Free Foundling by D. M. Cornish Page B

rivermaster with a silent, surly question in his eyes. Poundinch introduced him to Rossamünd as Mister Shunt the gastrineer. It was the gastrineer’s task to feed, muck out and care for the gastrines, make sure they were always limbered properly and keep them in good health. He ranked highly in a vessel’s crew.
    “Hello, Mister Shunt, sir,” said the foundling.
    Shunt the gastrineer ignored him.
    “Well, there ye are.” Poundinch patted the nearest box. “These be gastrines. Not much to look at, eh? But a powerful sight more constant than a sailing vessel, and no mistake. I’ll leave ye with dear ol’ Shunty ’ere, so’s he can talk technicalities with ye. Come straight up when ye’re done, mind—no dalliancing about down ’ere.”
    The rivermaster retreated.
    Rossamünd carefully pressed a hand against a gastrine. It was most certainly hot, like the brow of someone in a fever. The mighty throbbing of the muscles working within transmitted up his arm, and he felt his whole body bump-thump, bump-thump in sympathy. He admired the powerful-looking levers, many of which were half as tall as him again, each one governing certain actions of the gastrines and limbers. He looked to the gastrineer with a smile.
    “Git!” cursed Shunt.
    “Ah . . . aye! Sorry, Mister Shunt, sir, I . . .” Rossamünd pulled his hand away from the side of the box.
    The gastrineer rolled his eyes horribly. “Git!” he grated again, stabbing a hand at the foundling.
    Rossamünd blinked in surprise, then realized with horror that there was a weapon in the man’s hand—a curved and cruelly barbed dagger. He had never been threatened with a real weapon before. It was enough to send him stumbling back up the ladder and running back to his couch of canvas at the bow.
    “I see’s ye’ve got yerself well acquainted with our darlin’ gastrineer,” chuckled Poundinch as Rossamünd fled past him.
    Rossamünd refused to do anything so embarrassing as cry—though he very much felt like it and might have once. At that moment, hugging his knees to his chest and scowling back any tears, he would rather have been back in the foundlingery’s suffocating halls.
    With the dark of his first night aboard descending, Rossamünd decided to sleep at his original station at the prow on a pile of old hessian and hemp distinct only from the other piles of old hessian and hemp as stinking less. No one objected, and so he settled in for sleep. If it rained he would rather get wet than endure the disgusting hold.
    The night passed mercifully dry, yet dreams of a knife-wielding Shunt, the incessant clanging of the watch bells and the stomping of the crew’s bare feet kept Rossamünd from restful sleep. By the ringing of the morning watch at around four o’clock, he gave up on the prospect of proper rest and was rewarded eventually with a beautiful, brilliant pink sunrise.
    Red dawning, traveler’s warning, he thought gloomily.
    The Hogshead was now clear of Boschenberg and its jurisdiction and roaming an ungoverned stretch of the Humour.The land on the eastern side of the river remained flat open pastureland. Upon the west it was becoming more rolling and rocky and decidedly more wild-looking. Such places were known as ditchlands, the borders between everymen’s kingdoms and the dominion of the monsters. Rossamünd could well imagine bogles and nickers prowling about the stunted trees and ragged weeds, seeing who they might devour.
    As the day progressed, Rivermaster Poundinch ignored everyone and contributed little to the running of the vessel. Occasionally he would growl a command, but usually he lounged silently at the tiller, his chin in his chest as if he was dozing.
    Rossamünd was taken by loneliness. At that moment, alone among all these self-interested cutthroats, he would have welcomed even Mister Sebastipole’s stiff manners and disturbing eyes.
    Poundinch came alive suddenly at the end of the forenoon watch and the beginning of the afternoon