Raetian Tales 1: A Wind from the South (11 page)

“‘
Ich verstehe,’
” Mariarta said.

Caschinutta was not as large as Ursera, but richer and more sedate. Its market place was as noisy as Ursera’s as they made their way through it, following the trail of disruption caused by Camegio’s passing. After a few minutes they came to a gateway that led into the courtyard of Chesa dil Alb’Cavagl, or “zum Weissen Rössli” as the Daoitscha had it. The white horse painted on the stuccoed wall of the inn looked plump and smug, and doves cooed under the eaves: flowers grew from crannies in the walls, and a fountain bubbled in a basin in the middle of the cobbled yard. Theo was already off Camegio, heading for the front door. “Enjoy it,” he shouted, as he disappeared from the afternoon sunshine into the shadows of the common room: “last inn until Aultvitg. You’ll be dreaming about it tomorrow night on the stones!”

Mariarta thought this likely enough, and ate well that night, so that her father teased her, and Theo bought a second chicken, presenting it to her with much flourish. She laughed and made him eat as much as she did. The three of them were up late, chatting by the fire, picking the old hen’s bones, while Theo maligned pitcher after pitcher of white wine, and emptied every one.

They were away early in the morning. Mariarta wondered at a man who could drink the way Theo did, and still have a clear head so early after bedding down so late. “Bad habits, my dear,” he said, as they rode out of town on the road northward. “We’re vintners—my father, and his
bab
and his
tat
and
basat
and heaven knows how many generations back. Milk and cheese we had to get from the neighbors, but wine we had from the time we were babies. You get used to it. Sometimes that comes in useful,” he said, abruptly lurching in the saddle and leering at her, his voice gone slurred in an instant.

Mariarta laughed. “But you don’t smell of it.”

“Easily remedied, my dear. I always have a flask about me. A moment’s work, no more.”

She nodded, wondering how many confidences had been betrayed in front of him while the apparently oblivious Theo lolled in a corner and sang shocking songs.
Seeming what you’re not
,  she thought;
there may be something in it...

They rode on for most of the day beside the Reuss, which paralleled the road. The river was growing wide, this far into the lowlands: still white-bottomed with glacial gravel, and icy cold, but more sedate. Afternoon was only half over when the sun slid behind the white scree-slopes of the Mutschen mountain to leave the Reuss valley all in shadow, only the eastern peaks shining in the afternoon light—first golden, then rose-red as the unseen sunset began to flame behind the Intschaialp.

After Wassen were no more villages until Gurtnellen and Ried, and no place to stay until Amsteg, the next market town north. “We might as well make for Ripplis-tal,” Mariarta’s father said to Theo. “There’s an old herd’s hut there.”

 About an hour more they rode; it grew dark and still. Mariarta got nervous. It was one thing to watch sunset coming  from inside a house with a door that could be barred. Another matter entirely, though, to watch the stars coming out without a door to shut behind you: without even the sound of church bells anywhere near, ringing with the sunset to remind the demons that night would not last forever, and there would be a dawn....

The clop of the horses’ hooves went on: Mariarta felt sleepy with the repetitiveness of them, even while so unsettled.
It’s silly,
  she told herself:
there’s nothing to be nervous of—

The wind whispered in her ear, an uneasy, warning mutter. Mariarta gulped, looked at her father and Theo. Theo had paused, was looking ahead of them. “Did you hear something?” he said.

Her father sat silent, listening. The only sound came from the horses’ shifting hooves. He shook his head. “Gone now, whatever it was.”

Mariarta swallowed again. Her father and Theo each had one of the long herdsmen’s knives popular in the gray-wool country, but—  This time she heard it too, a rustle ahead. Not the wind in the pine trees, though these clothed the slopes above them on all sides. The Reuss wandered by, too wide to make much sound, too wide to cross easily, especially in the dark. Whatever had made that noise was off to the left, on the same side as they. Mariarta strained to see through the swiftly falling twilight. The sound came again. She saw something glowing—

Mariarta’s mouth went dry. Rolling  among the trees, slow, moaning, it came. A light clung about it, pale green, and flew from the dreadful loose udders that flapped around the
buttatsch
as it rolled toward them. She saw her father and Theo exchange a glance, moving together to keep Mariarta behind them as they pulled their knives. The moaning got louder as the
buttatsch
rolled out from under the trees, onto the scree: a splotched bloody hide like something new-flayed, all shining in the witchlight it left behind it like a trail—

Her father and Theo backed as it got closer. The thing was slowing. Mariarta made up her mind.

Her
bab’
s horse shied, tossed him. His knife went flying, and he grunted with pain as he fell to the stones. The
buttatsch
howled, an awful wailing noise, moved toward him again. Mariarta came around in the saddle with her bag, whipped it off so that bread and cheese fell bouncing to the stones—then shook the wrapping free from the spanned crossbow, nocked a shaft, lifted it to aim. The wind roared amusement in her ear and poured along from behind her, filling her, pushing her—  She fired.

The bolt went true. Mariarta heard a long squeal of pain. The
buttatsch
came no closer, just hunched down and wailed, more and more faintly. Mariarta threw herself from the saddle, pulled free the hook that she had been wearing under the leather of her belt ever since they left home, and bent hurriedly to span the bow again, for the wind was still roaring. Hoofbeats came from among the pines, where Mariarta could see a track reaching upward. One horse: but footsteps too, and closer. Just as she straightened, she saw the man, in dark clothes, running at them fast, with something long and pale in his hand.

Mariarta swung up the crossbow, sighting on his chest. The wind roared encouragement in her ears, pouring past her so that she could feel it, see it, making a path or tunnel for the bolt. In the darkness there seemed actually to be a faint glow to this pathway, but not like the nasty light of the
buttatsch
. This light’s color was unnameable. At the end of that corridor of pallid light she could see straight to the dark man rushing at them, straight to something hot and leaping inside him. His heart. The wind howled—

Mariarta jerked the crossbow aside, aiming for the shoulder instead, fired. The wind screamed in frustration, but the bolt flew true. The man shrieked, went down clutching and tearing at himself, rolled and howled on the stones.

Mariarta bent to span the bow, then straightened and put the bolt in place. The horseman came galloping at them from the pines. She tracked with him, the wind in her ears roaring. Down that path of light she saw twin patches of faint light and movement, the hearts of man and horse. The wind pushed her bow into line with the man’s heart and screamed fit to deafen her. She was about to wrench the bow out of line when she saw the rider had a bow too, was lifting it, pointing it at the easiest target, the man kneeling on the stones over the stricken one—

She shot. The wind shrieked triumph, the bolt went infallibly home—and Mariarta staggered, gasping, at the wave of dreadful power that went into her as the bolt struck the rider heart-high, as he tumbled from the saddle and the horse thundered off among the stones. He fell, and she felt him dying, for something of his went away on the wind, moaning silently, as the wind did: his soul?  Mariarta couldn’t tell. She crumpled to her knees with the horror and pleasure of it, for the shooting, the striking, were everything she had been promised. But the aftermath, the feeling of the soul gone flying, astonished—

“
Buobetta,
get up, get up, you’re not hurt?” Her father was shaking her, staring into her face.

“No,
bab,
” she said, and with his help stood again.

He stared at her, and the bow, and her again, for a few seconds’ worth of silence. “You know, your mother used to tease me, for never giving you an answer about this—”

She was suddenly too weary to even begin dealing with this moment, which she had dreaded for years. Her father shook his head, turned away from her. Theo had dismounted and was dispassionately examining the dead man. “Well shot,” he said, and turned to look at the
buttatsch
.

That
Mariarta was interested in, weary and shocked as she felt. She went to it with her father. It was just a cowhide, almost flat now. But it still glowed. That Mariarta thought uncanny until Theo knelt, took a stick and scraped at the hide. Some of the glow came away on the stick. He sniffed it, made a face. “This is something like that old Greek fire in the books,” Theo said, “but made to give light, not flame. And this—” He took the stick, prodding what was left of the
buttatsch
. It made a low moan that made both Mariarta and her father step back hurriedly: but Theo laughed, poking it again. Moaning more faintly, the thing went flatter yet. “Pig bladders inside. And a cow’s bladder, the biggest one. Reeds and such to make it squeal, I’ll bet.” He kicked the thing—it let out one last pitiful wail and went completely flat—then turned his attention to the wounded man, still lying on the stones moaning. Theo peered closely at him. “Why, Bab Vintgegn, what are you doing out on a night like this?  You said you were going to make a pilgrimage. But you’re a long way from the holy shrine at Einsiedeln—”

Bab Vintgegn only held his shoulder and moaned. “I suppose we’ll have to pull that out,” Theo said, getting up. “Or maybe safer to wait till we get to the next town. Better leave you as is. This one,” he glanced at the dead man, “we won’t have any choice about leaving. Damned if I’ll carry him.”

Mariarta’s father eyed the false
buttatsch
. “This was meant to frighten us off our horses. We were to run away—the ones who waited in hiding, holding the other end of that thing’s leash, they were to get our beasts and whatever was in our packs. If we were bold and stood our ground—there was our friend  there with his bow—”

“
Bab,
” Mariarta said, feeling wobbly, “I didn’t want to kill him. But he was going to shoot at you.”

Her father put his arms around her and hugged her as if she were still a little girl. “Indeed he was,
figlia
. Never mind. If I gave you life once, then you’ve returned the favor. Not many men can say that to their sons or daughters.” He frowned. “Though you’ll have a shriving and a penance to do.”

“I wouldn’t go to
him
for it,” Theo said, looking sidewise at bab Vintgegn. “Here, dil Alicg, I’ve no skill with these things. You take it.” He handed Mariarta’s father the dead man’s crossbow. “And you might want to put this about your person somewhere, considering how well you hid a bulky thing like that,” he said to Mariarta, and handed her the dead man’s long steel knife in its sheath. “Where
did
you have that?”

“In with the cheese and sausage,” Mariarta said, and then was distressed to think that her father’s favorite sausages were scattered on the stones. “Oh,
bab
, I dropped them—”

He and Theo burst out laughing. “You never mind,” Theo said, “just go sit under those trees—we’ll make a fire and camp here. Sausages—!” He walked off to start picking up wood. “Anyone who can shoot like that won’t lack for sausages in life!  And more—”

Mariarta sat  against the rock her father showed her, and straightway fell asleep.

•

When she woke, the sky was clear, showing morning twilight already. Mariarta saw her father sitting with his back against another of the rocks, the dead man’s crossbow in his lap.

“
Bab?
” she said.

“We saved you some sausage,” he said, and his voice was smiling. A great weight lifted off Mariarta’s heart, for her dreams had been troubled by the fear that he would be angry at her about the shooting after all. And there had been another trouble. No words, but the sense:

Did I not tell you how it would be?

You did.

Was it good?

Yes.
There was no lying in the dream.
Strong, fierce. But terrible.

It will not be for long. The good...grows better with practice. But why did you not strike both targets as I desired you to strike them—to kill?

They were men,
  Mariarta said desperately.

The cool voice seemed not to care.
Men. Life is not so dear that one or two lives may not be lost for my purposes, which are great.
Was there a thread of threat running through those words?  But a moment later something like a kindly hand stroked her brow.
Never mind. You will see how it is soon enough. You did well. You will do better yet....

“You’re not hungry?” her bab said.

“Oh, yes!” Mariarta said.

He brought her bread, and cheese, and some sausage toasted on the embers of the fire. Mariarta ate ravenously. When she was finished, she sat back sighing. She was sore all over, but contented, as she glanced around. In one direction, though, she would not look.

“We buried him,” her bab said. “We’ll send a priest back this way when we get to Reid. At least,” and he looked over his shoulder, “one who hasn’t been out playing robbers’ tricks on people.”