cots-there was never enough room in Madam Opera's. The dormitory was empty now. The other boys were still attending to classes and day-watch duties. Rossamund's own cot was at the farthest end from the short, narrow door. With the parlor maid's help he stumbled through the inadequate gap between the beds, adding a stubbed toe to his woes. At last he could lie down, his head pounding, his cheek pounding-throb, throb-sharp, iron-tasting.
Verline fussed over him. 'You'll need a dose of birchet to set you to mending. I will fetch some from Master Craumpalin right away! You lie still, now. I'll return as soon as I can.' With that, she swished away.
Master Craumpalin was the foundlingery's dispensurist. This meant that he made most of the medicine and potives the marine society needed. From what Rossamund could gather, Master Craumpalin had once served in the navy, just as Master Fransitart had done, though not always on the same vessels or for the same states. The old dispensurist had seen half the known world, and cured the rashes and fevers of a great many vinegaroons-as sailors were called-but that was all anyone seemed to know of him. He talked even less of his past than Master Fransitart did. Nevertheless, he let Rossamund sit with him for hours at a time while he dabbled and brewed. Most of the time Craumpalin worked in silence and the boy would just learn what he could by watching. Occasionally, however, the dispensurist became talkative and would instruct him on the uses of potives, showing him how to pour and blend and stir and store. One of the greatest thrills for Rossamund was to watch the wonderful and often violent reactions between ingredients as Craumpalin mixed and matched them.
Red goes with green and makes purple, blue powdered in yellow makes off-white with olive spots, black boiled in white makes vermilion with orange vapors-how wonderful! These moments were so exciting, Rossamund would hop about and usually get under the dispensurist's feet. At this Craumpalin would yell, 'Pullets and cock'rels, boy! Get out of me way before I spill this on ye and melt ye to a puddle!'
Rossamund smiled woozily at the thought. Now he wanted to sleep but his aching face would not let him. He stared dumbly at the ceiling, obscure with shadows that seemed to creep and lurch. It had been a long time since he had been in the dormitory on his own-he had forgotten just how weirdly unnerving it could be in here, alone.
Such glimpses of the oppressive dark naturally led his thinking to Gosling-Gosling Corvinius Arbour of the Corvinius Arbours-a powerful family with ties to some of the most ancient bloodlines of Boschenberg and Brandenbrass, far away to the south. He was notorious at Madam Opera's for many reasons, but the chief of these was the vigor with which he strove to make everyone's life a misery. He would cut the hair of sleeping girls, glue shut the eyes of sleeping boys, put earwigs and dead things in unguarded shoes or untenanted beds, blab any secret he might discover. Punishment, no matter how severe, proved useless, for Gosling just did not care. He had been abandoned at Madam Opera's foundlingery by his family. It was said that his parents had given him up so that they might afford to keep a pair of racehorses. Such a pathetic tale of rejection had not stopped Gosling from declaring to everyone just how important he really was, that he was not some ordinary fellow with only one name, but that he had three: a first name, a forename and a family name!
This grim line of thinking led Rossamund to brood over his own, single and unfortunate name. He had spent his entire life beneath the high, peeling ceilings of Madam Opera's Estimable Marine Society for Foundling Boys and Girls. He had arrived when he was little more than a wailing pink prune, left on the doorstep with an old piece of hatbox lining pinned to his swaddling. Upon this bit of card had been written one word, scratched awkwardly in charcoal:
With that word he was named. The fact was officially sealed with its entry into the grand ledger that all foundlingeries possessed, and which gave all foundlings the family name of Bookchild.
In the warren that was Madam Opera's, Rossamund often hid himself away from the taunts and snickers that he still endured from the other children. He would lose himself in his favorite books and pamphlets, reading them avidly. He dared to dream that there could be a better lot for him beyond the marine society's corroding walls, and let his head fill with scenes of battles, and marauding monsters and the mighty heroes that conquered them. He might have trouble remembering the Hundred Rules of Harundo, but the things he discovered within the dogeared pages of his precious readers would stay with him forever.
Soon enough, Verline returned. She slid discreetly along the creaking wood, her great tent of many-layered skirts making their telltale rustling. The high ceiling bounced the hissing echoes softly back till the room was filled with the gentle susurrus of her passage. He was certain she floated with her feet some inches off the floor and, to him, this added to her virtue. In his tiny world, Verline was Rossamund's favorite. She was short and slight, her earth-dark hair hidden beneath the white cotton bonnet that female servants wore. She adored ribbons and bows, and even the plain, workaday clothes she wore had several knotted here and there, the biggest being a great white knot made from her apron straps, tied in the small of her back. Within the crook of her left arm, and wrapped in a cloth, she held a small porcelain crock. From it putrid, mustard-colored fumes boiled and evaporated in the close air of the dormitory, leaving a bad stink.
Befuddled as he was, he still recognized the yellow steam and rank smell. Birchet was a torture masquerading as a cure.
Verline extracted a turned ladle from one of the many pockets in her white apron. She swilled about in the crock with this and brought it out filled with what he knew would be the most disgusting muck he would ever have the unhappy luck to swallow.
'Now hold your nose and open your mouth,' she told him sternly.
Pinching closed his nostrils, and squeezing shut his eyes, Rossamund opened his mouth. Verline spooned the restorative potion as best she could into the tiny hole he had reluctantly made of his lips. Rossamund's whole head instantly flared with the fires of a thousand burning lamps. His nose was filled to bursting with the stinging stench of the mangy armpit of a dead dog, and his nostril hairs withered like straw on a fire. He was certain that cadmium-colored steam was squirting from his ears. Just when he thought he could stand it no more, the burning- bursting subsided and left him feeling well and whole.
Better.
He burped a little yellow bubble. 'Thank you, MissVerline,' he gasped.
Verline told him to rest, that she would be back with a jar of water. She left again, and before she returned Rossamund was asleep.
2
Vinegaroon (noun) also sailor, mariner, seafarer, mare man, bargeman, jack, limey (for the limes he sucks when out to sea), mire dog, old salt, salt, salt dog, scurvy-dog, sea dog or tar: those who work the mighty cargoes and rams that tame the monster-plagued mares and ply the many-colored waters of the vinegar seas. Such is the poisonous and caustic nature of the oceans that even the spray of the waves scars and pits a vinegaroon's skin and shortens his days under the sun.
The great Skold Harold stood his ground. His comrades, his brothers-in-arms, had all fled in terror before the huge beast that stalked their way. This beast was enormous and covered with vicious, venomous spines. The Slothog-the slaughterer of thousands, the smiter of tens of thousands. The gore of the fallen dripped from its grasping claws as it came closer and closer. Struggling beast-handlers were dragged along as the Slothog strained against its leash.
The battle had been long and bloody. Ruined bodies lay all about in ghastly piles that stretched away as far as the eye could see. Harold had fought through it all. His once-bright armor was bruised and dented beyond repair. With great heaviness of heart he checked his canisters and satchels: all his potives were spent-all, that is, but one.
