of a great-lamp given to all the prentices. Rossamund was intrigued by the curious way its covers folded open upon many hinges, fascinated with the down-scaled workings revealed within, which were just like those that operated the real lights of the road. He paid close attention to all that was taught, but most of the other prentices could not have given two geese about the what or how or why of a great-lamp's internal parts. Humbert noticed neither. He simply droned on.
Rossamund had quickly learned that lampsmen naturally, though unfairly, regarded seltzermen as failed lighters who only ever ventured out into the wilds with the sun, and then only when need demanded. They were appreciated, certainly-repairing the great-lamps was necessary work-but not respected. Consequently, it was with mixed gratitude that Rossamund received Mister Humbert's uncharacteristic praise when, in the face of his fellow prentices' ignorance, he speedily identified a limp, pale yellow frond the seltzerman held up as 'glimbloom drying out and past saving, Mister Humbert.'
'Correct!' the seltzerman returned. 'How long can the glimbloom survive out of seltzer before it reaches this irrevocably parched state?'
'No more than a day, Mister Humbert.'
'Well, Master Bookchild, you know what you're about with them parts.' The seltzerman 1st class brightened. 'It takes just this kind of nous to keep these plants working. We'll make a seltzerman out of you yet.'
'Aye,' Rossamund heard muttered behind him, 'or maybe you'd make a good weed-keeper, Rosey?' There was the sound of soft laughter.
Rossamund did not look around.
However, Threnody did. 'Better to be good for something than a good-for-nothing bustle-chaser,' she hissed, unable to tell between good-natured jape or insult.
'Young lady!' Mister Humbert called long-sufferingly. 'You might be the only lass at prenticing, but don't think you'll have special concession from me. Please turn around and refrain from disturbing the others.' Skipping the sit- down meal at middens, Rossamund grabbed some slices of pong and hurried to Door 143 in the Low Gutter and his promised visit with Numps. The Gutter was busier on a normal day, and Rossamund had to negotiate the bustle of laborers and servants and soldiers. He entered the lantern store quietly and heard speaking: not one of the soft monologues of Numps, but the voice of a learned man.
Rossamund became very still and listened.
'… Poor old Numps wouldn't tolerate Mister Swill, eh?' the voice declared. It sounded like Doctor Crispus. He must have returned from his curative tour. 'I must say I can barely compass the man myself: entirely too wily, all secrets and heavy-lidded looks and smelling of some highly questionable chemistry…'
Although he was aware that it would be proper to make his presence known to the speaker, a guilty fascination held Rossamund and he remained tense and quiet.
'… Coming with his uncertain credentials, when all the while a proper young physic might have been satisfactorily summoned from the fine physacteries of Brandenbrass or Quimperpund. A product of the clerical innovations of that Podious Whympre. Everything in triplicate and quadruplicate and quintuplicate now! One thousand times the paperwork for the most trifling things, and all requiring our Earl-Marshal's mark. How the poor fellow bears with the smother of chits and ledgers is beyond me: my own pile near wastes half my day!'
As Rossamund moved to the end of the aisle he found it was indeed Doctor Crispus, sitting on a stool and ministering to the dressings on the glimner's foot with intense concentration. He had examined Rossamund on the prentice's very first day as a lamplighter, and had had naught to do with him since. Numps was sitting meekly on a barrel waiting for the physician to finish. He looked up at Rossamund before the lad had made a sound and smiled in greeting. The physician himself had still not noticed Rossamund.
'Ah, Doctor Crispus?' the prentice tried, shuffling his feet to add emphasis.
With a start, the physician stood and quickly turned, catching at his satchel as it slid from his lap.
'I have come to help Mister Numps again,' Rossamund added.
'Cuts and sutures, lad!' Crispus exclaimed with a flustered cough. 'You gave me a smart surprise!' A towering, slender man-Doctor Crispus must have been the tallest fellow in the whole fortress and probably of all Sulk End and the Idlewild too-he was sartorially splendid in dark gray pinstriped silk, wearing his own snow-white hair slicked and jutting from the back of his head like a plume. He wore small spectacles the color of ale-bottles, and a sharp, intelligent glimmer in his eye boded ill for any puzzle-headed notions. 'Ah, hmm…' The man composed himself. 'Master Bookchild, is it not?'
'Aye, Doctor,' the prentice answered with a respectful bow. 'At your service, sir,' he added.
'And so you have been, Master Bookchild,' the physician said, clicking his heels and giving a cursory nod, 'of service to me, and more so to this poor fellow here, as I understand it.' He gave a single, paternal pat on Numps' shoulder.
Numps hung his head and smiled a sheepish smile.
Rossamund did not know what to say, so he simply said, 'Aye, Doctor.'
'See, Mister Doctor Crispus, see: Mister Rossamund has come back again and Numps has a new new old friend.They let him in, did you know? They never let my friends like him in before, did they? Maybe one day they'll let the sparrow-man in too?'
Crispus smiled ingratiatingly. 'Yes, Numps, yes. I see.'
Baffled but deeply gratified by this reception, Rossamund asked, 'How is your foot today, Mister Numps?' The bandages seemed still tightly bound and in their right place.
'Oh, poor Numps' poor foot,' Numps sighed. 'It hurts, it itches. But Mister Doctor Crispus told me well stern this morn that I was to leave it be… so I leave it be.' He wiggled his toes.
'And so you must.' Distractedly the physician pulled a fob from his pocket. 'Ah! Middens is already this ten minutes gone,' he declared. 'I must eat like any man jack.'
'Doctor Crispus?' Rossamund dared.
'Yes, Master Bookchild, quickly now: middens is not the meal to be missed. Breakfast maybe, mains surely- but never middens.' Crispus took off his glasses and dabbed at them with the hem of his sleek frock coat.
'Was Mister Numps right not to want to go to Swill?' Rossamund inquired.
The physician nearly blushed. 'Oh… Heard my complaints, did you?' He paused thoughtfully for several breaths. 'Please disregard an unguarded moment. Those were just professional frustrations requiring a little letting. It's a small understanding between Numps and I-whenever we meet: I run away at the mouth, he listens. That being so,' Doctor Crispus carefully continued, 'I would rather you came to me with your ills, or the dispensurist or even Obbolute if I'm incommunicado; or just go sick until I return, than put yourself into the hands of that hacksaw.' With a cough Crispus looked Rossamund square in the eye. 'I would thank you not to say any more of that which you have overheard.'
Rossamund ducked his head, going shy from the confidence this eminent adult was putting in him. 'Not a word, Doctor.' He nodded gravely.
'How-be-it, eating is overdue.' Doctor Crispus pointed at Numps' legs. 'I have applied new bandages but that is all: your use of the siccustrumn was exactly right. The lacerations are deep but the potive has been well applied and is doing the healing work far better than any I could now. You have been given charge over a salumanticum for good reason, prentice-lighter.'
Rossamund bowed again, unable to hide his grin of delight.
'Enough now, food awaits.' Doctor Crispus gathered up his satchel and stray instruments. 'After that it's back to that stout fellow, Josclin-may his skies seldom cloud.'
'Is he mending, Doctor?' Rossamund ventured.
'If you are a wagering man, Master Bookchild,' Crispus said as he began his exit, 'I would put my haquins and carlins on Mister Josclin's full recovery! Good diem to you and good diem to you, Mister Numps. I shall return in a few days to ensure your clever foot-as you call it-is still mending. I have seen you return from the very doors of death, my man.Your foot will not unduly trouble you.'
With that the physician hustled out of the lantern store.
Numps immediately began cleaning panes. 'Mister Doctor Crispus and Mister 'Pole doesn't know all what happened.' The glimner did not look up, but spoke into his own lap.
