Rossamund alighted and looked about the well-lit yard. It was wide and flat and bare but for one stunted, leafless tree growing by a farther wall. His valise was quickly retrieved for him, and the coach clattered away, together with the yardsman, retreating somewhere beyond the side of the structure. Rossamund presumed the horses would be stabled, and the drivers rested for the return leg the following day.
The boy was left all alone now, and stood before these august headquarters uncertain of what to do next. As he waited, he wrestled out the bundle of dispatches, ready to hand them to whoever should ask for them. Still no one sallied forth to greet him. In the end, if only to avoid the bitter cold, he walked to the most important-looking set of doors and, finding them unbarred, pushed his way within.
Inside was a large, blank room, square and empty. There was another door at the farther end and Rossamund walked over to this and went through. Now he found himself at one end of a long wide hall with walls painted green like a lime in season and a single narrow rug patterned in carnelian and black running the whole length of the stone floor. A person in uniform stood about halfway down. Rossamund strode along this lime hallway and offered up the dispatches promptly to this uniformed person-a tough-looking fellow with oddly cut hair.
As he did, Rossamund addressed the man just as he had been trained to do, for serving upon a ram. 'Rossamund Bookchild, sir, recently arrived and ready to serve aboard-uh-to serve… you… here.'
The rough-looking fellow looked at him, and then at the wad of paper the foundling held, without curiosity. 'Not for me, son. Hand it to one of those pushers-of-pencils inside there,' he said, with gruff authority, pointing to a pair of flimsy-looking, finely carved doors at the end of the lime hall.
'Oh…' said Rossamund.
His initial flush of courage now spent, the foundling entered those ornamented doors nervously. Beyond was an enormous, square space with a ceiling high above, and the clatter of the opening door rang and echoed within. Along the distant farther wall was a massive wooden structure of drawers, cabinets and rolling stepladders-what he would learn later was the immense and complex document catalog, in which all the correspondence and paperwork of the lamplighters eventually found its final burial place. To the foundling's left, and to his right, facing out from either wall, were two dark wood desks. A studious-looking man worked behind each, the one on the left looking up at him briefly as he entered, and the one on the right keeping his head down and his hand scribbling.
Between the two desks was a great blank area of cold slate, and Rossamund, with each footstep clip- clopping too loudly, moved to stand right in the middle of this barren space. He looked to his right, then to his left. Both clerks continued their close attention to their work and offered nothing to the new arrival. With no idea of which way to go, Rossamund repeated a little rhyme in his head to solve this puzzle, thinking either left or right with each subsequent word. The rhyme itself was a short list of faraway, semi-mythical and notoriously threwdish places, and it always fired Rossamund's imagination: Ichor, Liquor, Loquor, Fiel My decision now reveal.
He finished on his right. Right it is! He went clip-clop, clip-clop and stood before that desk. Holding out the letters, he repeated himself, 'Rossamund Bookchild, sir, recently arrived and ready to serve as a lamplighter.'
This clerk looked up with a scowl upon his sharp, bespectacled face. He continued to write, even though his attention was no longer on the task.
'Not me, child!' he snarled. 'Him!' He put his nose back to his scribbling.
He could only have meant the other clerk, way across on the opposite side.
Right it isn't, then. Rossamund held back a sigh.
He turned on his heel and clip-clopped-clip-clopped to the left-hand desk and its equally diligent clerk. He spoke his introduction for a third time, and this clerk stopped writing, put down his pencil and stood.
'Welcome, Rossamund Bookchild. My name is Inkwill. I am the registry clerk. You have been expected.' He took the dispatch bundle from the foundling and they shook hands. 'It's a good thing you have arrived now. After today we were going to give up on you. If you had got here tomorrow, we would have turned you away, I'm afraid. In the nick of time, as they say.'
As Inkwill the registry clerk sorted through the dispatches, he held up a tightly folded oblong of fine linen paper.
'This is yours, I reckon,' he said, waving the article at Rossamund.
Puzzled, Rossamund took it slowly. It was a letter made out to him in the script of someone he knew well and loved dearly: Verline. He had been carrying it the whole length of his travel from High Vesting, and could have read and reread it at his leisure aboard the coach. He was desperate to open it, but had to wait.
Inkwill put the dispatches down and sat again. He organized a wad of papers, took up his pencil and began to quiz Rossamund with all manner of question: age, eye color, height, weight, origin, race; on and on they went. Often they were incomprehensible: political affinities, species bias. Whichever answer Rossamund gave, no matter how incoherent, was filled in on the relevant forms. When each form was completed, Inkwill rewrote it twice more. Having completed this task, he then looked over the foundling's newly redrafted documents and papers and read the covering letter with fixed attention.
Rossamund's eyes nearly bugged from their sockets as he waited, breath held, to see how these temporary certificates would be received.
'I see,' Inkwill said at last. 'Witherscrawl won't like these; neither will the Marshal… 'tis no matter. These are perfectly legal.' He gave a slight smile as his attention shifted to the boy before him. 'Been through some… interesting times getting here, have we?'
Rossamund nodded emphatically. 'Aye, sir, an adventure of them.'
Inkwill's smile broadened. 'You'll have to tell me sometime.' With that he took out yet more documents and began copying pertinent details from Rossamund's papers. When the registry clerk was done, and all the forms properly blotted and indexed, he politely told Rossamund that he was to now make his way over to the other clerk.
'He is our indexer, and he is called Witherscrawl. He will enter you into our manning list, so that from now on you will be called on the roll, and be reckoned a lamplighter.' Inkwill stood and shook Rossamund's hand once more. 'Welcome to the Emperor's Service.'
'Thank you, Mister Inkwill,' Rossamund returned, somewhat bewildered. 'I will try and do my very best, just as I was taught to, sir.'
'Good for you. Now take this receipt and this excuse-card to Witherscrawl. I will see you tomorrow.'
With that, Inkwill went on with whatever it was he went on with, and ceased paying any attention to the foundling.
Clutching a wallet of new papers and certificates, Rossamund stepped cautiously across the gap back to the sharp-faced, sharp-mannered clerk Witherscrawl.
'Um… Mister Witherscrawl, I…' he began.
With a sour look, the clerk snatched the receipt and excuse-card from Rossamund's hand.
'I, ah…' the boy tried.
'Shut it! I know my business!' The indexer looked down at the excuse-card with sinister deliberation and a cruel turn to his mouth. A hoarse growl wheezed in his throat. 'Little weevil couldn't do a simple thing like keep his most important papers safe…!' His beady eyes shot Rossamund an evil glare. 'Makes me wonder why we are even bothering to take him in. Sit down!'
With a start, and, as there were no chairs about, Rossamund obediently sat on the cold stone floor.
Taking a pencil in both hands, Witherscrawl proceeded to write furiously into several books and ledgers, and onto several lists. When each entry was done, he would thump it violently with a wooden handle attached to a large, flat sponge. Rossamund winced at every blow.
Witherscrawl eventually leaned over his desk and looked down upon the foundling, his eyes squinting meanly behind his spectacles. 'You have certainly taken your time to get here,' he spat. 'Gave Germanicus an awful messing around, you did. Too good for us, are you, to make your way promptly?' He poked a finger at Rossamund's face. 'A lamplighter's life is punctuality, boy! You had better get your habits about this, or your time with us will be brief- troubled and brief.'
Those were familiar words.
'Ah-aye, Mister Witherscrawl.'
The clerk leaned across the desk and sneered. 'Do not address me, boy, as anything other than 'sir.' Have you got that? You don't need to know my name, and you certainly have not earned the privilege to use it!'
Rossamund felt his neck contract like a turtle's. 'A-aye… sir…'
Finally, and with half-uttered protestations about the inconvenience, Witherscrawl led Rossamund through a
