Raetian Tales 1: A Wind from the South (33 page)

Mariarta had never hurried Grugni very hard, preferring to let him set the pace. But now he went through the
bannwald
  in a rush, and when out into more open ground, he went like the wind. The wind flowed about them both, cold, shifting until it came from the south: and slowly, as the first hour of their travel passed, snow began to fall. Mariarta rejoiced. It came in big flakes, a wet snow, difficult to move through while newfallen—the kind of snow that would make a treacherous crust if it froze.

They came to the hills above Altdorf about an hour before dawn. Mariarta slid off Grugni, stiff and sore and weary to the bone. She hugged him again. “Bold one, fine one,” she said, “oh well done—but stay here, don’t go far, we’ll be away shortly—”

He nuzzled her, snorting: a good-natured, cheerful sound.
Go on, then, don’t stand around; I’ll be here.

Shortly Mariarta was sitting at Walter Furst’s kitchen fire, drinking
vinars
and shivering with reaction to the ride. Walter and his daughter were there too, listening in wonder, and in Walter’s case some skepticism, as she told them what she had discovered.

Walter was shaking his head. “It’s all strange,” he said. “How can you be sure—”

“Walter, a man may lie to others, but not to himself, not inside his head,” Mariarta said, starting to feel annoyed. “I’m telling you, there are going to be about a hundred soldiers waiting for your people at the Axenstein. You swore to bring down these tyrants?—well, you’d better listen to me, because otherwise all of you are going to be dead, and the valley people are going to be in as bad a state as they are now. Worse, for Gessler and Beringer and the rest of them around the Lake are going to take
your
treachery out on the survivors.”

Walter sighed. “All right. I’m sorry, young Mariarta; it comes hard to me, this magic. So long the priests have said it’s all bad—”

“Only the ones who can’t do it,” Walter’s daughter said. “Look at the Capuchins.”

Walter nodded slowly. “I suppose. But this still leaves us in danger. Those coming to the meeting must be warned—”

Mariarta squirmed; her backside was protesting bitterly. “I can do that. I know the way. My mount—” She told him about Grugni. “He’s swift, but so far the only test of his endurance has been what we did tonight, and I won’t risk pushing him too hard. We can warn everyone in three days—I
think
.”

“Very well.” Walter frowned and leaned back in the chair. “But the meeting must still take place—just not where it’s expected to. On the other side of the lake is the meadow I told you about, underneath the Seelisberg peak. Rutli, it’s called. It should be safe enough, especially with all Gessler’s people expecting us somewhere else. Tell the confederates we’ll meet there, the same time as was scheduled.”

Mariarta finished her wine. “I’ll go right away.”

“You’ll go tonight,” Lida said, filling Mariarta’s cup and putting a plate of sausage in front of her. “People will say we’ve quarreled....”

Mariarta grinned and started to eat.

•

The next three days were a blur of haste through wilderness land, the occasional warm hour spent in a kitchen or offered bedroom, then the cold again. From the evening of the second day to the morning of the fourth, Mariarta did not sleep.  Many a householder was startled by the sudden appearance of a messenger they had seen before as a calm young man, now pale as a wraith, tottering with weariness, delivering a message of dreadful urgency in a voice flat as a ghost’s.

It ended at last with Mariarta standing beside the stag, holding onto it with the last of her strength, while it stood under cover of trees and stared mistrustfully at a low wooden building not far away. It was the inn under the Oberbauenstock peak, not far from Rutli. Mariarta went in and slept a day and a night, to the surprise of the innkeeper, whose food she had always told him was too good to sleep through. The next day she had three dinners, by way of apology.

The night after that, Mariarta was away again, riding Grugni through the woods that paralleled the road along the west side of the lake. Dusk was coming on; a faint golden light behind the mountains on the east side of the lake spoke of the moon coming up, full, in a clear sky.

Mariarta stayed east of the north-running road, Grugni picking his way among the great stones fallen from the Seelisberg. Ahead of her, a wide clear space showed through the trees. Together Mariarta and Grugni came out from under the eaves of the forest. She slipped off his back, patting him, and leaned against a tree, looking the place over.

The Rutli meadow was a rough half-ellipse of green, the “cut” half of the ellipse bordering the lake, dropping quickly to it in a string of little cliffs two or three ells high. From the lakeside the meadow sloped upward to the edges of the forest, and the forest in turn sloped up sharply, flattened out into meadowland, and then sloped more steeply yet to the peak of the Brandegg mountain. Only one
sennen’
s hut stood in the meadow. The snow lay lightly, this low; there were a few patches where it had melted entirely.

Mariarta found a stone near the forest-eaves, brushed it off, sat down to wait. The moon finally showed itself in the dusk over the mountains of the east side of the lake, its light reflecting golden from the uprearing peaks of Fronalpstock and Rotstock. Mariarta looked from them to the dim ground off to northward, where the Axenstein lay.

She began to whistle to herself. The darkness deepened. After a while, as her eyes rested on the shoreline of the east side of the lake, she saw something: a tiny point of light, showing only for a few moments—someone’s lantern, in a boat.

Mariarta waited. Grugni made himself scarce under the trees. Shortly Mariarta saw the first men coming from the northern side of the meadow, and heard Theo’s laughter.

She went to meet him. Ten others were with him, one or two of whom Mariarta knew, having carried messages to them—Winkelried the councillor of Stans, and the Cellarer of Sarnen. Among them, looking less subdued than by Walter Furst’s fireside, was Arnold von Melchtal. Greetings and introductions were made. Theo said, “You want to be somewhere early, stay with Unterwald men: they can’t bear waiting. First in, as always.”

“It’s cold as a witch’s kiss here,” the Cellarer said, “let’s make a fire.”

“Keep it small,” Winkelried said, cautious as always. The fire was made, and everyone stood close about it, as much to hide it as for the warmth. The Cellarer had a skin of
vinars
—“Depend on you to push your wares even at a time like this,” Theo said—and this was passed around. Shortly, looking out across the lake at the moon’s golden track, Arnold said, “It’s the Schwyzers.” A black shape cut the moon’s track, ruffling it: a largish boat, broad in the beam, big oars stroking gently.

The Cellarer produced another skin as the men from Schwyz came through the meadow from the rough landing-spot on the lake. Werner Stauffacher was with them, and Konrad of Yberg and Konrad Hunn; six others came as well, farmers from the northern valleys around Schwyz.

They stood around the fire and were given drink. Mariarta heard a lot of good-natured jesting and gossip. People inquired about each other’s cows, how that new piece of tillage was working out, had Hendri got that screaming ghost in the ravine to shut up yet?—and other such everyday matters. It all had a nervous sound to it, though.

“Look,” said Konrad Hunn. The tiny light of a torch shone by the boat-landing. The dark shapes of the Uri men came into the meadow, one by one; Walter Furst, after him the Miller of Silenen, and five more men of Uri. These joined the others at the fire, but they were tense and quiet. One last figure was still behind them, cloaked as they were. He cast the cloak back as he came to the fire, and the hilt of the sword slung beneath it glinted red-golden. It was Werner, the Knight of Attinghausen.

The Schwyzers and Unterwaldners kept a thoughtful silence. Werner said, “Sirs, I am with you in what you are planning. I dared not miss this chance to tell you so.”

“Here,” the Cellarer said, and handed the Knight the second skin of
vinars
. The others began talking again. More introductions were made, and Theo pointed out two of the Uri men to Mariarta. They were both carrying big black-stained horns, from bulls of the upland breed. “Won’t blow this tonight,” said the man, a fellow Mariarta had seen several times in Altdorf before. “But we will yet.”

“The Bulls of Uri,” the other man said, patting his horn and grinning. “They’ll roar soon.”

Mariarta swallowed, and smiled.

The casual talk went on, as if men were shy of what they had come to say and hear. Mariarta stood whistling softly under her breath, and slowly, quietly, the warm wind began to pour northward, rippling the lake, fluttering the fire. The men went on giving one another the news. It was all of the
vogten
, their growing arrogance and cruelty. Some talked of the force now waiting in the Axenstein for them—amused talk, but frightened and angry. All these men had realized it would only be a matter of time until they were hunted down in their own villages, instead of some out-of-the-way meeting place.

Across the lake, Mariarta saw, black against the mountain, the shadow that was the Axenstein: and faintly, the tiny pinpoint lights of torches.

There.
She breathed out, and the rising
föhn
breathed with her. Others saw how fixedly Mariarta stared, and saw also, faint, slight, the creep of motion, like a moving cloud, near the top of the mountain. That warm
föhn
had been stroking the peak above the Axenstein for a while. Now, seemingly slowly, the avalanche came down, casually as a shrugged-off coat. Since no one lived on the Axenstein land, there had never been any reason to plant a
bannwald;
nothing could stop the snow. After a few breaths, the sound came drifting across the water—a faint hiss, ten or twelve breaths long, then silence. The men who knew Mariarta well all crossed themselves. But no one looked particularly sorry for the people on the other side of the lake.

The Knight of Attinghausen gazed at Mariarta with an expression she could not fathom. “I would not rejoice over the dead,” he said; “but the death of their masters’ rule, at
that
I would rejoice. That’s what we’re here to talk about, isn’t it?”

A murmur of agreement went around. “Let me be clear,” the Knight said. “There is no question that the Emperor is my right master, as he was my fathers’. Does anyone here feel differently?”

“No,” Walter said. “We are all agreed on that.”

The Knight nodded. “I know I speak for my own people round about Altdorf when I say we want no more of this rule by foreigners. We will obey the laws the Emperor makes, pay the taxes he levies: but it will be our people who administer those laws and collect those taxes. When our people must be judged, it will be by their countrymen and peers—not by foreigners who care nothing about our ways.”

“It’s going to come to fighting,” Konrad Hunn said. “Do we really have enough people to resist them?  It’s mounted knights they’ll send against us.”

“Footmen we have in plenty,” said the Cellarer of Sarnen. “Our country’s full of men who have an ax they can sharpen to a bill, or a pruning-hook that can double as a pole-weapon; and trees make pikes without much trouble. Mounted knights—” His expression was troubled.

The Knight of Attinghausen smiled. “It takes time to get a mounted force of any size together. By the time they’re ready to come, we will have plenty of warning—and if we can meet them somewhere of our choosing, rather than theirs, our chances are not so bad. Fighters on foot are what we’ll need first. Are you sure the Schwyzer and Unterwaldner farmers will rise if called?  Otherwise it’s their own families who’ll pay the price, if they fail, or if we fail without their help.”

“They know it,” Winkelried of Stans growled. “The valleys are stirred like a hive...but keeping quiet, for the moment.”

“Schwyz is ready,” said Konrad of Yberg. “Even the children are saying it’s better to die than live always afraid like this.”

Werner Stauffacher lifted his head. “The
vogten
will seek to divide us. We must not let them succeed. If one land is attacked, the others must come swiftly to its aid—otherwise none of us will survive.”

Men muttered agreement. “Then let us swear it before God,” Werner said. “If He wills, a time will come when we make these oaths known to everyone, and stand by them openly. But for now, let us swear loyalty to our companions in the oath, and to the Emperor. Swear that our three lands will help one another, while they remain: and we will never break this oath, but it will last forever. We will be free men again, as our fathers were: or die. And that is our oath.”

Every man there, and one woman, lifted their hands and swore it by God. Mariarta’s eyes were full of tears as she swore; nor was she alone. The wind had fallen away to nothing. After the last words were spoken, a great silence befell, as if the night listened.

“It’s enough for now,” the Knight of Attinghausen said. “It may be that to get the Austriacs to take notice, we’ll have to attack something they hold dear—some castle, or lord’s house. Thought must be taken as to what to do. For the rest of it—carry word back to your countries of what we’ve sworn here. Tell people to be ready.”

Everyone agreed. The Knight exchanged a word or so with Theo, then crossed to Mariarta.

He reached out and took her hand. “I had thought you were dead,” the Knight said, “and we sorrowed for you, my younger son and I. But now I see you’ve walked a stranger road than just dying: and I don’t know what to tell him.”