Wolf's-head, Rogues of Bindar Book I (6 page)

“Our rhymes
are important, garment-monger! Get yourself gone. Do you disparage
our odes for pure mischief? We are not forcing you to listen to our
refrains, so away—they are too sublime for your provincial
ears.”

“Shut your
yap! Sublime, you say? I call it doggerel.”

“Your opinions
are irrelevant!” cried Weavil. “If you decide to endorse our prose,
fine, else skedaddle. We have no need for low-caste critics.”

And so it
went. Baus nodded wisely, patted Weavil on the shoulder. “A
poignant utterance, Weavil—if I don’t say myself, which if Nascar
our artist were present, he would have expressed an endorsement.
For the nonce I suggest we repair to a safe locale and essay a
stanza or two of Hulcimer’s lullaby, if only to appease the
gentleman weaver’s complaint.”

“By no means!”
objected Weavil. “I am content with singing my unsurpassable rhyme
all night and day, if I must. I have titled it, ‘
A Seafarer’s
Symphonium
’.”

Baus blinked.
“Very astute! A profound designation—but to bypass the euphoria of
chanting the Hymn of the Philandering Mariner? A trifle silly,
wouldn’t you think?”

Weavil
harrumphed. “Says who?” Baus gave him a sobering look. Weavil
brightened. “In mutual spirit, let us consider this then our next
project!”

“An upstanding
suggestion!” cried Baus. “To dual dactyl ‘Philandering Mariner’ it
is.”

Arms joined,
the two comrades embarked on the long ribald ode . . .

* * *

It was perhaps
more blind fortune than kismet that had the two drifting near the
late-night salvaging of Nuzbek and his crew on an expensive rig.
The magician paced miserably about his wreckage. His mood was dour,
his black hat stained with mud, squashed like a tomato. He was more
whipped than beaten, candle clutched in hand, while snatching here
and there with the other at certain pieces of equipment. His face
was bruised and snarly. Irate words dribbled from his mouth while
bony fingers trembled at the touch of torn bits of props. Neither
of his henchmen, Nolpin nor Boulm, appeared in any better state.
The walked about like marionettes. As for the women of Nuzbek’s
troupe, there was not a sign.

Catching sight
of the drunkards, Nuzbek rose to the occasion and gave a cry of
delight. “Well, well! If it’s not our old chums—Baus and Weavil.
What a fancy discovery! A couple of birds come to roost for the
night.” His bloodshot eyes gleamed with pleasure.

Weavil
squinted up at the magician with a wry languor. “The coincidence is
somewhat exceptional, Nuzbek—I would indeed prefer a larger
distancing from you and your troupe—like Tavilnook or Britobur, for
instance.”

“How
refreshing to hear your jests. Nevertheless, ample time has passed
between our little interlude to merit reparations.”

“Perhaps, and
I hope you have considered your misdeeds, Nuzbek. Secretly, if I
might make a bald observance—that the experience has proven
somewhat soul-improving for you.”

The magician
gave an urbane laugh. “I have gained, so to say, a valuable
understanding of caprice at the hands of plebeians, as well as
other poignant discoveries.” He paused as if in afterthought,
finger to chin. “My ruminations have led me to certain ambitions,
including indemnification from injustice and revenge. From our last
meeting, conditions seem to flow to better stead, wouldn’t you
agree?”

The poet’s
lips pursed. “I think not”. Nuzbek trilled out an ululating call.
Immediately his two lackeys blundered forth from the shadows. The
twain forwarded approving grunts. “These two stalwarts, Nolpin and
Boulm, are what I call ‘hired muscle’. ‘Indispensable adjuncts’, so
to say. Then! Who shall engage first in sport-whipping our
intoxicated scamps? Nolpin?” Nuzbek prodded a thin finger into
Boulm’s chest, pinching playfully at his belly. “No, you are a
niggler, Boulm! You first.”

“A fine
program, Nuzbek, indeed,” Boulm chortled.

Nolpin emitted
a rankled cry: “What? And give Boulmy here all the pleasure? Let it
be me who has some play with these weasels.”

Nuzbek laughed
fondly.

Baus swallowed
the clotting phlegm in his throat. “We have no quarrel with you or
your dandies, Nuzbek. So let it be! Move out of the way. Let us
continue with our lyrics as your presence intrudes upon our
conviviality.”

Nuzbek
indulged himself in another dry chuckle. “An eloquent remark for
one so vulgarly inebriated. Please bypass your plans for more
appropriate developments.” A casual sign to Nolpin had the
attendant pouncing on Baus like a bison. Baus parried double fists
and landed a clean chop on the fleshy side of Nolpin’s head. Weavil
backpedalled and sidestepped Boulm’s charge and flung out a foot,
causing the oaf a nasty tumble and a hurtful grinding into some
chipboard.

Weavil gave a
husky laugh. Nuzbek’s cronies lay dazed. In a grim huddle they
stared at their charges with animosity. Lurching to his feet, Boulm
made a feint. Nolpin prepared to retaliate with force. Wiser now,
the two snatched up pieces of broken yew and hurled them at the
Heagramers without compunction.

Weavil and
Baus ducked. Pirouetting and prancing, they dogged left and right,
eluding potential injuries with a grace belying their common state
of inebriation. It seemed, besieged by the macabre persistence of
Nuzbek and his cronies, the two sobered up in quick time.

Nonetheless,
blows had their toll; the twain, while putting up a sturdy fight,
were heavily outnumbered in brawn and were forced to succumb to
unceremonious defeat.

Sprawled nose
deep in dirt, Baus and Weavil looked sorry wrecks. Nolpin and Boulm
sat ceremoniously on their backs. Perhaps a trouncing would not
have been so bad had circumstances been different . . .

In a
triumphant attitude, Nuzbek now acknowledged the victory with
philosophic deliberation. “It appears that a couple of comics have
been denied their magic show. Tut! I had promised you an
exhibition, and I shall deliver it!”

Nolpin uttered
a plaintive cry: “The ingrates did not even come to witness your
final act to its completion!”

“This is well
true, Nolpin—something which still rankles. Yet life moves on . .
.” The magician stroked his angular chin. His expression showed an
aspect of reflection. “Despite Baus and Weavil’s imprudent acts, it
would seem smacking of impropriety for me to renege on my part of
the bargain. Nolpin—you and Boulm convey our guests to our tent. We
shall have a proper chat and embark upon a program of restitution!”
Nuzbek held up a finger high. “No objections. But wait . . .” He
stooped to search the two’s pockets. “What have we here?—a couple
of invitations to Grolsner’s Circus? How grand! I always wanted to
attend the spectacle.” He put a hand to his chin. “You shouldn’t
have! Donations of this sort are considered tokens of
supererogatory nature. Yet—I shall consider them important
endorsements of amity along our long road together!”

Unheeding of
Baus and Weavil’s cries, Nolpin and Boulm dragged the two by the
heels to the edge of the fairgrounds with blithe refrains humming
on their lips.

Under the
gloom of a stand of beobar trees, a dim structure took form: a tall
canopy dressed with dragon vanes and buttressed shattered planks. A
single wegmor—half ox, half horse—lay tethered to the trunk. The
wagon lay to the side. Partially hidden from sight was a queer glow
masked in the serpentine shadows. A lamp perhaps? The structure was
without doubt the hasty fabrication that Nuzbek and his cronies had
erected after the destruction of their stage.

Nuzbek’s
hirelings escorted the inebriates inside. The dark flaps rolled
down. Thump! Nuzbek tied the canvas securely with fastidious care,
then proceeded to light a series of candelabra tacked around the
interior. Many treasures and marvels were cached in the confines,
Baus and Weavil saw—a petrified toad, a golden clock with hands
swinging backwards, candles immersed in some foul liquid whose
wicks seemed to burn purple, wrong-side up, an aquarium with fish
that blew luminous bubbles, creating explosions in the sediment . .
.

Baus’s eyes
reeled. Boulm thrust him down beside a pile of crates and hurried
to shake another strange lantern alive: a tall, creepy ‘water lamp’
which seemed to float in the center of the tent with dark purpose.
It was the shape of a crescent moon, bathing the chamber in a weird
sepia glow.

Baus looked
despairingly from his crouched position. He swatted away Boulm’s
ragged beard from his own face. The laughing, easy eyes had become
badgerish orbs of malice. Now Nolpin worried Weavil with his boot
while Nuzbek poised like a predatory eagle limned in the light,
eyes gleaming triumphantly. The poise only confirmed Baus’s
suspicion that this travelling magician—sinister as he was—was far
more than a simple conjuror.

Baus narrowed
his eyes, taking in the surroundings with growing dismay. The
enclosure was stiflingly humid. The breadth seemed to stretch to
infinity, like some trick of imagination. The constrained knot in
his gut tightened to an unsprung coil. He saw cabinets and wood
chests piled off to the side, amongst which included a collection
of obscure jars and rusty instruments, and a tub of unknown
elixirs. On a ledge, Baus made out a collection of distraught
figures. Puppets? All were bizarre enough to be indeterminable. The
curious thing was that each ‘puppet’, if such were, was pickled in
its own jar of what looked like brine. On further glances, Baus saw
the figures were animated.

Hunching
himself closer, Baus saw how queer it was that the figures seemed
to kick and scratch at the glass as if they were alive, yet
standing no higher than two feet.

What marvel!
Baus made cursory note of the fact and with strained civility
addressed Nuzbek: “Clever, Nuzbek. Perhaps you are a greater
magician than we had all guessed.”

“Tut, tut”.
The magician, reacting favourably to the comment, reached out a
hand, stroking casually the translucent curve of the nearest jar.
“Allow me to introduce my four companions: Woisper, Ulisa,
Salmeister and Trimestrius. All are important beings in this
universe, not to mention possessors of singular talents. Each soul
comprises the only valued pieces of my collection, spared recently
from molestation by the pernicious mob, as a result of my own
foresight, which had them cached under the stoutest beobar timbers.
Meet Woisper the Wilful, Ulisa the Utilitarian, Salmeister the
Saturnine, and Trimestrius the Third!”

Weavil, while
not registering the names of the illustrious individuals, made an
expansive compliment about the foresight which corroborated
Nuzbek’s claim.

Nuzbek ignored
the declaration. Peering at the figures, he motioned toward the
round, pot-bellied, grey-bearded man—indubitably Woisper. Shoulders
were stooped, his garb completely brown: brown hood, brown scarf,
brown vest, hose, and brogues. The adjacent homunculus was
yellow-bearded, of middle years—a man who wore a pair of voluminous
tan and umber trousers. Owing to his sallow cheeks and bulbous
face, Baus guessed this fellow to be Salmeister. He wore a gold
circlet atop his balding crown and the figure seemed hopelessly
encaged. Dismal, if not moribund. Another silhouette was poised
glowingly with an elfin, pleasing arrangement of breast, hip and
haunch underneath an acolyte’s pure violet robe. Under the liquidy
tumble of her tresses she upheld a most awful scowl and looked out
of her fish-bowl world through a pair of smouldering eyes. The
last, but not least, looked a renegade-ish chap, a woodsman
perhaps, who wore the green regalia of a ‘hunter’ complete with
green cape and belled cap. A golden broadsword, now shrunken to the
size of a gladius, hung belted at his hip.

Nuzbek
motioned to the last jar which contained the weaponed swain. “This
pretentious, foul-tongued varlet is ‘Trimestrius’ the Third. He is
a schemer and misbehaver. A betrayer of most reprehensible
dimensions and I have kept this knave separate from the others. The
brown-hooded reprobate is, as you can guess, Woisper the Wilful, a
wretch and tyrant, but a prodigal in his hey-day. The robed beauty
is Ulisa the Utilitarian—a splendid example of womanly beauty,
gorgeous, and puissant in her prime, but in many aspects an
absolute harpy. Do not be deceived by the illustrious contours! She
is a witch. The winsomeness is illusory. The yellow-faced,
cornflower-bearded buffoon standing so haughtily in his brine, is
Salmeister the Saturnine, a repugnant oaf whose transgressions are
too numerous to state, so I will bypass a formal disclosure.”

“Very well—a
daunting foursome,” agreed Baus grimly. “But what have these
wretches to do with us? And why the dark looks and sinister aspects
on their visages? Even now, I think to hear malicious mutters
issuing from Ulisa’s lips—the one who seems to project abuses
toward yourself.”

Nuzbek shifted
in pretended amazement. He dropped to a knee, pressed ear close to
the jar. “I suppose you are correct, Baus.” His gaze grew
abstracted, as if trying to recall past times. “Ulisa can be a
disparaging hoyden, if she puts her mind to it. Once she was my
tutor—a priggish pedagogue—this was a very long time ago. All these
criminals form past liaisons with me. Either singly or in concert,
all chose to betray me, and now they serve as decorations to my
travelling chambers. Tokens of marvel, in fact, delighting me at
times when my mood demands it.” He focused his glare on the
disarray of broken bits of glass, bone, shell, metal and cloth in
his trunks. “These shards—they are all that remain of my last
wondrous adjuncts! Alas, at times as these, I receive my greatest
joys from these bottled bibelots. Look at their unique
grace!—amongst this ridiculous riot of ruin!”

Weavil let out
a high-hearted chuckle: “Look on the bright side, Nuzbek. Even if
you had tried to retrieve your adjuncts at an earlier time, they
would have likely been demolished or purloined by the throng.”