way and he recovered. From that day he learned to stay upwind of the censers or hold his breath and shut his eyes till he had passed.

What relief it was to pass through the thick oak gates in the broad wall of the northern fastness and stand safe within the cothouse's tiny foreyard.The unhappy deeds that had ruined the night were already common talk there, yet still the calendars received a barely civil reception. The long-faced Major-of-House was waiting for them in the yard and insisted on a brief conference with Grindrod while Rossamund was made to remain in the cold. The lamplighter-sergeant looked mightily unimpressed with what he was hearing. Dolours approached them as they remonstrated under the light of a yard-lamp and the discussion came to an abrupt and obviously unsatisfactory end. The house-major raised a refusing hand, loudly declaring, "That is all, madam! I had my reasons.Take the matter up with our Marshal in Winstermill if you want further hearing." He dismissed Grindrod and called for Rossamund with an authoritative wave.

The young prentice hurried over dutifully while, with stony face, Dolours turned wearily on her heel and returned to her sisters-in-arms.

"I'm told these blighted women have taken a liking to you, boy," the house-major said quickly, not stopping for the inconvenience of an answer, "so you can be their liaison. Meddlesome wenches-you may not find them so agreeable once you've spent time in their company. Take them now to the store on the farther side of the Omphalon. They may rest their troublesome heads there."

Rossamund groaned inwardly. He led the women through the windowless watch room on the ground floor of the north tower, pointing the way down narrow passages of dark wood and through the cramped rooms of a structure built for efficient military function rather than genteel comfort. Up the tight stairway to the gallery he took them, and over, along the access way of the raised gallery and by the night sounds of the already sleeping prentices, to their room beyond in the southern keep. He became aware that a hushed, earnest talk between Threnody and the bane Dolours-begun in the front watch room-had now become a repressed yet passionate struggle. As he stood at the top of the southern stairs to point the way down, he heard Threnody exclaim through clenched teeth with petulant words too low and hissing to distinguish.

Arriving at their hastily arranged quarters, the calendars testily reviewed the inadequate lodging. Crates and goods had been rearranged and foldable cots squeezed between, all still dusty and crawling with earwigs.

Embarrassed, Rossamund bid them fair night with a stiff bow.

Despite their weariness, Dolours and the pistoleer returned the compliment, the bane saying, "Grace and manners. We are obliged to you, young lighter.You have been a great service to us."