“How was your night in the dog-dens?” she asked a little tartly.

“Like sleeping inside a sideboard drawer.” Rossamünd yawned. “I do not fathom how older folk can manage a single blink.”

Europe simply nodded. That was the sum of her sympathy. “I will be answering a plea for aid from some sorely put and well-heeled people from Bleak Lynche,” she explained to the sleep-deprived pair. “They need help with a gudgeon, wouldn’t you know. It would appear we are going on a concomitant path, little man.” Europe looked at Rossamünd pointedly. “So you shall wait for me as I complete my dealings with the knavery-underwriter and we shall travel together.”

Rossamünd agreed readily.

Threnody did not even acknowledge that the fulgar had spoken, speaking only when Europe had left them. “So we are to do everything she says, are we?”

“Hmm” was all Rossamünd replied as he stretched, arms in the air, to rid himself of the kinks and knots gained through his insalubrious night’s sleep.Their arrival at Wormstool was not expected; the delay of an hour or two would change nothing.

They waited in the knavery. There, as Threnody penned a letter to her mother, Rossamünd wrote two of his own, one to Sebastipole and the other to Doctor Crispus. He told them in guarded terms of his suspicions regarding Swill and the rever-man beneath Winstermill. It was worth running the risk of prying eyes if someone who might be able to do something were to know.

During the delay Threnody decided to liberally apply some flowery-sweet perfume, splashing enough to challenge the salty-sweetness of bosmath, Europe’s signature scent.Where she had procured the essence from Rossamünd did not know, but the funk of it filled the knavery waiting room.

The morning was well advanced by the time Europe’s negotiations with the knavery-underwriter were completed. With the proof of the head she carried in the sack, her prize was paid and her forearm etched by the punctographist on hand, with another small cruciform of monster blood. One less monster to trouble the lives of man. Consequently the three left with the third post of the day.

“It’s a post-and-six,” Threnody declared optimistically. “We should make good time.”

Leaving the missives with the knavery-clerks, to whom they paid 4g a letter to have them properly sealed, they ventured out under a flat gray sky to the cheerful, unseasonal warbling of a magpie. The carriage was badly sprung and very noisy, rendering conversation below a constant shout impossible. For Rossamünd this was a small mercy, filling the frosty, aromatic silence between fulgar and wit with welcome clamor.

Across the Sourspan and over the Bittermere the lentum-and-six jerked and shuddered uncomfortably. No longer following a watercourse, the Wormway traversed hill and dale, the apex of most rises giving Rossamünd a grand view of the land about.The green upon the downs was grayer, the trees sprouting from them sparse and gnarled, growing in the shadows of enormous granite boulders lichen-blotched and anciently weathered. Indeed, the entire quality of the land declined markedly only a few leagues east of the Bittermere. There was a rumor of loneliness here, Rossamünd growing more certain of it the farther the lentum carried them—an absence of people, yet an absence of monsters too. In the struggle to possess it, the land had become useless to both.

They passed Bitterbolt and watered horses at the sturdy sprawling fortalice of Mirthalt. There the lighters wore dogged expressions and barely reacted to the premature advent of the young lighters.

They arrived at Compostor in the mist of day’s end. Bigger than Hinkerseigh, it was built on a broad hill, its curtain walls descending into foggy vales on all sides. There was a genuine air of money in this small city of long, broad avenues of stately sycamores and multistoried manors, of wide parks as green and tame as the land without was gray and wild.

“Tonight we shall stay somewhere out of the way,” Europe pronounced as they were granted entry to the city by the heavy-harnessed watch. She directed the lentermen to a hostelry called the Wayward Chair. From the outside it was a modest establishment, but the room proved of a high standard at odds with the humble façade. Regardless, Threnody oozed dissatisfaction. Throughout the leg from the Brisking Cat to here, she had sat gingerly, leaning forward to spare herself the bumping of the carriage seat. Now she looked terribly wayworn and irritated, lagging behind as they were shown to their rooms by a pucker-faced bower maid.

They were successfully installed in the apartment: luggage deposited, beds turned, the fire stoked, food brought and Europe’s treacle brewing in the kitchens. Without a word, Threnody exited the room, her makings in hand, slamming the door as she left.

“I don’t know what ails her.” Rossamünd felt he needed to apologize.

“It is just night-pains, little man.”

“Night-pains?”

“Indeed.” Europe sat in a glossy leather recliner before the hearth. “All lahzars must endure them and wits more so than fulgars. It is the cost of having these unusual organs inside—the price of power, if you like. A little bit of justice, I do not doubt some might think.”

After about as much time as it took to brew plaudamentum the girl returned, still in foul spirits. She stomped right past the two, glaring at them both, and disappeared into the adjoining room where a bower maid was turning down the beds.There was a shout and the maid hurried out, looking even more puckered and near tears.

“That will be all, my dear,” Europe said, handing the quickly brightening maid a whole sou. “You may go.”

Listening to the thump and bluster of the girl in the bedroom, Rossamünd asked, “Miss Europe? How can we stop Swill and the Master-of-Clerks?”

“I have warned that Saphine lass you may remember from the Cat, and you have written your letters.” Europe peered at him, her hazel eyes intent, thoughtful. “Beyond that there is not much else, and even what we have is insubstantial. I think you will find it very hard to lay a solid accusation against Swill or his clerk-master. If they have been able to carry on as black habilists right under the lighters’ feet, then you may be certain, Rossamünd, they will have all traces of their dabblings well in hand and can easily obliterate any trails that might lead to them.”

“But I fought with their rever-man!” Rossamünd persisted. “I saw the flayed skin! There—there was even that butcher’s truck that smelled of swine’s lard, just like Poundinch used to hide in his cargo, that’s why the Trought attacked!”

“At this instant it would be what you say against what they would say,” Europe countered calmly.

“But we have Sebastipole! No one doubts a falseman!”

The fulgar took a deep breath. “And I am sure they would have a falseman of their own. Use one falseman to cancel the other out—typical Imperial politics.”

“Who can stop them, then?” Rossamünd despaired, an image of Laudibus Pile’s sneering face looming in his imagination.

“Well, it certainly won’t be you, little man, will it—sent out here at their very behest?”

“No.” Rossamünd hung his head.

“And with Whympre the current lord of Winstermill,” Europe continued, pressing the point, “I cannot see how they will be stopped in a hurry.”

“You could, Miss Europe.”

Europe laughed a strange, sardonic laugh. “Oh, little man!” she sighed. “Rescuing empires from their own corruption is not my game. You’ll just have to trust that all wicked things bring themselves to an end in the end.”

“But who says what is wicked?” Rossamünd blurted.

“Enough now,” the fulgar said with sudden impatience. “You wax too philosophical for weary travelers.”

The young lighter ducked his head in apology.

“Do not speak of these things to another, do you understand me?” Europe said sharply. “They will not believe you, and word of any loose talk or unguarded accusation might find its way to the wrong ears.”

“Aye, Miss Europe.” The young lighter retreated to his comfortable bed. He slept eventually. His last sight through the door ajar was the motionless fulgar lost in her unfathomable recollections before the dying embers in the hearth.

There was little to see from the window but fathomless gray until the lentum slowly crested a hill and drew clear of the obscuring shroud. Rossamünd was graced with a view that until now he never knew possible: all about was a puffy lake of cloud, glowing a russet golden-white in the climbing light, lapping at the contours of spur and gully as an ocean touches the sandy shore. Other hilltops poked through and made dark islands in this stark fog sea. On one pinnacle about a mile distant, Rossamünd thought for a moment he spied movement. He looked closer and saw a large, longlimbed something gamboling in the clear, cold dawn looking for all the world to be hooting at the glaring day-orb. It must have been very tall indeed to be visible from so far, but as he went to call his fellow travelers’ attention to it, the carriage descended into the murk and the unsettling sight was obliterated.

“Such things are common here,” Europe said in answer to his hurried, hollered description. “This remains true ditchland, whatever maps might say. Here monsters have free rein and are stopped only by walls and vigilance—and me,” she finished, a twinkle in her eye.

The brume persisted for much of the first half of the day, lifting only slightly to hang above as a somber, drizzling blanket. In the haze loomed the Wight, raised where two trunk-roads met with the highway.The fortress-city had grown rich on tolls extracted from grain trains coming down from Sulk and luxury trading caravans going north. Negotiating its streets, Rossamünd saw that the military very much intruded on the public: watchtowers in municipal squares, barracks fronting a common park with its soldiers monopolizing the green for their evolutions. Nevertheless, women in tentlike dresses promenaded with parasols and met with men in finest silks. Together these would take their spiced and scented infusions in public places of high fashion and then be carried home in gilt, leather-covered mule-litters.

Insisting on a change of carriage as well as team, Europe took them to a tiny corner shop known as a small-market or kettle. It was a cluttered affair, full of such a disparity of goods that it took Rossamünd some time to even orient himself before being able to decide on purchases.With much of his money—almost a full year’s worth—still encumbering his wallet, Rossamünd first bought a fine black thrice-high with satin-trimmed edges. It squatted rebelliously on his bandage, refusing to sit right, and became so annoying he removed the dressing so that the hat might fit as it should.

“I don’t know the nature of the wound you had,” declared Threnody, peering at his scalp, “but there is no evidence of it now.”

Rossamünd also purchased a quarter of a rind of his old favorite—fortified sack cheese; a small jar of preserved apricots; dried fruits; half a cured pork sausage; and boschenbread. This last was just like from home: golden-dark and doughy, with a scrumptious hint of ginger.Verline had made boschenbread every Bookday, enough for every foundling. He carried two pounds of the stuff away in a big brown bag and shared it liberally with a quietly amused Europe, with Threnody—who declared she did not like it and left her piece barely nibbled—and even the bemused lentermen.

A new lentum took them out of Wightfastseigh. The replacement carriage was a public coach rather than the post, better sprung, with windows covered in iron grille work, and carrying an extra backstepper, a quartertopman who held a salinumbus and rode alongside the splasher boy. It was a vehicle intended for travel in threatened places. It was also quieter on the road.

On this side of the fortress-city they began to pass wayfaring metal-mending tinkers, script-selling pollcarries and brocanders shopping their secondhand proofing; those who dared the dangerous way in hope that isolation might make people willing to buy their inferior goods. The life expectancy of such as these would not have been long and only desperation could surely drive someone to such work; Rossamünd had a sudden glimpse of his privileges, when measured against the lot of these ragged gyrovagues.

As Ashenstall drew near, its window-lights and lanterns glowing merrily against the dour evenfall, the post-lentum eased its pace, its driver clearly intending on making that cothouse their night-stop.

“I have no desire to spend a night in the insalubrious squish of one of your cot-rents,” Europe declared testily. She pulled down the grille and rattled her purse ostentatiously at the lenterman, shouting, “Drive on! Take us to the Prideful Poll. It will be well worth the anxiety if you persevere!”

There was a hasty discussion between the carriage-men and a quick conclusion.

The lentum pressed on, going faster now.

Rossamünd could hear the horses’ frequent whickering, even over the clangor of the carriage’s hasty progress. They well knew the unfriendliness of the dark and—shabraqued or not—the tasty treat they presented to night-prowling nickers.

The sun was an hour set and the waning moon well up on its course when Europe pointed through the grille of the window at a square, keeplike structure with a rounded roof built into the cutting on the northern side of the highroad right opposite a great-lamp. Its own gate lanterns made a well-lit spot upon the road before the thick encircling wall. Suspended between them was a circular sign with the silhouette of a proud-looking head and large white letters beneath that read Prideful Poll.

Another wayhouse.

They drew into the slender coach yard and a warm welcome as strong gates closed out the nighttime fears.

Not at all inclined to argue, Europe dismissed them, declaring, “No matter, we shall take the next post east.”

Post-lentermen were more game than public coachers.

As they waited, the woman and the girl sipped the Prideful Poll’s best claret, while Rossamünd stared from an east-facing window at the bleak view. Below was a gray arid plain strewn with countless tufts of dark vegetation. His Imperial Highness’ Highroad, the Conduit Vermis, ran out like an anchor cable down on the flat, going steadily east, curving slightly south as it did. This stretch before him showed on the maps as the Pendant Wig. More than a league away Rossamünd could see a tiny structure by the road—a cothouse: Patrishalt.The thrum of loneliness was a constant pang here—subtle threwd exquisitely balanced between threat and welcome. He could feel it through the glass, fluttering within him uncomfortably.

They did not wait long. The day’s first post pulled into the cramped coach yard with a trumpet blast, bearing no passengers and keen to take some on board. Out in the yard the monotonous wind wailed its melancholy up from the eastern lowlands, bringing a faint stink of rot on its breath. With a quick inspection that all their luggage was intact, Rossamünd entered the coach and they were away. Speed was a traveler’s best defense out here.

The Wormway wound down the flanks of the hills, following a shallow cleft eroded by a seasonal brook.The post-lentum gathered momentum as it descended the face of the hills. It crossed the Lornstone, an old brick bridge that spanned a gully thick with sighing swamp oaks and stunted pines. On seven great arches the Wormway crossed the bridge and continued along on a stone dike that reached out for a mile into the Frugelle. The great flat was a continuous low thatch of thorny, stramineous stubble.Trees collected in dell or hollow, writhen, dwarfish things, their gray trunks rough and fissured. The unsettled threwd nagged persistently, not foe but certainly not friend.

The travelers’ breath steamed inside the lentum cabin. Threnody shivered, glared at the glimpse of frosty sky showing through the grille of the lentum windows and wrapped her furs closer about.

Europe proved unperturbed by it all, rugged in a long, thickly furred huque, hair down in a long plait; she watched everything through her pink quartz-lensed spectacles with regal equanimity. Nothing reached her, and for this Rossamünd was deeply grateful. For no matter how the lugubrious threwd pressed in or the chill gripped, the young lighter felt that all things might be compassed with the Branden Rose at the lead.

“My, this is a dreary land,” she said, looking around at her two companions. “Yes?”

Rossamünd nodded.

From her den of furs Threnody raised an eyebrow and barely shrugged.

“And dreary company too . . .” Europe arched her spoored brow.

Along his side of the road Rossamünd discovered the low, half-buried strongworks he had first spied between Makepeace and Hinkerseigh. This time they were positioned at every third lamp, looking very much like sunken fortifications. But to what purpose? Rossamünd wondered.

Built on the connection with the northeast running Louth-Hurry Road, Patrishalt was much like every other cothouse they had passed. With nothing to recommend it as a rest-stop, the lentum delivered a small amount of mail and carried on.

The country varied little, and by the time they achieved Cripplebolt two hours later, all three passengers were dozing. When the lentum was back on its way east with a fresh, new-shabraqued team, Rossamünd tucked into the provender bought at Wightfastseigh. Threnody grimaced from over her duodecimo with open disgust as he chewed on the pork sausage in one bite and took a spoon of preserved apricots, plopping about in their earthen jar, in another.

Hiss-CRACK! A musket shot just above shattered the delight of his light repast. It was followed by a short series of thumps joining the din of travel, a pause and then Hiss-CRACK!

“What is happening?” cried Rossamünd, ducking at the smack of the second discharge. A puff of gun-smoke burst above, on his side of the lentum, to be whipped away by wind of the vehicle’s passage.

“I think you’ll find they are warning off a passing nicker,” Europe said calmly.

Threnody clambered over to the same side and joined him in a search of the passing land without, frustrated that her view was blocked by the window-grille. “I cannot see what they shoot at,” she complained, leaning over Rossamünd. “They’d better hit it, the cheeky bugaboo!” she hissed.

“For the nicker’s sake let’s hope they do.” Europe peered briefly through the window-grille. “It would be a kinder death to have a musket ball in your meat than come to hand strokes with me.”

There were no further shots and no beast assailed them. The lentum made good time on this flat straight road, and in the paleness of the eastern quarter of the evening sky they spied the rectangular towers of a settlement a-sparkle with lights easily seen from the straightness of the plain.The township of Bleak Lynche.

As the lentum drew closer, Rossamünd could see that every structure was three or four or five stories tall, raised close together and with no gate nor surrounding wall to protect them. How is that possible! It was only as they entered the town and crept between these towers that he realized none of the buildings had ground-level doors opening out to the dangerous world. The higher stories were accessed from the ground only via retractable iron ladders, and an arrangement of covered walks—the lynches—stretched the short gaps between structures, their weight carried on sturdy arches.

The hard-packed dirt of the Wormway went right through the middle of the town, leading them to a small wayhouse called the Fend & Fodicar, its sign a fodicar and a spittende crossed. Upon the other hand was a large oblong fort of four levels and, like every other building here, a flattened gable roof of red tiles. This was Bleakhall, the lamplighters’ bastion and the only structure to be surrounded by a wall, which protected a coach yard and steep stairs to a third-story door. With the yell of its horn the post-lentum was let through gates as thick and tall as the bronze portals of Winstermill and rattled slowly into the tight area within, brightly lit by slow-burning flares lifted up on lampposts. A quarto of heavy-harnessed haubardiers met the carriage and humbly did the tasks of yardsmen: helping the lentermen take the horse-team in hand, organizing the setting down of the luggage. The postilion opened the doors of the lentum and lowered the folding-step, handing the women out of the cabin. The haubardiers were puzzled by a calendar in lighter’s vestments and they were downright astounded by the dangerous graces of the fulgarine peeress. Europe played the part with practiced ease, feigning ignorance at their awe with a studied grandness. Threnody met them with her typical superciliously lifted chin. Rossamünd just helped to carry the bags.

The three were shown up the steps through a door of solid black iron, the postilion following after with a mailbag. Beyond was an antechamber slit with murder holes in roof and wall. A cheerful “halloo” from their haubardier guide, and a second black door at the farther end was winched open. Europe, Rossamünd and Threnody were admitted to a watch room furnished sparely with a clerical desk, a large clock and other doors to left and right.

They were met by a young man in a powdered scratch-bob, standing behind the desk. He was wearing the unmistakable white oversleeves of an altern-lighter and the same surprised expression as all the other officers of previous cothouses at the sight of newly made, newly arrived lighters. Stuttering a little at Europe’s steady scrutiny, he greeted them all stiffly. As he sorted through the few items in the mailbag, he informed them that their Major-of-House and Lamplighter-Captain were away at Haltmire for an urgent conference with the Warden-General. “How-be-it, young lampsmen.You have come to reinforce us?”

“No, sir, we’re meant for Wormstool,” Rossamünd explained.

“Wormstool, is it?” The altern looked a little put out. “Well, they need it more, I suppose, though we are all sorely put. You can journey there with the lantern-watch tomorrow morn. I’ll have the costerman take your dunnage across later in the day.”

“I’ll set owt termorrer,” the costerman drawled with a thick Sulk End accent, entering at the altern-lighter’s summons. Squarmis was the man’s name. He was a withered, greasy fellow in many heavy layers of cheap proofing and a short-tailed liripipium.There was something indefinably odd about the man, something vague and unsettling. For a dread instant, Rossamünd swore he caught a hint of swine’s lard on the fellow.When he thought no one was paying him any mind he sniffed more deeply, but only got a nose full of the man’s natural unwashed odors and the waft of strong drink.

Squarmis looked at them shrewdly. “A jink for yer goods in the cart will cost ye one an’ six.”

Even Rossamünd could tell one sequin, six guise was thievery for such a short ride. It was more than the young lighter was paid for a month of prenticing.

“You must be jesting,” said Threnody, incredulous. “How can you practice such domestic brigandry?”

“We all have owr burthens, miss,” Squarmis said with an unctuous smile and fingers greedily gripping for the fare. “Does ye wants yer parcels delivered safe across this nasty world or does ye not?” The avaricious fellow was so brazen he was not daunted even by the presence of Europe.

“This is your best service, Lieutenant?” the fulgar queried the young altern-lighter, talking as if the costerman were not there.

Blushing slightly, he bowed a little. “My apologies, ma’am, th-this scoundrel is all there is to offer. He has been g-given sole commission to work here by the Master-of-Clerks’ office, so we have little choice.”

“Very well.”

Before the costerman slunk away the altern passed him a red-leather wrapped dispatch, an official document normally sent only by the Marshal—in this case the Marshal-Subrogat, Podious Whympre. “This has arrived for you,” the young officer said.

Squarmis took the dispatch between smudgy fingers. “Thems will be my orders from yer surpeereeors.” He leered knowingly and wandered back through the side door from which he had come.

Blushing, the altern-lighter apologized once again then asked of Rossamünd and Threnody, “How would you like to meet your new comrades?”

“I think a time of rest for us all at your wayhouse would do better,” Europe cut in quickly. “Camaraderie can come later.”

“Ah—right you are, madam.” With an open palm, he gestured them to follow. He took them through a door and down a passage over the high lynche that connected cothouse to wayhouse. Though it was covered with its own tiled roof, the sides were open to the winds, and an eerie inhuman ululation carried faintly from the flatlands. Somewhere inside the bastion the muffled yammering of the cothouse dogs and the answering shouts of their tractors could be heard. The altern seemed hardly to notice as he guided them.

The Fend & Fodicar’s enrica d’ama, Goodwife Inchabald, greeted them all familiarly. “Oh ’ello, my darlings! Come for a taste of me hasty pie, ’ave you?”

“Her fare is as poor as her welcome is warm,” Threnody murmured into her plate when their meals were served.

“Miss Europe, what of this rever-man you have to dispatch?” Rossamünd asked.

The fulgar took a sip of beer and betrayed only the slightest distaste. “There are people who dare to actually live out there on the flat,” she said, “and out there is where I am to go. Some puzzled eeker-folk with more sequins than sense, it seems, have a rever-man in residence in their cellar. My intermediary is a fellow here by the name of Dimbleby: I am to find him tomorrow. More than that I do not know.”

“What is it doing out here?”

“The rever-man? Who can say?” Europe sighed wearily. “It might have escaped from a strong room in the mines up north.”

“Maybe it is one of Swill’s,” Threnody added.

“It could have come from a rousing-pit,” Rossamünd put in. “There is probably one out here too.”

“It might have.” The fulgar was starting to sound a little exasperated. “Out in this rustic remoteness anything might be.”

“Will you be taking help?” Joining her on the hunt for a gudgeon was factotum work Rossamünd would be happy to do.

Europe let out a puff of air and reviewed the room and its few hard-bitten patrons. “In the morning I will attempt to find myself a lurksman among these frowsty folk. If it weren’t for your oaths of service I would take you too.”

“Why are you so insistent on Rossamünd as your factotum?” Threnody demanded.

The fulgar looked at Threnody as if seeing her for the very first time. “Child, do not mistake my tolerance of you for acceptance.”

Threnody’s mouth opened then shut, but no sound came out. She looked to Rossamünd, dropped her eyes and looked mortified for a merest twinkling. With admirable spirit, she recovered, and, chin jutting proudly, ate the rest of her tasteless meal.

There was a long, unpleasant silence.

Europe ate little more, and soon left the two young lighters, to inquire of a bed for the night and board for an indeterminate duration. Threnody took out a duodecimo and read as if Rossamünd was not there. To pass time, he sorted through his salumanticum, resettling vials and jars, salperts and castes, all in their padded boxes or cushion pockets, making the most necessary scripts easy to extract.

Europe returned, her arrangements made. “I’m glad to see you’re in a habilistic turn of mind,” she said. “How would you take to trying your hand once more at making my treacle, little man?—to keep your practice up?”

“I might as well make you some too, Threnody, if I’m already at it.”

“No!” she said frostily. “Stop asking me.”

Stung, Rossamünd took up Europe’s lacquered treaclebox—remembering only too well how uneasy it had made him feel—and allowed himself to be led to the small kitchen. There, while Europe left to arrange her luggage and Goodwife Inchabald hovered nervously to make sure he did not spoil her clean stoves, Rossamünd brewed. He discovered the steps of making were vivid in his mind and Sugar of Nnun still filled him with sickly dreads. The disturbing half smell of the finished treacle filled the close space.

“Well done, little man,” Europe said quietly, reappearing as if drawn by the reek. With a toss of her head and those unladylike gulps she drained the bowl. “Well, good night, Rossamünd,” she continued—Rossamünd trying not to stare at her stained mouth—“Tomorrow I knave myself in earnest, and you will be on your way to your lonely billet. I shall be about if you have need of me. Remember well my warning at Compostor.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Keep what you know to yourself. It will profit no one just babbled about—and don’t go getting yourself maimed or slaughtered.” She looked at him until the young lighter felt like a squirming worm on a hook.

“Good-bye, Miss Europe,” Rossamünd whispered. He felt like he was ever saying this to her.

Without another word the fulgar gathered her treacle-box and departed, leaving the young lighter to make his way back across the lynche to Bleakhall, passing Threnody without acknowledgment.

Halfway across the bridge she caught up with him. “What, no Brambly Rose? How ever will you get on without her?” she said sardonically. “How you can stomach her hoit-a-toit I do not know.” Threnody sniffed sourly. “I can see well now why Mother does not like her.”

“I would have thought your mother’s dislike of her would have recommended Europe to you,” he countered.

She fixed him with a withering eye. “Well, I go to make my own treacle, as any good lahzar should.You should come and see how it is really done.”

Rossamünd declined.

“I shall leave you to your moon dreams of the Lady Europe, then!”

Baffled and tired, Rossamünd did not offer a response.

Across in Bleakhall the kindly altern showed him to a long, open hall with benches for meals at one end and a double row of cots at the other, all beneath a lofty ceiling a-crowd with exposed beams. The distinct, dank smell of seldom-washed men mixed with wood-smoke and lock-oil: the telltale odor of a cothouse and something a little more acrid and unpleasant. After three days in the funk of a lentum cab shared with two perfumed women, Rossamünd had lost his dullness to the smell of too many men together. He tried not to breathe deeply.

It was the full of night now, and the lantern-watch from Wormstool had already arrived, their lighting done. They were sitting with their Bleakhall brothers about the common table drinking bottles down to the mud, swapping bawdy jokes and playing at checkers.They seemed hard and rough, like the Hogshead bargemen, but altogether much neater and thoroughly clean. For all their coarse language and rough manners, they seemed careful with how they looked, cursing at each other if ever a splash or splatter threatened to soil their harness. Each wore a baldric of Imperial red: they were citizens of the Empire, claiming no particular stately heritage.

Rossamünd felt very dull and frowzy. He noticed Threnody, who had soon returned—teeth slightly stained with plaudamentum—self-consciously pull and play at her hems and fringes whenever she thought the lampsmen were not looking.

She barely acknowledged him, however.

The “Stoolers,” those lighters—Rossamünd quickly learned—from Wormstool, and the “Bleakers” were fascinated by the two young arrivals, but especially by Threnody. She made much of being superior to their attentions, yet from Rossamünd’s vantage she relished every rough jest or idle tease.

“How come they’re sending them out to ye?” a Bleakhall lighter asked. “We need replacements just as much . . .”

“More’s the point: what’s the Marshal doin’ billetin’ such pink li’l morsels out to us?” one extraordinarily hairy Stooler—one Under-Sergeant Poesides—added.

“Aye!” Rossamünd heard one lighter whisper theatrically to a brother-in-arms. “What do they takes us for, wet nurses?”

“Doesn’t he know we eat ’em alive out here?” Poesides added, raising sinister chuckles from his amused colleagues.

Rossamünd grinned sheepishly.

Threnody sniffed superciliously as she said sourly, “You might find us a little hard to chew!” inciting a general “ooooh” and loud laughter.

“I can see thy arrow-spoor, Miss Muddle!” A rather thick-set sergeant sporting raven-hued mustachios and a bulbous nose grinned and pointed to Threnody’s brow. Isambard Mulch was his name. “Going to fish our heads from inside our tummies after we’ve eaten ye, are ye?”

Some small lighter, old enough to surely have earned retirement, aped exaggerated actions of eating then keeled over, clutching dramatically at his head and stomach. The laughter became a roar, Rossamünd joining them. Even Threnody broke a smile.

“Ahhh there, lads,” Sergeant Mulch cried, pointing to the girl’s reluctant grin, “she’s human-hearted after all!”

Her smile vanished and the guffaws roared louder still.

Perhaps service at the ignoble end of the road might not be so wretched after all.