Rossamund listened with rapt attention. Despite-or perhaps because of-the lampsman's lurid description, he was more keen to see the infamous place. Lying down to sleep, he found his imagination ran for the longest time with thoughts of a corrupted, bloodred swampland where loathsome things slithered and groveled in the noisome muds. They were woken after middens by the arrival of costerman Squarmis, surprisingly delivering their heavy luggage intact and unmolested. Ox trunks properly stowed at the feet of their cots,Threnody's extra packages crammed underneath, the two new lighters were set to task. It was with profound and sinking horror that Rossamund discovered the very first duty set aside for them: feed and muck the dogs.
Oh no!
"Ye've done this before, aye?" said Lamplighter-Sergeant Mulch. "And if ye haven't, well… I suggest ye learn quickly. It's an easy job and a good way to start, so hop to it now." There was a familiarly gruff manner in this lamplighter-sergeant, very much like the one they had left behind at Winstermill and perhaps all the sergeants the Half-Continent over.
"Dogs don't like me so much, Lamplighter-Sergeant," Rossamund tried forlornly.
"They'll get used to ye," the man insisted, "especially if ye hold them out a little bit o' food."
"We will do splendidly, Sergeant," Threnody said flatly, and taking Rossamund under his arm, pulled him with her down to the kennels.
But they did not do splendidly.
As at Wellnigh House, so it was here. No matter how tasty a morsel Rossamund held out to them, the dogs went wild. Threnody's solution of sending him down to close off and muck out the other end of the cage failed miserably; the dogs bayed and yammered and made such a ruckus at him that all of Wormstool came running with cries of "Nicker on the doorstep!"
They soon realized what was what. There was no nicker anywhere, not even after a full quarto of the Stoolers searched the perimeters of the cothouse with Crescens Hugh the lurksman at their lead.
"I dun't know, mates, it's all cry and no nickers," Hugh declared when the searchers returned and the front door was secured once more. Everyone professed themselves mystified and the incident was dismissed.
Lamplighter-Sergeant Mulch just shook his head when all was done and declared, "The dogs truly don't like ye, do they, lad?"
24
Combinades hand arms that are a clever combination of melee weapon and firelock.The firing mechanism on most combinades is an improved wheel lock, being more sturdy than a flintlock, and able to take the jars that come when the weapon is used to strike a foe. Added to this, the lock mechanism, trigger and hammer are usually protected by gathered bands of metal, a basket much like those protecting the hilts of many foreign swords. When edges and bullets are treated with gringollsis, combinades become very effective therimoirs (monster-killing tools).
On the second day Rossamund's life as a lamplighter started in full. Now he was properly arrived in this wild place, he was careful to replenish his bandage with the recent-made Exstinker, dawdling with his preparations until the other lighters had gone to breakfast. Obeying instructions, he ventured out fully harnessed, a necessary precaution this close to the monsters' realm. He quickly discovered the day-watch consisted of little more than rounds of chores, beginning-navylike-with the scrubbing of all the floors, soap-stoning and swabbing and flogging every story of the tower as if they were the decks of a ram.
Nothing more was said about the incident with the dogs, though the young lighter was not required to muck and feed them anymore. Instead he and Threnody helped in the kitchens or in the Works-as the third floor from the entrance was named, carrying and fetching for Onesimus Grumely, the house-tinker and sometime proofener, or tending the fortlet's bright-limns and lanterns with Mister Splinteazle, Seltzerman 2nd Class.Yet Rossamund soon discovered his favorite task was to join sentries, watching through the loopholes in the walls or from the observation benches upon the roof. Dubbed the Fighting Top, it was a place he quickly decided was the best in the whole cothouse. From there, high and safe, he could marvel at the whole flatland of the Frugelle with little interruption and still be considered working.
Threnody did not share his enthusiasm for the view. "This is an ugly place," she declaimed darkly as they watched with Theudas after middens. "All I can see is a hundred nooks for bugaboos to flourish."
Even as she spoke there came a single flash of lightning far away north, leaping from the flat cover of cloud straight to the earth. A second distant bolt had Theudas ducking.
"What, by my aching bowels, was that?" the lampsman exclaimed.
The peal of thunder took a long time to reach them, and by then it was only a sullen grumble.
"Maybe Europe has found her rever-man!" Rossamund stared in the direction of the strike, heart thumping with fright.
"Maybe," replied Threnody, her tone saying, Who cares!
Threnody's sour misgivings and the regularity of lamplighting life soon dulled the novelty of a new location. A day's beginning was marked by the usual rattle of drums and its end by the cry "A lamp! A lamp to light your path!" declaring the arrival of the Haltmire lighters-stern, stiff fellows that the Stoolers called "Limpers." Then, as at Winstermill, was a little time for each day-watchman to do as he pleased before douse-lanterns. However, Rossamund found the sameness of each day-as at Winstermill-a real and surprising comfort; for all their overfamiliarity, the routines were powerfully settling.
Different from the manse, however, were Domesdays. Out here they were not free of labor; indeed the lantern-watch had no rest at all. It was a day of reduced work, but House-Major Grystle was of the opinion that idle hands make waste, and the vigil was a make-and-mend day where clothes were patched and proofing was mended.
Yet in between light Domesday duties and any spare moment of an evening, the Stoolers enjoyed what Rossamund soon considered his favorite pastime: sitting in the mess to play at checkers and the card games of lesquin and pirouette. They conducted themselves with far better grace and mirth than the prentices and, though the stakes were high, there was no bickering on the shuffle or squabbling over who could bet what or when. At pirouette-where the winning hand had the losing hand do a silly dance-they went easy on Rossamund, letting him learn; but Threnody they needed to give no such grace. She quickly showed herself a match for all, even Mister Harlock, the sergeant-master, who proved shrewdly adept at outwitting most of his billet-mates. Young Theudas, however, was far too sharp and beat all with great whoops! of victory as he mercilessly had everyone-even Rossamund-hopping one dance or another as they lost the round.
"Kindly Ladies Watch the Happy Aurangs again!" he declared triumphantly, throwing down both queens, both duchesses and both aurangs.
Half the success of the game was knowing precisely what made for a winning hand; there was a long list of combinations, just like the Hundred Rules of Harundo, and Rossamund was slow to remember them all. Once again his own hand was pathetically meager, the worst of the round and now-for the fifth time that night-he was made to gambol about, curling his arms in and out calling, "I'm a monkey! I'm a monkey!" his face attaining the hue of the red side of his quabard.
"Go easy on the new babbies," Lamplighter-Sergeant Mulch chuckled while the other Stoolers guffawed at Rossamund's antics. Threnody looked on with an expression of almost feline satisfaction. Mysteriously, Theudas never seemed to trump her, and she had not yet been made to dance a single turn.