D Cornish - Foundling

Tipping water from the valise and the satchel, Rossamund arranged his belongings about him so that they might dry. He would repack them before he set out-damp, ruined or otherwise, preferring them wet and wrecked to lost. Hanging his weskit next to the jackcoat, so it too might dry, he lifted up his shirt and messily splashed Exstinker on the sodden bandage. Tucking himself back in, he settled himself in the most secluded nook to wait out the rest of sunlight. After five days on the cromster, he had become accustomed to the subtle movements of the vessel in the water. His senses still pitched and swayed gently as he lay there, almost rocking him to sleep.

Some small bird squeaked three times, then shot away, with a whir.

Rossamund blinked heavily. In his hand he gripped a bottle of tyke-oil. With the bothersalts ruined, it was all he had to ward off monsters. At the first sign of one, he would splash it in its face and run. With this determination the memory of the frightening stories told by the older boys at the foundlingery came unsought. Night, they used to say, was when monsters grew bold, when the nickers roamed and the bogles haunted. He had not the slightest doubt that night was when all sorts of strife could occur, but night would also allow him to travel unnoticed by people-especially those in the Spindle. At that moment, search parties from the rivergate scared him more. Hugged in his own arms, Rossamund managed to doze the rest of the afternoon, his chest hurting where the musket ball had struck. At one point he woke and thought he could reckon the faint pounding of guns again, carried from a long way off by gentle afternoon breezes.

The monitors must have caught the Hogshead…

When evening came, he put back on his clothes, now dry enough to wear. He gathered his near-dry gear and packed it all once more, tidy and secure, as he had watched Master Fransitart do. Reluctant to leave, he took his time, gently shaking both valise and satchel several times to test for unnecessary rattles, and repacking them again and again till there were none. All the time, a gurgling knot of fear churned in his middle. For a time he was stuck between terror of the dark and the unknown dangers ahead, and the anxiety of still being so close to the Spindle. In the end, out of sheer frustration, he set out from his hide of she-oak needles, his pulse pounding in his ears with every step.

He walked as quickly as he might across the too-soft earth of the plowed, open field that went back from the riverbank. To his left, lantern and limn-thorn lights of yellow, orange and green twinkled in a deceptively friendly way all along walls and in the slit windows of the Spindle. Dark shadows lurked beyond its eastern end-the shapes of the trees that made the small wood there. A distant line of lamps extended east from the rivergate through and beyond this wood, then turned south where flat open field and pasture spread to the horizon. This land offered easy traveling but little cover. The faintly sparkling line was evidence of the road Rossamund had counted on to take him south to High Vesting, the lights much like those he would be employed to service on the Worm way. It was hard to see, but he went on, keeping the lantern line to his left. When it ceased he did not stop, but kept walking till the last glimmer was lost in the distance and night. He stopped then. There was no point going back, he thought, and certainly nothing to be gained from staying put. He caught his breath for a moment, then sighed. Onward, onward he would go till the path became clear again.

The gloom of cloud was blown northwest, to reveal a high silver moon glittering coldly. Phoebe, the moon was sometimes called-Rossamund liked that name-and her timely appearance allowed him to set his bearings. He had felt her there, hidden behind the clouds, felt her like the moving of the great ocean tides in his guts. Certain he was going in the right direction, he adjusted the valise once more and went on into the dangerous dark.

As he walked, Rossamund heard every so often odd, far-off shriekings or infrequent and muffled hoomings, and once a strange rumbling coming from the east. Refusing to be thwarted by fear, the foundling put his head down when he heard any of these, walking faster for a time, every sense tingling with terror, till eventually he tired and then slowed, sure that he could go no further.

He stopped for a moment, took a sip from his biggin and looked to the heavens to get his bearings. The great yellow-green star Maudlin had risen high and bright, proving how late it was and making him feel desperately weary. Putting away the water, he walked on.

A black bulk appeared, silhouetted and obvious on this flat land. His heart leaped! The memory of the terrible beast he had glimpsed several nights earlier reared in his imagination. Ears ringing with tension, Rossamund crouched low and crept in a wide arc about the shadowy bulk. Several times he was sure, with the cold grip of dread, that it had moved-yet somehow it also stayed strangely still. He was almost upon it before he realized it was a haystack, right in the middle of the field. He nearly collapsed with relief: instead of a threat, here was a place to rest. He staggered through plowed soil so soft it almost tripped him, flopped down on the leeward side of the haystack and burrowed into the straw, dragging the valise with him. He sagged, exhausted. Sleep came quickly. Even when another shriek wailed a little too close, he slept.

A numb ache in Rossamund's left shoulder, near where he had been shot, woke him. He rubbed his shoulder, but that only made it hurt more. He was still so very tired. He had survived his first night alone. Crawling cautiously out from his haystack burrow, he peered about. It was early morning, the sun barely over the horizon. Showing against the pale sky were giant windmills marching away to the eastern horizon in long, staggered rows. Although the very flatness of the land made him feel conspicuous, it also let him see if he was being followed. As far as the eye could see in the early dawn, nothing moved on the road or the fields about except the great sails of the mills.

Yet the fear of a patrol from the Spindle still dogged him, and Rossamund struggled through the fields for an hour. Soon it became too wearisome to tread in the soft soil and he was forced onto the road. He walked on and on but met no one else. After a while the way was intersected by a path. There was a single sign there, pointing down the main roadway. The Vestiweg it said-or Vesting Way-the road to High Vesting. He was on the right road and upon it he would stay.

The day became unusually warm and remained so. A southeasterly breeze came, welcome and cool, as luggage and harness began to weigh on him. Eventually the valise became too hard to carry on his back and he resorted to towing it along behind him by the straps, its metal bindings dragging dustily in the sandy gravel. With stubbornness beyond his years, he walked on steadily, his thoughts completely taken with reaching High Vesting. Stops were frequent, and Rossamund always looked furtively about as he rested. The boy found that he was not as alone as he had first felt: cows in sturdily fenced pastures lowed and chewed; birds of many kinds-warbling magpies, shrilling mud larks, tetching wagtails and silent swallows-dashed about, often calling, chasing off strangers, hunting insects that also flitted hither and thither. Of the insects the birds' favorite seemed to be the large wurtembottles. These fat black flies from warmer northern lands insisted on bumbling about Rossamund's face, neck and especially his ears. No matter how often or how furiously he thrashed and shooed them, these wurtembottles returned to their lazy harassment. There was a moment as he stepped along that he thought he spied a person-a farmer perhaps-cutting across the fields far to his left, but he could not be certain who or what it was and dared not call out. Other than this the road had been eerily empty of any other traffic. Having grown up surrounded by people, crowded with them, he had thought space and solitude a golden prize. Now isolated and far from comfort, he wished very much to be pressed by the crowd once more.