frigid water of the common washbasin. The cold and a silly fear of something creeping at him from behind made him leave off washing, and he dashed back to his cold cot to shiver the night away, his bed chest dragged out to barricade the cell's door.
9
August ruler of a single calendar clave; typically a woman of some social stature, perhaps a peer, or noble, with a social conscience. To have any chance of affecting their surrounds, calendars need money and political clout, and those with high standing socially possess with these attributes natively. A clave that does not have ranking gentry or nobility at its head and core, or at least as a sponsor, will most certainly be marginalized. Augusts are seconded by their laudes, who are their mouthpieces and their long reach. With a well-organized and talented clave with her, an august can be a daunting and influential figure in Imperial politics and society.
Rossamund was woken by a heavy pounding on his cell door and a rough voice crying, 'A lamp! A lamp to light your path! Up, you lounging lumps! Up and at 'em-it's a fine day.'
It took a few nauseated moments for the prentice to realize he was not in fact being boiled alive in an enormous bottomless cauldron, but lay pinned in tangled blankets on a lumpy horsehair mattress in a freezing cell in the basements of the Imperial outpost of Winstermill. As the rousing groans of the other prentices coughed across the gap between cells, Rossamund dragged the small chest away from the cell door. What was it I saw in Swill's apartment? he fretted. Do people know about his room up there? Those were mighty strange books… and what about that flayed and pinned-out skin? Do I need to tell anybody about it? But who to tell? At that moment a larger problem loomed, driving these unsettling things from his thoughts: the Domesday pageant-of-arms.
The ritual of Domesday for those under Imperial Service at Winstermill was a military formality of unquestionable antiquity. Every Domesday morning, the whole fortress turned out on the Grand Mead, all bearing arms before the main building in a pageant of flags, polish and rich, bright harness. Two-and-a-half hours of marching and speeches, it was a show of strength of which Rossamund had quickly grown weary. He had once dearly wanted to see such spectacles: an array of soldiery gathered as if ready for battle. Watching was one thing but participating quite another. To march in a parade was a ponderous and worrying chore where evolutions must be well performed or impositions were imposed.
Sitting shivering on the edge of his cot, he looked forlornly at his unprepared harness. Metal must be polished with pipe clay and galliskins whitened, boots and belt blacked and brightened. Denied the opportunity last night, Rossamund had to do his best to prepare now, which meant skipping breakfast. With sinking wind he could hear the other prentices stepping singly or in twos up the stairs of the cell row on their way to eat.
Threnody appeared at his open cell door, already washed and fed, immaculate in her perfectly presented mottle. 'Well, a good morning to you, lamp boy,' she said, with a supercilious grin. 'Not ready, I see.' She sniffed the night-stale air of the cell and pinched her nose. 'Has someone been using you to wipe out the inside of a lard vat?' she exclaimed in an affectedly nasal voice.
Rossamund blushed deep rose.
'You'd better get your pace on or you'll never be ready,' Threnody continued unhelpfully. 'I have heard how these things go: you'll be censured, brought before a court-martial, and stretched out on a Catherine wheel if you go out looking less than perfect.' She shook her head.
Rossamund knew she was just being painful, though certainly more pots-and-pans could be expected for a slovenly showing out.
Threnody huffed and put her hands on her hips as he was struggling to fold his cot corners. 'Leave off, lamp boy!' she insisted. 'I'll do that!You just set to your clobber.'
The girl worked a modest wonder, folding the corners on the bed neater, pulling the sheet and blanket tighter and smoothing the pillow better than Rossamund knew was possible. All extraneous items went into the bed chest, all inspected items arranged in regulation order on the small stool in the corner. Rossamund's cell had never looked so deftly ordered.
'Turn out for inspection!' came Under-Sergeant Benedict's warning cry. There was a boisterous clatter as all the prentices scurried to their cells from the mess hall or wherever they had been.
Threnody quit the room without another word or even a glance back.
Fumbling buckles and buttonholes, Rossamund finished dressing in a flurry, still wrestling with his quabard and his baldric as he took his place at the doorpost. Teeth rubbed with a corner of a bedsheet, hair combed with his fingers, he stood at attention by his door with only moments to spare.
Grindrod ducked his head to enter Rossamund's cell, and looked about, betraying the slightest surprise at its excellent state. He bounced a carlin off the blanket pulled and tucked drum-taut across Rossamund's cot. 'All is in order, Prentice Bookchild,' he said after he had peered into every cavity of the tiny quarter. 'As it should be. Move out to the Rear Walk and make ready for the pageant.'
Assembling with the rest along the tree-lined pathway of the Cypress Walk on the southern side of the manse, Rossamund mouthed an earnest 'thank you' to Threnody. To this she responded with the slightest suggestion of a curtsy, then snapped on a serious face as Grindrod stalked past to check the prentices' dressing. With a cry the sergeant-lighter took his twenty-two charges out to form upon the Grand Mead, to take their place at the rear of the pageant. Before them a crowd of much of Winstermill's inhabitants were also gathering in fine martial order, rugged against the cold.
Marching and standing with the companies of pediteers, peoneers, artillerists and thaumateers there were very few lampsmen-not even a platoon, seltzermen included. Most able-bodied lighters had been sent east, needed out on the road proper to replace the steady-and increasing-losses from the various cothouses.Yet that small, aged group stood in their place bearing their fodicars proudly, resplendent in the rouge and or and leuc-red and gold and white-of the Haacobin Empire, and glossy black thrice-highs. Only Assimus and Puttinger looked a little worse for wear, their evolutions poorly handled.
Formed on the soldiers' left was a veritable army of bureaucratical staff: clerks, under-clerks, registers, bookers, secretaries, amanuenses, file boys. Each pageant made Rossamund more aware of the diminishing ranks of lighters and the swelling number of clerks.
Rooks cawed from the pines by the Officers' Green, spry sparrows and noisy miner birds hopped and flitted about the battlements, watching on shrewdly. The thin flags borne by color-parties at the front of each collection whipped and cracked in sympathy with the winds that rushed spasmodically across the Mead, joining the great ponderous snapping of the enormous Imperial Spandarion billowing above the gatehouse.
At his very first pageant, Rossamund had trembled at the sheer number of folk gathered, at the steady pounding din of feet marching on the quartz gravel and at the stentorian hooting arrogance of flugelhorn, fife and snare.Yet now he was inured to the martial spectacle. It surprised him how quickly he could reconcile such astounding wonders and think them a workaday commonplace.
All the soldiers and their commanding officers were now gathered on the Grand Mead, decked in their finest.
'Stand fast!' came the cry from Sergeant-Master Tacpharnias.
With a rattling shuffle, the lighters, soldiers and staff came to attention as the seniormost officers strutted peacock-proud up on to a temporary podium-erected every Domesday for just this purpose-and stood before the assiduously ordered soldiery. It was the task of the highest ranked to take turns addressing the parade, and first always was the Lamplighter-Marshal. Although he was a peer of some high degree, in his soldierly simplicity the Marshal was unlike many of those standing with him.They were stiff and starched, their rich, finicky, bragging uniforms boasting of more in themselves than they really possessed.
His volume modulating with the breezes, his words punctuated by the calling of the birds, the Lamplighter-
