Blood Red (9781101637890) (27 page)

Predictably, said history was just like the history of every other village its size. Girls who had gone to the altar pregnant, boys with reputations, unfaithful husbands, unfaithful wives . . . and sad things, like boys who were snatched up by the Hungarian army never to be seen again, or not to come home until they were half forgotten by everyone.

And, of course, a forty-year litany of the missing. Young men mostly, occasional girls, and too-adventurous children. All of them taken while alone—alone in the field, alone hunting, alone gathering mushrooms, wandered off from the safety of the farmyard. Frau Schmidt was very shrewd. She not only included missing villagers, she included the missing that had passed
through
the village and never turned up down the road. Gypsies, lone travelers, peddlers.

“But you'll be all right,” she would say, nodding wisely, each time she added another to the toll. “You'll be fine. There are three of you. It never takes anyone who is
with
someone. Just don't go strolling about alone.”

During this time, Rosa refreshed her glass of plum liquor three times. Frau Schmidt showed absolutely no signs of intoxication, which Rosa could only marvel at.
You would think she was drinking water,
Rosa reflected. But then again, after a lifetime of drinking such powerful liquor, maybe it was like water to her. Rosa kept to her much milder wine. The Romanians made decent wine. From the look of things, it was perfectly acceptable for a woman to drink wine, but there was not one of the men that was not downing glasses of the potent plum. Evidently, if you didn't, you weren't a man.

Dominik had taken up with a group of young men, Markos with what looked like a couple of farmers. Markos and the farmers were seated, bent over a small, sturdy, rough wood table, while Dominik and the young men were standing together near the entrance to a low stone wall that separated the drinking area from the rest of the street. They had been laughing, earlier, evidently at Dominik's jokes. They weren't laughing now. Markos and the farmers had been serious all night.

Now the farmers stood up, and bade farewell to Markos, who stood up with them, took his glass, and went over to join his cousin. The innkeeper came by and offered to refresh Frau Schmidt's glass again, but she handed it to him instead.

“I know my limit, old friend,” she said, with a smile. “I've had enough to make me forget my aching bones and go to sleep. Be good to this nice young scholar girl. She listened to my tales as too many youngsters don't do, and laughed at all the right places.”

“I will, old mother,” the innkeeper said, offering her his hand so she could get more easily to her feet. “Dream well.”

“With your good
t
‚
uica˘
in me, that won't be hard,” she chuckled. “I shall dream of when I was young and skinny and Schmidt and I danced the
Învârtita
until the sun came up or the gypsies stopped playing.”

With that, she turned her back to them and made her remarkably steady and stately way out of the yard, and down the street, until she moved out of Rosa's sight.

“A good woman, Frau Schmidt,” the innkeeper said aloud, and winked at Rosa. “And all her tales are true, except the ones that are not.”

Rosa chuckled. “She reminds me of the good old lady across the courtyard from us at the university. She makes the best
cla˘tite!
I have never mastered making them so thin.”

The innkeeper made a sympathetic noise, perhaps reassured by the fact that the odd “lady scholar” was also domestic enough to lament her inability to make thin pancakes. That probably put his world back upright on its feet for him. Or rather, if he still believed that the world was flat (and he might!) it flipped the world right-side up for him. “If you stay long enough, perhaps my Maria will show you,” he said in a kindly tone.

“I would like that very much,” she said sincerely, because to be honest, having tasted the Romanian version of pancakes, she was not at all sure she would ever be satisfied with the German ones again.

Besides, it would be a good opportunity to coax more stories out of another village woman, this time the innkeeper's wife, who probably heard as much, if not more, than Frau Schmidt.

Meanwhile, she glanced at the cousins, who appeared to be deep in some sort of conversation with the knot of young village men. And two more of the customers called farewells to the innkeeper and departed.

“The boys will probably be talking half the night, if your young men let them,” she said indulgently. “I will go to bed, write up my notes, and sleep like a sensible person. Thank you for your most excellent hospitality.”

“You paid me well enough for it, Miss,” the innkeeper laughed. “Good night!”

She went into the inn, to the right hand room where her bag had been left, fetching a burning straw from the fireplace to light the candle on the wall. Once there, she sat cross-legged on the bed, writing out everything pertinent that Frau Schmidt had told her. There was quite a lot of it, and it was a good thing Rosa had an excellent memory. The only detail that had been left out was the identity—or presumed identity—of whatever “it” was that was killing so indiscriminately. She debated leaving her notebook in the cousins' room, then decided against it. They might well be too tipsy to read it, and although she knew Markos could throw off the effects of even complete drunkenness by shifting from man to wolf and back again, Dominik couldn't.

Better to catch them in the morning.

So, with that, she changed into her nightgown and snuggled into the featherbed. She didn't even hear when the cousins came in.

B
REAKFAST
was
ma˘ma˘lig
a˘
, a porridge of cornmeal, which Rosa found very tasty. Rather than coffee or tea, she was offered milk so fresh it was still warm. She was the first one awake, and it was the innkeeper's wife and daughters who greeted her and presented her with a hearty bowl and cup, and seated her at the same table they'd had dinner on.

“Did the gypsies ever find their lost person?” she asked, casually, before they could escape back to the kitchen.

“Oh Frau Schmidt told you of that did she?” said the wife, waving the two daughters back to their work. She, too, was wearing the Saxon costume; this time a blue skirt and vest rather than the black of a widow, and a white apron. The Romanians wore white skirts with an embroidered black apron fore and aft, presumably in an attempt to keep a white skirt clean.

“She told me about
many
things,” said Rosa, with a faint smile, as a chicken wandered in the open door, looked disappointed that there was nothing on the spotless wooden floor to eat, and wandered out again. “But yes.”

The innkeeper's wife sighed. “The gypsies have never done us any harm, and their playing makes folks stay and drink longer than they would otherwise,” she said, which relieved Rosa, who was afraid she might have to somehow justify her concern. “It's a tragedy. There's always one of those too-bold little boys in every family or clan, you know?”

Rosa nodded, and decided to make up some family history of her own. “Dominik was like that. Up on the roof, up in a tree, over the wall—no matter what anyone said to him, he was always sure they were just nagging him to keep him from having fun.”

“Exactly! It makes me glad I only have the one boy, and he's as careful as a sheepdog,” Maria said fondly. “Well that was what Shandor was like, reckless beyond belief. Ten years old, and no one could tell him anything, and if he hadn't been the sweetest-natured child who almost always managed to charm his way out of trouble, he would never have been able to sit for all the whippings. And not one whipping changed him, either, he was that headstrong. Day before yesterday, he took his pony when he was told not to, and headed out for Avrig, which he was told he could not go to. The pony came back, covered in lather, without him.” Maria stopped, and wiped her eye with her apron. “Well, there, I am a mother too. He might have been a gypsy scamp, but he had a mother and her heart is broken, and I, who buried two babies, I can feel that.”

“And all credit to you, for the Good God made all of us, even gypsies,” said Rosa, heartily. “We are all of us His Children.”

Maria smiled wanly. “There are plenty who would say the Devil made the gypsies, but—well there you are. And no, they have not found him, some of the men came at dawn to beg of me
t
‚
uica˘
for the funeral feast. I gave them a little barrel, and also cornmeal and a chicken, for as I said, they have never stolen from me.”

She hesitated a moment, and Rosa said, shrewdly, “And you might as well give them what you could spare, so they wouldn't steal
more
than you could spare.”

Maria smiled thinly. “My husband said you were clever. Yes, there is that, and after they left there was a mark in chalk at the gate which I have not washed off. There may be food and animals missing from the village today, but the mother in me finds it hard to fault them. They have no body to mourn over, they will have to make it up somehow.”

Rosa got an idea then, but kept it to herself for the moment.

“Well, there you are. At least the good will come of it that our youngsters won't go wandering off alone for a good long while, and God willing, that will keep them safe.” She sighed, and picked up Rosa's empty cup and bowl. “Would you like more?”

“Yes please—” Rosa began, and just then, the cousins emerged, with sleepy, sheepish expressions and neatly combed hair, from their room. “—and my brothers will want some too!”

With a nod to the boys, Maria went to the kitchen, and came back with three bowls and free cups of milk, and a round of sheep's cheese. Markos and Dominik sat across from her and ate with a good appetite, which meant at least they were not suffering from any ill effects of drinking. Maria and her daughters busied themselves in the kitchen and the oven in the back; from the smell of things, the day's bread was coming out.

“I think we all have news, yes?” Dominik said, as soon as they were alone.

Rosa nodded. “You know about the gypsy boy?”

Markos made a face. “Yes. The fellows we were with were saying
one less gypsy is a good thing,
but that might have been stupid talking. They got a little into their cups, though, and it was pretty clear they were relieved, and I can guess why.”

Rosa nodded. “It means no one from around here is going to be taken for a while. Even the innkeeper's wife came close to saying that, although she puts it down to the youngsters being too scared to run about alone. But I had an idea. I know something of Roma customs. Even without a body to mourn, they'll be having a funeral feast, and then burning everything the boy owned to keep from being haunted. What if one of you bought a couple of hens or ducks or even a young pig and took it out there to them, say we are paying our respects.
I
can't do that, I'm a woman, but you can. And we can get away with being nice to gypsies, we're folklorists, we're trying to collect stories. No one will be the least bit surprised that we are trying to make up to them.”

The cousins exchanged a look. “I can do that,” Dominik said. “I've had a bit to do with the Roma.”

“That leaves me free to shift and see what my nose can pick up,” Markos said with satisfaction. “It's harder by day, but I can manage, and given what just happened, I am not sure I want to run around alone at night, even shifted. The boy was carried off in broad daylight, after all. Heavens only knows what could happen at night.”

“And I can find another lonely old woman to get stories out of,” said Rosa. “Or maybe I can get some out of the innkeeper's wife. If I can find a single moment when she isn't busy, that is.”

So the three of them parted company. Rosa got the book of blank pages she was taking notes in, Dominik went to go find someone willing to sell him something for the gypsy funeral feast, and Markos just . . . vanished. Rosa suspected he was using magic to do it; there was a spell that even simple magicians could work that tended to make people look right past you even when they were looking
at
you, that she and others used to good effect. If you didn't guard against it, it worked even on Masters.

So, assuming that this village was like most villages, and that eventually all the old men and women and gossips would end up here in the yard of the inn, drinking beer or a kind of tea made of elderberry flowers, she set up at one of the sturdy little tables, writing out some of the folktales she had heard in the first village. There had been a variation on one of the Grimm tales she knew, which in German was
The Goat and Her Seven Kids,
but in this version had only three kids. In the German version, the kids were a little smarter than the Romanian version, and were only fooled by the wolf at the door after he had whitened his paws with flour and softened his voice with honey.

As she wrote, slowly, a few old men began to appear, doing their best to look entirely incurious.
Just like my home village, the old men turn up first, then the old ladies. An old man has “nothing to do,” when he is too old to work. An old woman is still expected to keep the house . . .
Two of them set up a chess board, deliberately not looking at her. This, as Rosa knew, was not snubbing her. She looked busy, they were leaving her alone. They all ordered beer.

Time passed; Rosa used her ruse of writing to extend her magical senses through the village. She might be able to coax one of the
haus-alvar
equivalents to appear in her room tonight, if she made it clear she was friendly and prepared to “pay” in bread.

She was so intent on this that she scarcely noticed how much time had passed until one of the two daughters put a warm flatbread crowned with melting cheese and sour cream on the table next to her, along with a glass of beer. She looked up, realized she was hungry, and thanked the girl, who craned her neck to look at the notebook curiously, giggled at Rosa's sketch of the kid and his mother roasting the wolf, and went to serve the men.

Rosa continued writing—or in this case, sketching—in her notebook with one hand, while breaking off bits of the bread and eating them with the other.

That was when she felt a tugging at her skirt.

She looked surreptitiously down.

There was a
haus-alvar
—a German one!—tugging at her hem.

. . . oh, of course. These people are of Saxon German blood. They speak German. Their
haus-alvar
probably followed them here, packed up in their belongings, sort of . . .

Then she got a second shock, as someone at the chess table bit off an exclamation.

She glanced over at the old men, all of whom were staring in shock at the
haus-alvar.

They can see it?

Obviously they could, as they looked from the
alvar
, to her, and back again.

Making up her mind quickly, she leaned down to speak to the Elemental. “Yes, what is it, my friend?” she asked quietly.

“You must come to Markos, quickly!”
the little fellow said, and ran off. She didn't even bother to keep up the ruse that she couldn't see him, she just grabbed her notebook, picked up her skirts, and ran after him.

He led her to a stable on the south side of the village; when she got there, Dominik was just running into the stable, and as she joined them both, Markos had only pulled on his trousers.

“I found the boy's trail,” he said, without preamble. “I found the scent of what took him—a shifter, as we had expected. I tracked the thing to its den, or at least a temporary den.” He held up a hand. “Before you ask, he had the boy, and the boy was dead. But he's sleeping now, and we have a good chance of trapping and killing him if we move fast.”

Dominik nodded. “Our horses are trained to ride as well as haul. Rosa, let's move. Can you ride b—”

“I can ride any way,” she said, already heading out the stable door. She was running so fast he never even caught up to her until they reached the inn.

“Get the horses,” she said shortly. “I'll take care of the weapons. I think I'm the only one that brought any, anyway.”

She climbed into the back of the wagon and felt in the half-dark for her keys that she kept in a pouch under her skirt that she could reach through a slit-seam. The chests all had the same lock, and she knew where everything was; in a moment she had two of them open and started pulling out weapons. Her coach gun, of course, and the silver buckshot loads. Two silver daggers. And a weapon that she, personally, had never had occasion to use . . . but that Dominik just might be able to wield.

A folding, silver-headed boar spear. The three segments locked in place, and the cross-guards behind the head folded down and locked. This would be ridiculous to use against a
boar,
since the locking segments would probably fail. But against a werewolf in wolf form, or half-form, it could prove very potent. And if Markos and the unknown shifter got into a fight, the spear would be safer to use than her coach gun, at least until you could get the two separated.

Just in case, she also got out a flask of holy water and a bag of blessed salt. You never knew when those would come in handy.

She locked the chest that she had taken the weapons from up, pulled off her skirt and petticoat right there in the wagon, and pulled on her divided riding skirt over her drawers. Then she locked her clothing chest, gathered up the weapons and jumped down out of the wagon.

Dominik was just bringing up the horses with their bridles on, and short reins clipped to the bits instead of the driving reins. Rosa strapped the sheath for the coach gun onto her back and the belt with the silver dagger and the ammunition pouch over her jacket. She handed a second belt and dagger to Dominik and unfolded the boar spear for him. He watched attentively and nodded. She folded it and stowed it in a sheath not unlike her coach gun's and handed it to him. He armed himself, then offered her his cupped hands to assist her onto the horse's back. She really didn't
need
them, but smiled and put her foot in his hands anyway, vaulting easily into place on the horse's bare back. He used a bit of fence to help him mount, and the two of them cantered toward the stable where they had left Markos. They didn't meet anyone; at this time of day, almost everyone was in the fields, working. Just as well; explaining where they were going and why they were armed to the teeth would be a complication she didn't want right now.

Markos was waiting in wolf form, lying outside of the stable in the shadow, where he could see anyone approaching and slink into hiding before they could spot him. The horses snorted at the scent of him, but didn't act up. As soon as he spotted them coming, he ran off; they urged their horses into a gallop to follow. He quickly outdistanced them, but that didn't matter; his track was as clear as if he had left prints on the ground in red paint, thanks to her ability to see magic. Even if Dominik couldn't see the track himself, which she doubted, he could follow her.

They were tearing across hilly fields lately mown for their hay, which at least meant they weren't destroying any crops as they galloped—and meant they could cut straight across, too, avoiding the conical haystacks. There was no one working out here now that the hay was mown, dried, and stacked. There were people out in distant fields, but they were too far away to be more than little dots, and it wasn't likely they'd notice the two of them tearing across the countryside.