Raetian Tales 1: A Wind from the South (5 page)

“Cilgia, if she married him, she’d be mistress of a big house  in Ursera. She would meet fine people, not just peasants.”

“Like us, you mean.”

Her father spoke softly. “Like us, yes. What is there for us here?  We hang onto life—for what?  To do it next year, and the next. And to pay taxes, and taxes, to one prince or bishop or another, and get no good of it—”

“But
Reiskeipf
—
!
”

“Cilgia, it wouldn’t have to be forever. When he dies—”

“She’s not even married yet and already you’ve got her widowed!”

“It’s not unlikely. Have you seen the way he gasps when he’s here?  He’s the kind to die young. He’ll leave an educated young widow with money, who’ll be in a position to pick a second husband she likes—some well-off merchant. It won’t matter if she doesn’t marry at all; she’ll have her inheritance from him.”

The wind hissed softly to itself in the pines, then rose again. “Have you seen him look at her, Fadri?”

“I have.” Her bab’s voice was heavy. “At least he would be willing. And she’s a maid, Cilgia, she’s going to find out about it sooner or later: how do we know she would find out less kindly from him than from one of the cowherds in someone’s shed?...”

A long silence. “If your mind is set on this, Fadri, I don’t want her wed until she’s old enough to take care of herself alone with such a man.”

“But the agreement will have to be made soon. Otherwise he may lose interest. Remember, it’s her the match is good for. From his point of view, she’s just another Urner peasant’s daughter.”

“Su, su....” her mother said.

“Will you talk to her, Cilgia?  I don’t want it to come as a surprise.”

“I’ll talk to her. Not right away.” Her mother sounded bitter. “I need time to be able to make it sound as if I approve.”

“Oh, Cilgia...if there were another way—”

“I know. I know.”

And though they kept speaking, the rest of their words began to fade away, until finally the wind spoke no more words but its own.

•

When she woke before dawn, Mariarta scrambled out of bed, the hair standing up on her, not just with the cold. She scrubbed herself with water from the basin, then struggled into her undershift.

Reiskeipf
. Mariarta pulled on her overgown, belted it tight, pulled the rough brown linen down hard and smoothed her sleeves. She stared out the window. The pines swayed in the warming wind.

How did I hear them?  How?

Mariarta,
  the wind said. The breath of it came in the window and stroked back her hair.

Mariarta swallowed. “What?”

No answer.

“All good spirits praise God,” she said hurriedly, under her breath, “and so do I—”

Gently, under its breath, the wind laughed at her.

Mariarta was determined not to let what listened get the better of her. “What, then?  What do you want?”

No answer but the sound of amusement, ebbing on the wind.  It was hard to be completely cross with what laughed. It knew her. Mariarta thought of the young woman, serene-faced, cool, holding her bow—

That was her business this morning. Let the wind laugh as it might. Mariarta pulled on her shoes and stockings and went quietly down the stair.

She was within reach of the herd-hut on Surpalits by an hour after dawn. The whistling of the marmots was all about her as she climbed. Everywhere she saw them watching her, small soft paws hanging down, as she went up the path over Crappa da Scharina. Once she saw an old buck chamois bound up the nearby dry stream-bed. It flourished its heels splendidly as it leapt a huge boulder, so that Mariarta laughed to see it go. She didn’t watch where she put her feet, and in mid-laugh tripped, came down hard on a rock, and sat up, bruised and gasping.

Down the slope, the bells in Sontg Gieri’s church were ringing for morning prayers. Mariarta smiled, thinking of the song about Sontg Margriata, how she lived on the alp for seven summers less fifteen days, disguised as a herdboy, and no one knew it until she fell on a rock too, bruising her breast, and the cowherd saw her and threatened to tell. Mariarta remembered how strange it had seemed when Bab Luregn the priest had once heard Telgia singing the song, and told her to stop. Later Mariarta’s bab told her it was because the song was about one of the old goddesses, turned into a saint by the Church, to tame her. Here, though, no one could hear but the stones. Mariarta went on up the hillside, singing it between gasps.

At the hilltop she paused. The snow had retreated further than she had expected; Mariarta found herself dressed too warmly. She took off her overshawl, folded it over her shoulder and started down the trail to the other side, singing louder against the wind.

“‘What a thing to find on our alp!

Our master herder must hear of this,

what a pretty lady we have here!’

‘Don’t tell him, boy; and if you don’t,

I’ll give to you three wonderful shirts,

the more you wear them, the whiter they’ll get—’”

The wind was warm, taking away the last of the mist that clung about the Surpalits alp. Mariarta could see the herd’s hut there, with the great stones scattered above it, leading to the scree-slope that ran up Vanauls. Mariarta scrambled down the boulder-strewn slope to the Surpalits brook and forded it without getting too wet, in no more time than it took to sing how the herdboy wouldn’t take the shirts the saint offered him, or the cows that gave nothing but cream, or the meadow that could be reaped a hayloft full every time. Up Mariarta went among the rocks of the far side, singing as she saw the old herd sitting outside the hut in the sun.

“‘I don’t want your gifts, I’ll take them not:

The master herder must hear of this!’

‘Then if you’re really going to tell,

then you must sink in the ground to your neck!’”

And Mariarta burst out laughing—the herdboy had been stupid not to take the gifts, when keeping quiet would have meant the saint stayed and kept the alp green and the cows well.

Mariarta made it onto the grass, finishing the rest more softly as she came into the meadow; how the saint left the alp. It withered behind her, and all the cows called to ask where she was going; but the spell of her secrecy was broken, and she couldn’t stay.

“‘Farewell, farewell to everything;

heaven only knows when I’ll return!’ 

And when she went, the bells rang so hard

that all their clappers broke clean away—”

The herd watched her come, making no sign. He sat there, the wrinkled, bearded face immobile, his brown eyes on her, sharp. The good crossbow was in his lap.

“I know that song,” he said.

Mariarta leaned against the wall, panting with her exertion. “So does Bab Luregn.”

The herd laughed. “He knows some things. But not all. Some scare him. He won’t go near Tgiern Sogn-Gions.”

Mariarta laughed, since the ghost there was shut safe in a tin box and could howl all it liked until Judgment Day. “I don’t care about Bab Luregn. Only about that.” She looked at the bow.

The herd handed it to her, then reached  beside him, coming up with a fistful of quarrels. “Today you shoot.” He walked around the side of the hut. Mariarta followed him.

The hut as seen from the side looked peculiar, since the herd had been shooting at it for many years. The wood of it was all splintered into a surface so rough it resembled fur in places. In addition, limewash had been used to paint target patterns on the wall, the commonest one being the square-within-squares like the board you played
jouss
on.

“Here,” the herd said, handing her the quarrels. Mariarta stuck five of them in her pocket, saving one out, then stood on the curve of the bow. She hooked the horn hook through belt and bowstring, stood, felt the string thump smoothly into place. Mariarta laid the quarrel in the groove, slipped its back against the string.

“The center,” the herd said, indicating the solid- painted square, a handspan across, in the middle of the target. “Not from here. Back up.”

Mariarta walked some fifty paces from the hut, noting the slight wind she walked into. It would make no difference to her shooting, though it talked in her ears, a low sporadic rumble, as she walked into it.

“There.”

She turned around. That white patch looked tiny from here.

She raised the bow, sighting down its stock, noticing the way the notch carved into the far end of the stock leaned to the left. The wind pushed gently at her back, ruffling her skirts. Mariarta aimed—

The wind rose. Not in any way that could be felt in clothes or hair; but it seemed to be rushing past her shoulders, down the stock of the bow, rising. The fletching of the quarrel whined softly with it, as if in eagerness to be let go. Everything seemed to be pouring or leaning toward the patch of white. Mariarta breathed in with a great effort, as if the air were all rushing away from her toward the target—then let the breath out and pressed the trigger. The quarrel leaped away, the bow bounded in her hands—

She heard the hollow sound of the quarrel sinking into the wood. That Mariarta was used to. What she was
not
used to was the sight of the quarrel dead in the middle of that white patch.

 “Again,” the old herd said.

Mariarta was already spanning the bow. She had never felt anything like that rush forward and away, the striking: not as something remote, but as something she was
part
of. Mariarta straightened, the quarrel in the groove, feeling the wind stream past her, hurrying her into what she wanted to do, to aim, shoot, strike—

The bolt leapt again. She had not even aimed.

It split the first one.

“Again,” the old herd said.

Mariarta strung the bow, aimed. Her excitement made her shake. The wind roared in her ears, an incoherent sound of exultation. The quarrel leapt away.

It struck a finger’s breadth from the other two.

“Slower,” said the old herd. “Again.”

Mariarta strung the bow, nocked up, lifted it, fired. The fourth quarrel splintered the first two as it drove into them.

The old herd nodded. His mouth moved, but Mariarta couldn’t make out what he was saying for the roaring of the air in her ears, the thunder of her racing heartbeat. This was what it was about. To fire, to be one with the firing, to strike.
What would it feel like,
  she thought, 
to shoot something live?  Would I feel the blood leap the way I feel the wood shake, even from here?
  Mariarta spanned the bow, stood upright, felt the shot happening already in the rush of air pouring past her. She let the quarrel go, almost without looking. It split the fourth. The pieces fell to the ground.

Mariarta strung the bow, set the last quarrel in it, then began to walk back toward the hut. The old herd was already settling into his seat by the doorstep.

She stood before him, breathing hard. The old herd shook his head.

“Little more teaching you need from me,” he said. “She’s come to finish the job.” He looked away. “Hard to be ridden so,
mistral’
s daughter. Beware she doesn’t take more of you than you can give.”

Mariarta stared at him in a mixture of astonishment and fear. “How do you know her?”

“I know of her.” The old herd turned away. “Don’t ask.”

“What do you mean—ridden?”

“You know. You hear her speak.”

Mariarta felt those cool eyes looking at her from what seemed a great distance—but could become quite close. “I hear the wind—”

The old herd nodded. “Some do. Some hear voices in water. Or see pictures in fire, or stone. It’s all the same. Their advice, their commands.”

“Do you hear them too?”

The old herd looked at her. “Too much talking about them—
brings
them. Sometimes they don’t care to be brought.”

Mariarta fell silent. Then she saw the movement by the corner of the hut.

It was Urs. He was disheveled, smiling at the sight of her and her bow. It was such a smile as she had never seen on him. It reminded her of Reiskeipf.

“Look at this, then,” Urs said. “What a thing to find on our alp.”

Mariarta stared at him, astonished and indignant. “You couldn’t have followed me up!  I would have seen!”

“I didn’t follow you up,” Urs said, grinning that wicked grin. “I came yesterday, and didn’t come down.”

She was shocked at his recklessness. “You’re going to get beaten again, worse this time. Staying out all night, I bet Paol thinks the wolves got you—”

“He wouldn’t care,” Urs said, quite calmly. “It doesn’t matter anyway. ‘Oh what a fair maiden we have here—the master herder must hear of this’—”

Mariarta flushed hot with anger. It had never before occurred to her that in his following her, Urs wasn’t just after her company. Now that he knew what she was doing, he wanted to make Mariarta do something
he
wanted by threatening to tell—who?  Probably her father. Mariarta could imagine what his reaction would be. And what did Urs want?