Foundling (11 page)

The other sturdy fellow was missing. So was Sloughscab the dispensurist.

Rivermaster Poundinch was in the jolly boat’s bow, bellowing, “Pull! Pull, ye cankerous pigs!”

Behind them whole trees shuddered and sagged. Cries rang out on board the
Hogshead
. The stern lantern flared into light and by its green glow bargemen hurried and panicked.

Rossamünd stood, transfixed by the spectacle. Through parted trunks something enormous was moving. Rossamünd could barely make out what it was: long of limb it seemed, yet hunched, pushing at the trees as if they were mere shrubs. It turned its head and Rossamünd felt he caught a glimpse of tiny, angry eyes.

“Pullets and cockerels!” Rossamünd exclaimed in a horrified whisper.

There was a loud yell.

Simultaneously, one of the cromster’s cannon fired, the smoke of its discharge belching obscuring blankness over the scene. The small thunder reverberated, flat and hollow, all about the land, and as its fumes cleared, the giant thing was gone. Poundinch was now scrabbling back aboard his vessel spluttering foul language, crying for the anchor to be weighed and limbers turned.

 

Poundinch said nothing about the affair. No reasons were given for the absence of Sloughscab or the sturdy musket-wielding chap, no explanation of what the giant on the shore might have been. The contents of the jolly boat—three box-crates emitting odd and disturbing sounds—were simply hurried into the hold. Normal duties were resumed. Those on watch rapidly got the cromster moving once more. Those off watch muttered grimly for a time and went to sleep.

Rossamünd tried to sleep himself. He tossed the rest of that night over it, his head full of fear and pondering and repeating images of the nicker’s angry eyes and the startling flash of cannon fire. Rising at the fourth bell of the morning watch, the foundling determined that all through the next day he would listen, as far as he possibly could, to every word spoken on board the
Hogshead
.

With the rising of the sun and the changing of watch, the crew exchanged meaningful glances with each other.

“Oi don’t moind cartin’ abowt bits o’ bodies in them there barrels of pigs’ muck,” one filthy bargeman offered to another quietly at breakfast. “We’re shorely paid noice for doin’ it. But thowse things down thar now just bain’t natural.”

To this the second growled wordless agreement, then waggled his finger to ward off evil. “Right you are, right you are.
Ablatum malum ex nobis
,” he said, “Rid evil from among us.”

Later that day, Rossamünd overheard one of the crewmen who had helped row the party ashore the previous night say to another, “We’d made the trade fine, but that thing must have been watching for a long time, ’cause we heard nowt of it till it come out all a-quick with a roar. Scatters the corsers with a big sweep o’ its terrible arm—like this.” He swung his own arm wildly, thoughtlessly letting his voice become louder. “And those that it hasn’t smashed are off into the trees and ol’ Poundy is pushing us back onto the barge while Cloud and Blunting have a crack at it with their firelocks and poor Sloughscab hurls his potions—you know how ’e’s always wantin’ to give ’em a good testing—well he got ’is chance, ’cause . . .”

“Gibbon!” It was the rivermaster. One eye was open as he lounged at the tiller and this single orb glared horribly at the loquacious crewman. “Don’t give me a reason to remember yer name any further, me darlin’ chiffer-chaffer.”

At this Gibbon went pale and lapsed to silence, as did the rest of the crew. One thing that he had said kept spinning in Rossamünd’s head. “ . . . Scatters the
corsers.
” He had heard of these before. Corsers were folk who robbed graves and stole from tombs to make their living.
The dark trades!

What did such wretched people as these have to do with the crew of the
Hogshead
? Why would Poundinch stop in the middle of nowhere in the deep of night just to meet them? Was he a part of the dark trades too? After the suspicious doings with Clerks’ Sergeant Voorwind at the Axle, it was becoming disconcertingly clear that this was most probably the case. And what was that gangling giant he had glimpsed? Rossamünd heard little else that day but the occasional inaudible griping, and as time went on, his anxieties increased. Surely he had to get off this unhappy vessel.

By the middle of the next day Rossamünd, huddled and unmoving at the prow in an agony of fear, spied the low wall of the Spindle as it finally appeared from around a river bend. Not nearly as tall or as grand as the Axle, the Spindle was a long, low dyke of black slate, stretching the river’s mile-wide waters. Along its thick middle sections it was perforated by seven great arches and several lesser tunnels toward either bank. Each arch and tunnel was blocked by a massive portcullis of blackened iron. Great taffeta flags—one side black, the other glossy white, the colors of the city-state of Brandenbrass—were flown from the four central bastions in the middle of the river and flapped wildly in the windy morning. Rossamünd could see many great-cannon poking from hatches and strong points all along the walls and bastions. The ends of the Spindle terminated on either bank in a strong fortress of sharply sloping walls, high, steep roofs and tall chimneys and were protected by stout curtain walls of the same black slate as the gate itself. Rossamünd could even see that the ground at the foot of the curtain walls was densely prickled with a vicious-looking thicket of thorny stakes. About the eastern fortress a small wood of swamp oak and olive grew, while along both banks leafless willows wept into the black run of the Humour. The Spindle instead was squat, imposing, daunting. To Rossamünd, however, it was also the chance of escape. Hope fluttered within his rib cage and he stared at it longingly.

When Poundinch sighted the rivergate, he became agitated and positively alive. He leaped to his feet and paced his station as he had done at gunnery practice, muttering and gesticulating vaguely.

“Stay easy, lads. They’ve not caught ol’ Poundy yet,” he said over and over. He called down the speaking tube to the gastrineer, as softly as he could—for sound travels too well over water. “Ease ’er down, Mister Shunt, and when she’s at th’ gates keep the limbers limber, ye hear. We may need to make it away right quick!” Then he growled low to the boatswain, always on hand. “Secure below. No glimpses, no clues, just barrels o’ fat—same ol’ rigmarole . . . and make sure the newest acquisitions keep quiet too.”

The archway they were to enter was low, forcing the crew of the
Hogshead
to lower the mast so that it lay flat on the deck. As this was done the boatswain reappeared from below, and the rivermaster ordered him to pipe all hands on deck. Responding to such a call was instinct to Rossamünd, and he joined the end of the ragged line of crew, standing straight and as smartly as he could.

Poundinch stalked in front of them all and muttered just loud enough to be heard, “I wants us to be just likes we was an ’appy ol’ crew, no secrets, no gripes, just on an ’appy jaunt down th’ ol’ ’umour—ye gets me?”

“Aye, Poundinch,” was the common assent.

The rivermaster waggled his conspiratorial eyebrows. “No grumblin’.” He glared at Gibbon. “No snarlin’.” He squinted at some other bargeman Rossamünd could not see. “Now back to it!” he barked, raising his arms.

As everyone returned to his labors, so Rossamünd returned to the bow. A neat trim cromster trod proudly into the tunnel before them, its crew standing smartly in ranks on the deck. It was the same vessel that had passed the
Hogshead
two days before. Once again Rossamünd wished he was aboard her instead. As it moved away, he looked longingly at the shiny nameplate on the stern. His heart froze.

The plate read
Rupunzil
.

“Rosey-me-lad! Over ’ere!” Poundinch called.

The foundling stepped over cautiously, head low, eyes wide. He could see the rivermaster staring at the other cromster’s stern.

“Worked it out at last, ’ave ye?” Poundinch sneered.

Rossamünd went pale.

“Took ye a bit, didn’t it?” Faster than Rossamünd could react, the rivermaster’s hand shot out and grabbed him in a painful pinch by the back of the neck. “You stay right by me, lad.” Poundinch bent himself and leered into Rossamünd’s face. “Just remember—ye’re me cabin boy, got it?”

“I—I—I—uh . . . nuh . . . no, sir, I mean, aye-aye, sir,” was all that would come out of the foundling’s mouth. He could only stand there while Poundinch’s fingers pressed painfully on the tendons of his neck, and marvel at the rivermaster’s sudden cruelty.

Poundinch glared up at the Spindle.

“Made by a fierce, diligent folk, this,” he said in a conversational tone at odds with the grip he had on the boy’s scruff. “A cause of much consternation to th’ lords of yer city when it were built.” He turned his glare to the boy. “Whatever ’appens from ’ere on, ye’re goin’ to stay right ’ere by th’ tiller and ol’ Uncle Poundy’s side, got me?”

The
Hogshead
was passing slowly under the high, broad tunnel of a boarding pier upon which stood several stern-looking officials, each uniformed crown to boot-toe in black proofing. Bargemen at the fo’c’sle and poop fended the
Hogshead
away from the slimy walls of the arch with long, strong poles.

“Ahh . . . Ahoy, clerklings!” Poundinch called in a simulation of generous affability. “Ready to pay me taxes, same as always. Where’s ol’ Excise Master Dogwater?” Not once, during this cheerful display, did the rivermaster let up his wicked grip on Rossamünd’s scruff.

A serious-looking fellow—Rossamünd thought him even more serious than the officials serving the Axle back in Boschenberg—gave the rivermaster a long, odd look. “Excise
Sergeant
Dogwater has been reposted to tasks more suitable,” he stated flatly.

Poundinch seemed momentarily put out by this revelation, and he released his grip on Rossamünd. His face contorted frighteningly but reverted marvelously to the previous false grin. He kept his hand upon the foundling’s shoulder. It must have looked friendly enough from the pier, but the rivermaster’s fingers were like cunning, hidden claws.

“Very good, very good—pass on me well wishes. ’E were as fine an excise man that ever served on this river.” Poundinch rocked on his heels and, after a pause in which Rossamünd swore he could see the rivermaster’s thoughts turn like winch gears, added, “Present comp’ny excepted, of course . . .”

“Of course.” Unimpressed, the excise clerk held out an expectant hand. “Now, present your documents and your tallies, and scrutineers will be aboard presently.”

Poundinch did as he was bid. The papers were taken through an iron door in the arch’s hefty footing. Poundinch perspired, continually pursing his lips and flexing his free hand behind his back. Under the Axle, the
Hogshead
’s master had been as cool as the cold side of the pillow. Here, however, with no secretive conversations or cynical winkings with one of the clerks, he was visibly agitated.

The original excise clerk reappeared, as expressionless as before, followed by three gentlemen heftier of build and bearing heavy, long-handled cudgels—the scrutineers. With them came a quarto of musketeers, all uniformed in black with trimmings of white. In two ranks they lined up—five at the front, five at the back—on the stone pier.

The excise clerk held up his right hand and took a breath. “By the declaration of His Grace, the Archduke and Regent of Brandenbrass, and through the ratification and execution thereby of his Cabinet of the Charters set upon the sanctity of our borders, and its Ordinances concerning the same, you are presently ordered to allow to board, and then to be boarded by and searched by, Officers of the Sovereign State of Brandenbrass, and to declare upon a solemn ‘aye’ that you bear no contraband or other illicit articles upon or within this vessel, whether by hold or other conveyance, and that you regard inviolate the law and assertions of the State of Brandenbrass and that State’s authority. How say you?”

Rossamünd had no idea what had just been said, although it sounded extremely important and gravely impressive.

It seemed that Rivermaster Poundinch had not understood either. His squint grew more furrowed. “I . . . uh . . . aye, if it’s comin’ aboard ye wants, then”—he bowed low with a glance to his boatswain—“by all means.”

The scrutineers and the excise clerk stepped across from the pier and tapped about the upper deck for a good long while. Poundinch hovered nearby, answering the curt quizzing of the clerk with affected politeness. Rossamünd stayed by the tiller as instructed, heart knotting and unknotting alarmingly. It was a gloomy afternoon made gloomier under the shadow of this arch.

Eventually the search moved to the hatch. “What a horrendous stench coming from below, sir!” called the clerk.

“Why aye, sir.” Poundinch made to look chastened. “I intend to ’ave ’er in ordinary this winter, to give ’er a thorough swillin’ in and out. ’Tis th’ pig fat ye see—good for th’ purse but ’ard on th’ nose.”

The clerk put a foot on the top step and the scrutineers moved to follow. He paused and half turned. “Are your limbers still turning, sir?”

“Well . . .”

“Pray still them at once! You are committing a grave breach, sir!” The clerk made to mark an entry in a large ledger.

Just for a moment Poundinch looked like a cornered cat. Then, with a “We’ll not be ’avin’ that!” he shoved the excise clerk down the ladder and struck the nearest scrutineer right in the jaw with one of the thick wooden pins that were used to hold the mast.

“Let fly, Mister Shunt!” he bawled. “Let fly!”

With this the chaos began. Everyone but Shunt hesitated. The
Hogshead
lurched forward and people sprawled, Rossamünd with them. Poundinch leaped into the hold. Two scrutineers pounced after him over their fallen comrade.
Hiss
—
crack
. The boatswain felled one with a pistol shot to the neck as the other disappeared below.