cromster (noun) one of the smallest of the armed, ironclad river-barges, having three-inch cast-iron strakes down each side and from four to twelve 12-pounder guns upon each broadside. Generally single-masted, though the biggest may have two masts. Below the open-deck is a single lower deck called the orlop. Forward of amidships (the middle of the craft) is typically hold space for cargo. Aft of amidships the orlop is reserved for the gastrines and their crews.
MISTER 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. Rossamund 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 Rossamund 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. Rossamund 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 Rossamund 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." Rossamund 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 Rossamund 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. Rossamund 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."
Rossamund 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."
Rossamund was stunned. The lamplighter's agent might not have been the friendliest chap, but such a prodigious journey as that upon which Rossamund 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, Rossamund 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 Rossamund, 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 Rossamund 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, Rossamund 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?"
Rossamund 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 Rossamund a distinctly uneasy feeling.
"And where might ye be from, young master," this fellow asked, almost sweetly, his breath proving even fouler than his general stench, "to need to see such a fellow and such a vessel?"
"I be Rossamund Bookchild from Madam Opera's Estimable Marine Society for Foundling Boys and Girls." Rossamund gave a nervous half a bow. "Rivermaster Vigilus is meant to take me to High Vesting." This stranger might have been smelly, but that did not mean Rossamund had to be rude.
The unsavory fellow seemed to hesitate at this, then gathered himself. "So ye're me lively cargo, lad?" he purred, giving a saucy wink. "Bit unfortunate about yer name, but there ye 'ave it. Still! Grateful to 'ave met ye all th' same." He bowed, removing his tricorn to show gray, greasy hair pulled back in a stubby baton. Patting his own chest, the captain continued. "I be Rivermaster Vigilus, yer ever so 'umble servant."
This comment on his name was certainly among the more blunt Rossamund had yet heard. Already low in his estimation, this fellow-this Rivermaster Vigilus-sunk lower still.
Obviously unconcerned, the rivermaster plowed on. "I'll get ye safe to yer next 'arbor. I've plied this awful river for many a long year and I knows 'er bumps and lumps like th' warts on me own rear!" He declared this so loudly that many of the crew chuckled or sneered. "Thank 'e, lads." He gave a swaggering half bow in the direction of the crew. "This is me crew-sons of a madwoman all!" With a vague wave of his voluminously sleeved arm, he introduced the several dozen bargemen busy loading awkwardly large barrels marked Swine's Lard into the hold. These fellows looked as rough and gruesome as their captain. Rossamund frowned at them and at the rusting vessel they worked.
What was Mister Sebastipole thinking? This lot would barely make it to the Axles, let alone all the way to High Vesting!
The rivermaster must have sensed his concerns, for he cleared his throat and said, "Aye, not th' lithest tub ye've seen, nor th' 'andsomest crew, I'll grant, but there ye 'ave it. She be me other vessel, ye see-me standby as I've 'eard it said. The poor ol' 'Punzil is laid up in ordinary with a great 'ole in 'er ladeboard side. Distressin' I tells ye, and costly too. But there ye 'ave it again." The rivermaster gave a sad sigh and Rossamund felt a certain sympathy for him. When a vessel was laid up in ordinary-that is, deliberately stranded out of the water for repairs-it was often a troublesome business. "Instead, this be the six-gun cromster 'ogshead," he continued. "She'll be our carriage to 'igh Vesting and our quarters till we get there. She's steadier than she looks and sound and able to go into all waters-fit enough to 'ave made th' voyage to 'igh Vesting and back ag'in many times, as sure as I'm standin' 'ere!"
Despite all these claims they did little to allay Rossamund's fears. He knew too much about how a vessel should be-a benefit of being raised in a marine society. He looked the Hogshead up and down and spied the figurehead for the first time, protruded from the bow. It was of a snarling pig, so corroded and neglected that it looked as if it was rotting. He thought the name Hogshead-which he knew was also the name for a large, cumbersome barrel-profoundly fitting. A laborer rolled by them such a barrel, which emitted an odor so powerful and foul it made Rossamund gag.
Pullets and cockerels! I hope I don't have to spend my trip next to them-whatever they are…
"I was told my fare was already paid?"
The rivermaster seemed to do a quick calculation, then said, slowly, "Aye, young master, that it 'as." He gave Rossamund a quick grin. "Welcome aboard!" He steered Rossamund up the gangplank and onto the befouled deck of the vessel. "I'll 'ave to be about me business now. We make off shortly. Settle yerself out o' th' way. May your cruise be as pleasant as th' Spring Caravan of th' Gightland Queen."
The cromster shuddered. Its gastrines, the engines of living muscles that would quietly propel her through the water, were being limbered-stretched and warmed ready for the hard work of turning the screw that pushed the Hogshead along.
Rossamund stood by the helm and waited with apprehension. He surely wished Mister Sebastipole had accompanied him. Things seemed a little too odd.
"Ready to go, Poundinch!" a sour-looking man called to the rivermaster.
"Poundinch?" Rossamund could not help but exclaim his thoughts. "Aren't you Rivermaster Vigilus?"
"Ah, aye… well… I am one and th' same!" The unsavory fellow rolled his eyes a little. He sucked in a breath. Then he said, "Poundinch is just another way of saying Vigilus, ye see. Different language, ye see, Tutin-like th' Emp'rer hisself speaks: 'vigil' is th' same as 'pound'; 'ilus' is th' same as 'inch.' Ye see? Me lads prefer the more comfortable sound o' Poundinch, is all. They says it so much I gets in th' 'abit of callin' meself th' same too… and ye can calls me it as well: Rivermaster Poundinch. How'd that be?"
Rossamund squinted. He knew almost nothing of the Imperial language-Tutin, it was called-but something sounded a little off beam.
The musty rivermaster raised an apparently conciliatory hand and gave a mildly wounded look. "It's all right, I won't be offended. I often gets people axing-'tis almost a habit for me to 'ave to explain."
Rossamund knew what it was to have a difficult name-to be misunderstood by it. He pressed the confusion no further.
"So, now we're all properly acquainted, let's 'eave to." Rivermaster Poundinch or Vigilus-whoever he might be-smiled, then called, "Cast 'er off, Mister Pike!" to his boatswain, who relayed the order with another yell. The rivermaster took up a speaking tube and hollered within, "We'll 'ave 'er at two knots, Mister Shunt!"
The pier men threw ropes, the bargemen pushed off and with further shuddering the Hogshead moved slowly out and steadily down the narrow channel. Rossamund quailed faintly with confusion, holding off an embarrassing, blubbering panic. Away from the bank wall of sandstone they went, away from the granite pier. Just like that, Rossamund was on his way-uncertain, and unhappily alone with this frightful crew.
The Hogshead slowly trod past the shadow of another cromster on its right. That it was in much better repair was obvious even in the murk. Rossamund squinted and took a step forward to see if he might read the other vessel's nameplate, but was prevented by fog and the bustling of the bargemen. Yet, just before the other cromster disappeared into the obscurity, he thought he saw someone pacing beside it, on the pier, as if waiting for something or someone. He could not, however, be sure.
The Hogshead moved on.
The channel was one of the many man-made tributaries that had been dug from the main flow of the Humour many centuries ago-running into and out of the city, flowing down valleys of brickwork. Buildings often went right up to the channel's edge, making the banks an almost continuous wall of drab bricks and dark stone in which streets and sludgy drains made deeply vertical gaps. Rossamund watched it all pass by in a silence of profound agitation. The Padderbeck Stair and its pier disappeared into the gloom.
"Now, me lad!" the rivermaster's voice boomed, offending the morning quiet, and startling Rossamund from his unhappy funk. "Do as I tells ye, and we'll be th' best of mates, matey. So find yerself a spot on th' prow and stay outta me way."
The foundling obeyed, sitting right at the front of the Hogshead. The crew left him alone, free to fret on his future, as they made their way out of Boschenberg. The cromster passed beneath a heavy arch of black stone, its portcullis raised and dripping with condensed fog, and went from the dim gloom of the city-channel into the pale murk of the open waters of the Humour. In the dark sepia waters before them was a lane marked with squat quartz pillars that glowed wanly in the vaporous morning. Rossamund had heard that these were made using an ancient and half-forgotten art, followed step-by-complex-step but little understood. The shadows of other vessels passed them by with faint thrumming hisses; ships' bells clung their warnings in the turgid damp.
In the middle of the river the Hogshead came about and went southward, going downstream. The fog began to thin, showing the sun low in the east, a bulging, bloodred disk. The cromster continued south, moving past mountainous onyx palaces, past grand villas and dark stately homes, past the wooden houses and low hovels, past even the Vlinderstrat and his old abode. Before them, athwart the Hogshead's path, was a massive rivergate that spanned the entire width of the Humour. The Axle. Tall it was, with pale granite turrets and many high arches held up by great columns and guarded by ponderous iron grilles that descended right to the muddy bottom. Heavily fortified bastions towered by either side of each arch and strong points filled with soldiers and forty-eight pounder long guns at every midpoint between. Over five hundred years ago the Axle had been built out from the city's second curtain wall to guard it from unwanted things on and in the river. All the traffic of the Humour had to pass through it, and to pass through meant you paid a toll. Rossamund had seen the rivergate several times before-though he had never passed through it-and it still amazed and daunted him. He knew very well that doing so for the first time was a deeply significant thing for a Boschenberger. It meant you were leaving the lulling, familiar security of your city, your home. It meant you were entering the broad wild places, where monsters harried and mishaps threatened. It meant your life changing forever.
Rossamund stared at the Axle in awe.
High above, musketeers in black and brown stood upon its solid battlements, vigilant wardens who strove to keep the city safe-whether from monsters or wicked men. The scarlet gleam of this eerie morning reflected from bayonets and musket muzzles. Graceful pennants of sable and mole flicked and snapped higher still above them all. Such a mighty and well-defended wall. What Rossamund found even more spectacular was that there was another Axle-the twin of this one-upstream, guarding Boschenberg's northern end. He felt a strange swell of pride for his city-state.
With a deep, near-silent thudding the Hogshead slowed, the screws pushing back against the flow of the old river. One of the many great gates in the Axle loomed. Contrary to Rossamund's pessimism the cromster had managed to make it there without sinking. It pulled up alongside the enormous base of one of the great columns that fixed the whole rivergate to the immemorial rock petrified beneath the slime of the riverbed. Part of the column's base was fashioned into a low, grimy wharf, and by this the Hogshead halted to have its cargo inspected and pay the river toll. A door of pale, corroded green opened out onto the wharf, and from it marched several excise inspectors dressed in the familiar brown and black of Boschenberg.
With a grin and a wink at Rossamund, Poundinch stepped off the Hogshead and held a conference with the most official-looking of all the inspectors. Rossamund sat at the prow of the cromster pretending not to listen, and listened intently indeed to the hushed conversation. Though he did not grasp all the baffling inconsistencies of adult ways, something about their communication suggested conspiracy.
"Such a pleasure to see ye again, Clerks' Sergeant Voorwind." Poundinch touched the edge of his thrice-high. He handed over the manifest of his vessel's hold and with it a little paper package.
"And good early morning to you, Rivermaster Poundinch," the official replied with a cynical grin. "What is your cargo this time?" He took the manifest and the little paper package with it, making as if to read the first while slyly pocketing the second.
Poundinch inclined his head. "Much th' same as it always is: seventy barrels of exceptional swine's lard bound for th' soap 'ouses and wax factories of th' Considine, m'lord, and ten bushels of parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme for th' perfumeries of Ives and Chassart."
"That far south! In this old bucket?" The clerks' sergeant raised an eyebrow. "I may have to charge you an additional fee. How exceptional are we talking?"
"Full and putridly ripe. It's took a great deal of 'ard work to get it delivered and just as much to load." Poundinch smiled smugly.
"And the young master by the tiller? He's not one of your deliveries, is he?"
Rossamund's spine tingled as he realized the clerks' sergeant was talking about him.
"Oh, no, no. I've taken on a cabin boy, see. Fetch and carry and such. Someone to learn th' ropes and take up th' trade, as ye like. 'E's well appraised of th' arrangements, never ye mind."
A cabin boy? Fetch and carry?
Rossamund held his breath. What was all this double-talk? Why did Rivermaster Poundinch not just speak the truth? Does he not know that I can hear him?
Clerks' Sergeant Voorwind frowned. "As it should be, Poundinch. We both know what happened last time you took on a cabin lad. This new fellow will most certainly incur another toll." He lowered his voice so that Rossamund had difficulty hearing what he said next. "Be warned, the Emperor has issued an edict expanding the bans on the dark trades. We won't trouble ourselves with it now, but next time you're through be expecting to pay an even higher fine."
Now it was Poundinch's turn to frown. "As ye like it, Voorwind," he said through gritted teeth. "Don't push us too 'ard, mind, or we might 'ave to push back."
"Careful, Poundinch!" the clerks' sergeant snarled quietly. "'Twould be an easy thing for me to reverse things as they stand. If you force me, I'll push right back again, with the authority of our beloved city-state." He took a step backward, his expression changing easily from open hostility to formal approval. "Very good, rivermaster. We'll complete our inspection, then you may go on your way."
Muttering imprecations into his creased neckerchief, Poundinch stepped back onto the Hogshead and waited there by the column's base for the clerks to finish their duty.
Rossamund was certainly ignorant of much of the conversation's true meaning, but his suspicions still churned. What were the "dark trades" that Voorwind fellow had hinted at? He found it hard to understand how it was that a man like Sebastipole-punctual, officious-had, it seemed, got him a berth upon a vessel of such poor conduct.
While the rivermaster and clerks' sergeant had been in conference, sturdy men had been looking the Hogshead over. They had descended the waist ladder into the hold-quickly reappearing with disgusted expressions on their faces-to scrutinize the bargemen's papers. Eventually a hefty, bespectacled clerk demanded to see Rossamund's own traveling certificates. The clerk looked very much as if he knew what to do should any document not meet his precise requirements. Rossamund stared up at him as he handed over his papers. It was like looking up at a solid brick wall. With a cursory scan the clerk returned his papers without a comment.
Fees paid and cargo and crew declared fit, the Hogshead was permitted to pass. The grille before them squealed and slowly moved aside. The vessel trod through cautiously. Once clear of the mighty Axle, it gathered speed and proceeded downriver, passing the third curtain wall of Boschenberg, then the outer curtain wall and the suburbs fenced in between. Beyond the city, farmlands, immaculately tilled and primly fenced, stretched away on both sides. Gorgeously white egrets stalked and crimson-legged water hens waddled about the banks among the sodden roots and falling russet leaves of tall sycamores, graceful elms and black, evergreen turpentines.
Rossamund stayed at his post right at the tip of the bow, where he read his instructions and his beloved almanac, and tried his best to avoid the crew, none of whom was proving very friendly. The instructions were brief and simple: he was to remain aboard the vessel till he reached High Vesting and, once disembarked, was to meet with a certain Mister Germanicus in the offices of the Chief Harbor Governor. From there Mister Germanicus was to assist the boy to Winstermill, the lamplighters' manse-or headquarters-where he would receive further instructions. At the bottom was a strange mark, "Seb," ending in a line with a squiggle, which he assumed was Sebastipole's mark.
That was all of it.
Rossamund read them over and over to see if he might have missed anything, hoping fervently that this mysterious Mister Germanicus would know how to find him, for he had no idea how he could find Mister Germanicus. Gleaning little, he sat back, leaning on a pile of hessian and hemp rope, fretting. From this position he could keep a close eye on the suspect crew-this Poundinch fellow most of all-and even be on the watch for monsters. Though he did not know what he would do if he found one, he still wanted to know if it was coming.
Occasionally he consulted his almanac. The maps showed that the Humour wended its way through many miles of apparently featureless regions-places the topographers had not bothered to name. They had marked instead, in the large blank areas on either side of the river, simple descriptions: "broad pastureland" on the east side, and "a great partial wilderness" on the west. They had also marked the Humour with its other names in parenthesis: "Humeur," "Swartgallig," "Sentinus"-names given by other races in other times. Only two places were noted along its course ahead of them. The first was Proud Sulking-a city like Boschenberg, of which he had some idea. The other was somewhere called the Spindle, positioned just before the Humour emptied into a large body of water to the south called the Grume. This was the enormous bay upon whose shores were noted many other cities and many other ports. He knew something of the Grume too, but what was the Spindle?
He rose and cautiously went to Rivermaster Poundinch to ask him.
"Been readin' th' charts, I see," Poundinch observed amiably. "Gets th' feelin' with all yer gawping at th' Axle, that ye tain't been out of th' city before. Am I right?"
"Only twice to visit the sister of… of a friend. She lives in Blemish, which is a tiny village just outside the walls." These had been most magical visits to the small cottage of Verline's younger sister, and Rossamund could not remember more wonderful times. He sighed. How he was going to miss Verline. He was determined to scratch down a letter to her when he arrived in Winstermill.
"Sounds quaint, lad. As for th' Spindle, well, it's another, further rivergate, just as menacin' as those Axles there." The rivermaster poked a thumb over his shoulder at the dark, shadowy line of the rivergate they had left behind. "But it belongs to a different city, that being Brandenbrass-which is moi 'ome, by th' way. Th' Spindle is about three days from 'ere, and after that, I will takes us out onto th' Grume. We then turn left, and travel east to 'igh Vesting. All up ye'll be with us for a little under a week."
He looked sidelong at Rossamund. "Been on a cromster before, lad? 'Cause, if ye like, when we is well clear of th' morning's fog, I can show ye about th' 'umble dimensions of me own vessel."
Despite his strong stink and his original gruffness, Rivermaster Poundinch now seemed a very friendly fellow, as pleasant as Rossamund could have hoped for.
"Aye, a few times, sir," he answered, "though I've not actually been on many craft, sir."
Of all the fascinating things about watergoing craft, Rossamund was fascinated by gastrines. These were large boxes in the bowels of ironclads housing great muscles that turned the vessel's screw-or propeller-and their limbers, which were much smaller versions of a gastrine that were used to warm up the greater. Without limbers the muscles of a gastrine would soon tear and bruise and seize up. "Could I see the gastrines, sir? I've been told they have to be mucked out every hour or they get sick."
"An' who told ye that?"
Rossamund's chin lifted as he answered proudly, "Dormitory Master and Ex-Gunner Fransitart, one of the masters of the marine society." Rossamund liked to use his dormitory master's full title, but he almost never had an opportunity.
"Frans'tart, eh…?" Poundinch frowned long and plucked at some rogue hairs on his patchily shaven chin. "I reckon I remember 'im-a terrerfyin' fellow, if me memory serves. Knew 'ow to get us to shoot straight, that's fer sure! Well, ye were told rightly, m'lad, an' I'd expect no less from Frans'tart."
"You knew Master Fransitart?" Rossamund was agog at this. "What was he like? Did you serve at the Battle of the Mole with him?"
"Aye, aye." Poundinch chuckled. "Only briefly, not nearly so long to know 'im well, but long enough to get a feel for 'im-and th' switch of 'is rod…" He muttered this last bit into his neckerchief, but the foundling heard it anyway.
"Didn't you like him, sir?"
"Aye! Oh, aye! Ol' Poundy likes ever-ry-one. I find it's mores a matter of who likes ol' Poundy. Frans'tart was as fine a petty officer as a navy or th' ladies could ev'r want!"
Ladies! Rossamund had sometimes wondered if there had ever been a Goodlady Fransitart. "Was he married, sir?"
Poundinch guffawed. "Oh ho! No, there was no wife that I knew of. He weren't like th' marryin' kind to me. Now that's enough on 'im, lad. Let me con-cerntrate on th' steerin' for a bit, an' then we'll take ye to 'ave a peep at them there gastrines."
Remaining by the rivermaster, Rossamund tried to imagine Fransitart plying his old trade with noble vigor and cavorting with the refined ladies of lofty and fashionable courts. How strange it would have been to see him pacing the decks of some great ram bawling orders stoutly amid the smoke and terror of a sea battle. The kind of sea battle Rossamund was never to get a chance to see. He had his new trade, far inland. He thought again about Sebastipole's too-brief instructions.
"Rivermaster Poundinch?"
"Aye, lad?" Poundinch looked down at him.
"Would you know where the"-Rossamund frowned as he read aloud from the instructions-"the 'offices of the Chief Harbor Governor' are?"
"Er… I gather ye're meaning in 'igh Vesting?"
"Aye, sir."
"Well, most cert'nly, I do. Need to be shown to 'em, when we get there, do ye? Ol' Poundy can do that for ye in a trice!"
Gratified and relieved, Rossamund doffed his hat and bowed to the rivermaster-as he had seen men in the streets do-and said earnestly, "I am most obliged to you, sir."
Poundinch burst with powerful laughter, sweeping off his own hat and returning the formality. "Why, 'tain't nothin', me good sir."
The Hogshead proved more solid than she had first appeared, pushing sturdily through many of the submerged snags that hindered their progress. Rossamund was informed that the fifty-odd crew slept on the upper deck-right down the middle of the vessel, between the guns-and, as there was no room in the hold, he would be expected to do the same. He did not mind, for the hold was more cramped than the marine society and stunk horribly of pigs, sweat and other worse unnameable things. There were no cabins upon the flat, flush upper deck except for the hold-way about halfway down the vessel, a low boxlike structure with doors which opened onto the ladder that descended into the hold. There were also the twelve bull-black twelve-pounder cannon in staggered rows down either side and taking up a goodly amount of room. Six cannon were in a line on the steerboard or right side and six down the ladeboard or left side of the vessel. Rossamund admired them.
Despite his anxieties, he found that he was actually excited to be on his first real voyage-the movement of the cromster in the water, the bustle of activity and the routine of the watches, the silent throbbing of the gastrines. The Hogshead was no oceangoing ironclad, yet it was much more thrilling than the small craft on which Rossamund had made day trips in the past.
In map-reading classes back at the foundlingery, he had been taught about the oceans-the vinegar seas. He had been taught that they were a rainbow of different colors: reds, greens, azures, yellows, and black-shown on the charts as the Pontus Nubia. These lessons made him long to see the sea, and now that he was almost upon such waters, he sorely regretted that an oceangoing life was not to be his.
By the third bell of the middle watch the fog had lifted sufficiently for Poundinch to trust the course of the Hogshead to Mister Pike and make good on his offer to show Rossamund the gastrines. The ladder creaked frighteningly as the rivermaster led him down into the hold. It was painfully cramped below deck. Poundinch stooped low and even lower to pass beneath the beams. The stench of the place made Rossamund's eyes water. He never thought anything could be so putrid, so foul. He was determined to make a brave showing, however, and pressed on. The rivermaster did not seem to mind, or even notice.
Poundinch waved vaguely to the forward parts, where the barrels were lashed and obscured with canvas tarpaulins. "No need to be showin' ye that, just filthy ol' swine's lard. It's aft ye wants to be-follow me, lad, and see all th' wonder of this beauty's gastrines."
Rossamund followed and there they were-the gastrines. His sense of disappointment was much the same as when he had spied Sebastipole's sthenicon box. As that device was just a small ordinary box, so these gastrines were just very large, ordinary wooden boxes bound with copper-but at least these were big. They almost reached the planking of the deck above. Running down either side of them were much smaller boxes of hardwood, two on each side for each gastrine. These were the limbers. From the top of each rose great cranks and several many-jointed shafts that pivoted perpendicularly and entered the side of the gastrines. They were still now, the limbers not being in use. With such a crowd of machinery there was barely enough room to press along the grimy, curving inner walls of the hold to pass. Rossamund was amazed at the sturdy pulsating of the muscles within the gastrines; he could sense it in the air all about as they squeezed past, feel it powerfully in the planks and beams beneath his feet and at his back. What surprised him most was the warmth that came from the great brass-bound boxes, a sickly heat which made the rotten air of the hold thick and clinging. In a cramped space at the stern they met a wizened man in an apron surrounded by a complicated array of levers, his long, thin white hair dripping in the humidity. He looked up at the rivermaster with a silent, surly question in his eyes. Poundinch introduced him to Rossamund as Mister Shunt the gastrineer. It was the gastrineer's task to feed, muck out and care for the gastrines, make sure they were always limbered properly and keep them in good health. He ranked highly in a vessel's crew.
"Hello, Mister Shunt, sir," said the foundling.
Shunt the gastrineer ignored him.
"Well, there ye are." Poundinch patted the nearest box. "These be gastrines. Not much to look at, eh? But a powerful sight more constant than a sailing vessel, and no mistake. I'll leave ye with dear ol' Shunty 'ere, so's he can talk technicalities with ye. Come straight up when ye're done, mind-no dalliancing about down 'ere."
The rivermaster retreated.
Rossamund carefully pressed a hand against a gastrine. It was most certainly hot, like the brow of someone in a fever. The mighty throbbing of the muscles working within transmitted up his arm, and he felt his whole body bump-thump, bump-thump in sympathy. He admired the powerful-looking levers, many of which were half as tall as him again, each one governing certain actions of the gastrines and limbers. He looked to the gastrineer with a smile.
"Git!" cursed Shunt.
"Ah… aye! Sorry, Mister Shunt, sir, I…" Rossamund pulled his hand away from the side of the box.
The gastrineer rolled his eyes horribly. "Git!" he grated again, stabbing a hand at the foundling.
Rossamund blinked in surprise, then realized with horror that there was a weapon in the man's hand-a curved and cruelly barbed dagger. He had never been threatened with a real weapon before. It was enough to send him stumbling back up the ladder and running back to his couch of canvas at the bow.
"I see's ye've got yerself well acquainted with our darlin' gastrineer," chuckled Poundinch as Rossamund fled past him.
Rossamund refused to do anything so embarrassing as cry-though he very much felt like it and might have once. At that moment, hugging his knees to his chest and scowling back any tears, he would rather have been back in the foundlingery's suffocating halls.
With the dark of his first night aboard descending, Rossamund decided to sleep at his original station at the prow on a pile of old hessian and hemp distinct only from the other piles of old hessian and hemp as stinking less. No one objected, and so he settled in for sleep. If it rained he would rather get wet than endure the disgusting hold.
The night passed mercifully dry, yet dreams of a knife-wielding Shunt, the incessant clanging of the watch bells and the stomping of the crew's bare feet kept Rossamund from restful sleep. By the ringing of the morning watch at around four o'clock, he gave up on the prospect of proper rest and was rewarded eventually with a beautiful, brilliant pink sunrise.
Red dawning, traveler's warning, he thought gloomily.
The Hogshead was now clear of Boschenberg and its jurisdiction and roaming an ungoverned stretch of the Humour.The land on the eastern side of the river remained flat open pastureland. Upon the west it was becoming more rolling and rocky and decidedly more wild-looking. Such places were known as ditchlands, the borders between everymen's kingdoms and the dominion of the monsters. Rossamund could well imagine bogles and nickers prowling about the stunted trees and ragged weeds, seeing who they might devour.
As the day progressed, Rivermaster Poundinch ignored everyone and contributed little to the running of the vessel. Occasionally he would growl a command, but usually he lounged silently at the tiller, his chin in his chest as if he was dozing.
Rossamund was taken by loneliness. At that moment, alone among all these self-interested cutthroats, he would have welcomed even Mister Sebastipole's stiff manners and disturbing eyes.
Poundinch came alive suddenly at the end of the forenoon watch and the beginning of the afternoon when dinner was served by the taciturn, sour-faced cook, and again when there was gunnery practice. Early in the afternoon watch, when the river seemed clear of other craft, he roused himself and bellowed, "Right, lads! Gunnery practice! To yer pieces!"
A bosun's whistle was blown and the crew hustled to the six cannon on the ladeboard side of the Hogshead. Poundinch strutted at the helm post, bellowing orders, directions, abuse. "Run them out, ye mucky scoundrels! Come on, Wheezand, I've seen me grandmamma, rest her, move faster than ye, and she's been a-molderin' in th' ground these last ten years! And I should know. I put her there meself!" At this he gave a bloodcurdling chortle and many of the crew joined in.
Rossamund chuckled nervously with them, eagerly awaiting what he hoped would be a spectacle. He had always wanted to see the cannon worked. The foundlings of Madam Opera's had never been allowed near one, regardless of their training in the naval crafts. Suddenly he realized that there were benefits in leaving the foundlingery and its strict policies after all.
BOOM! One after the other the pieces were fired, at a rotten stump or anything that happened to be passing by-the smaller the better, to improve the bargemen's aim.
For Rossamund it was indeed both thrilling and deafening, and completely distracted him from his anxious woes.
BOOM! went the guns once more, the crash of their firing hitting him with a thump right in his chest, each blast filling the air with creamy, fizzy-smelling smoke that billowed and lazily drifted away. The whole vessel shuddered with each cannonade, while across the other side of the Humour great vertical splashes were thrown up, or part of a tree would collapse, sending cattle fleeing from the riverbank.
After the fourth broadside, the crew were piped to cease and routine resumed. Rivermaster Poundinch went back to his languor and Rossamund remained alone at the bow, humming within in boyish joy at what had proved a spectacle indeed. That evening was clear and bitterly cold. A three-quarter moon was rising, swollen and yellow in the dark green sky. Muffled in his scarf, his jackcoat buckled right up, Rossamund lay belly down on the deck of the bow and stared at the black water. For some time, he had been listening to the loud concert of a thousand frogs all singing along the banks and watching a small, pale shape dashing upon the water's surface. At first he thought it was a weak reflection of lunar light playing on the bow wave but, as two bells of the second dogwatch rang, it moved oddly, darting out away from the vessel then back again. The hairs on Rossamund's neck bristled and a shimmer of terror thrilled through his belly. He stared as the pale shape broke the surface-it was a head: a pallid lump, unclear in the jaundiced light, showing a long snout full of snaggle-jawed teeth. Its glittering black eyes rolled evilly and fixed him with a terrible gaze. His first monster…
Rossamund had enough wit to grope for his satchel, which he never kept far from him. Perhaps now was the time to use one of his precious repellents. Just as he gripped the strap, the pale lump in the water gave a long bubbling snort and disappeared under the bow and away to the right, toward moon shadows and the root-tangled bank. Rossamund shook with fear. He did not move for a long time but just lay staring at the right bank, trying to blink as little as possible for fear that the pale beast would spring upon him in ambush from the water. His horror was heightened when a gurgling howl rang in the dark. For Rossamund it was pure terror. Among the crew, however, it caused but a minor stir and nothing more.
For the second night, curled up tight in pungent hessian, Rossamund got little sleep.