Raetian Tales 1: A Wind from the South (40 page)

One of Gessler’s retainers dismounted, went to stand under the linden tree beside Tel’s wife, and began pacing the distance across the marketplace. “I saw you strike the gold at eighty paces, oh, ten or fifteen times at least,” Gessler said to Tel. “Today you only have to do it once. Shoot me that apple off your wife’s head, and you go free. If you miss—” He shrugged. “It would be cruel to leave you living. And anyway, the law would require that you be put to death. Murder with a forbidden weapon....”

Tel looked at Gessler with no expression at all. The wind blew Mariarta’s way from him, and the rage inside Tel struck her with such violence that she actually staggered, bumping into Theo: he braced her, staring past her, as stricken as the rest.

Tel took back the bow from the soldier who offered it to him, looked at it as if he had never seen it before. Gessler was not watching him, but Hedwig, under the tree: and though his face stayed set in that jovial, expectant look, Mariarta could feel, on the gusting wind, his growing discontent. Hedwig had given her husband only one long glance: silent, he returned it. Now Hedwig stood there tall and still, balancing the apple perfectly, meeting Gessler’s eyes with an expression of utter disdain. Mariarta scented down the wind that this was not what the
landvogt
wanted.
Not enough fear,
  something said inside him, cool and reasonable:
the victim must show more fear. Terror, and the fear of more terror, is the only way to control this rabble.

The retainer pacing the distance off had come to a stand almost underneath the pole with the hat on it. Soldiers pushed Tel to the spot. He stood there, not aiming, looking at his wife.

“Now then,” Gessler said abruptly, “truly I cannot bring myself to this solution, either, even in the name of justice. How should any man force another to aim a weapon at his wife of many years, his own dear love?  It is too cruel. I have changed my mind.” He beckoned to another retainer. “Take Frau Hedwig out from under that tree,” he said. “Put
him
there instead.”

He pointed at Tel’s six-year-old son, who was holding his grandfather Walter’s hand.

Even the soldiers stood momentarily taken aback. Horrified, the crowd stirred and muttered again. “Oh, come now,” Gessler said. “This is Tel, your prize archer. He will not miss. And if he does—well, wives may be few, but you can always make more children.”

The crowd was shocked into silence. Tel’s face did not change. “The same conditions,” Gessler said. “Get on with it. I burn to see your archery.”

Tel stood still. Then he knelt on the stones. “Sir,” he cried, so as to be heard down the distance, “I am a simple man. I did not trespass against your law from ill will. I beg you, forgive me, and let me go. I will not offend again.”

His voice was under harshest control: there was no edge of pride left in it. To Mariarta, though, the man’s anguish and terror for his son came down the wind, unbearable, like knives.

Walter Furst came forward, slowly, limping: his arthritic knee was troubling him again. Right on that knee he knelt before Gessler’s horse, and said, “Lord, I beg you also, if an old man’s pleas have any strength: spare this man. You will have all our gratitude.”

“Will I indeed,” Gessler said, eyeing Furst. Walter raised his eyes to meet Gessler’s. The gazes held.

“Carry out my orders,” Gessler said softly to the soldiers. They hurried to take the child from where he still stood near Mariarta, though they did not drag him: one of them, a man whose face suggested he would rather do anything else, hoisted the child up piggyback and carried him to the linden tree. Tel’s son stared around, his expression confused, but excited. Down the wind Mariarta could taste his mind’s mood, fresh and young and largely unconcerned. He was worried that his father was in some kind of trouble, but had no fear for himself.

The soldier set the boy down under the linden. The child looked up into the branches, then at Gessler in his shining armor, as the apple was put on his head.

Gessler, to Mariarta’s surprise, looked away. “We must be fair about this,” he said. “The child’s fear must not be the cause of an accident. Find something to cover his eyes with.”

The soldier who had brought Tel’s son came up with a soiled linen headband such as a longer-haired man might use to keep his hair in place under the helm. He knelt and started to fasten it on the child, but the boy pushed his hands away. “No,” he said, clear-voiced and interested. “I want to watch my
bab
.”

The
landvogt
nodded, looking suddenly bored. “Let’s get on with it: I have other places to be today. Tel—make your shot.”

Silence fell over the marketplace: only the wind flapped the banners and the awnings. Tel stood and spanned his bow. He raised the bow to take experimental aim—then let his arms fall again, and knelt. “Lord,” he cried, “it is my son.
I cannot do it!
”

“You can’t?” Gessler said, cheerful again. “But you can do all kinds of other things. You can refuse to give that hat the honor my law requires. You can row murderers away across the lake from the law officers seeking them, and hide rebels from their punishment!  You’re quick enough to ‘help’ other people—now let’s see you help yourself. Otherwise you both die, here and now.” He signed to one of his other armed retainers, who rode forward, crossbow at the ready.

Tel swallowed, raised the bow again, and reached into his belt-quiver for a bolt.

We have to help him!
  Mariarta cried inwardly to Diun Glinargiun.
Can’t I, can’t we give him something—the aim that doesn’t miss—

Me give my gifts to a
man?  Diun’s voice was cool.
Never. And anyway, impossible. Those gifts are yours: they cannot be loaned away. You have what I promised you: the wind, the storm and the lightning. Use them as you may.

Mariarta looked around her at the flapping awnings and banners. Tel pushed one bolt into the crossbow’s nock, another through the buttonhole at the neckband of his shirt, the hunter’s old habit: then glanced at the ground. On the bare cobbles there was not so much as a fistful of dust for him to throw in the air to judge the speed and direction of the wind.

Enough,
  Mariarta cried inside her.
Down!

The wind whined once like a disciplined hound, and went still.

People blinked at the abrupt flat calm, while Mariarta stood surprised at how quickly she had been obeyed. She winced at the sudden pain between her eyes.

Nothing without price,
  Diun said silently, 
even when a goddess rides you. The power was not free for us, either.

 Tel blinked at the sudden calm as well—then, wisely unwilling to waste the moment, swiftly brought the bow up and aimed.

The sound of the string snapping home was as loud and final-sounding as the smashing of a jar. Everyone stared at the boy.

He moved abruptly, slumping sideways—then turned his head up to look at the bolt stuck flight-deep in the linden. The apple was impaled on it. Only the pheasant-feather fletchings had kept it from falling off entirely. The child, interested, pulled the apple off, twisted it apart along the bolt-seam, and bit into one half.

The crowd’s roar of triumph would have drowned out an avalanche. People hugged each other for joy, and turned to shout taunts at Gessler and his people. Some of the soldiers had the sense to look worried. They gave way left and right to the many people who broke through their lines to Tel and carried him into the middle of the marketplace and the main body of the crowd. Beside Mariarta, Theo grinned, a feral expression. Walter Furst ran to the tree, seized his apple-munching grandson, and carried him off in his arms, weeping with relief.  

Mariarta could hear a faint moan of complaint from the wind she had stilled. She turned it loose, and it blew about the awnings with vigor a moment later, gusting in all directions, so it was hard to catch anyone’s thought, including Gessler’s. He simply sat his horse, smiling.

The
landvogt
gestured to his men to push the townspeople back from him. A little later, when the crowd had quieted, and a clear space hedged with spears lay around him, Gessler said, “Tel, that was a master-shot. Your fame is earned, and you and your son are free.” He smiled a conspiratorial smile. “But tell me something: what was that second bolt for?”

Tel, among his friends, with his wife by his side, smiled back as conspiratorially. “Lord, it’s only a habit...any mountain archer does that. You wouldn’t want the chamois to get away after the first shot, while you were fumbling around in your quiver.”

“Tel,” Gessler said. “You’ve won your life for today. Or are you afraid to say what’s on your mind?”

Tel stood there, and saw as well as everyone else the malicious glint in Gessler’s eye. The sane thing to do with such a man, Mariarta thought in disgust, the rational thing, was to make some excuse, turn and go away....

“Lord,” Tel said—and though his voice was quiet, the marketplace suddenly went dead still at the tone of it: rarely had the word “lord” been such an insult. “That second bolt was for you. If I had missed that apple and killed my son, your heart would have been my next target. And, small and withered though it be, that I would
not
have missed.”

Gessler went pale, though the smile stayed. He laughed heartily: the sound of it fell dreadfully into the silence. Then he took off one mailed gauntlet to wipe his eyes.

“Take him,” he said to his soldiers. “Siegmund, do we have some chains?  Of course we do. Here, put some on this man and let’s take him north while we have the free time. We can easily come back this way tomorrow and finish our other business.”

The soldiers stormed the crowd, pushing them back with their spears, and grabbed Tel. Fetters were quickly fastened on him. Tel stood quietly, looking toward his wife and son, and Walter Furst, who stood with his arms around them.

“You’ll be my guest in Kussnacht,” Gessler said, putting his gauntlet back on. “For so long as it takes to make sure I’m safe from your second bolt, or any other. Your life will be hostage to these people’s behavior.” He glanced around at Walter Furst, and Werner Stauffacher, and Theo.

“And you might last a while,” Gessler added, smiling at Tel. “Though we’ve never been able to do anything about the damp in Kussnacht, especially in the cells. It’s those walls dug in under the lakeshore: the water always leaks through. But a man can last a long time down there, if he’s strong enough.”

Gessler reined his horse about. “Come on,” he said to his men, “bring him along. If we leave now, we can be up the lake in time for dinner.”

“Wili!” Tel’s wife cried.

“It’s all right, Edi,” Tel said, loudly, as the soldiers marched him off toward the lakeshore. “The boy’s safe. Now God will help me.”

That one, or maybe another,
  Mariarta thought fiercely.

Gessler and his people marched away toward the lake, the soldiers in the rearguard looking most nervous. The marketplace did not clear: it seemed to be getting fuller of people by the moment, gathering around Walter Furst and Hedwig and Tel’s child, the sounds of leftover triumph being supplanted by a growing growl of rage. Theo, next to Mariarta, was looking as distressed as she had seen him in a long time.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Mariarta said. “Theo, something’s got to be done.” She was getting an idea....

“Damn right it does,” Theo muttered. “If these people don’t quiet down before tomorrow, everything’s going to go off prematurely, we’ll be lost—”

“You take care of that. Theo, I have to lie down and be left alone for a while. Where can I go?”

“Walter’s would be best. Mati, what are you thinking of?”

“What I went for,” Mariarta said, angry, and delighted. “What I came back with. The power to do something. Come on!”

Together they made their way hurriedly to Walter Furst’s house. Mariarta put her head into the kitchen as they passed and said, “Lida, how are things?”

“What?  Oh, hello, Mati,” said the daughter of the house, serene and unsurprised as always. “Did you find what you went for?”

“Yes, and I’m going to use it. I’ll be in the back bedroom—don’t let anyone up there, will you?”

Lida glanced, smiling, at the crossbow that stood by the kitchen table, and nodded Mariarta and Theo up the stairs.

Mariarta told Theo the bare bones of what had happened to her in the mountains.  Then, “Theo,” she said, sitting on the edge of the goosefeather bed in the tiny upstairs bedroom, “what was it Walter said?  ‘He’s quite a rower?’”

“Gugliem?  Yes indeed. You saw the arms on the man—  What are you thinking of?”

“Tell Lida,” Mariarta said, “if she’s got any wash on the line, she’d better bring it in. Go on, Theo, go help Walter calm people.”

Theo nodded, went out and shut the door.

Mariarta lay back on the bed. She had been trembling with anger and anticipation for a while; now, as she shut her eyes, it got worse.
Now, Glinargiun,
  she thought.
I see the sting in the tail of this bargain. The little things—goading weather that already wants to do something into doing it, killing a wind that’s blowing already, or nudging it here and there—they’re easier than they were. But I know no more about the great workings than I did before. The lightning, the storm out of a clear sky....