At the Lamplighter-Marshal's duty room the smiling registry clerk Inkwill greeted them.
'You'd best go in, m'lady.'
Threnody entered into the mystery of the duty room, leaving Rossamund without a word of thanks or farewell.
'You might want to idle here, Prentice Bookchild,' suggested Inkwill kindly. 'I think that young lass will be needing more guidance shortly.' This was an unwelcome hint, or so Rossamund thought, that he and his fellows might have to put up with this pompous peerlet for a good sight longer.
As he waited an unwelcome pressure built in his bladder, but Rossamund dared not leave. Instead he paced the Forward Hall uncomfortably back and forth, pressure growing, until the door opened with a bang. Sergeant Grindrod emerged from the duty room looking grave. He nodded brusquely, said nothing and moved on. Soon after,Threnody stalked out, followed by Dolours and the Lamplighter-Marshal himself. 'What say you, young fellow? We're going to have a lady in our midst!'
The Lamplighter-Marshal had clearly come to his decision. Threnody was to be the first girl prentice at Winstermill.
5
Fusil also known as a fusee or carabine or harquebus; a lighter musket with a shortened barrel that makes for simpler loading, is less cumbersome to swing about in thickets and woodland, and saves considerable weight. Its shorter length also makes it handy as a club when the fight comes to hand strokes. This makes the fusil a preferred weapon of ambuscadiers and other skirmishing foot soldiers, and also comes a-handy for the drilling of smaller folk in the handling and employment of arms.
The morning did not improve after its irregular beginning. Rossamund took Threnody to the Room of Records, where she gave all her particulars and was paid the Emperor's Billion; the master proofener, where she received her two quabards-one full dress and one for continual day wear; the library, for her books on matter and drills and regulations; the armory, for her fusil and fodicar; and every other necessary place. Throughout, she showed nothing but arrogance and high-handed rudeness. She near drove the normally good-natured Inkwill to distraction with each painfully extracted detail for the register. She wrangled with the proofener's yeomen over the constitution of regulation dress. She insulted the librarian over a matter book, insisting it was arrant drivel, that the books she had learned from back at Herbroulesse were far superior. She quibbled with the wool-slippered master armorer over the one-sequin pledge required to secure her firelock and fodicar. And throughout she ignored Rossamund in the manner of someone used to the attendance of servants.
He had led her from place to place without complaint and with an ever-sinking feeling and the sharp jabbing of an overfull bladder. Joyful relief had come only when he finally showed Threnody to her own newly appointed cell where her luggage waited for her. While she changed to a lighter's harness, Rossamund made a quick dash for the jakes and returned in time for her to emerge with a wrinkled nose.
'Ugh! The stench of too many boys, too close together,' she said.
Rossamund stayed mum. He had spent his life with too many boys, and it had made him insensible to any such odor. 'Come along,' he said instead, and guided her up to the dim, high-ceilinged mess hall in the rear quarters of the manse, where a roll of drums declared middens was about to be served. There the other prentices arrived as a mass and, as they lined up, stared in open wonder at this newly presented lantern-stick before them.
Threnody went forth now in a rich, elegant variation of the gear of a lamplighter: silken platoon-coat, quabard, long-shanks, galliskins and a black tricorn sitting prettily upon her midnight tresses-all of the finest tailoring, as sumptuous as that of any of the Master-of-Clerks' flunkies. The other prentices, by comparison, looked like drab weeds.
Threnody ignored them all as she had ignored Rossamund. In their turn the boys kept unashamedly at their gawping, some turning puzzled looks on her fortunate companion.
Rossamund felt anything but fortunate as he received their middens meals, served by two short, fat cooks from the pots hanging in the gigantic fireplace at the farther end of the room. Steaming with faintly appetizing smells, the larger pot was, as always, full of skilly, a savory gruel of leftover meat; the smaller with vummert, a mash of sprouts and peas.
Threnody scowled at the food, at the cooks, at the boys and at the hall as she sat at one of a pair of long tables that filled the mess.
'Are… are you all right, miss?' Rossamund asked cautiously, painfully aware that she had just occupied the usual seat of a less-than-friendly lad known as Noorderbreech.
'Yes.' Threnody's voice cracked a little. 'No… What care is it of yours-'
'Look here, miss, I…,' complained Noorderbreech, leaving his place in the line of unserved boys. 'Look here, normally I sit there.'
Threnody did not move, did not even give a hint she had even heard.
'And-and that would be my apple,' Noorderbreech insisted.
A look came into Threnody's eye that Rossamund recognized-a haughty, dangerous look. She glanced at the fruit mentioned, which sat on the table before her. It appeared to be the same as all the other apples placed evenly along the benches for the prentices to take away with them when the main meal was done. Threnody picked it up with a study of feminine grace. 'This apple, do you mean?' she said, and bit into it deliberately, daring Noorderbreech to retaliate.
The lad puffed himself up as threateningly as he might.
Uncowed, Threnody crunched away as happily as if she were on a vigil-day hamper. Every boy-and the kitchen hands too-held their breath.
'Give me my apple, girly,' Noorderbreech growled, 'and go take yer place at the far end. This is where we sit.'
'This apple?' She took another bite. 'You mean this apple, don't you?… Have it then!' The apple flew the full length of the bench in a well-aimed arc. It landed with a crack and a hiss right in the midst of the hottest coals of the fire.
Everyone became very, very still. Some even stopped chewing.
Rossamund wanted to shrink in on himself.
'I'll sit where I like and eat what I please, you loose-jawed bumpkin,' she hissed with such vehemence spittle flew.
Wide-eyed, Noorderbreech stumbled back, mouth agape as if he were trying hard to prove Threnody's insult true, finding for himself a vacant place at the far end of the other bench.
The prentices sitting near Threnody shifted away, afraid or glaring. No one other than Rossamund dared put himself too near. Angry mutters began to stir. Rossamund did not know what to say and fixed his attention on his food, avoiding every other eye in the room.Yet the filling of stomachs finally took priority even over so shocking an event as just witnessed. The hubbub of general chatter and the patter of forks and spoons on plates swelled once more.
Threnody made to eat as if naught was wrong. 'Who can eat this glue?' she snarled eventually, pushing the slopping pannikin of skilly away in disgust. 'Must everything be against me today?'
'Against you, miss?' Rossamund dared after a few pensive chews.
'I save us from the ambush of those ungotten baskets,' she suddenly fumed, floodgates inexplicably let free,
