'These were why I was gone. I purchased them from Messrs. Lard amp; Wratch of Chortle Lane, finest gunsmiths in the Placidine.' Her beam widened. 'I have longed for them for so long, looking in on them any time we made an excursion to that town.'
'How much did they cost?' he whispered. 'How did you afford them?'
Threnody's smile vanished. 'Don't you know that you never ever ask a woman how much anything costs!' she declaimed.
Rossamund was sure that any regrets she might have had for coming to Wormstool were cured. A common practice of a dousing lantern-watch was to leave the first two great-lamps on their route still undoused.These morning-lights were left glowing to provide a little light to the surrounds of the cothouse while the sun still tarried on the lip of the world. Part of this practice involved members of the day- or house-watch then going out and dousing them when the day-shine was brighter.
On Gallowsnight Eve, with every vertical protrusion in Wormstool hung with toy nooses of string and slight rope and neckerchiefs to herald this ghoulish festivity, Rossamund and Threnody were sent to douse the morning- lights. They did this under the eagerly watching eye of Theudas-eagerly watching, that is, of Threnody. He was only slightly less recently joined to Wormstool than they and could not be happier for it, now that this dark-haired peerlet had arrived. At the base of East Worm 1 West Halt 52 Threnody and Theudas swapped a little chatter while they let Rossamund struggle to douse the lamp.
'So how is old Grind-yer-bones?' Theudas inquired. 'Still grinding away on all the poor prentices?'
'I can tell you,' answered Threnody, 'that he was none too happy about us being sent out so soon. Went into apoplexies arguing with the Master-of-Clerks.'
'Ahh, dear old Grind-yer-bones, he's an awkward basket.' Theudas shook his head. 'The kind ye want on yer side in a fight. We always reckoned he ate spent musket balls for his breakfast as the only things that might satisfy his stomach of a morning.'
Clang! Rossamund took another swing at the ratchet and missed.The other two seemed more than content to simply watch as he flailed.
'Here, let me help you, Rossamund,' Threnody piped, going over to him. 'He has never been much good at crook work,' she said motheringly over her shoulder. 'I've had to help him with the winding before.'
'Is that the truth, Master Haroldus?' asked Theudas with an incredulous laugh.
'Just the once,' Rossamund muttered angrily.
'Little wonder then ol' Grind-yer-bones was so reluctant to ever let you out,' marveled Theudas. 'Whoever heard of a lighter who couldn't light?'
Threnody gave a short braying laugh but saw Rossamund's face and became serious. 'He can throw a good potive though,' she offered.
'All I need is a proper length crook!' Rossamund growled as he tried again.With a belated clink he got the crank-hook home in the ratchet slot and with angry jerks began to wind in the bloom.
25
Thrumcop also called a bog-button and related to a larger, tasty and oddly threwdish fungus known as austerpill, thrumcops are a funguslike mushroom with a deep brown pileus spotted with swollen off-white circular patches. The essence of thrumcops can be used in rudimentary repellents, giving rise to the idea that eating them on their own will cause this essence to seep through your pores and make you less appetizing to a monster.
The restless airs of the Frugelle were rarely still, winds ever blowing from the lower cardinals. If they came from the west they smelled of parched rock and hinted too of fennel and loam; if from the south they brought with them a tang of the ocean deeps; but from the east the winds' cold breathing carried the sick stink of rot and fire- damp-the portentous, threwdish reek of the Ichormeer. It was on one of these putrid easterly days, with the sky lowering and threatening gales, that Rossamund and Threnody were set the task of joining Sequecious the Sebastian cook to find more thrumcops to store for more breakfasts. House-Major Grystle showed great concern for their safety, handing over a portable timepiece to Rossamund. 'Take this hack-watch, Lampsman,' the man added, 'and be gone no more than three quarters of one hour. Just a brief search and back here again. Someone will be watching from the roof, and if you are in distress, send up a flare.'
'Aye, sir.' Rossamund cradled the remarkable device for an awed moment then hid it as safely as he could on his person. He was given charge too of a tubelike flammagon-a flintlock flare-thrower, which he hung from his shoulder along with his salumanticum.
Still in his kitchen apron and wearing a broad-brimmed catillium to cover his bald pate from the pale glare of the clouds, Sequecious the cook carried with him a large cauldron. This pot was of such girth that another man might have struggled to carry it in both arms, yet the fellow dangled it in the crook of one powerful, flabby arm. In the other, Sequecious bore a boltarde with pistol-length wheel locks extending from the pole on either side of the axlike blades. The blade edges were patterned with a distinctive spatter of congealed black; the telltale spackle of a weapon smeared with aspis, one of the more effective venificants or distinct monster poisons.
Like so many of the firelocks and hand arms of the Wormstool lighters, it was not prescribed issue.These fellows may have behaved in an exemplary manner and kept their harness to a higher-than-drill-book standard, yet their personal weapons were as diverse as the personalities who wielded them. Perhaps Rossamund's favorite was an ax-carabin belonging to Aubergene, with its wooden butt thinned to a handle-the stock and barrel not much longer than that of a pistol-and the muzzle fixed with a thin, sliver-crescent ax-head counterbalanced by a war- hammer fluke. It was an elegant piece, and Lampsman Aubergene was clearly proud of it.
With many grins and some wordless gestures Sequecious got the two young lighters to follow him;Threnody regarding every request with scorn but obedient nevertheless.
Standing on the edge of the highroad facing north, the cook pointed to a thick stand of regal swamp oaks away to the northeast, about two hundred yards into the flatland. 'Thrumcops are being best found in there, tank yee,' he said with a happy nod. The tallest and largest of the few copses and thickets that dotted the otherwise unrelieved flatness of this land, it was as close as the Frugelle came to a forest. Despite all the warnings and suspicions of threwd, Rossamund was eager to explore the somber wood.
In a spray of dust and stones, they slid down the short, steep side of the road, the cook almost upending himself in his career. He laughed the near-miss away and led them off into the weird world of the Paucitine flats. Semidried stands of mustard weed and thistles thrice Rossamund's height made lanes through the small, tough grasses. These lanes would run for seven or eight yards before another lane would cross it and block the way, making a weedy maze that was hard to contradict. Sequecious waddled confidently along a stubbly, stony route that would have had Rossamund disoriented but for the glimpses he caught of Wormstool. The fortalice was a conspicuous landmark in this vast, remote cosmos. The Imperial Spandarion flicked and cracked on high from the rooftop, as the lampsmen's washing strung out beneath whipped in unison.
There must have been water about, despite the arid soil and thirsty plants, for as they walked the young lighter could hear frogs croaking, creaking and ponging at every hand; it might have been a friendly chorus, but the uneasy threwd, amplified by the fetid eastern breeze, turned the amphibious music sinister. Sometimes they would stop, leaving an eerie hush that set Rossamund anxiously searching for a lurker.
Untroubled, Sequecious pushed effortlessly through a thicket and the young lighters followed in the wake the great man's girth made, unhindered by stem or twig. They were in the stand of swamp oaks at last, a dim grove that soughed uneasily in the wind.
