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respect.”

    LAMPLIGHTER-SERGEANT GRINDROD
    Lampsmen Bellicos, Puttinger and Assimus muttered grimly.
    The prentice-lighters looked to their sergeant.
    “And a great liability she’d be to ye too, I am sure.” Grindrod smiled. He nodded a bow, saying louder, “I apologize to ye.” He wrestled with himself a moment, then with deliberate, frosty calm added, “I don’t know where such a custard-headed notion sprang from, madam, but women bain’t wanted in the lighters!”
    “We know it well, Lamplighter-Sergeant!” The calendar bane stood unsteadily and Rossamünd saw her face turn a ghastly gray. Clearly she suffered from some feverish malady. She smiled sadly. “Perhaps you are right, but yet it is not an impossible thing for a woman to take her place in your quartos, I am sure?”
    Grindrod’s mustachios bristled and writhed as he considered her words. “Bain’t really for me to say one way or t’other, bane,” he said finally. “This shall have to be the decision of the Lamplighter-Marshal.”
    “Hence our journey to Winstermill, Lamplighter-Sergeant,” Dolours countered.
    “Well, our work tonight takes us in the contrary direction.” Grindrod rocked back on his heels, his arms still folded across his broad chest. “However, I’ll send back a transport with guard to gather the fallen and bring ye all back to Wellnigh. Now ye’re six horses less they’ll be having to give ye a billet, I reckon.” With that, the lamplighter-sergeant pivoted on his brightly polished heel and stepped out on to the road, calling the prentices and lampsmen to him.
    Sick with too much frission, Rossamünd came tumbling after, trying hard not to trip over the putrid bodies of the dead bogles. The lamplighter-sergeant made hasty arrangements: he and Bellicos and the other prentices would continue on to Wellnigh House, the sturdy little cottage-fortress to the east, continuing to light the remaining lanterns as they went. Rossamünd, however, as possessor of the salumanticum, was to be left behind to tend the calendars’ wounds. With him would remain Lampsmen Assimus and Puttinger as a nominal guard and fatigue party to help with the fallen and to salvage the luggage.
    With a cry of, “Prentice-watch in single file, by the left, march!” Lamplighter-Sergeant Grindrod, Lampsman 1st Class Bellicos and the wide-eyed, nervous prentices went on, leaving Rossamünd and the other two lampsmen with the vigilant, silent calendars.
    Assimus and Puttinger ignored Rossamünd. Lampsmen rarely shared in chitter-chatter with prentices till they were full lampsmen themselves. Reluctantly they set to work finding belongings and goods amid the shatters and splinters, making a pile of the broken trunks and half-rent valises. Typical of the older men who worked on this easy stretch of road, they were crotchety half-pay pokers whose job was to babysit the lantern-sticks out on the road as they learned their trade. They paid no attention whatsoever to the lads unless duty demanded.
    Feeling uncomfortable and unnecessary, Rossamünd hugged his arms against the searching chill.
    Balding branches rubbed together with whispering creaks. Dry twigs rattled.
    Exposed and neglected, Rossamünd looked to the calendars. Head bowed and shy, the young prentice fished about his salumanticum and brought out more bellpomash, offering it to Dolours with a nervous cough, “I thought you might need this, m’lady. I’m sorry, I have nothing more appropriate for a fever—no febrifuges or soothing steams . . .”
    She remained silent for a breath, looking to Rossamünd’s hands, then to his face. There was an unreal calmness in her gaze. Her spoors, those white lines that went vertically from her hairline across both eyes to her jaw, showed clearly in the night. They made her look serious, dangerous. Like Europe, she possessed a remote, almost casual deadliness.
    Rossamünd began to regret his boldness.
    “Thank you, young lampsman.” The bane nodded