There was a long pause.
'Doesn't know what?' the prentice pressed as gently as he could.
'He didn't tell it like things happened…' The glimner went on. 'I didn't go a-crawling back to the lamppost…'
Realizing what Numps was talking about, Rossamund leaned a little closer.
'I remember… Even now when I sleep I remember. Poor Numps was dead in his puddle of red, no crawling about for him. It was the little sparrow-man that helped me.'
Rossamund's attention prickled. 'The little sparrow-man, Mister Numps?' he asked very very quietly. This was the type of talk that could get you branded 'sedorner.'
'Yes, yes.' Numps smiled, looking up at last. 'They might have got my arm to gnaw on, but they didn't get all of poor Numps. It was the little sparrow-man that fought the pale, runny men-'
'I heard you were hurt by rever-men!'
'Oh aye, aye! Pale, runny men ripping us all to stuff and bits and that little sparrow-man came and tore them limb from limb and saved me-my first new old friend. He plugged all the pains with weeds and stopped the red from its flow-flow-flowing… Fed me dirty roots. That made me feel safe.'
'That little sparrow-man?' Rossamund repeated.
'Aye, this big'-still gripping a pane, Numps adumbrated a creature of short stature with his hand-'and with a large head like a sparrow's, a-blink-blink-blink.'
A hunch tickled at the back of Rossamund's mind. Could it be the same creature? 'I think I have seen him myself,' he said.
Numps became all attention, and he too bent forward in his seat.
'Not a long time ago I spied him,' Rossamund continued, 'on the side of the Gainway going down to High Vesting, a nuglung with a sparrow's head all dark about the eyes and white on his chest, blinking at me from a bush.'
A little taken aback, Numps blinked quickly. 'Yes yes, Cinnamon-he helped me! I reckon he's got more names than I've got space in my limpling head to count, he's been about for so, so long… Long-living monsters with long lists of names.'
Cinnamon, Rossamund marveled. 'How do you know this, Mister Numps?' he whispered.
'Hmm, well, because he told me,' Numps answered simply. 'Cinnamon is poor Numps' friend too, see, 'cause it was him that beat the runny men.'
Rossamund felt something between awe and a habitual, thoughtless horror. 'You are friends with a nuglung?' he breathed, reflexively looking over his shoulder for unwelcome listeners.
Numps grinned. 'Ah-huh. Cinnamon said he was come from the sparrow-king who lives down in the south hills. He keeps an eye out for old Numps, sends his little helpers to watch.'
'The sparrow-king?' Rossamund scratched his face in bewilderment. His thoughts reeled at the thought of a monster-lord living near.
'Yes yes,' Numps enthused. 'The Duke of Sparrows, the sparrow-duke; he has lots of names too. The Sparrowling Is an urchin-king Who rules from courts of trees. He guards us here From the Ichormeer And keeps folks in their ease.'
'Have you seen the Duke of Sparrows, Mister Numps?'
Numps shook his head. 'But I would like to, though.'
'So would I,' Rossamund admitted.
'But you can see him anytime, Mister Rossamund!' The glimner pulled a perplexed face. 'All the old friends would be your friends, wouldn't they?'
The young prentice hesitated. 'All the old friends? What do you mean, Mister Numps?'
'Yes, yes! My poor limpling head-the nuggle-lungs and glammergorns and the other old friends.'
'I–I have one old friend such as this,' Rossamund dared. 'His name is Freckle. He is a glamgorn who helped me when we were trapped in a boat with a rever-man. We set Freckle free.'
Numps listened to this short telling with growing intensity. At its conclusion he grinned rapturously and did a little sit-down dance, chiming, 'Yes yes, you set him free, trapped in gaol is no place to be.
… you are a good friend indeed for Numps to have who sets his fellows loose from traps. Good for Freckle too.'
'I don't like to tell anyone about him,' Rossamund warned. 'You should not say either, Mister Numps, about Freckle or Cinnamon. Most people don't like those who are kind to nickers.'
Numps' enthusiasm vanished. 'I remember that folks hate the nuggle-lungs.' He nodded glumly. 'And the hobble-possums and all the gnashers, friend or bad. I remember that them that talk with them nor think them friends are hated too. Don't be a-worrying and a-fretting, I won't say naught 'bout Cinnamon nor Freckle, and I'll not say naught 'bout you neither.'
They set to polishing panes again, Numps redoing Rossamund's as he had done the day before.This time the prentice did not mind. He was already being wooed by the timber-and-seltzer-perfumed ease of the lantern store, the rumble of rain on its shingle roof adding a merry, monotonous melody. It was with profound reluctance that he returned to his usual tasks at middens' end.
12
Graille(s) tools of a punctographist. A marker needs four particular utensils to make a cruorpunxis upon the skin: the guillion-also called an acuse or zechnennadel-the needle dipped in cruor and then pricked into the skin; the orbis-in full, orbis malleus, a disc-headed mallet with which the guillion is tapped to puncture the skin and leave a mark; the sprither-the device used to extract the blood from a monster in the first place; the bruicle-the container in which cruor is kept till needed and into which the guillion is dipped every twenty taps or so to refresh the blood. Other tools necessary to a punctographist are a notebook and stylus to take a likeness of the fallen monster's face (either by description or by the presence of a corpse-or the head at least). From this the design of the mark is then figured, usually in consultation with the 'markee.'
That night after mains the prentices gleefully attended the evenstalls puncting, happy to have something to celebrate.Waiting for the officers and other senior ranks to enter before them, the lantern-sticks formed up along the low fence that hedged the Dead Patch, where the corpses of the first common lighters and pediteers had been buried into the very foundations, feetfirst to conserve room. There they waited dutifully as the higher ranked- dazzling in the polish of their uniforms-entered the hall.The Dead Patch always made Rossamund fretful; he associated graveyards with the dark trades and, after his experience in the hold of the Hogshead, with rever-men too. It was just as well the Dead Patch was properly lit, for this helped a little with the prickling terrors that crept under his scalp and down his neck. He shivered at thoughts of boat-holds and foul things snatching from the dark.
'Be still!' Threnody complained alongside him.
'Be still yourself,' Rossamund spat back, under breath, with a rapid glance in Grindrod's direction. Despite himself, Rossamund was growing weary of Threnody's fractious manners. On his other side he felt Wrangle shift minutely and dart a worried, warning look at them both.
Threnody stared hard at him from the corner of her eye. 'What's your trouble, lamp boy? Missing your old nursery maid?'
'Shh!' Onion Mole hissed over his shoulder.
'Shh yourself, dolt,' she hissed in turn.
There was never any talking when the prentices were in line, but if Rossamund did not say something she
