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Chapter Three: Lamplighting

The road is long, the sky is grey

I've saved my hope for another day

Carl wandered the streets of Shropshire with a blithe smile, watching with interest the lamplighters as they went about their business. It was no more than a few minutes from evening, almost seven o'clock. He'd been exploring for two hours, hoping to avoid going to his sister's home for as long as possible.

He stood and observed a young lamplighter. The young man had a thin, sullen face, was concentrating entirely on his job, and didn't particularly appreciate it when Carl started speaking to him.

"Fascinating occupation," the friar said genially. "I myself have always been rather drawn to any profession involving flammable materials."

"Is that why you became a monk, then," said the sour-faced boy disinterestedly.

"Ha! No, I became a friar, because I am a friar, you know, for the— well, I was going to say excitement, but that wasn't the reason in the beginning. Um— dental plan! That was it. Came for the dental plan, stayed for the excitement—" Carl trailed off as he noticed the young man was quickly vacating the vicinity.

For a change, he thought about the excitement.

What stayed with him the most, oddly enough, was, never be the first one to stick your unprotected hand in viscous material.

Don't stare at strangers, no matter how strange they be.

Don't get on Van Helsing's nerves when he's in one of his 'moods' — and despite the serum that was supposed to cure him, the monster hunter must still have werewolf venom running through him, for he certainly gets a little— testy— every full moon.

Werewolves: bad.

Vampires: very bad.

Carl absently rubbed the back on his hand, which bore the only lasting physical sign of his first time in the field— a half-moon scar, where acid had reached him, from the aforementioned viscous material. Out of everything, he was most proud of the fact that he hadn't even noticed the wound until it was all over.

Of course, pride was a sin, too.

Carl wandered absently, in a reverie, taking in the sights of the city. He stared in admiration at the buildings. He stared in delight at the evidence of mankind's genius for inventing, for improving, civilization as he knew it.

He stared in consternation at the undeniably female figure who presently came reeling out of a pub and into his arms.

"Gerroffme!"

"I'm not on you, you're on me!" Carl said, too taken aback to be polite.

"I'll scream for help," she warned him.

"I'm only trying to support you—'

She pushed him away, but the motion itself set her off-balance so she immediately clutched at him again.

"Are you alright?" Carl exclaimed. He felt a movement against his collarbone that seemed to indicate the woman was shaking her head.

"They threw me out," she said, her voice muffled against Carl's shoulder. Her hands clutched convulsively at Carl's cloak. Carl felt things shift in that area and wished he'd had the presence of mind to wear an undershirt. But it had been so hot starting out—

"Hey," she said, and to Carl's horrified amazement he felt her breath on his bare skin. "What's this?"

"That's mine!" He snatched the coin bag away from her and made sure it was still tied tightly around his neck. "That's all the money I've got!"

"I see." Under the brim of her hat, teeth flashed in a drunken grin. "Buy me a drink, holy man?"

"I'm sorry," Carl snapped, "but I need the money for my own purposes. Now, are you quite able to support yourself or shall I call for a policeman?"

She clutched his cloak again and tipped her head back. Amber eyes peered at him beseechingly. "Don't do that, mister! They'll put me in gaol for certain sure! I don't know what they do with drunks where you're from, but—"

"So you are inebriated, then?" said Carl. He was fascinated despite himself. He'd never heard someone admit it so openly before. Even Van Helsing was prone to slurring only, "I cansh hold my likker jus' fine, shtupid monk!" when in his cups.

"Not 'inebriated,'" she corrected him. "Very, very drunk. Yes, I am. I'm sorry."

"Well, I—"

"I'm sorry," she said again. "I've made you partially en dishabille—"

"Wonderful," said Carl sourly, "a bilingual drunk woman."

That grin flashed at him again, and now that Carl could see her face and get the full effect of it, it hit him like a cartload of bricks. He felt his knees weaken.

"I'm sorry," she said slowly and deliberately, "would you mind terribly, sir, pointing me in the direction of a handsom cab so I may make my sorry way home?" She released his cloak with one hand and prodded him in the chest with a finger. "If you would be so kind."

Wordlessly Carl turned her about and steered her down the street, one hand on her arm, the other placed gingerly about her waist. She tried not to lean against him more than she could help. Together they located a hansom and he assisted her into it.

Surreptitiously, he went to the front and paid the driver. He'd thought she hadn't noticed, but her voice arrested him in midstep as he walked away.

"Friar!" she called, inadvertently getting it right. Not a lot of people did that. "You are a good man, and a fine man, and a bloody handsome man. Come to me tomorrow and I will reimburse you. My name is Tamerlaine Gentle, and any local cabbie will know where to find me." Her face disappeared from the window, then reappeared again. "Oh, and come after eleven, my headache is usually gone by then." She waved frantically. "Bye bye! Drive on, driver."

The coach rattled into the night and Carl stood in the dark street, mouth agape. The woman's name was one he knew as well as his own, one he'd often thought of over the years.

They'd been playmates, a very, very long time ago. They had loved each other dearly. It was to him she had come when her father died, and then her mother— to him she had come when her older sister announced her engagement to a Russian duke— and—

And he had been the last, the very last, one to talk to her before the doctors and the policemen came and took her away.