Lamplighter (43 page)

“My, what a hive of troubles you have kicked,” the fulgar said. “The Soratchë were right to suspect him, it seems, though one thinks they might have pressed their suspicions a little further.”

Threnody made a face as if to say she did not think much of the Soratchë.

“But why do such a terrible thing?” Rossamünd could not fathom it.

“Why else, little man, but for the oldest reason of all?” The fulgar paused. “Money, of course. There is much to be made from the making and trafficking of rever-men and other made-monsters—as you have seen firsthandedly, with that filthy fellow Poundinginches or whatever his name might have been.”

Rossamünd nodded. What precious relief it had been when Europe had rescued him from that vile rivermaster and sent him to the harbor-bottom with one arc to his beefy chest.

“All manner of people manage to require the service of the dark trades,” the fulgar continued. “I have already caught the whispers of at least two rousing-pits within reach of here, and they are genuinely lucrative for those at the right end of the wagers. These must be supplied, and it seems Swill is the man to do so.”

The young lighter shivered at the implication of her words.

“If you know of such horrid places, why do you not do something about them?” Threnody interjected. “Or tell someone who will?”

Europe’s expression became owlish. “Because, my dear, if I have heard rumors, then others certainly will have too.The excisemen and obstaculars and your once-sisters are better fitted to the chore.”

“But rousing-pits have monsters in them,” Threnody continued querulously. “Surely that should move you!”

Europe fixed her with that dangerously glassy stare.

“Child, I am
not
some mindless invidist. I rid the world of teratologica for money’s hand, not sport.”

Threnody locked eyes with her.

Rossamünd ducked his head at the fizzing tension between these two lahzarines. He wanted to intervene, yet did not dare tangle with the friction between them, as inscrutable as the movements of the planets. In the end the standoff proved unbearable and he spoke. “What of the Master-of-Clerks?” he tried. “Swill is
his
man. Doctor Crispus said it so.”

“Every mad habilist needs a patron.” Europe sounded almost flippant, though her grim expression told otherwise.

“Why did you not speak of this before, lamp boy?” Threnody growled.

“Because I did not think of it till now, Threnody,” Rossamünd sighed.

“I must write of all this to Mother!”

“For the little she might do,” said Europe, “with the clerk-master sitting in control behind those unapproachable walls and little proof to go on but one small bookchild lampsman’s conjectures.”

“She
is a great woman,” Threnody bridled, “and will do more than some to rid the Empire of a traitor.”

“But what if I’m wrong?”

“If you are wrong then rumors are exploded, suspicions disabused and everyone goes on to other troubles,” Europe said bluntly. “Yet for now we have the suggestion of serious, dastardly things, little man,” she said. “Gudgeons loose in Winstermill, marshal-peers summoned to the subcapital and prentices sent too far east: something is truly, deeply amiss in your reach of the world. Keep your eyes wide, Rossamünd. You are in a dangerous tangle if all this turns out true. It may be that your assignment to Wormstool is not a simple lapse in wisdom.” She reached over to put a hand on his shoulder. “You should have become my factotum after all,” she said wryly.

Rossamünd could not help but agree. He could not now think of anywhere safer than by Europe’s side. He noticed Threnody was looking at him with an envious scowl.

Europe summoned a footman and made provision for their bunking. There was no room elsewhere in the wayhouse. “You can join me in my quarters if you wish, Rossamünd. There is a bed for one other there,” the fulgar explained. “Or you may join your friend in the dog-dens.”

The “dog-dens” were the billet-boxes, tight cupboards—barely comfortable but inexpensive accommodation that all wayhouses possessed. Rossamünd felt such a strange and unwelcome tearing of loyalties he did not know how to act. In the end he chose to stay with Threnody, figuring that she had joined him voluntarily and stuck by him, and so he should do the same and sleep in the squash of the billet-boxes. The girl lighter was clearly gratified by his decision, looking as if she had just won some great moral victory.

With an enigmatic sniff, Europe paid the reckoning and bid them good sleeping. “I must retire. A girl needs her sleep to keep her beauty.” At that she left, reemerging surprisingly on the farther side of the Saloon to speak quietly with the horn-wearing caladine.

Seeing this, Threnody demanded, “Why does she talk to
her?”

“Probably to let her know of our suspicions about Swill.” Rossamünd’s hopes lifted. Distracted by Threnody, he did not see Europe leave, but when he looked again she had disappeared to some other part of the wayhouse to do whatever occult things that fulgars did in the night hours.

With her departure Threnody leaned across the claustra. “Well,
she
is a disappointment—” she said, “dull and ordinary and not at all heroic. And I thought I wanted to be like her.”

Utterly baffled and not wanting a fight, Rossamünd ignored her and stared out at the emptying Saloon.

“You don’t really want to be her factotum, do you?” Threnody persisted, a hint of that envious look returning. “Being with her is like sucking on a lime dusted in bothersalts.”

No, Threnody, that’s what it’s like being with you!
The bitter thought rose unbidden, but Rossamünd said, “I’ve made oaths to serve the Emperor, Threnody. I’ve accepted his Billion. I’m not free to be anyone’s factotum—Miss Europe’s, yours or even Atopian Dido’s, were she still alive!”

Apparently satisfied, Threnody too took her leave and went off to find a place to make her plaudamentum.

Rossamünd was left to be shown to his billet-box alone.

rimple
a curious-looking hairy-leather purse made from the entire skin of a small rodent, shaved, with a drawstring at the neck hole, and the skin of one limb sewn back on itself as a loop to fix on to a belt. Actually looking like some bloated rat, a rimple is all the fashion as a coin-bag among the wayfaring classes.

 

 

T
HE new day and Europe, teeth still blackened from her morning dose of plaudamentum, met the two frowsty young lighters as they were arranging themselves in the stabulary to leave with the first post.

“How was your night in the dog-dens?” she asked a little tartly.

“Like sleeping inside a sideboard drawer.” Rossamünd yawned. “I do not fathom how older folk can manage a single blink.”

Europe simply nodded. That was the sum of her sympathy. “I will be answering a plea for aid from some sorely put and well-heeled people from Bleak Lynche,” she explained to the sleep-deprived pair. “They need help with a gudgeon, wouldn’t you know. It would appear we are going on a concomitant path, little man.” Europe looked at Rossamünd pointedly. “So you shall wait for me as I complete my dealings with the knavery-underwriter and we shall travel together.”

Rossamünd agreed readily.

Threnody did not even acknowledge that the fulgar had spoken, speaking only when Europe had left them. “So we are to do everything
she
says, are we?”

“Hmm” was all Rossamünd replied as he stretched, arms in the air, to rid himself of the kinks and knots gained through his insalubrious night’s sleep.Their arrival at Wormstool was not expected; the delay of an hour or two would change nothing.

They waited in the knavery. There, as Threnody penned a letter to her mother, Rossamünd wrote two of his own, one to Sebastipole and the other to Doctor Crispus. He told them in guarded terms of his suspicions regarding Swill and the rever-man beneath Winstermill. It was worth running the risk of prying eyes if someone who might be able to do something were to know.

During the delay Threnody decided to liberally apply some flowery-sweet perfume, splashing enough to challenge the salty-sweetness of bosmath, Europe’s signature scent.Where she had procured the essence from Rossamünd did not know, but the funk of it filled the knavery waiting room.

The morning was well advanced by the time Europe’s negotiations with the knavery-underwriter were completed. With the proof of the head she carried in the sack, her prize was paid and her forearm etched by the punctographist on hand, with another small cruciform of monster blood. One less monster to trouble the lives of man. Consequently the three left with the third post of the day.

“It’s a post-and-six,” Threnody declared optimistically. “We should make good time.”

Leaving the missives with the knavery-clerks, to whom they paid 4g a letter to have them properly sealed, they ventured out under a flat gray sky to the cheerful, unseasonal warbling of a magpie. The carriage was badly sprung and very noisy, rendering conversation below a constant shout impossible. For Rossamünd this was a small mercy, filling the frosty, aromatic silence between fulgar and wit with welcome clamor.

Across the Sourspan and over the Bittermere the lentum-and-six jerked and shuddered uncomfortably. No longer following a watercourse, the Wormway traversed hill and dale, the apex of most rises giving Rossamünd a grand view of the land about.The green upon the downs was grayer, the trees sprouting from them sparse and gnarled, growing in the shadows of enormous granite boulders lichen-blotched and anciently weathered. Indeed, the entire quality of the land declined markedly only a few leagues east of the Bittermere. There was a rumor of loneliness here, Rossamünd growing more certain of it the farther the lentum carried them—an absence of people, yet an absence of monsters too. In the struggle to possess it, the land had become useless to both.

They passed Bitterbolt and watered horses at the sturdy sprawling fortalice of Mirthalt. There the lighters wore dogged expressions and barely reacted to the premature advent of the young lighters.

They arrived at Compostor in the mist of day’s end. Bigger than Hinkerseigh, it was built on a broad hill, its curtain walls descending into foggy vales on all sides. There was a genuine air of money in this small city of long, broad avenues of stately sycamores and multistoried manors, of wide parks as green and tame as the land without was gray and wild.

“Tonight we shall stay somewhere out of the way,” Europe pronounced as they were granted entry to the city by the heavy-harnessed watch. She directed the lentermen to a hostelry called the Wayward Chair. From the outside it was a modest establishment, but the room proved of a high standard at odds with the humble façade. Regardless, Threnody oozed dissatisfaction. Throughout the leg from the Brisking Cat to here, she had sat gingerly, leaning forward to spare herself the bumping of the carriage seat. Now she looked terribly wayworn and irritated, lagging behind as they were shown to their rooms by a pucker-faced bower maid.

They were successfully installed in the apartment: luggage deposited, beds turned, the fire stoked, food brought and Europe’s treacle brewing in the kitchens. Without a word, Threnody exited the room, her makings in hand, slamming the door as she left.

“I don’t know what ails her.” Rossamünd felt he needed to apologize.

“It is just night-pains, little man.”

“Night-pains?”

“Indeed.” Europe sat in a glossy leather recliner before the hearth. “All lahzars must endure them and wits more so than fulgars. It is the cost of having these unusual organs inside—the price of power, if you like. A little bit of justice, I do not doubt some might think.”

After about as much time as it took to brew plaudamentum the girl returned, still in foul spirits. She stomped right past the two, glaring at them both, and disappeared into the adjoining room where a bower maid was turning down the beds.There was a shout and the maid hurried out, looking even more puckered and near tears.

“That will be all, my dear,” Europe said, handing the quickly brightening maid a whole sou. “You may go.”

Listening to the thump and bluster of the girl in the bedroom, Rossamünd asked, “Miss Europe? How can we stop Swill and the Master-of-Clerks?”

“I have warned that Saphine lass you may remember from the Cat, and you have written your letters.” Europe peered at him, her hazel eyes intent, thoughtful. “Beyond that there is not much else, and even what we have is insubstantial. I think you will find it very hard to lay a solid accusation against Swill or his clerk-master. If they have been able to carry on as black habilists right under the lighters’ feet, then you may be certain, Rossamünd, they will have all traces of their dabblings well in hand and can easily obliterate any trails that might lead to them.”

“But I fought with their rever-man!” Rossamünd persisted. “I saw the flayed skin! There—there was even that butcher’s truck that smelled of swine’s lard, just like Poundinch used to hide in his cargo, that’s why the Trought attacked!”