"Christopher Rowley - Bazil 06 - Dragons of Argonath" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rowley Christopher)

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Dragons of Argonath by
Christopher Rowley

Chapter One
It was the custom in the vale of Valmes for the farmers to harrow their
fields in the spring, after the plow and before they planted. They used
teams of two or four horses to pull the great steel-toothed harrows,
combing the ground and smoothing it out ready for the seed.

When seen from a distance, or even while passing along the lane,
harrowing seems a perfectly tranquil part of farming lifeтАФa scene for a
pastoral painting, a poem to the glories of the annual round. But for the
small inhabitants of the fields, the harrow is the most dreaded event of all,
for there is no escape from its fifteen-foot-wide comb of steel points,
dragging through the topsoil. For mice and voles this is bad enough, but
these little fellows are swift-footed and might yet escape. For toads,
slow-hopping, crawling toads, it is certain death.

Thus in Valmes, as in much of old Cunfshon, there was another custom.
The old witches, including all the retired crones, would scour the fields to
gather the toads. For the farmers of Cunfshon, with their fine-tuned
husbandry, were acutely conscious of the beneficial effect of toads, which
consume insects in considerable numbers every growing season.

This was but one of many ways that the old witches, who had gone into
the mystic or simply retired from active service, paid for their upkeep. Of
course, they also fashioned spells to encourage crops and animals, and
they used their arts to drive away flies from house and stable. The benefits
of this last activity were enormous, and many of the diseases that plagued
the world were virtually unknown in Cunfshon.

In Valmes, the witches were aligned to various farms from time
immemorial. Thus old Lessis, now in retirement, was at work that day in
the field of Gelourd, still farmed by folk of that name after seven centuries.

She put a shoulder bag occupied by two dozen disgruntled toads over
the wall and into a barrow. In the next field over, Bertain's, she could see
the old witch Katrice working with an assistant, hauling a cart full of
toads toward the road. It was a fine day, warm enough to require only a
simple shift and sandals, but not so hot as to work up a sweat. Ah, the
toads, the fine rapacious toads, Lessis blessed them silently. She felt their
confusion, they were afraid, poor things, but they were toads that would