Almost the moment these words were out, the grandiose figure of the Master-of-Clerks, the Marshal-Subrogat himself, appeared at the lectury door, gracing them all with his presence. He held his chin at a dignified tilt. As always, the man was served by his ubiquitous retinue: Laudibus Pile; Witherscrawl, and now Fleugh the under-clerk; the master-surveyor with diagrams of the manse permanently gripped under his arm; and two troubardier foot-guards.With them also came a lanky, frightening-looking fellow dressed all in lustrous black: heavy boots, black galliskins over tight leggings, black satin longshanks. His trunk was swathed in a sash of sturdy proofed silk, neck thickly wrapped in a long woolen scarf yet—most oddly—his chest and shoulders and arms were bare, despite the aching chill, showing too-pale against all the black. His head was bald, and a thin dark arrow pointed up his face from chin to absent hairline, its tines splaying out over each brow. He was a wit. More disconcerting still was that his eyes were completely black—no white orbs, just glistening dark.This was some strange trick of chemistry Rossamünd had not heard of.The combination of this blank, pitch-dark stare with Pile’s snide, parti-hued gaze stilled the whole room as they moved within.

With a thump of determined footfalls Grindrod appeared behind them all, muttering to himself, his face screwed up in silent invective. “Sit” was all he said.

The prentices obeyed with meek alacrity.When all shuffling and snuffling ceased, the Master-of-Clerks paced before them, hands behind his back, puckering his lips and squinting at the platoon as if shrewdly appraising them all.

“Brave prentices,” he declaimed, “you have worked at your practicing with admirable zeal and laudable facility. Fully confident in your fitness, I am convinced you are ready for full, glorious service as Emperor’s lighters, and have decided it timely for you to be granted your billets and to be sent promptly to them.”

That had most of the prentices scratching their heads, pained frowns of lugubrious thought creasing several brows. Does that mean it’s Billeting Day or what?

How would he know what the state of our fitness for service is? was the spin of Rossamünd’s own thinking. He has naught to do with us!

With a harsh, self-conscious throat-clearing, Grindrod stood forward, clearly struggling to contain his temper. “Sounds an admirable conclusion, sir, but the lantern-sticks bain’t ready for the work. Ye let a half-trained lad out on the road by himself and ye might as well toss ’im straight to the fetchman!”

“Pshaw! I’ll not have your womanish obstructions, Lamplighter-Sergeant-of-Prentices.” The Master-of-Clerks enunciated Grindrod’s full title in the manner of a put-down. “They are required out on that road to make up for the appalling losses incurred under my predecessor.”

The Lamplighter-Sergeant went purple with indignant rage, but the Master-of-Clerks carried on, not allowing the man an opportunity to press any further dissent.

“Staffing at the cothouses must be restocked. We have twenty-one—no, twenty-two”—he corrected himself with an enigmatic look to Threnody, sitting straightbacked at the front of the room—“hale souls trained in the lampsman’s labors, and as ready as anyone can be, surely, to wind a simple glowing weed in and out its chamber. It is a terrible waste of a resource and one I have decided can be better employed filling these gaps on the road than lolling about here being taught the same thing over and over. It is not difficult work, Sergeant. If they have not come to grips with the task by now, I fail to see how another month will make it so.”

“Another month is all the difference, sir!” Grindrod glowered. “They’re bare-breeched bantlings who set to whimperin’ at the slightest speak of bogles! Ye should be hiring those blighted sell-swords bivouacked outside the Nook, or get them lardy magnates in the Placidine itself to spare a platoon or two of their blighted domesticars! Either way, sir, trained, professional men-at-arms used to the rigors of war. Ye might not know, sir, hidin’ behind yer ledgers and quill pots, that it’s war out upon the road, sir, and it’s we lowly lighters who are in the van!”

The Master-of-Clerks bridled for a moment and then, with admirable equanimity, said soothingly, “I’m sure you’re a fellow who knows his business well enough when teaching a poor lad his first clues, but it now falls to me to choose their best uses. That is to be the end of it, Lamplighter-Sergeant—I do not want to be put in the position of having to take you in firmer hand. Indexer Witherscrawl,” he said, dismissing Grindrod with a turn of his gorgeously bewigged head, “read the tally if you please.”

The sour indexer stepped forward, glared at the prentices—at every single one—and especially at Threnody. “Harkee, ye little scrubs! Here is the Roll of Billets, of who will go to where and when they will leave. Listen well—I shall tell this only the once!”

What! The prentices could not quite believe this: they were to be denied the full honors of a beautiful and especial ceremony. There were supposed to be martial musics; the whole manse was meant to turn out in respect at the boys’ success in prenticing and their coming into full rank as lampsmen. A susurrus of deep displeasure stirred about the boys.

Grindrod did nothing to quell them, simply folding his arms. In fact, he showed open pride in the prentices’ muttering rebellion.

“I said, quiet!” Witherscrawl shouted, and a foot-guard rapped the floor with the shaft end of his poleax, its cracking report startling the whole room to dumbness.

With a foul sneer, the indexer raised a tall, thin ledger close to his face and from it began to read out names in letter-fall order: Arabis to go to Cothallow, Childebert to Sparrowstall, Egadis to Tumblesloe Cot just beyond the Roughmarch, and so on.

Attention focused.

“Mole to Ashenstall . . .”

Onion Mole went white with dismay.The other prentices winced, Rossamünd with them. A long way east, Ashenstall was one of the harder billets on the road, isolated and with few vigil-day rests.

Apprehension grew. They could not assume only the kinder billets would be given.

“Wheede to Mirthalt . . . ,” droned the indexer, “Wrangle to . . . Bitterbolt . . .”

With a chill, Rossamünd knew his name was next, languishing at the end of the lists along with Threnody’s . . .

“Bookchild to Wormstool . . .”

. . . and this chill became a frigid blank.

Some of the other prentices gasped.

This was the last—the very last—cothouse on the Wormway, well east of Ashenstall, with only the grim Imperial bastion of Haltmire between it and the Ichormeer. Built at the “ignoble end of the road,” Wormstool was no place for newly promoted prentice-lampsmen. Situated too near the sodden fringe of the dread swamp, it was held as one of the toughest billets of all. Only those who volunteered ever went there, yet here he was, a mere prentice, being sent. The Ichormeer had once been just a frightful fable to him. Now Rossamünd was going to live and work as a neighbor to its very borders, where all the bogles and the vilest hugger-muggers that ever dragged themselves from putrid mud haunted and harried. Absorbed in his shocked thoughts at this revelation, he did not hear where Threnody had been sent.

Witherscrawl finished his recitation.

The Master-of-Clerks presented himself again. “I will be wanting you all to your billets as soon as can be done. With time to travel in consideration, those farther out will leave sooner. Therefore those prentices stationed farthest away will be leaving on the first post of tomorrow morn. Well done to you all, my fine fellows—you are now all full lampsmen!”

Confused and silent, the prentices were dismissed and that was that: Billeting Day—such as it had been—was over, an insulting sham.

The Master-of-Clerks left without any further acknowledgment, taking his “tail” with him. Grindrod followed, and an angry, muttered conference could be heard out in the hallway, terminating suddenly with the Master-of-Clerks’ high clear voice saying, “Cease your querulous bickerings, Sergeant-lighter! It will be as I have decided it. They have been sent where needed. If you are so concerned for the children, then get back to them and make certain they are ready for their great adventure. Good day!”

At first Rossamünd’s fellows were bemused. As the day progressed most were reconciled with their early promotions and many proved pleased with their billets, however untimely and however tawdrily they had been portioned. At lale—held indoors owing to inclement weather—they buzzed and boasted excitedly to each other about the various merits of their new posts, those billeted at the same cothouse gathering together in excited twos or threes. Every lad congratulated the others for their good fortune and the 7q extra they would all receive each month now that they were lampsmen 3rd class. For Onion Mole and even more so for Rossamünd there was baffled commiseration: he was the only prentice to be billeted at the ignoble end of the road.

“Why are they sending you so far, Rosey boy?” asked Arabis, still smiling about his prime posting at Cothallow, one of the smartest cothouses on the road.

Hands raised, Rossamünd shrugged.

“I reckon you’ll be going tomorrow morning, then?” Pillow wondered aloud.

“It’s a handy thing ye’ve had practice with yer potives.” Smellgrove patted him on the back.

“Aye.” Wheede grinned. “The baskets will have to watch they don’t get a pud full of bothersalts.”

Rossamünd ducked his head, grateful for their fumbling encouragements.

Threnody had guzzled her saloop and was rising to leave.

“Where are you going?” he asked her quickly.

“Out from here,” she answered flatly.

“Where are you billeted?”

“Didn’t you hear?” she asked tartly. “I’m going to Dovecote Bolt. That Odious Podious thinks he is such a funny fellow—told me my mother would appreciate me being so close.”

“We’ll be billet-mates!” cried Plod happily.

“Oh, hazzah,” Threnody replied with a wry twist of her mouth, and departed.

As he went to leave the mess hall, he passed Threnody, back from making her treacle in the kitchens. She snatched at his arm. “I must talk with you,” she hissed.

Rossamünd wrenched free. “Not now, Threnody. I must visit Numps to tell him I’m going,” he insisted in return.

She glowered at him. “What do you have to do that is more important than me? I have things to tell you—a surprise.”

“Truly, Threnody, it must wait,” he declared, pulling his arm free of her and dashing off, leaving her stunned and scowling.

In the early night he ran down to the Low Gutter. The sweet smell of rain-washed air—the promise of showers—was blowing up from the southeast. Passing through Door 143 just as water began to fall, Rossamünd emerged from the shelves as his ready, if somewhat forced, smile of friendliness became a puzzled grimace. Numps was not in his usual seat by the glow of the postless great-lamp and the never diminishing pile of panes. Nor was he down the next aisle of shelves getting mineral fluids or other such things for cleaning stubborn crust.

“Mister Numps?” he called.

The rain a-hammered on the roof.

Ringing ears.

Nothing.

“Mister Numps?” He turned slowly by the glimner’s empty seat, hoping the fellow might just shuffle out from behind a barrel or stack of lantern-windows. Horrid thoughts of some frightful crisis began to intrude into Rossamünd’s imagination, yet there was no evidence of trouble. Rossamünd searched down every aisle and behind any pile he could see: no Numps. Destroying his bloom is one thing, but surely he is too unimportant to be hurt or carried off? Rossamünd’s mind cogged. No one could be bothered, even if they did remember him. He thought of the undercroft and the old bloom baths. Surely not there? It’s been boarded up and blocked . . . This was the only alternative he knew.

Careful not to attract attention with any untoward huff or hustle, the prentice slipped through the mazelike interstices between the work buildings, trying to find the path Numps had taken him that one wet day.Twice he thought he had got himself irrevocably lost, yet, though seen only once, the particular features of the twisting route were quickly familiar again and Rossamünd was soon dashing down the tunnel-like alley. He skidded into the discarded square and its gurgling drains, startling a sparrow that had been bobbing by the sunken grate.The entrance to the undercroft had indeed been sealed with boards, but these had been pulled away and collected in a tidy stack by the grate. Next to this stack sat an equally orderly collection of the bolts used to pin the boards in place, partly piled on top of a soiled official ordinance bill stringently demanding everyone to go away in painfully formal terms. Kneeling in the wet, the prentice leaned over the grate and tried to reach under as he had observed Numps do, to feel about for some kind of catch or spring or other lever.

“Mister Numps!” he called, hoarse and wary, down the hole while he searched. “Mister Numps!” Nothing even vaguely catch or latchlike presented itself to his questing fingers.

“Oh hallo, Mister Rossamünd.” The soft voice of the glimner echoed strangely from below, giving Rossamünd a fright. “I reckoned you were a guardsman fellow come to take my bloom again.”

“Mister Numps!” With rushing relief, Rossamünd thought he could just spot the pale oval of Numps’ upturned face in the dark of the subterranean stair. “Are you safe? Are you hurt again?”

“Oh dear . . . I don’t want to be found by the Master-Clerker . . . ,” the glimner quavered. “I didn’t want to be found without Mister ’Pole here.”

Rossamünd smiled sadly. How he wished he could provide the glimner a greater sense of safety. Instead he had things to tell that he knew would be hard for the poor man.

“I have to go too, Mister Numps,” he began. “They’re sending me away . . .”

“Oh . . . oh dear . . .” Numps sighed, sounding bewildered. He must have climbed higher in his distress, for his pallid face became closer. “Numps’ friends all going . . . ”

“The Master-of-Clerks called Billeting Day today,” Rossamünd confirmed, “and I am leaving to my cothouse—and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“Tell Mister ’Pole—he won’t let you be sent away. Even poor old limpling-head Numps knows it’s too soon for prentices to go a-working. Write Mister ’Pole, he won’t let you go—I have his address, see . . .” Numps rummaged about in pockets.

“I will . . . I will write him a letter,” said Rossamünd. “Maybe he can help us, even from the Considine. Things are so bad with his and the Marshal’s leaving. You should stay hiding if you can, Mister Numps—the fortress is downside up. Will you be able to eat and all?”

“Ah, Mister Rossamünd.” Numps tapped his brow. “There are many things Numps knows that people don’t think he knows. There is food a-plenty if you go to the right places.” The glimner was oddly calm. “Besides, Cinnamon’s friends are watching over Numps-a-hiding so you can reckon me as safe.”

Rossamünd thought of the sparrow he had startled, pecking at the grate, and smiled. He did not know what help these little agents of the Duke of Sparrows might be—if that was indeed what they were.What did that kind of attention mean? He wanted to believe that goodly urchin-lords existed, that Numps was well looked out for, but the old common suspicions persisted.

A distant rataplan of the drums meant that mains was at an end and confinations about to begin.

“I must go, Mister Numps. We will both write to Mister Sebastipole, yes?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ll stay safe and secret, yes?”

“Yes.”

Rossamünd wanted to hug the glimner, but shyness and the grate prevented him. Instead he just stared into Numps’ melancholy eyes, and the man stared back.

“Good-bye!” The prentice reluctantly turned to leave.

“Good-bye, Mister Rossamünd,” he heard the glimner call behind him. “Numps won’t forget his new old friend—don’t you forget him . . .”

“Never, Mister Numps!”

Heavy with fear for the glimner’s fate, Rossamünd ran back to the manse. For the rest of confinations he packed, stowed all he had ever possessed and prepared himself for leaving at first light. In the last few moments before douse-lanterns he lay on his cot and with his stylus hastily scratched out a letter on a blank page torn from the back of the peregrinat.

He thought of adding:

. . . but realized the letter might be intercepted and read by unfriendly eyes and so he left it out. Instead he quickly completed the letter.