Christopher Rowley - Bazil 01 - Bazil Broketail

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Bazil Broketail by
Christopher Rowley
…
CHAPTER ONE
High and clear the clarions sounded the silvery cry of Fundament Day
from the Tower of Guard of the city of Marneri. The old year was ended,
winter was begun, soon there would be flakes of snow upon the air.
Already there was a chill in the wind at night that sent children indoors
early, while mothers put more logs on the fires; but for now it was time for
the greatest festival of the year. The harvest was in, the sun still held
warmth; it was a day to mark the passing of the old and the beginning of
the new.
Throughout the Empire of the Rose, from the Isles of Cunfshon to the
western marches of Kenor, the people were as one on Fundament Day.
In the city of Marneri, sited at the head of the Long Sound, there was
an additional significance to Fundament Day. The Greatspells were
renewed, in solemn majesty, replenishing the strength of the city walls for
another year. Drums and the sharp reports of firecrackers urged the folk
out of their houses and through the massive North Gate to the Green Field
beyond the city walls.
Today! sang the horns, today is the day of the Greatspell and every able
witch must come. To make the walls stand tall, the height of fifteen men,
with the power to resist all known assaults. To make the turrets firm and
adamant! To give the gate spirits, Osver, Yepero, Afo and Ilim, their
strength to resist the magic of the enemy.
From the corner towers floated the brightly colored banners of the high
families of the Guard. Small balloons flew, carousels twirled upon the
green. Folk in colorful silks danced the ancient steps of the Fundament
dances.
The crowds were filled with people wearing blue and red Marneri caps.
The men wore white wool shirts called “copa,” and thick winter leggings of
black and brown. Most of the women wore traditional cream-colored linen
dresses, with the red sash of the Sisterhood.
By the tenth hour of the day the city was almost empty. The sound of
the distant fireworks and horns and drums became muffled echoes around
the stone-flagged courtyards behind the mighty Tower of Guard.
In the Stables of the Guard, where sixty horses made quiet chuffing
sounds, the echoes of the distant fun made young Lagdalen of the Tarcho’s
heart feel hard and heavy in her chest. Sometimes it was awful to be
well-born, a member of a High House, with all the privileges of that
station and all the responsibilities.
The drums and fifes died down, and it grew quiet once more except for
the sounds of contented horses. Lagdalen bent to her task again, mucking
out the stables.
No matter how she looked at it, it still seemed enormously unfair. As if
all the world were arrayed against her, from the Lady Flavia and the
officers of the Novitiate to her own family. She was simply a young girl
who had fallen in love, and as a result here she was muckraking on
Fundament Day. While all the city was dancing on the green, she would be
laboring for hours on this punishment detail which would take all day.
And by the time it was done, and the feasting had begun, Lagdalen would
be too exhausted to do more than bathe and go to sleep on her cot in the
Novitiate.
Fundament was ruined, and all because of a mad infatuation with a
boy, a silly boy, a boy she still ached for. A boy with the tiny green,
triangular freckles on his skin that marked a bastard of the tree, an
elfchild.
A boy named Werri, a boy from the “Elvish” race, who grew from trees
in the sacred glades and loaned their skills to the aid of the people of
Marneri and all the Empire of the Rose. A boy who worked in the foundry,
forging steel by day, and who stayed in the elf quarter by night, caught up
in their mysterious world of ritual and trance. A boy she had seen only a
handful of times, a boy that she barely knew in fact; although this
realization was new to her, and she had only come to it in the last few
days.
The news of her downfall had brought no response from Werri. No
romantic invitation to leave her life in the Tower of Guard and join him as
an elf-wife in the quarter with its funny, narrow streets and crowded
tenements.
Werri had behaved just as her father had predicted.
“You’ll see,” he’d said with the contemptuous foreknowledge of an
adult. “He’s only interested in wenching with normal folk. To him you’re
no more real than a phantom.”
She burned with embarrassment now, for she knew in her heart that
her father had been right. Even after the love she’d imagined between
them when she’d gone to him, he’d barely acknowledged her, barely taken
the time to say goodbye, before slouching off with his friends clothed in elf
green to the quarter and the ale house.
In tears of bitter humiliation she’d gone back to the Novitiate with her
romantic dreams shattered. Werri didn’t want her in the quarter. Now
that he’d had his way with her, he didn’t even want to know her.
Grimly the Lady Flavia had prescribed the punishment: long and hard
labor on Fundament Day.
Of course, Werri was a handsome young devil, in the way that elvish
folk often were, with a long lean jaw, slender straight nose, and
green-brown eyes that danced when he spoke. And long, green-blond hair
that hung down to his shoulders and which he shook back from his eyes or
tied back with a silver elf-band.
But those triangular flecks on his skin were the mark of the wild elf glen
and of entry into the world through the womb of a tree. No woman could
give birth to such as Werri, for the only product of such liaisons was the
engenderment of imps, debased and evil.
And thus to be caught abed with such a one as Werri was a serious
matter for a young witch in the Novitiate.
And for Lagdalen of the Tarcho they had high hopes; the Lady Flavia
had said as much in prescribing the punishment.
“Normally for this sort of thing, I’d take the cane to your backside and
set you a full Declension of the Dekademon, plus a month of service in the
Temple to show you just how silly it is for a witch in the Novitiate to be
infatuated with an elfboy, and to remind you of your place within our
mission. But you are not just any novice, Lagdalen. Of you we have hopes
of much achievement in this world. You are to go to Cunfshon, to the
teachers there. If you continue your growth you will go on to a great career
in either the Temple or the Administrative Service.”
Flavia had frowned most thoughtfully then, while gazing into a white
paper file upon her desk.
“So instead you will clean the Stables of the Guard on Fundament Day,
and produce a full Declension of the Dekademon by the end of the week.
Am I understood?”
Lagdalen’s heart had grown heavy at the thought, for she loved
Fundament Day beyond all other festivals and would willingly have
endured the cane, though Flavia’s was a notoriously heavy hand with it,
instead of spending that day working in the stables.
Flavia had then said, “You must understand this, Lagdalen. The
passions of the body are sent to torment us and to turn us aside from our
historic mission. We must eschew all thoughts of love and family during
these learning years. And, of course, it goes without saying that we must
not have congress with the elvish. From such unions can come only imps
and disaster. The elvish cannot understand the distress they cause in this
behavior; we are playthings to them in this. But for a witch it is a deadly
crime, a slip into abomination.”
And thus had Fundament Day been ruined, although she had learned
with considerable relief, at the medical examination which followed her
interview with Flavia, that no imp had been quickened in her womb.
She had wept many, bitter tears since then. And rerun through her
mind again and again the awful humiliation of that moment when Helena
of Roth, Lagdalen’s most bitter enemy, had pulled open the door and
shown the proctors what was going on in the little laundry room at the
back of the dormitory.
Helena was a senior novice, and she took particular pleasure in
disciplining the “little Tarcho brat.” Lagdalen recalled, with a
spine-chilling thrill of horror, the vindictive laughter with which Helena
had greeted Lagdalen’s arrest and removal to Flavia’s office.
And now she drudged, mucking out the stalls of sixty horses. Of course
the stable boys who normally did this work, but were excused on
Fundament Day, had left all the dirt and straw down from the previous
two days. They knew that on Fundament Day there was normally some
poor wretch enjoined to work there all day for punishment.
She lifted another shovelful of manure and cast it into the barrow; the
job ahead of her was mountainous. It would take her all day to rake it and
shift it.
Wearily she filled the barrow, lifted it, and trundled it off to the
composter heap. This was set in a covered pit just inside the Old Gate,
under the looming walls of the tower. To reach it she had to leave the
stables and negotiate the smoothly polished cobblestones of the Tower
Yard, where the barracks troops performed their drill. This was the
dangerous part of the passage, for not a drop of the contents of her barrow
could be left on the cobbles for fear of old Sappino the Yardkeeper, whose
obsession was the polish on his cobbles. Loud would be his complaints if
she made a mess. Long would she kneel polishing the stones if Sappino
complained to Headmistress Flavia.
Outside the stables, which were protected by a spell, the fat flies of
summer still buzzed vigorously in the sunlight, and they soon discovered
her cargo.
Lagdalen hated flies, and she quickly tried to cast her own fly spell. But
it took two full declensions and a paragraph from the Birrak, and she
made a mistake in the declensions. The flies continued to buzz, oblivious
to the botched spell.
With a curse of woe, flies settling on her face, in her hair, around her
eyes, Lagdalen pushed the barrow as fast as it would go over the cobbles of
the yard to the compost pit.
A fly crawled up her nose. With a squeal of horror she stopped and
brushed it away. The barrow tipped and fell on its side, cargo spilling over
the stones.
Lagdalen burst into tears as the accursed flies settled with victorious,
hot buzzing.
There was a triumphant peal of bright, merry laughter from her left.
She looked up, tears forgotten in sudden rage. A youth, a ragged
dragonboy, was visible at the door to the red brick Dragon House. He was
pointing at her and laughing.
She felt a flash of intense dislike and reached into the pocket of her
drab novice’s overalls, pulled out a slingshot, and let fly with one of the
round stones she always carried.
The boy vanished instantly, and the stone pinged off the wall and fell
back into the yard. Lagdalen ran over and retrieved it for another try.
When she looked up, though, it was to find the grim figure of Helena of
Roth looking on. Helena pointed a long white forefinger at her with
undisguised glee.
“Possession of a weapon! Expressly forbidden! Use of a weapon against
another human! You’ll be whipped! Not to mention that pile of excrement
you’ve dropped on Keeper Sappino’s clean cobblestones. Wait till I tell him
what you’ve done. I should think that when Flavia’s through with you,
you’ll have accumulated another year’s worth of drudge!”
With a scarcely contained cry of triumph, Helena wheeled about and
marched off to find the yardkeeper, who habitually slept through
Fundament Day and all other festivals, relieved of all concern for his
polished cobbles on the parade ground.
Lagdalen looked back to the site of her disaster. Long before she could
shovel it back up and then sluice down the stones with water, Yardkeeper
Sappino would return, and when he saw what she’d done he’d log an
immediate complaint with Flavia.
Tears renewed themselves in the corners of her eyes. She seemed to be
doomed to stablework for the rest of her life.
She felt a nudge on her elbow. She turned, eyes blurry, and discovered
the dragonboy who had mocked her so recently, standing just a few feet
away.
He was no more than fourteen by the look of him, with a raffish air and
a cocksure grin. His dragonboy suit of brown broadcloth was old and
worn, his boots were scuffed, and he wore his cap backwards. He was also
carrying a couple of shovels.
She resisted her first urge, which was to knock his hat off and pull his
nose. He gestured to her with a shovel.
“Use this shovel, we’ll use ours. Baz here will fetch some water. My
name’s Relkin, Relkin Orphanboy, at your service.”
Lagdalen gasped. Looming behind the boy was a battledragon, standing
ten feet tall, with olive green hide and big black eyes that fixed themselves
on her most intently. It hefted a shovel with a blade more than a meter
wide.
She felt dragon-freeze begin to sweep over her, the instinctive human
response to full-grown dragons.
“I’m, I, I don’t know what to say.”
At this the dragon’s huge head split into a wide grin and the eyes
seemed to gleam. The boy looked up and snapped his fingers, breaking her
out of incipient dragon trance.
“Yes, I know, you’re overwhelmed, girls often are when we’re around,
but you’d better stop gawking and get shoveling before that nasty girl
wakes the yardkeeper.”
“Why are you doing this?” she said at last.
“We talked it over. We decided we liked you and we don’t like that
other one—that mean-spirited Helena of Roth. We think it’s rotten that
anyone should be stuck here in the yard, working all day on Fundament
Day.”
Lagdalen stared at him. He gave her a brief little grin and went to work
with his shovel. However, both his and Lagdalen’s efforts were virtually
beside the point. The dragon wielded his own shovel and scooped up the
mess in two huge strokes.
Lagdalen stared at the load, replaced in the barrow so quickly. Relkin
took hold of the barrow and wheeled it across the yard to the alley and
down to the compost pit.
Meanwhile the dragon sauntered over to a tall rain barrel under the
eaves of the stables and picked it up as if it weighed practically nothing.
With its contents he sluiced down the cobblestones in a trice. The water
gurgled down the drain, leaving the yard damp but spotless.
Lagdalen used a cloth from the stables to mop it dry and shine it up
once more.
“Thank you Master Dragon,” she said when it was done.
The monster’s face split into a terrifying smile, with two-inch fangs
bared over a long green, forked tongue. It spoke with the characteristic
sibilant hiss of dragon speech.
“Well, miss, you best call me by my name—Bazil of Quosh, at your
service.”
At which the dragon reared erect and stood to attention with enough
energy to make the ground shake, while he snapped her a crisp legionnaire
salute.
Slightly stunned she returned the salute, hoping she was doing it
properly. The boy, Relkin, had returned with the now empty barrow which
he parked inside the stables gate.
“Always glad to help a damsel in distress,” he said with a little bow,
swinging his hat wide in an extravagant flourish.
Lagdalen smiled. In spite of her misgivings, there was something
clownishly sweet about this young ruffian.
“Of course we should be grateful to know the name of our particular
damsel,” said Relkin with a sly smile.
“Why, thank you, Master Relkin Orphanboy. My name is Lagdalen, of
House Tarcho.”
“Lagdalen of the Tarcho, eh? Well, well.” He grinned. Here was a useful
ally. By the margin of blue on her sleeve, Relkin could see clearly that she
was of the senior class in the Novitiate, and the Tarcho were one of the
most important families in Marneri.
“That was a good shot, Lagdalen of the Tarcho. If I hadn’t ducked you’d
have given me a bump for sure.”
“I’m sorry,” said Lagdalen.
“Sorry for what? I shouldn’t have laughed, I know it, but at first I
thought you were someone else, a stableboy perhaps. There’s one of them
with brown hair cut like yours. We don’t get on with the stable boys.
They’re all older than sixteen and suffer from overgrown heads, if you
know what I mean.”
“I think so.”
“And besides, I like a girl who can shoot straight and carries a good
pebble.”
“Why, ah, thank you.” Lagdalen didn’t know what to say suddenly,
charmed by this wild child of the dragon yards. A child with oddly
calculating eyes.
He seemed to hesitate, as if afraid to say something, and then he
blurted it out.
“And I wonder if it would be impertinent of me, to ah, ask the Lady
Lagdalen of the Tarcho, if she would like some company for the evening
feast of Fundament.”
She observed that he was crumpling his cap in his hands as he spoke.
“Well, I don’t know. I was supposed to be spending the whole day
working in the stables. I won’t be finished until dark, and I’ll be exhausted,
so I don’t think I can…”
Relkin’s eyes were bright.
“We’ll help, won’t we, Baz?”
She looked to the dragon, still leaning on his shovel. The dragon gave
her that unfathomable crocodile smile.
“Be glad to help, Lagdalen of the Tarcho. I’ll bring over the dragon
barrow; it’ll hold a lot more than that little one you’re using.”
Lagdalen was stunned anew. She gaped at them. They really meant it.
No one had been this nice to her in years, if ever.
“Why, thank you, Relkin and Bazil,” she managed at last. “I do believe
that if I can get the job done in time, Mistress Flavia could not possibly
object to my attending the evening rites.”
“Oh good!” exclaimed the boy. “I know how we can get some hot apple
wine and good seats at the puppet show.”
The dragon suddenly hissed.
“ Someone approaches.”
“Quick, we must hide,” said Relkin. Lagdalen found herself being pulled
through a postern gate into the huge, gloomy interior of the Dragon
House. Inside was an odd, herbal odor and a stream of warm air that
flowed from an interior gate that led to an unseen corridor.
Through a slit in the door, she watched as Helena of Roth returned with
Sappino the Yardkeeper, who had been awakened with some difficulty
from his morning nap. He was in an irritable mood as a result, and the
sight of the clean yard sent him into a fury. He always suspected the sly
young females of the Novitiate, always imagined they were out to trick and
embarrass him. He turned and set off to find Headmistress Flavia.
“Perhaps a few stripes with the cane will cure your impudence!” he
snarled over his shoulder.
Helena looked around wildly, eyes glaring. How could that little Tarcho
brat have done this? There’d been a huge pile of horse dung right here.
She could never have cleaned it up this quickly.
She heard laughter up above, and turned and glimpsed a round-faced
摘要：

BazilBroketailbyChristopherRowley…CHAPTERONEHighandcleartheclarionssoundedthesilverycryofFundamentDayfromtheTowerofGuardofthecityofMarneri.Theoldyearwasended,winterwasbegun,soontherewouldbeflakesofsnowupontheair.Alreadytherewasachillinthewindatnightthatsentchildrenindoorsearly,whilemothersputmorelog...

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