Foundling (7 page)

“I will, Master Fransitart, I will,” Rossamünd said with all the earnestness he could muster.

The dormitory master took something out of his pocket and passed it to the boy. It was a long and thin-bladed knife in a blacked leather sheath, a tool much like the ones Rossamünd had seen fishermen use when cleaning their catch on the stone-walled banks of the river.

As he gave the knife, Fransitart fixed Rossamünd once more with a serious eye. “Out in the world a knife is an ’andy thing to ’ave. Mark me, though! If ye must use this ’ere in a tussle,” he said, wagging his finger, “then make certain ye means to, or else it’ll get taken from ye an’ used upon yeself instead!”

Rossamünd nodded, though he did not really understand. He had no intention of using the knife for anything but the cutting of food.

To his dismay, Rossamünd was made to have another bath, though he had had one only two days earlier. “Make you nice and fresh for your great going forth, young man,” Verline declared as she sent him to the tubs. Smelling like lemongrass soap, he returned to the dormitory. As all the boys were piped to bed, Weems and Gull, two of the next-oldest, who would be leaving themselves next season, and who always did things together, teased him for his flowery smell. Rossamünd just shrugged. Tonight would be the last time he would have to put up with them.

Restless with dreams and worries of what was to come and a keen suspicion that Gosling might try some horrid final prank, he slept little that night.

Finally, at the start of the morning watch, Rossamünd was roused by a silent Fransitart. He followed the dim guide of the dormitory master’s shuttered bright-limn and bid good-bye, with one lingering look, to the dormitory. Snores and whimpers and sighs replied in unconscious, uninterested farewell.

So this is what it feels like to be leaving for good,
he marveled.

Master Fransitart left him at the basins to wash his face and put on all the fancy new things that were waiting there for him. He was especially careful to apply one-two-three-four-five-six-seven splashes of Craumpalin’s Exstinker to the cambric bandage. Seven days’ worth. He wound it tightly around his chest just as the dispensurist had shown him before donning the rest of his attire.

In the dining hall he found a breakfast of rye porridge with curds-and-whey and sweetened with honey. A lantern sat on the side to light his last meal at the foundlingery. It was as fancy a breakfast as he had ever had, and it spoke of Verline’s care. He was just a little sad as he ate alone, the tap of his spoon against the bowl echoing in the lonely dark. Verline’s love would be hard to live without, but at last he was getting out!

With the early glow of approaching dawn showing through the high windows, Fransitart returned. He came into the dining hall carrying Rossamünd’s satchel and valise.

“Time to be going, lad,” rasped Fransitart, his voice sounding pinched and strange.

Rossamünd followed him to the vestibule by the front door where Madam Opera waited. Standing before the front doors, Rossamünd was granted his baldric. A leather-and-cloth strap that went over the right shoulder and looped by the left hip, it was given to all lads when they were declared to be passing from boyhood into manhood. Typically it was marked with the mottle—the colors—of one’s native city. This one was patterned in sable and mole checkers—that is, a checkerboard of black and brown, the mottle of Boschenberg. Master Fransitart, solemn and still silent, put it on Rossamünd and, that done, plonked a handsome black thrice-high upon his head. At last he was completely equipped.

Madam Opera grimaced tightly. “You do look well set up—perhaps too well,” she added with a sidelong glance at Fransitart. She gave Rossamünd a single pat on his head. “Step forward strongly, boy, like the hundreds have done before you. This world does not reward tears. Time to be on your way.”

Rossamünd wrestled on the valise, fixed his new knife to his new baldric, slung the satchel containing the food, turnery, the biggin and the repellents and the rest across his other shoulder, and pocketed his purse of small coins.

Master Fransitart held Rossamünd by the shoulders. “Good-bye, lad,” he said at last.

“Good-bye, Master Fransitart,” Rossamünd whispered. “Tell Miss Verline and Master Craumpalin good-bye,” he added.

Madam Opera made a small disapproving noise, but Fransitart smiled and replied, “I surely will, lad. Now! Step lively, new duties await ye!”

Rossamünd took up his old stock and the peregrinat, doffed his hat as he thought a man might and stepped reluctantly out into the foggy autumn dawn.

As he turned to go on his way, he caught a glimpse of some of the children who remained, woken early and watching from the high windows of the foundlingery. Among them was Gosling. Rossamünd was certain he would be fuming with silent jealousy.

Good riddance
, he thought.

He followed the Vlinderstrat toward Hermenèguild and the river district, quickly reaching the point where tall shops and high apartments obscured Madam Opera’s Estimable Marine Society from view. His heart swelling with sharp, nameless regrets, he joined the dawning hustle of Sooningstrat.

 

 

 

M
ISTER Sebastipole was waiting as he said he would be, standing in the fog at the top of the Padderbeck Stair. He was wearing his telltale coachman’s cloak and black thrice-high. He had his own satchel hanging across his body together with an oddly ordinary-looking box on a thick strap. Rossamünd tried not to stare at the box. Inside it would be the leer’s sthenicon. He had expected it to be much more unusual, and he was just a little disappointed to see that it was so very plain and ordinary. Sebastipole had been holding a small portable clock or some other such device when Rossamünd arrived, and now secreted it away.

“You are late, young fellow,” he stated flatly. “A lamps-man’s life
is
punctuality—’twould be best to start forming that habit soon, don’t you think?” There was no ire in Mister Sebastipole’s voice, just honest, unself-conscious reproof. Rossamünd had never encountered anything like it before.

“Uh . . . Aye, sir,” he puffed and set the valise down.

“Well, at least you have come lightly packed. Bravo.”

The lamplighter’s agent pulled out an oblong of sealed paper and another of folded paper. He handed the sealed paper to Rossamünd first, saying, “This is my endorsement to our mutual masters.” He gave him the folded paper, saying, “These are my instructions to you and to those who will meet you at the other end. Stow the first safely and read the second carefully.” The lamplighter’s agent folded his arms and stared with his disturbing eyes. “Your first destination is High Vesting and from there a fortress known as Winstermill. It is a manse, the headquarters of we lamplighters. You will be escorted thither from High Vesting. Your instructions say as much.” He squinted. “Hark me, now! Do not dally on your way, but make directly to Winstermill, for my superiors are awaiting you and others like you to begin your ’prenticing. Agreed?”

“Aye, sir.” Rossamünd carefully stowed the precious documents in his buff leather wallet.

Mister Sebastipole took out his little clock again, opened it and pursed his lips. With a snap of its lid, he declared, “Well, the sooner you start, the sooner away.” The leer pointed Rossamünd toward steps that went down from the high wall of the canal-side street to the Padderbeck itself.

The fog had become almost impossibly thick. Rossamünd could barely make out the tottering buildings festering on the other side of the narrow canal, their brooding window-lights of red and green showing only faintly.

“Down there—though you probably cannot see for all this fume,” the lamplighter’s agent continued with a frown at the muggy air, “down there along this very pier you will find a certain Rivermaster Vigilus waiting to take you aboard his cromster,
Rupunzil
. The vessel is sound and your way is paid.”

Rossamünd could see nothing but fog in that direction. “Ah . . . Aye . . .”

Mister Sebastipole gave a surprisingly warm smile and bowed. “Well, lad, the moment of departure has arrived, it seems, so I shall bid you a safe journey and leave.”

Rossamünd was stunned. The lamplighter’s agent might not have been the friendliest chap, but such a prodigious journey as that upon which Rossamünd was about to embark was, surely, better done with the leer’s company than without.

“I . . . I thought you’d be coming too?” he ventured.

Mister Sebastipole smiled again. “I have other tasks to attend to here in Boschenberg. You will see me again some day not too distant, I’m sure. Just head down the stair and along five berths. A lamplighter’s life is independence of thought and deed, my boy. You will need to get used to this as soon as possible. Welcome to the lamplighters!” With that the leer bowed again and walked back up Sooningstrat. Mister Sebastipole waved once from the top of a rise in the street and, with a turn, was gone.

Just like that, Rossamünd was on his own. Uneasy, he took up his valise and took the stairs down to the river. The fog was still too thick for him to see his destination. He passed a great post thickly painted white—a berth marker—appearing suddenly out of the gloom, then two more.

As the fourth emerged from the soupy morning vapors, he spied a vessel moored there—or the shadow of one at least. As he approached, the outlines of the craft became clearer. It was indeed a cromster, though one in very poor repair, sitting dangerously low in the water. It did not look at all steady or sound to Rossamünd, rather it looked ready to founder even in the calm of the Humour. He frowned. The foundling had not lived so closeted a life that he had not seen dozens—even hundreds—of cromsters plying the mighty river. None of them came close to luxury, but all of them were in far better repair than this tub of rivets.

Cromsters, like most other ironclad river craft, sat low in the water, with a hull and keel that did not descend too deeply into the murky wash. This was necessary since rivers, even as large a stream as this, were much shallower than any sea, but Rossamünd was sure that this one sat just a little
too
low. If the water lapped this near to the gunwale in the calm of a river, surely it would be spilling over it in great washes when the craft encountered even the smallest swells of the most sheltered ocean bays.

As he came closer, Rossamünd could see that mean, sickly-looking men were wrestling great barrels aboard the craft.

“Ahoy!” came a call, and a hefty shadow of a man rolled down the sagging gangplank to the pier. “Who might ye be, lubberin’ about on th’ pier in th’ shadowy morning mists?”

Rossamünd did not much like being told he was “lubberin’”—it was an unfriendly term seafaring folks used of those who were not. “I’m looking for Rivermaster Vigilus and the cromster
Rupunzil
!” he declared briskly.

The hefty shadow came closer and clarified itself as an unsavory-looking fellow, tall and thickly built, with broad, round shoulders and matted eyebrows knotting over a darting, conspiratorial squint. His clothes were shabby, though they looked as if they had once been of good quality. His dark blue frock coat, probably proofed, with overly wide sleeves, was edged with even darker blue silk and lined with buff. This garment came down to his knees and covered everything but a pair of hard-worn shin-collar boots. The man emitted a powerfully foul odor, and altogether gave Rossamünd a distinctly uneasy feeling.