done, she pushed the screen away and got into her rough cot. She was in a voluminous white nightdress, her hair gathered and hidden beneath a sacklike, ribbon-tied crinickle. Rossamund had never seen her in this way. She had been careful never to show herself after douse-lanterns back at Winstermill. The nightclothes and hat made her look curiously vulnerable. He prepared for sleep more publicly, his wounded head throbbing as it had not done for some days.
Sleep was hard-won that night. Rossamund wrestled with his troubles as he lay in the cold listening to Threnody's easy breathing. Fed a hasty breakfast the next morning, they were allowed barely enough time for brewing Threnody's treacle. A slap of reins and a shout, and the lentum went on, the weird song of unseen birds echoing across the foggy valley their only farewell. Feeling empty and exhausted, Rossamund bid the Bolt a silent good-bye. Threnody slid over to Rossamund's side of the carriage and, pulling back the drape, stared at the low northward hills where Herbroulesse was hidden, still dark despite the morning glow. 'Till anon, Mother,' she murmured, and kept her vigil till they were well past the cothouse and the lesser road too.
The day's journey took them past dousing lampsmen returning to Sallowstall and on to that place itself, the quality of the road improving from hard-packed clay and soil to flagstones. With a blare of the horn, the post-lentum stopped at Sallowstall, a well-tended cot-rent with broad grounds and thick walls.
The mail was passed over and horses changed. Over the ford, scattering half-tame ducks, and out of the thicket of trees, the lentum resumed the journey.
As the afternoon wore on, the pastures on either side of the Wormway became neater, their boundaries clearer, their furrows straighter, less weedy. Much of the land was a dark, fertile brown. This was a very different land from the grayer soils of the crofts Rossamund had known about Boschenberg. Nearing Cothallow they saw peoneers levering at the road with iron-crows while a grim-looking guard of haubardiers stood watch.
'Thrice-blighted baskets have taken to tearing up the highroad,' Rossamund heard someone call to their driver as the post-lentum cautiously passed along. Flagstones had been torn up and thrown aside, and a great-lamp bent over like a wind-broken sapling, its glass smashed, the precious bloom torn into shreds and yellowing.
Nestled in a wooded valley, Cothallow was long and low, its thick granite facade perforated with solid arches from the midst of which slit windows stared, closely barred and ready to be employed as loopholes.Their stay was not much more than a shouted 'Hallo!' an exchange of mail and a hurried change of horses. The lenterman was clearly keen, with the advance of day, to be at the next destination.
A sparrow alighted suddenly on the lowered door sash and, ruffling its wings, inspected first Threnody then Rossamund with keen deliberation. Threnody peered at the impertinent little bird over the top of her duodecimo. It trilled at Rossamund once and loudly, and then shot off with a hum of speedy wings as the post-lentum jerked forward to resume its travels.
'I've never known such birds to be so persistent,' Threnody exclaimed. 'He looks just the same as that one watching while we talked in the greens-garden by the manse.'
Rossamund leaned forward. 'Perhaps the Duke of Sparrows is watching us?' he whispered.
'I can't think why he would watch after us particularly,' the girl answered with a frown.
'Maybe he's making sure you don't go witting the wrong bogle,' Rossamund muttered with a weak grin, feeling anything but funny.
'Is there such a thing?' Threnody said seriously, looking at him sharply.
Rossamund very much wanted to say 'yes' but held his tongue.
The crowns of the hills about were thick with trees, but their flanks were broad with deep green pastures, thin breaks of lithely myrtles. Here cattle lowed and chewed and drank from the runnels that wore creases down the hillsides. Crows cawed to each other across the valley.
Their day's-end destination was the community of Makepeace, built amid sparse, elegant, evergreen myrtles, right on the banks of the Mirthlbrook. It was the first significant settlement upon the Conduit Vermis, a village sequestered behind a massive, foreboding wall. Rossamund could see the top bristling with sharp iron studs and shards of broken crockery, which seemed to make a lie of the Makepeace's friendly name. Crowds of chimneys stretched well above the beetling fortifications, each one drizzling steamy smoke into the still, damp air, showing a promise of a warm hearth and even warmer food. Rossamund imagined every home filled with humble families- father, mother, son, daughter-living quietly useful lives.
Upon either side of the gate were two doughty bastion-towers, both showing the muzzle of a great-gun through enlarged loopholes. Situated immediately by the northern tower, the cothouse of Makepeace Stile merged its foundations with those of the wall. A high fastness much like Dovecote Bolt yet greatly enlarged-maybe five or six stories-the Stile was near as tall as the chimney stacks of Makepeace and must have dominated the view of the west from within the village.
The post-lentum eased into a siding between the cothouse and the highroad, its arrival coincident with the departure of the lamp-watch.
Alighting from the carriage, Rossamund heard a cry sound from down the gloomy road. 'The hedgeman comes! Be a-ready to make your orders, the hedgeman comes!' It was uttered by a portly figure pulling his test- barrow and strolling toward the town from the same direction the lentum had just come, as if there was no threat from monsters.
A hedgeman! Rossamund's attention pricked. These were wandering folk, part skold, dispensurist and ossatomist who cured chills and set bones (for a fee) where other habilists would not venture. He had not noticed them passing the fellow earlier, though they must have.
'The hedgeman is here! Come a-make your orders, the hedgeman is here!' came the cry again, and this time Rossamund recognized the crier.
Mister Critchitichiello! Mister Critchitichiello, who made his living hawking his skills to all and any along the Wormway. When he had first arrived at Winstermill, Rossamund found it much easier to ask the kindly hedgeman to make Craumpalin's Exstinker than go to Messrs. Volitus or Obbolute, the manse's own script-grinders. Now, with the current batch near its end, and more required to last him at his new billeting, Rossamund hurried over to the man through traffic and the rain.
In the manse the hedgeman was a popular fellow. Rossamund had to wait his turn while the small crowd of brother-lighters ordered eagerly. Mostly they came for love-pomades made to secure the affections of Jane Public and the other dolly-mops-the maids and professional girls living in the towns about-or find a cure for the various aches and grumbles your average lampsman seemed always to possess. Out here, however, two days east of Winstermill, Rossamund was the only customer.
'Well 'ello there, young a-fellow.' Critchitichiello greeted Rossamund in his strange Sevillian accent, grinning at him from beneath the wide brim of his round hat. 'I a-remember you from the fortress.Yes? Back then you wore a hat and not a bandage.'
The prentice nodded cheerily.
'Hallo, Mister Critchitichiello. Triple the quantity of my Exstinker, please. I have the list for it if you need to remember its parts.'
Critchitichiello smiled. 'No-no, I remember. Old Critchitichiello never forgets such clever mixings.' He tapped his pock-scarred brow knowingly. 'I'll have it ready for you in a puff, Rossamundo. You see! I even remember your name though we meet but once.'
Rossamund followed the hedgeman as he set his test-barrow down under the eave of a small stall built against the eastern wall. A remarkable little black-iron chimney poked out and up from the back, puffing clean little puffs of smoke. Critchitichiello unlatched and unfolded his barrow, the lid swinging up to provide a roof from the rain.
Master Craumpalin would want to see this! Rossamund thought sadly of the charcoal ruin that Master Craumpalin's own marvelous test had become. He gripped the list of parts made by the dispensurist's own hand as if it were a precious jewel. He had read the recipe many times and knew it well: mabrigond, wine-of-Sellry, nihillis, dust-of-carum, benthamyn. As he observed the testing-as making a script is called-Rossamund habitually ran through the steps in his mind. Start with five parts-no! Fifteen parts wine-of-Sellry in a porcelain beaker over gentle heat.
A familiar savory smell wafted, like fine vegetable soup, as the liquid began to simmer.
