D Cornish - Foundling

"Uh… Aye, sir," he puffed and set the valise down.

"Well, at least you have come lightly packed. Bravo."

The lamplighter's agent pulled out an oblong of sealed paper and another of folded paper. He handed the sealed paper to Rossamund first, saying, "This is my endorsement to our mutual masters." He gave him the folded paper, saying, "These are my instructions to you and to those who will meet you at the other end. Stow the first safely and read the second carefully." The lamplighter's agent folded his arms and stared with his disturbing eyes. "Your first destination is High Vesting and from there a fortress known as Winstermill. It is a manse, the headquarters of we lamplighters. You will be escorted thither from High Vesting. Your instructions say as much." He squinted. "Hark me, now! Do not dally on your way, but make directly to Winstermill, for my superiors are awaiting you and others like you to begin your 'prenticing. Agreed?"

"Aye, sir." Rossamund carefully stowed the precious documents in his buff leather wallet.

Mister Sebastipole took out his little clock again, opened it and pursed his lips. With a snap of its lid, he declared, "Well, the sooner you start, the sooner away." The leer pointed Rossamund toward steps that went down from the high wall of the canal-side street to the Padderbeck itself. The fog had become almost impossibly thick. Rossamund could barely make out the tottering buildings festering on the other side of the narrow canal, their brooding window-lights of red and green showing only faintly.

"Down there-though you probably cannot see for all this fume," the lamplighter's agent continued with a frown at the muggy air, "down there along this very pier you will find a certain Rivermaster Vigilus waiting to take you aboard his cromster, Rupunzil. The vessel is sound and your way is paid."

Rossamund could see nothing but fog in that direction. "Ah… Aye…"

Mister Sebastipole gave a surprisingly warm smile and bowed. "Well, lad, the moment of departure has arrived, it seems, so I shall bid you a safe journey and leave."

Rossamund was stunned. The lamplighter's agent might not have been the friendliest chap, but such a prodigious journey as that upon which Rossamund was about to embark was, surely, better done with the leer's company than without.

"I… I thought you'd be coming too?" he ventured.

Mister Sebastipole smiled again. "I have other tasks to attend to here in Boschenberg. You will see me again some day not too distant, I'm sure. Just head down the stair and along five berths. A lamplighter's life is independence of thought and deed, my boy. You will need to get used to this as soon as possible. Welcome to the lamplighters!" With that the leer bowed again and walked back up Sooningstrat. Mister Sebastipole waved once from the top of a rise in the street and, with a turn, was gone.

Just like that, Rossamund was on his own. Uneasy, he took up his valise and took the stairs down to the river. The fog was still too thick for him to see his destination. He passed a great post thickly painted white-a berth marker-appearing suddenly out of the gloom, then two more.

As the fourth emerged from the soupy morning vapors, he spied a vessel moored there-or the shadow of one at least. As he approached, the outlines of the craft became clearer. It was indeed a cromster, though one in very poor repair, sitting dangerously low in the water. It did not look at all steady or sound to Rossamund, rather it looked ready to founder even in the calm of the Humour. He frowned. The foundling had not lived so closeted a life that he had not seen dozens-even hundreds-of cromsters plying the mighty river. None of them came close to luxury, but all of them were in far better repair than this tub of rivets.

Cromsters, like most other ironclad river craft, sat low in the water, with a hull and keel that did not descend too deeply into the murky wash. This was necessary since rivers, even as large a stream as this, were much shallower than any sea, but Rossamund was sure that this one sat just a little too low. If the water lapped this near to the gunwale in the calm of a river, surely it would be spilling over it in great washes when the craft encountered even the smallest swells of the most sheltered ocean bays.

As he came closer, Rossamund could see that mean, sickly-looking men were wrestling great barrels aboard the craft.

"Ahoy!" came a call, and a hefty shadow of a man rolled down the sagging gangplank to the pier. "Who might ye be, lubberin' about on th' pier in th' shadowy morning mists?"

Rossamund did not much like being told he was "lubberin'"-it was an unfriendly term seafaring folks used of those who were not. "I'm looking for Rivermaster Vigilus and the cromster Rupunzil!" he declared briskly.

The hefty shadow came closer and clarified itself as an unsavory-looking fellow, tall and thickly built, with broad, round shoulders and matted eyebrows knotting over a darting, conspiratorial squint. His clothes were shabby, though they looked as if they had once been of good quality. His dark blue frock coat, probably proofed, with overly wide sleeves, was edged with even darker blue silk and lined with buff. This garment came down to his knees and covered everything but a pair of hard-worn shin-collar boots. The man emitted a powerfully foul odor, and altogether gave Rossamund a distinctly uneasy feeling.

"And where might ye be from, young master," this fellow asked, almost sweetly, his breath proving even fouler than his general stench, "to need to see such a fellow and such a vessel?"

"I be Rossamund Bookchild from Madam Opera's Estimable Marine Society for Foundling Boys and Girls." Rossamund gave a nervous half a bow. "Rivermaster Vigilus is meant to take me to High Vesting." This stranger might have been smelly, but that did not mean Rossamund had to be rude.

The unsavory fellow seemed to hesitate at this, then gathered himself. "So ye're me lively cargo, lad?" he purred, giving a saucy wink. "Bit unfortunate about yer name, but there ye 'ave it. Still! Grateful to 'ave met ye all th' same." He bowed, removing his tricorn to show gray, greasy hair pulled back in a stubby baton. Patting his own chest, the captain continued. "I be Rivermaster Vigilus, yer ever so 'umble servant."

This comment on his name was certainly among the more blunt Rossamund had yet heard. Already low in his estimation, this fellow-this Rivermaster Vigilus-sunk lower still.

Obviously unconcerned, the rivermaster plowed on. "I'll get ye safe to yer next 'arbor. I've plied this awful river for many a long year and I knows 'er bumps and lumps like th' warts on me own rear!" He declared this so loudly that many of the crew chuckled or sneered. "Thank 'e, lads." He gave a swaggering half bow in the direction of the crew. "This is me crew-sons of a madwoman all!" With a vague wave of his voluminously sleeved arm, he introduced the several dozen bargemen busy loading awkwardly large barrels marked Swine's Lard into the hold. These fellows looked as rough and gruesome as their captain. Rossamund frowned at them and at the rusting vessel they worked.

What was Mister Sebastipole thinking? This lot would barely make it to the Axles, let alone all the way to High Vesting!

The rivermaster must have sensed his concerns, for he cleared his throat and said, "Aye, not th' lithest tub ye've seen, nor th' 'andsomest crew, I'll grant, but there ye 'ave it. She be me other vessel, ye see-me standby as I've 'eard it said. The poor ol' 'Punzil is laid up in ordinary with a great 'ole in 'er ladeboard side. Distressin' I tells ye, and costly too. But there ye 'ave it again." The rivermaster gave a sad sigh and Rossamund felt a certain sympathy for him. When a vessel was laid up in ordinary-that is, deliberately stranded out of the water for repairs-it was often a troublesome business. "Instead, this be the six-gun cromster 'ogshead," he continued. "She'll be our carriage to 'igh Vesting and our quarters till we get there. She's steadier than she looks and sound and able to go into all waters-fit enough to 'ave made th' voyage to 'igh Vesting and back ag'in many times, as sure as I'm standin' 'ere!"