D Cornish - The Lamplighter

Expressions were blank, except Fransitart and Craumpalin: both were gray-faced, as ill-looking as Rossamund felt. Despairing, Rossamund looked to Europe. The fulgar was not paying him any mind, her astute, raptorial gaze fixed on the surgeon.

"Is it human? Is it monster? This thing sprung from the muds. We do not know for certain," Swill pressed on, unaware of this calculating regard. "What we do know is that what is 'born'-for the need of a better term-is reformed from the debris of human matter, birthed from the threwd, a wicked repeat of some lost and departed person. This we call a manikin, and whatever it might be, this reconstituted creature is certainly not human. I commend to you that if it is not human, then rationally it must be monster, and even if it is not, a manikin is not something we want walking free among us." He paused and looked about the room with evident academic pleasure. "In the case we have before us today, things, I fear, go much deeper than simple sedonition. Rather, events must have proceeded upon similar particulars as I have just related. In some blightedly threwdish dell in the hinterlands of Hergoatenbosch, some poor lost fellow dies and falls. His remains are sucked up by the mud and slowly, by action of heat and threwd, maybe over centuries, they are remade, an abominable simulacrum birthed from the loam; another manikin. And what becomes of it? This manikin is somehow found and taken to a wastrel-house in the city to be raised as an everyman.Yet it is, in fact, not one of us at all."

There was a baffled pause, people's faces intent or dumbly wondering.

"Now, ladies and gentlemen, we all know the name Rossamund-a sweet and apt name for some lovely, cherished girl… and, as it happens, the unfortunate and completely inapt name of this young lighter here"-Swill looked about keenly-"but who of you has heard of a rossamunderling?"

Vacant faces met him.

"None of you?" The surgeon's satisfaction was evident. "I am not surprised; such a word has never appeared on any of the usual taxonomists' lists. I, with all my reading, had not encountered such a word-until recently, that is, a happy accident of my persistent study. How does that interest us? Just so: Ingebiarge is a rossamunderling. All manikins are. You see, after much esoteric study I discovered in the most obscure of texts a most fascinating word: rossamunderling. It means 'little rose-mouth' or, more vulgarly, 'little pink lips.' More astonishingly yet, this word is a name the monsters of the east have for manikins. Rossamunderling-an unterman in the appearance of an everyman. Rossamund." The man now pivoted on his heel, spitting in his passion, and pointed ferociously at Rossamund. "For that is my point! That you-YOU, young Rossamund whatever-you-are-you are that mud-born abomination! You are a manikin! You are a rossamunderling! A thrice-blighted wretchling in human guise!"

There was a great shout of disbelief, of horror, from almost every throat in the room. Threnody jerked away from him, staring at him in dismay.

Rossamund could barely breathe. He did not know whether to laugh or cry or shout down the surgeon's foolishness. Mastering himself, he stood and looked to his old masters, and something in their eyes struck him more than any preposterous accusation of some strutting massacar. For their faces declared more eloquently than explanations that the words of Grotius Swill, secret maker of gudgeons and clandestine traitor to the Empire, might possibly be true.

Europe's gaze was narrow and inscrutable as she peered at Rossamund.

What does she think?

Laudibus Pile sneered, stroking his chin in wicked satisfaction.

The Master-of-Clerks actually managed to look stunned, and the Imperial Secretary with him.

"Yet if you need proofs of my logic, I simply quote this fine young peeress," Swill pursued, "the daughter of the august of our very own faithfully serving calendars."

The Lady Vey sat erect, her face hard and supercilious with hidden distaste, not giving a hint whose side she was for. She turned this brittle gaze to her daughter, and Threnody dropped her head, either unwilling or unable to look at Rossamund.

"This fine girl speaks of his great destroying strength," Swill continued, "a bizarre aberration that immediately piqued my curiosity.Then she explains of his habit of always hiding his smell behind a nullodor. Why would one perpetually wear a nullodor, I asked myself, when one spends one's life safe in the world of men? And the answer came: unless you were trying to hide that you were not a man at all!" The surgeon said this last with a very pointed look at Rossamund. "And of course you did not want to be marked with the blood of your own kind," he cried, "for not only would the idea be repugnant, you know that on your flesh a dolatramentis cannot show, for one monster's blood will surely not make a mark on another!"

The young lighter's thoughts reeled, and he blinked in dismay at the surgeon's accusations.

"More so," Swill pursued, "if what the august's daughter says is true, then this one's masters have conspired with it to hide its nature-a foul and deplorable act of outramour as has ever been documented!"

Fransitart and Craumpalin looked hard at the surgeon and refused to be cowed.

The Master-of-Clerks stared squarely at Rossamund, a conquering glimmer in the depths of the man's studied gaze. "What do you have to say for this, Lampsman 3rd Class?"

Rossamund felt the blood leave his face and sweat prickle on his brow and neck. He could not let these puzzle-headed fallacies pass unchallenged. But what could he say to such outlandish poppycockery?

"Tell me, surgeon," Sicus asked firmly, "how by the remotest here and vere do you propose to substantiate such a bizarre accusation? This young lighter as a sedorner is a charge I am prepared to hear out, but a monster who looks like a person! This is a very long line you plumb, sir. How do you intend to substantiate this obscure conjecturing?"

Swill balked, momentarily stumped, but rallied, a solution clearly blossoming in his thoughts. "If you would but indulge me just a little further, we could but take a little of this-this one's blood; someone could be marked, and in a fortnight or so the proof would be there. Only a monster's blood will make a mark on a person if pricked into the skin."

Threnody gasped.

Sicus and Whympre and his staff were thunderstruck, and the Lady Vey too.

"I'll not let ye cut 'im!" Fransitart cried, half standing but held back by Craumpalin.

Europe still did not move or comment, and the black-eyed wit kept his heavy-lidded scrutiny ever fixed on her.

To the universal surprise of the room, it was Rossamund who spoke in Swill's support. "Take my blood," he said firmly, not quite believing what was coming out of his own mouth.Yet he was resolute. "How else can I show that this… that Mister Swill is wrong?"

"How else indeed? Bravely said, young fellow!" Swill enthused. "And to make it a truly impartial test, it would be best for one member each of the interested parties to be marked. In that way none can accuse the other of fabricating a result."

"This is most irregular, surgeon," Secretary Sicus cautioned.

"A serious and far-fetched charge has been laid at this young lighter, sirs," the Lady Vey interrupted. "I say let a little blood be taken from him and the poor boy's innocence and heritage be established."

"As you wish it, m'lady." Sicus nodded and made a dignified bow.

This sealed it.

Swill chose himself to represent the Empire and the lighters. Fransitart quickly offered himself on Rossamund's behalf.

A small dish, a small bottle, a guillion and an orbis were called for.

Grimacing, Rossamund held out a finger, profoundly aware of the trust he was suddenly placing in a man he considered the blackest of all black habilists.