"Doctor Crispus?" Rossamund dared.
"Yes, Master Bookchild, quickly now: middens is not the meal to be missed. Breakfast maybe, mains surely-but never middens." Crispus took off his glasses and dabbed at them with the hem of his sleek frock coat.
"Was Mister Numps right not to want to go to Swill?" Rossamund inquired.
The physician nearly blushed. "Oh… Heard my complaints, did you?" He paused thoughtfully for several breaths. "Please disregard an unguarded moment. Those were just professional frustrations requiring a little letting. It's a small understanding between Numps and I-whenever we meet: I run away at the mouth, he listens. That being so," Doctor Crispus carefully continued, "I would rather you came to me with your ills, or the dispensurist or even Obbolute if I'm incommunicado; or just go sick until I return, than put yourself into the hands of that hacksaw." With a cough Crispus looked Rossamund square in the eye. "I would thank you not to say any more of that which you have overheard."
Rossamund ducked his head, going shy from the confidence this eminent adult was putting in him. "Not a word, Doctor." He nodded gravely.
"How-be-it, eating is overdue." Doctor Crispus pointed at Numps' legs. "I have applied new bandages but that is all: your use of the siccustrumn was exactly right. The lacerations are deep but the potive has been well applied and is doing the healing work far better than any I could now. You have been given charge over a salumanticum for good reason, prentice-lighter."
Rossamund bowed again, unable to hide his grin of delight.
"Enough now, food awaits." Doctor Crispus gathered up his satchel and stray instruments. "After that it's back to that stout fellow, Josclin-may his skies seldom cloud."
"Is he mending, Doctor?" Rossamund ventured.
"If you are a wagering man, Master Bookchild," Crispus said as he began his exit, "I would put my haquins and carlins on Mister Josclin's full recovery! Good diem to you and good diem to you, Mister Numps. I shall return in a few days to ensure your clever foot-as you call it-is still mending. I have seen you return from the very doors of death, my man.Your foot will not unduly trouble you."
With that the physician hustled out of the lantern store.
Numps immediately began cleaning panes. "Mister Doctor Crispus and Mister 'Pole doesn't know all what happened." The glimner did not look up, but spoke into his own lap.
There was a long pause.
"Doesn't know what?" the prentice pressed as gently as he could.
"He didn't tell it like things happened…" The glimner went on. "I didn't go a-crawling back to the lamppost…"
Realizing what Numps was talking about, Rossamund leaned a little closer.
"I remember… Even now when I sleep I remember. Poor Numps was dead in his puddle of red, no crawling about for him. It was the little sparrow-man that helped me."
Rossamund's attention prickled. "The little sparrow-man, Mister Numps?" he asked very very quietly. This was the type of talk that could get you branded "sedorner."
"Yes, yes." Numps smiled, looking up at last. "They might have got my arm to gnaw on, but they didn't get all of poor Numps. It was the little sparrow-man that fought the pale, runny men-"
"I heard you were hurt by rever-men!"
"Oh aye, aye! Pale, runny men ripping us all to stuff and bits and that little sparrow-man came and tore them limb from limb and saved me-my first new old friend. He plugged all the pains with weeds and stopped the red from its flow-flow-flowing… Fed me dirty roots. That made me feel safe."
"That little sparrow-man?" Rossamund repeated.
"Aye, this big"-still gripping a pane, Numps adumbrated a creature of short stature with his hand-"and with a large head like a sparrow's, a-blink-blink-blink."
A hunch tickled at the back of Rossamund's mind. Could it be the same creature? "I think I have seen him myself," he said.
Numps became all attention, and he too bent forward in his seat.
"Not a long time ago I spied him," Rossamund continued, "on the side of the Gainway going down to High Vesting, a nuglung with a sparrow's head all dark about the eyes and white on his chest, blinking at me from a bush."
A little taken aback, Numps blinked quickly. "Yes yes, Cinnamon-he helped me! I reckon he's got more names than I've got space in my limpling head to count, he's been about for so, so long… Long-living monsters with long lists of names."
Cinnamon, Rossamund marveled. "How do you know this, Mister Numps?" he whispered.
"Hmm, well, because he told me," Numps answered simply. "Cinnamon is poor Numps' friend too, see, 'cause it was him that beat the runny men."
Rossamund felt something between awe and a habitual, thoughtless horror. "You are friends with a nuglung?" he breathed, reflexively looking over his shoulder for unwelcome listeners.
Numps grinned. "Ah-huh. Cinnamon said he was come from the sparrow-king who lives down in the south hills. He keeps an eye out for old Numps, sends his little helpers to watch."
"The sparrow-king?" Rossamund scratched his face in bewilderment. His thoughts reeled at the thought of a monster-lord living near.
"Yes yes," Numps enthused. "The Duke of Sparrows, the sparrow-duke; he has lots of names too. The Sparrowling Is an urchin-king Who rules from courts of trees. He guards us here From the Ichormeer And keeps folks in their ease."
"Have you seen the Duke of Sparrows, Mister Numps?"
Numps shook his head. "But I would like to, though."
"So would I," Rossamund admitted.
"But you can see him anytime, Mister Rossamund!" The glimner pulled a perplexed face. "All the old friends would be your friends, wouldn't they?"
The young prentice hesitated. "All the old friends? What do you mean, Mister Numps?"
"Yes, yes! My poor limpling head-the nuggle-lungs and glammergorns and the other old friends."
"I-I have one old friend such as this," Rossamund dared. "His name is Freckle. He is a glamgorn who helped me when we were trapped in a boat with a rever-man. We set Freckle free."
Numps listened to this short telling with growing intensity. At its conclusion he grinned rapturously and did a little sit-down dance, chiming, "Yes yes, you set him free, trapped in gaol is no place to be.
… you are a good friend indeed for Numps to have who sets his fellows loose from traps. Good for Freckle too."
"I don't like to tell anyone about him," Rossamund warned. "You should not say either, Mister Numps, about Freckle or Cinnamon. Most people don't like those who are kind to nickers."
Numps' enthusiasm vanished. "I remember that folks hate the nuggle-lungs." He nodded glumly. "And the hobble-possums and all the gnashers, friend or bad. I remember that them that talk with them nor think them friends are hated too. Don't be a-worrying and a-fretting, I won't say naught 'bout Cinnamon nor Freckle, and I'll not say naught 'bout you neither."
They set to polishing panes again, Numps redoing Rossamund's as he had done the day before.This time the prentice did not mind. He was already being wooed by the timber-and-seltzer-perfumed ease of the lantern store, the rumble of rain on its shingle roof adding a merry, monotonous melody. It was with profound reluctance that he returned to his usual tasks at middens' end.