"And Pandome, my handmaiden?" The august looked at the faces about her. "I hear she is badly hurt."
"Your handmaiden mends well in the infirmary… and your daughter too has been installed safely in her new role. We are glad to have her among us."
"Yes, very good." The Lady Vey looked over her shoulder and gazed around slowly. She saw her daughter immediately, as if she knew where she was all along. Something profound and complex transmitted between mother and daughter, something beyond Rossamund's comprehension. For all her tough talk and showing away, Threnody seemed to flinch, and hung her head in uncharacteristic defeat. The Lady Vey swept up the manse steps, unheeding of the bureaucrats and the attendants all deferring a pace to give her room as she slid past.
Threnody rolled her eyes, bravado quickly returning. "Off to my executioners," she said with ill-feigned indifference.
Rossamund frowned and blinked. "Pardon?"
"My mother is never happy with me," she sighed. "And I go to find out just how unhappy she is…"
"Oh."
Hardening her face and hiding her dismay, Threnody obeyed some invisible command and left to join the new arrivals.
Left alone as the day-trippers left for Silvernook, Rossamund went his reluctant way to the kitchens.
Mother Snooks did not want to see him. Looking haggard, she dismissed the young prentice from her sight almost as soon as he entered. "Be on ye way! Whatever wicked crimes ye have to serve yer wretched day atonin' for, it won't be done here. Go!"
Knowing full well that Grindrod had just departed on a south-bound lentum, Rossamund was puzzled as to what to do next. It was tempting to exploit this as a twist of fortune and take an easy day after all. However, if he did not serve one imposition now, he would only have to serve two later. Knocking at the sergeants' mess door, he asked Under-Sergeant Benedict instead.
"Well, Master Bookchild," the under-sergeant said, stroking his chin, "we must find you another task, else our kindly lamplighter-sergeant might set you more. If the Snooks won't have you, then perhaps Old Numps will."
"Who?" Rossamund asked.
"He's a glimner working down in the Low Gutter.You'll find him in the lantern store, Door 143, cleaning lantern-panes. You can clean them with him-a nice simple task for a vigil-day imposition."
Rossamund felt anxious. He had heard of the mad glimner in the Low Gutter. It was the same fellow Smellgrove had been telling of at Wellnigh.
"Be on your way, lad," Benedict instructed, "and work with Numps till middens. I'll report to Grindrod that your duty-we'll call it panel detail-was served. Don't look so dismayed."
Rossamund tried to blank his face of worry.
Benedict smiled and scratched the back of his cropped head. "The glimner might have the blue ghasts from a tangle with gudgeons, but from what I hear the fellow is harmless."
Rossamund did not share the under-sergeant's confidence.