Free Foundling by D. M. Cornish

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 Rossamünd. “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 Rossamünd 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, Rossamünd 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?”
    Rossamünd’s chin lifted as he answered proudly, “Dormitory Master and Ex-Gunner Fransitart, one of the masters of the marine society.” Rossamünd 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?” Rossamünd 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! Rossamünd 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, Rossamünd 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 Rossamünd 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”—Rossamünd 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, Rossamünd 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