'And Pandome, my handmaiden?' The august looked at the faces about her. 'I hear she is badly hurt.'
'Your handmaiden mends well in the infirmary… and your daughter too has been installed safely in her new role. We are glad to have her among us.'
'Yes, very good.' The Lady Vey looked over her shoulder and gazed around slowly. She saw her daughter immediately, as if she knew where she was all along. Something profound and complex transmitted between mother and daughter, something beyond Rossamund's comprehension. For all her tough talk and showing away, Threnody seemed to flinch, and hung her head in uncharacteristic defeat. The Lady Vey swept up the manse steps, unheeding of the bureaucrats and the attendants all deferring a pace to give her room as she slid past.
Threnody rolled her eyes, bravado quickly returning. 'Off to my executioners,' she said with ill-feigned indifference.
Rossamund frowned and blinked. 'Pardon?'
'My mother is never happy with me,' she sighed. 'And I go to find out just how unhappy she is…'
'Oh.'
Hardening her face and hiding her dismay, Threnody obeyed some invisible command and left to join the new arrivals.
Left alone as the day-trippers left for Silvernook, Rossamund went his reluctant way to the kitchens.
Mother Snooks did not want to see him. Looking haggard, she dismissed the young prentice from her sight almost as soon as he entered. 'Be on ye way! Whatever wicked crimes ye have to serve yer wretched day atonin' for, it won't be done here. Go!'
Knowing full well that Grindrod had just departed on a south-bound lentum, Rossamund was puzzled as to what to do next. It was tempting to exploit this as a twist of fortune and take an easy day after all. However, if he did not serve one imposition now, he would only have to serve two later. Knocking at the sergeants' mess door, he asked Under-Sergeant Benedict instead.
'Well, Master Bookchild,' the under-sergeant said, stroking his chin, 'we must find you another task, else our kindly lamplighter-sergeant might set you more. If the Snooks won't have you, then perhaps Old Numps will.'
'Who?' Rossamund asked.
'He's a glimner working down in the Low Gutter.You'll find him in the lantern store, Door 143, cleaning lantern-panes. You can clean them with him-a nice simple task for a vigil-day imposition.'
Rossamund felt anxious. He had heard of the mad glimner in the Low Gutter. It was the same fellow Smellgrove had been telling of at Wellnigh.
'Be on your way, lad,' Benedict instructed, 'and work with Numps till middens. I'll report to Grindrod that your duty-we'll call it panel detail-was served. Don't look so dismayed.'
Rossamund tried to blank his face of worry.
Benedict smiled and scratched the back of his cropped head. 'The glimner might have the blue ghasts from a tangle with gudgeons, but from what I hear the fellow is harmless.'
Rossamund did not share the under-sergeant's confidence.
10
Seltzermen tradesmen responsible for the maintenance of all types of limulights. Their main role is to make and change the seltzer water used in the same. Among lamplighters, seltzermen have the duty of going out in the day to any lamp reported by the lantern-watch (in ledgers set aside for the purpose) as needing attention and performing the necessary repair. This can be anything from adding new seltzer, to adding new bloom, to replacing a broken pane or replacing the whole lamp-bell.
Except for targets in the Toxothanon, Rossamund had never gone down into the Low Gutter. He had often wanted to explore its workings, but he now descended the double flights of the Medial Stair with flat despondency. A Domesday vigil wasted.
Despite a gathering storm roiling to the south, Rossamund did not hurry. He took time to stroll through the Low Gutter, fascinated by this hurry-scurry place. There were many here who rarely participated in a vigil-day rest. Great fogs of steam seeped from doorway seals and boiled from the chimneys of the Tub Mill, which stood on the other side of a wide cul-de-sac at the east end of the Toxothanon. It was a-bustle with fullers entering and leaving, burdened with bundles of laundry in varying states of cleanliness. The prentice stood aside for a train of porters hefting loads of clean clothing back to the manse, wondering if any of his own clobber was among them.
Crossing a wide cul-de-sac, the All-About, and passing by the Mule Row, a neat three-story block of servant housing, Rossamund could hear the hammering of a smith or a cooper, and with this the sawing of a carpenter. In the narrow lane beyond, muleteers trotted their mules in and out of the ass manger, mucking their stalls, scrubbing the animals, feeding them. Beyond the manger rose the near-monumental mass of the magazine, where much of the manse's black powder was stored. This structure was said to have ten-foot-thick walls of concrete but a roof of flimsy wood, there only to keep out rain. If there was ever an explosion, it would be contained by the walls and erupt through this frangible top far less harmfully into the air.
Dodging a mule and its steaming deposit, Rossamund made his way across the street to where two besomers sat beneath an awning determinedly binding straw with wire, making ready for brooms.
'Well-a-day to you, young lampsman.What can we do for you?' one of the men called as the prentice approached.
'Hello, sirs,' said Rossamund, and touched his forehead in respect. Almost everyone in Winstermill was of superior rank to a prentice-lighter. 'I seek the lantern store and Mister Numps.'
A queer look passed between the two besomers.
'Do you, then? Well, just keep on your way past us, past the well, and the magazine, through the work-stalls and behind the pitch stand-that large hutch yonder there.You're looking for the big depository that's built right against the east-end wall.You want to go through Door 143.'
Bidding thanks, Rossamund followed the friendly directions and found himself before a low wooden warehouse built beneath the shadow of the Gutter's eastern battlements. On the rightmost door he found a metal plate that read:
Even as the prentice approached the door the rain suddenly arrived, falling quick and hard. Unprotected by any eave or porch, Rossamund ignored all polite custom, opened '143' without a knock and ducked inside.
The depot beyond was truly the lantern store, he discovered, as his sight adjusted to the scant light. On either side of him were shelves, ceiling-high and sagging with all the equipment needed to mend and maintain the vialimns or great-lamps. Rows of lamp-bells without their glass stood on their collets in a line or hung on hooks from the roof beams. Whole wrought lantern-posts were laid flat in frames, ready to replace any ruined by time or the action of monsters. There were rolls of chain for mending the winds and with them spools of wire. At the end of this crowded avenue of metal and wood hung a massive rack of tools used for repair work. Chisels and heavy saws, sledgehammers, crowbars, mallets, rivet molds, powerful cutters and clamps and other devices were arranged upon it, all for the singular problems a seltzerman might face.
Despite the rain hammering on the lead-shingle roof, Rossamund could make out a small, infrequent tinkling in the gloom, like two people touching glasses at a compliment. He could not fathom why some happy pair might be taking a tipple in the dim lantern store. Curious, he followed the sporadic noise deeper into the store. A low, lonely singing, true in tone, deep yet sweet, came through the dust and tools. Will the Coster sat in posture, Upon his bed of hay. Will the Coster spake,'I've lost her!' Head sadly hung to sway. Such sad posture for Will Coster: 'She ne'er should gone away.' But Will Coster, he has lost her, And grieves it ev'ry day.
