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 Rossamünd 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!” Rossamünd 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, Rossamünd 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 Rossamünd 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 Rossamünd, 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 Rossamünd—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 Rossamünd 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 Rossamünd’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.

Mulch’s well-intentioned interjection only made Theudas more gleefully determined to win, and Rossamünd was made to turn a jig many more times before he won his first hand. Of all his billet-mates, Aubergene or Lightbody were perhaps the most unfortunate at cards.

“Ye’d have to be the most losingest two I ever clapped eyes on!” Under-Sergeant Poesides would laugh almost every night as he watched either unfortunate lighter lope about foolishly as the winning cards directed. He and all the others—whether Stooler, Bleaker or Limper—would refuse to play them at the more serious hands of lesquin. Here the spoils of victory were grog rations and favors; the lowest-valued favor was to stand in for kitchen duties or firelock cleaning, the value quickly escalating to the ultimate prize: having another take your place to muck the jakes. Out here sewer-workings were not nearly as sophisticated as at Winstermill, and the water closets needed frequent flushing with buckets of old dishwater and cleaning with broad, blunt shovels on long handles—an odious job, the most unpleasant task for the day-watch.

The house-major would play no game of chance against his men—especially not lesquin—declaring solemnly that “an officer should never take from those under his command nor be seen to be overborne by them either.”

This hireling was called the Scarlet Tarquin. He—she—it—sat stiffly now at the front of the truck swathed entirely in red fascins, bandaged crown to toe in protective cloth with only two round lenses protruding at the eyes. Laden with salumanticums, stoups, powder-costers and all the appurtenances of skolding, the scourge simply watched but did not offer help. Passing the red-wrapped teratologist as he and Threnody tumbled down the steps to help unload, the young lighter was affronted by a faint, yet powerfully unpleasant whiff of potent chemistry. He stayed well clear of this scarlet scourge as he worked.

On the dray were piled crates of musket balls, wayfoods and script parts; butts of rum, wine and black powder; sacks of flour, cornmeal and dried pease; even three bolts of undyed drill for making-and-mending day.While two lighters stood at guard on the road, every item was hauled up by a limber-run sheer on the fourth floor, its winch arm swung out from broad double doors—the store-port high in Wormstool’s wall. Climbing onto the dray, Rossamünd helped Theudas and Poesides shift and tie each load to the sheer cord.

Standing below by the flat truck, the tired and humorless driver was arguing vociferously with Semple the day-clerk about the excessive charge for service this time.

“Thy wants thy goods timely and whole, do thee not?” the driver was saying. “Safe passage for cargo dern’t come cheap nowadays.” He glared at the Scarlet Tarquin for emphasis.

Rossamünd did not hear the reply, for Poesides moved away with sudden violence, giving a great shout: “Watch it, lad! The knot’s come loose! Load’s goin’ to fall!” The under-sergeant tried to grab at him but did not get a grip as he stumbled away.

“Clear out below!” came a sharp cry from the store-port above.

Rossamünd looked up and there hurtling down to crush him was a butt, set free by a poorly tied knot—a knot he had wound himself.The young lighter hesitated in his fright, stupidly heedless of his own danger and more concerned with the possible harm to the stores.

“Rossamünd!” Threnody yelped.

Yet he stood transfixed as the heavy barrel dropped on him; instead of leaping aside he caught the entire weight in his arms with little more than a slight huff!—just as you might catch an inflated ball. The weight of the load drove him to the truck-top, pinning him on his back. He held the butt on his chest for several astounded beats before lifting it and setting it carefully back on the tray, keenly aware of the equally astounded faces all turned to him, even peering in amazement from the fourth floor.

“Did ye see that?” he heard drift down from above. “Fifty pound of musket shot and he catched it without a trouble!”

“How’d you do that?” Theudas exclaimed. “That was a full butt of balls! It would have smashed even Sequecious flat!”

Threnody rushed to the side of the dray-truck and looked up at him. “Rossamünd! Are you whole?”

“I—I believe so . . .” was all the young lighter could get out. He tugged at the white solitaire about his throat, seeking better breath.

“That’s enough heavy loading for ye, lad,” Poesides declared. “Ye can’t depend on freakish catches all the time in this job. Take a spell inside. Have Mister Tynche or Splinteazle take a look at ye if ye reckon it necessary. I’ll leave ye in the hands of the lass.”

Rossamünd obeyed, Threnody helping him up each stairway.

“You should have been pounded to pea-mash by that bullet-barrel,” she insisted.

“My chest does hurt, if that’s more satisfying,” Rossamünd answered wryly.

“Oh, ha-ha.” Threnody did not look amused. “You should hardly make a jest of such a horrid thing. I thought you were done in! Poesides has it right: most certainly a freakish catch.”

Talk of his feat buzzed about the cothouse in an instant, and other Stoolers popped their heads out from nooks to send funny looks his way.

Safely deposited on his bunk, Rossamünd took off his proofed-silk sash and his quabard to relieve the bruised tenderness in his ribs.

“What is that about your chest?” Threnody asked, crouching by him and looking at the loose collar of his shirt.

Rossamünd’s innards almost burst open with fright. Oh no, my Exstinker bandage! “It’s—it’s—it’s . . . it’s for putting on nullodor,” he tried.

“What, the one that Critchety-crotchety ledgermain fellow made you?” the girl lighter questioned.

Frowning, Rossamünd nodded.

“You don’t use it, do you?” Threnody snorted.

His frown deepening, he nodded once more.

“When? Even out unloading carts?”

“Aye!” Rossamünd hissed in exasperation. “All the time! It was a command of my old masters back at the foundlingery.”

“Aren’t you the obedient little munkler, then?” Threnody looked narrowly at him. She turned and left him to recover alone.

“What is this that I have ear of: you snatching falling loads as if they were light parcels?” the house-major queried.

“I couldn’t well have let it fall to crash, sir.” Rossamünd was a little baffled by the fuss made of his fortunate grab.

Grystle gave a baffled blink of his own. “No, I suppose you couldn’t have at that.” He dusted a fleck off his pristine sleeve. “A powerful fine catch either way, Lampsman. I did not know they raised you so strong in Boschenberg—the lords at the Mill would be well advised to prentice more of your countrymen.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Maybe we should make you our fellow to challenge those stuffy Limpers to a wrench-of-arms?” The house-major gave a kindly smile.

Rossamünd did not really know what his superior was talking about. “Maybe, sir” was all he could think to say.

After a clumsy pause that grew into an uncomfortable silence, Rossamünd was dismissed.

Quizzical eyes were on him all that night at mains, the story growing some in its retelling. Aubergene asked him how he was feeling after catching half the load of the dray.

“It was really just one butt, nothing more,” Rossamünd explained.

“Aye, but I heard it was a very full one.”

Rossamünd shrugged.

Fortunately the incident quickly receded into the routine. Not more than two days later he was able to enter a room without there being that strange, deliberate silence. It was not completely forgotten, however, for it earned Rossamünd a new name: “The Great Harold” they began to call him, or “Master Haroldus,” after the hero of the Battle of the Gates. Not even in the face of the awe of the prentices when he killed the gudgeon had Rossamünd ever felt so complimented. He had been given a new name—a proper military nickname—and the quiet, hidden joy of it had him smiling himself to sleep for the rest of the week.

“I thought Harold was a skold,” was all Threnody said in quibble one breakfast.

“Aye, he was,” Aubergene answered her, from across the bench, “but he was a dead-mighty one.”

Thankfully, she did not say any more to spoil Rossamünd’s delight, nor did she venture another word about the barrel or his Exstinker bandage.

“Ah! Master Haroldus has come to lend us his mighty hands!” Poesides said in kindly jest as they readied to leave.

The other lighters smiled warmly in response as Rossamünd ducked his head to hide his delight.

The necessary stores—foodstuffs, clothing, repellents, a small quantity of black powder and balls—were lifted onto their backs and they departed,Whelpmoon observing them blearily as they filed out the heavy front door and down the narrow steps. Cold was the morning, its soft breath stinging cheeks, the eastern horizon orange-pink with the sun’s rising.

“Where are we going to?” Rossamünd asked Aubergene quietly as they crossed the road and stood on its northern verge.

The lighter adjusted his grip on the long-rifle he bore. “There’s a small seigh out north near the banks of the Frugal where an old dame lives. Mama Lieger is her name. The bee’s buzz is that she likes to talk to the bogles and that’s why she lives far out here—fled from Wörms to escape accusing tongues.”

“Aye, and now we’re the sorry sods who ’ave to do ’er deliveries,” interjected Lightbody. “I’ve ’eard it she was some wild strig-woman when she was younger, coming from one of them irritable troupes of wild folk from the Geikélund out back of Wörms.”

“Didn’t the folks where she’s from try to hang her?” Rossamünd had a vision of a terrible destructress with flashing blades and flying hair having monsters around for supper.

“I reckon she must have got away afore they could.” Aubergene smiled.

Rossamünd shifted the uncomfortable load and stared a little suspiciously at the uneasy threwd that brooded out beyond the road-edge. “Why doesn’t she have Squarmis the costerman do the delivering?”

“ ’Cause that filthy salt-horse won’t take things to the likes of her,” answered Poesides, “and she could ne’er afford him to if ever he did. No, lad, it is our honor to take these supplies to her. She bain’t the only eeker to get our help: it’s the lighters’ way out here, to succor all kinds in need without fault-findin’.” He gave an acerbic sideways look at Lightbody.

“But isn’t she a sedorner?” Rossamünd pressed, feeling a glimmer of hope. “I thought lighters would have said all sedorners were bad folk and done them in somehow.”

“A lamp’s worth is proved by its color, lad.” The under-sergeant gave him a curious look. “Mama Lieger has done good for us, so we do for her benefit as she has done for ours . . . and maybe—if she does hold conversationals with the local hobs—she might put in a good word for us with them. But just have yer intellectuals about ye, else she’ll have ye believing that some monsters are not so bad after all.”

“Aye . . . ” Aubergene muttered, “though some might agree with her on that one.”

Almost stumbling down the side of the highroad, Rossamünd looked in surprise at the lampsman, a dawning of respect rising in his bosom.

“Stopper that talk, Lampsman!” Poesides barked. “Her saying such things is one bend of a crook, but ye spratting on so is a whole other. I don’t want to have to leave ye with the old gel when we get to her house.”

Aubergene ducked his head. “Aye, Under-Sergeant,” he murmured.

Poesides fixed Rossamünd with a commanding eye. “We’re all about quiet when walking off the road, so silence them questions for now.”

The youngest lighter obeyed and said naught as the under-sergeant traveled an unmarked path through the thick lanes and thickets of thistle and cold-stunted olive and tea trees. In single file the three followed after, walking as carefully they could without going too slow. The shaley soil clinked softly as their boots broke the damp, fog-dampened surface, to reveal the earth beneath still dry and dusty. This was indeed a parched place, yet life still flourished, making the most of what little moisture it gleaned from the damp southern airs.

Always searching left and right, all four kept eyes and ears sharp for signs of monsters. Tiny birds chased on either side of them, flitting rapidly through the thick twine of thorny, twiggy branches, rarely showing themselves but for a flash of bright sky blue or fiery, black-speckled red. Rossamünd wanted to stop, to be still for a time and breathe in the woody smells and quietly observe the nervous flutterers, but on they marched, pausing only for a brief breather and a suck of small beer.

Two miles out from the Wormway the difficult country opened out a little and began to gently decline, a broad view of the Frugal vale before them, gray, thorny, patched with dark spinneys of squat, parched trees. Aubergene and Lightbody moved to walk on either side of Poesides. Keen to prove himself a worthy, savvy lighter Rossamünd did the same, stepping straight into a spider’s web strung between two man-high thistles and still glistening with dew in the advancing morning.

“Ack!” he spluttered and scrabbled at the stickiness on his face, terrified some little crawler might be about to sink fangs into his nose or crawl and nest in his hair.

“Hold your crook in front of your face,” Aubergene offered in a hush, clasping his long-rifle vertically in front of him in example. “Catches the webs and keeps your dial safe of them.”

There was not a glimpse or hint of a single monster the whole way, yet the land still heeded them and knew they walked where men seldom did or should. Choughs scooted away with a flash of their white tail feathers at the lighters’ advance through the cold land, looping low through the stunted swamp oaks, letting out their clear calls: a single note bright yet mournful, ringing across the flats. As the day-orb reached the height of its meridian Rossamünd spied a high-house—a seigh—very much as its those eeker-houses he saw from the Gainway down to High Vesting. This one looked older, though—very much as if it belonged here, grown somehow rather than built by human action; a sagging pile hidden behind a patch of crooked, fragrant swamp oaks. Its too-tall chimneys looked near ready to topple; its roof was entirely submerged in yellow lichens; weedy straw grew from every crevice in the lower footings. In this place the threwd was different somehow, so gentle and insinuating that Rossamünd hardly perceived it; the watchfulness was not so hostile—indeed, it was almost welcoming. Rossamünd might have liked to stay here. He looked pensively up at the high-house.

There was no stair to the gray-weathered door nearly twenty feet above.

Poesides took Rossamünd’s fodicar from him. “We really must get ye a right lengthened crook,” he muttered. Hefting it up, the under-sergeant deftly hooked a cloth-covered chain hanging well above their heads from the wall by the door. He gave it a series of deliberate tugs and waited.

Aubergene and Lightbody kept watch at their backs.

There was only a brief wait before the lofty door opened with a clunk and a small head peeped without.

“Ah-hah, das güt aufheitermen!” Rossamünd seemed to hear, a soft woman’s voice speaking incomprehensibly in what he could only presume—from his prenticing with Lampsman Puttinger—was Gott. “Guten Tag, happy fellows!” the voice called a little louder in Brandenard.

“Mother Lieger!” Poesides gave a hoarse cry, trying to be heard without making noise. “We have yer stores.”

“Güt, güt,” and the head disappeared.What had appeared like a small, moldering eave over the door shuddered and, with a click, began to drop smoothly to the ground, lowered on thick cord.

It was an elevator.They were rare in Boschenberg and, no matter how simple this device was, out in the wilds was the last place Rossamünd expected to find one.

Each lighter was raised up on this small, worn platform. Poesides went first, and as the smallest Rossamünd was sent up next, finding the elevator more stable than it first appeared. He had no notion how Mama Lieger might operate this device if ever she left the house, but this pondering did not occupy his mind long. At the top he found a tiny front room—the obverse—with loopholes in the back wall and another solid door too, which was currently open. The woman was not there, though domestic bustle was coming from some rearward room. Rossamünd waited as the under-sergeant worked the mechanism that raised the platform. All present, Poesides led them through the second door to carefully deposit their burdens in a small closet at the end of a short, white hall.

“Ahh,” came that soft female voice, getting louder as the speaker appeared from a side door. “I must be thanking you once again for keeping a poor old einsiedlerin’s pantry full.”

Bearing a tray of opaque white glasses, Mama Lieger turned out to be a neat, rather dumpy old lady, silvery tresses arranged in a precise bun, neither too tight nor too relaxed. Her homely clothes of shawl, stomacher-dress and apron were sensibly simple as was the interior of her humble dwelling. Run-down as it was, the parlor into which the men were invited was clean and tidy, any drafty holes plugged with unused flour-bags neatly rolled and wedged into the gaps. Yet for all this orderly homeliness there remained in her puddingy features evidence of the sharp, hawklike face she would have once possessed and a disquieting keen and untamed twinkle in her penetrating gaze—something deeply aware and utterly irrepressible. Serving them the piping, sharply spiced saloop the old eeker-woman looked Rossamünd over hat-brim to boot-toe. “Who is this new one, then?” she smiled, her expression most definitely hawkish. “Do they make lighters in half sizes now, yes? To take up less room in your festung—your fortress—yes?”

Poesides and the lampsmen gave a hearty chuckle.

“I—” Rossamünd fumbled for a proper response.

As she passed a drink to him, the young lighter noticed the hint of a dark brown swirl sinuating out from under the eeker-woman’s long sleeve, its style and color looking so very like a monster-blood tattoo. Rossamünd nearly missed his grip on the cup of saloop.

Mama Lieger noticed him noticing her marks and peered at him closely. “What a one you have brought me, Poesides.” The neat old lady’s wild, black eyes gleamed disconcertingly. “It is so very clear this one has seen his tale of ungerhaur; have you not, my little enkle, yes? Poor young fellow, I see the touch on him—I see he bears the burden of seeing like Mama Lieger sees, of thinking like she thinks, yes?”

Is she calling me a sedorner too? Rossamünd looked nervously from her to his billet-mates: he did not relish being ostracized so early in his posting.

“Aye, aye, Mama.” The under-sergeant came to his rescue. “Ye’d have everyone lost in the outramour if ye could,” he said tightly.

“That I would and the better for the world if you all were. Not to matter, you stay out here for a long time and the land will quietly speak to you—mutter mutter—the schrecken— the threwd—changing your mind: is that not right, my little enkle?” She peered at Rossamünd once more.

“I—ah—” How can she talk such dangerous words so freely? He wondered at the mild expressions of his fellow lampsmen, sipping tentatively at their piquant saloop and trying not to show how unpleasant they found it. Why doesn’t Poesides damn her as a vile traitor and have her hanged from the nearest tree? These fellows weren’t mindless invidists—monsterhaters—not at all. Rossamünd did not know what to think of them.

Apparently heedless, Mama Lieger sat in a soft high-backed chair and engaged the older fellows in simple chatter for a time, yet her shrewd attention constantly flickered over to Rossamünd.

Uncomfortable, Rossamünd looked at the mantel above the cheerily crackling fire. There he spied a strange-looking doll, a grinning little mannish-shaped thing with a big head and small body made entirely of bark and tufts of old grass. Even as he looked at it the smile seemed to expand more cheekily and, for a sinking beat, Rossamünd was sure he saw an eye open—a deep yellow eye that reminded him ever so much of Freckle.

The eye gave him a wink.

Rossamünd jerked in fright, spilling a little of his saloop.

All other eyes turned on him.

“Ye got the horrors, Lampsman?” Poesides asked in his most authoritative voice, a hint of disapproval in his eyes, as if Rossamünd’s behavior was a shame to the lighters.

“I—” was all Rossamünd could say for a moment. He gripped his startled thoughts and chose better words. “I have not, Under-Sergeant, I—I was startled by that ugly little doll,” he finished weakly.

“An ugly doll.” Poesides looked less than pleased.

Mama Lieger stood spryly. “He is never ugly!” she insisted, rising to stand by the wizened little thing. “My little holly-hop man. He is just sleeping his little sleeping-head.” She patted the rugged thing with a motherly “coo,” and turned a knowing look on Rossamünd.

He could not believe she was being so bold, nor that his fellows did not seem overly perturbed. Rossamünd looked fixedly into his glass of too-spicy, barely-drunk saloop and did not look up again till they were shuffling out of the room to leave. It was a relief to be going, despite the friendly threwd.The four made a hasty journey in the needling cold, Rossamünd as eager as the others to be home, back to the familiarity of the cothouse, their path easier for the lightening of their backs. He was glad too for the enforced silence to stopper his questioning mouth and for the distraction of the threwd growing less friendly again to occupy his troubled thoughts. With Wormstool clearly in sight, a dark, stumpy stone finger protruding high upon the flatland, Aubergene dared a quiet question.

“What were you getting all spooked at with that unlighterly display in front of the Mama, Rossamünd?”

Rossamünd flushed with shame. “That—that holly-hop doll moved, Aubergene,” he hissed. “It winked and grinned at me!” he added at the other lighter’s incredulous look.

“You’re a dead-strange one, Lampsman Bookchild.” Aubergene gave a grin of his own. “Maybe Mama Lieger is right and you can see like she sees?” He scratched his cheek with an open palm. “I’ve sure seen the dead-strangest occurrences since being out here; changes the way you think, it does. Perhaps you can put in a good word to the monsters for us too, ’ey?”

Rossamünd’s guts griped. Was the man being serious? Yet Aubergene’s grin was wry and teasing and Rossamünd grinned foolishly in return.

“Hush it the brace of ye!” Poesides growled. “Ye knows better . . .”

Of one thing Rossamünd was becoming more certain: he was quickly growing to like these proud, hardworking, simple-living lighters. He could begin to imagine a lamplighter’s life out here with them.

“Aye, and I’m earnin’ more a day than ye all do in a month,” he bragged.

Europe ignored them as she spoke briefly with Rossamünd.

“Did you catch the rever-man?” was almost the first thing he said to her. “Was that your lightning we saw last week?”

“It might well have been. The basket was well knit and required a little more—push, shall we say. I never found out where it came from, though. Tell me,” she said, changing the subject, “are you happily established in this tottering fortlet?”

“Aye, happily enough,” Rossamünd answered. He wondered how he might fare trying to persuade Europe to hunt only rever-men. Probably not well, he concluded, and asked conversationally, “Have you been to the Ichormeer yet?”

“No.” Europe frowned quizzically. “There is no call to go picking fights one does not need.”

Threnody had come down to the mess but caught one glimpse of the fulgar, and with a polite grimace and a forced “How-do-you-do” went straight back up to wherever she had come from.

“How is our new-carved miss finding the full-fledged lighting life?” Europe asked amusedly.

Rossamünd watched Threnody’s petulant retreat. “I think she might be sorry for leaving Herbroulesse.”

Europe clucked her tongue. “The appeal of an adventurous life seldom lasts in the bosom of a peer’s pampered daughter.”

Rossamünd was not sure if the fulgar was talking about Threnody or herself.

“Tell me, Rossamünd, have you received any replies to your letters?”

It took a beat or two for the young lighter to realize she was talking of his controversial missives to Sebastipole and the good doctor. All the worry for Winstermill and Numps returned in a flood. “No,” he answered simply. What else to say?

Europe’s eyes narrowed. “Hmm.”

“What can it mean?” Rossamünd was suddenly afraid that he had done the wrong thing in sending them.

“Nothing,” Europe offered, her voice distant. “Everything. It probably simply indicates that your correspondents are too busy with their own affairs and, more so, that there is little they can do and little to be said as a result.”

“Oh.” His soul sank then lifted angrily. “There are times in the small hours I want to board a po’lent and hurry back to face Swill myself. I beat his rever-man and I can beat him too!”

“I am sure you can, little man,” Europe chuckled, “should you get that close . . . Keep at your work here, Rossamünd. Let the rope run out—they will eventually choke on deeds of their own invention. Such are the bitter turnings of Imperial politics: you have to endure much ill before you prevail. Pugnating the nicker is a much simpler life . . . and you live longer too,” she finished with a smirk.

After an exchange of respectful greetings with House-Major Grystle, Europe was soon on her way again, hired lamplighter lurksman in tow.

“I go to Haltmire now, to solve problems for the Warden-General,” she declared in farewell, adding quietly to Rossamünd, “It should prove to be an intriguing venture—I hear some distant grief has quite soured the Warden’s intellectuals. So wish me well.”

“Do well,” Rossamünd answered anxiously.

Her departure left a hint of bosmath and something for the lighters to talk about on the boring watches long after.

Clearly enjoying it, Threnody quickly grew comfortable with the attention. She took to wearing a pair of fine-looking doglocks in equally fine holsters at her hips, bearing them everywhere and playing the part of pistoleer at last.

“Where did you get those?” Rossamünd inquired one middens.

“Beautiful pieces, aren’t they?” The girl beamed.

He had to agree: they were indeed attractive, made of black wood and silver, every metal part engraved with the most delicate floral filigree, elegant weapons despite their heavy bore.

“Do you remember the prolonged stop we made at Hinkerseigh?”

“Aye.” He recalled most of all that she made them wait.

“These were why I was gone. I purchased them from Messrs. Lard & 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.

Rossamünd was sure that any regrets she might have had for coming to Wormstool were cured.

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, Rossamünd 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 Rossamünd 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! Rossamünd 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, Rossamünd,” 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,” Rossamünd 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 Rossamünd’s face and became serious. “He can throw a good potive though,” she offered.

“All I need is a proper length crook!” Rossamünd 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.