"There's another one of these just been handed about the officers' mess," growled a haubardier. "We can handle the baskets. Don't need no outside hesistance, thanks all the same. The Marshal'll keep it all in hand."
"So ye say, Turbidius," countered the corporal, "but ye have to give that it's been a cram-full of theroscades unchecked these last couple o' years, particularly this year, and most particularly this winter.The Marshal ain't kept that all in hand-it be his name on the bill, bain't it? He's the one admitting to needing help."
Assimus ground his teeth. "And if ye was buried under a mountain of paper and chits such as our Lamplighter-Marshal be these few years, then I beg to suggest ye might be needing some help too!"
Rossamund was, more than anything, boggled at the idea of the manse full of teratologists in all their weird gaudery. As people moved on to their business, a notion dawned on him. Maybe Europe will be coming? Reading the bill closely, he did not doubt that her "thew" would be sturdy enough, though he wondered if her "repute" might be fine enough. She would have been finished in Sinster by now, surely. The thought of her returning into his life made Rossamund feel strange. He was apprehensive yet oddly hopeful.
"I don't know why the Emperor don't send us some more lighters from them kinder highroads like what's down in the Patricine-like the Conduit Axium or the Bridle," continued the corporal.
"Aye, or reinforce us with a battalion o' musketeers or such," some other voice put in. "He's got more'n enough to spare with all his armies up in the Seat and down in the Alternats."
"Aye, well, the Emperor's too busy using them same musketeers to fight with our hereward neighbors and has none to spare us in our troubles."
Rossamund had some notion of the wars being fought to the west of the Empire with the princes of Sebastian and the landgraves of Stanislaus and Wencleslaus. This was an age-old struggle with the sedorner-kings that lived just beyond the grasp of the Haacobin Dynasty, accused of traffic with the monsters and worthy of annihilation. Centuries had gone and still these realms had refused to be subdued.
"Ye'd think our most Serene Highness might reckon it more important to fight the nickers nigh on his doorstep," that other voice put in.
"Aye, and ye'd think it wouldn't be much use conquerin' some other folks for loving the nickers when your own home is overrun with 'em!" the corporal concluded. "Don't he know how tough we've got it?"
With a corporate grumble of agreement people retired for the night.
"Listen to them mew about how hard it has been! What do they know?" Threnody growled as the crowd thinned. "My sisters have been stretched to exhaustion for years defending the people. These grot-headed lightermen don't know to recognize an ally when they've got one!"
Close by a sparrow flitted through the dark from one withered conifer to the next, disappearing into the foliage to twitter from its covert. With a last sharp tweet, it burst out and dashed away, followed by its mate, going southeast up across the roofs of the Low Gutter to disappear over the wall.
"Those things are uncommonly active of a nighttime," Threnody remarked. "Maybe they're watchers for the Duke of Sparrows…"
Rossamund started. How does she know of the Duke of Sparrows? He turned to stare where the bird had flown to hide his surprise. Were they truly being watched? "How can you know that?" he asked.
"I have heard Dolours say an urchin-lord dwells in the Sparrow Downs," the girl said smugly, clearly pleased to get a reaction out of him. "The Duke of Sparrows, who she says watches over things and keeps other bogles at bay."
"What would the Duke of Sparrows have to watch in here?" Rossamund marveled aloud, his sense of the lay of things shifting profoundly.
"Who can know?" Threnody replied dismissively. "We can't even be certain such a creature exists. Oh, never-you-mind, lamp boy. Dolours is often quietly telling me things like that: enough to make some people cry Sedorner!" She finished with an untoward shout.
Rossamund looked about in fright.
"But I'm not one of those mindless folk," Threnody concluded, "whatever Mother might insist."
"Is that why Dolours did not kill the Trought?" Rossamund said in the smallest whisper.
With a start, Threnody stared at him. "What do you mean, lamp boy?" she demanded.
"I–I would have reckoned she could slay it with one thought, but she just seemed to drive it away-"
"How would you know what the Lady Dolours can and can't do?" Threnody stood tall and arrogant.
"Well-I-"
"Bookchild! Vey!" demanded Benedict from the step of the Sally. "Inside at the double! Get to confinations afore the lamplighter-sergeant sees you!"
I hope the Duke of Sparrows does exist, thought Rossamund as he obeyed the under-sergeant. The notion of a benevolent monster-lord out there seeking to help humans and not harm them was almost too good to be possible.
13
Caladines also aleteins, solitarines or just solitaires; calendars who travel long and far from their clave spreading the work of good-doing and protection for the undermonied. The most fanatical of their sisters, caladines are typically the most colorfully mottled and strangely clothed of the calendars, wearing elaborate dandicombs of horns or hevenhulls (inordinately high thrice-highs) or henins and so on. They too will mark themselves with outlandish spoors often imitating the patterns of the more unusual creatures that their wide-faring ways may have brought onto their path.
By the new week all manner of teratologists began to fetch up at Winstermill, braving the unfriendly traveling weather for the prospect of reward-an Imperial declaration always held the promise of sous at the end. There were skolds and scourges, fulgars and wits, pistoleers and gangs of filibusters and other pugnators. Some appeared alone, others brought their factotums, and a few swaggerers were served by a whole staff of cogs-clerks and secretaries and other fiddlers of details.There came too the learned folk: habilists and natural philosophers, with their pensive expressions and chests of books. Even peltrymen-trappers and fur traders-answered the call. Bloodless and severe, they arrived from all the wooded nooks, lured from their own perilous labors by the lucrative promises. Every one of these opportunists and sell-swords would come there by foot, by post-lentum, by hired caboose, by private carriage, and stay for a moment and no more than a night, just long enough to gain a precious Writ of the Course. This Imperial document was a guarantee of payment that gave the bearer the right to claim head-money for the slaughter of bogles.
With all these came the usual motley crowd of hucilluctors, fabulists, cantebanks and clowns, pollcarries, brocanders selling their secondhand proofing, even wandering punctographists. Peregrinating, posturing upstarts were coming and going and milling about the manse, some foolishly camping near the foot of the fortress on the drier parts of the Harrowmath. More a nuisance than a novelty, they soon found themselves firmly encouraged to shuffle on to other places.
Yet it was among the teratologists, of course, that Rossamund discovered the most unusual folk of all. Once in a while there arrived a person dressed in the likeness of an animal or bird, or monster even; and wherever these animal-costumed folk went and whatever they did, they went and did in dance. He recognized something of their prancings in the two calendars who had fought in the Briarywood. At limes, between fodicar drill and evolutions, a pair of these slowly spinning, skipping teratologists danced through the gates on foot, costumed as cruel blackbirds.