A Wind From the South Read online

  “No, our bailiff’s not with us just now,” her father said. “He’s in Ursera. A few weeks of peace yet before he comes demanding his master’s damned grass-penny.”

  “But surely you pay grass fee already to the monks in Mustér,” Guigliem said.

  “That’s what we told him when first he came,” said Cla. “And he just smiled and said, ‘Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and to God the things which are God’s.’ And—not or.” No laughter this time, just scowls.

  “Where we’re supposed to find his damn coin-money, I would like to know,” said Flep. “You can only sell so much butter to Ursera, and our cheese we need to live through the winter. We’ve nothing else to trade for coin.”

  The young man nodded. “It’s much the same everywhere else.”

  “Tell us about that,” said Mariarta’s bab. “We’ve had your own news, for which we thank you. But tell us what news there is in the rest of the world.”

  The scolar sighed. “There’s nothing newer than this: the Emperor is dead, God rest his soul.”

  At this everyone sat straight. “When did this happen?” her father said.

  “About a month ago, it’s thought. The news only came to Cuera two weeks ago, just before I left.”

  “Who will be Emperor now?” said Gion.

  Guigliem shrugged. “King Conrad, probably. But the Pope doesn’t like him, or Conradin his heir. The talk in Cuera was that he would put off crowning either of them, hoping they would die or be set aside by the Electors for someone he liked better. Like Rudolf von Hapsburg.”

  Everyone sat quiet.

  “Twenty years now those Austriac lords have been our bane,” Mariarta’s father said softly. “And it was only the old Emperor kept them off our backs—stubborn old falconer, insisting we did service enough, keeping the Pass open. But all that will go now. The damned Hapsburgs will want more coin-money from us, to buy out of our armed service—or we’ll have to give the service, worse yet. Steel weapons, where are we supposed to get the money for such? Do they think we’re dwarfs or Venetians, sitting on secret gold-mines and bags of jewels—?”

  “It’ll be a while yet before anything changes,” Guigliem said. “The new ‘King of the Romans’ will have to go south first to be crowned.”

  “Aye, that’s so,” Paol said. All drank quietly. Mariarta knew from her tutor how any new Emperor-elect had to make the Rumagirada, to receive his crown at the hands of the Pope. All his greatest nobles went with him, to show the Pope the new Emperor’s strength of arms. It would take at least eighteen months for the whole unwieldy group and their retainers to gather, get over the passes and down into Talia. After the coronation they would spend some months there while Church and Empire sized one another up. Eventually the Emperor would return home; the armies would be another six months or a year on the road.

  “They’ll be this way twice,” Cla said. “Good business for us.”

  Paol looked sour. “You’re assuming they don’t go by other passes. Or that they intend to pay for anything they take.”

  “Ah,” Mariarta’s father said softly, “but they’d be on their way to Roma, and the Pope would be glad to hear any complaint against the new Emperor.” He chuckled, a dry sound. “They’ll pay for things on the way in, anyway.”

  Mariarta kicked idly where she sat. The kick came up against something soft. It was the bag! Cautiously she glanced up. No one was looking at her. Mariarta slid down, and when her toes touched the floor, she slipped right under the table, into the shadows, next to the bag.

  Above her head the discussion went on. Mariarta felt the flap of the bag. It had only a strap through a loop of leather stitched to the bag. She pulled this free, sucking in breath—then reached into the bag, felt something cool and hard: not gold, though. More leather. She pulled it out.

  It was the black book. As quietly as she could, she opened it.

  The book was written in big black round letters. The words made no sense, so this was probably the mass-Latin the scolar had been singing in. There were few pictures in this book. When Mariarta finally came to one, she wasn’t able to make much of it—a burly man holding a three-tined grass-fork. He seemed to be waist-deep in water—he had fallen in a river while haying, maybe. She turned more pages. Here was a picture of a man with a stick with snakes around it, holding the stick out to some creature that had eyes all over. At first Mariarta thought it was a buttatsch, but then she saw that the eyed thing was just a very large man. Several pages further on was a picture of a pretty woman standing in a cart with sparrows and doves harnessed to it— Laughter rang above the table: Mariarta froze, but no one seemed to have noticed she was gone. She lowered her head, turning pages. More of the black words— She turned another page. A picture of a woman with a bow—

  She stared. The woman was shooting. She was young, strangely dressed in some kind of flowing shift tied up with several thin belts to above her knee. Her hair was tied tight at the nape of her neck. The bow was bent deep, and she sighted along the arrow with a look that made the hair rise all over Mariarta: cool and dangerous, the expression of someone who might do anything she pleased. Beside her, as if tame, stood a beast like a chamois, but with odd branched horns.

  Mariarta never heard the renewed laughter above the table, never heard the way the wind moaned to itself in the chimney. She’s shooting! Until now Mariarta had never heard of any woman shooting; this had made her unwilling to ask her bab any more. But here it was, in a book, which meant somewhere it was true. Mariarta felt again the way she always felt when the hunters left town: she wanted to go along, not just to watch. To do it herself, to feel the quarrel leap away from the crossbow, to feel the force leaping away to do her bidding, to strike—

  She gulped, shut the book. Magic—it’s put me under a spell! Now something terrible will happen—

  But nothing happened except that someone banged the table with their cup, and the laughter and talk went on. Mariarta put the book back in the bag, fastened the flap—then began to inch her way into the light. Her mother was drowsing beside the fire. Everyone else’s faces were turned toward Flep, who was filling the wine-cups again. They never saw Mariarta boost herself back up.

  “They’ll never bother coming here,” said Flep. “They’ll come up the road from Caschinutta and over the Bridge, stop at Ursera for a week or so, then go up the Munt-Avellin pass. I would make extra butter this season, and more cheese.”

  “It would help to have more grass to feed the cows,” said Cla. “Where are we supposed to get that? And what will we live on over the winter, when we’ve sold them all our spare cheese? Coin money eats too hard for me!”

  “Damned bridge anyway,” Paol said. “It’s all coming true, the curse.”

  “Which one?” said the scolar.

  “You don’t know the story, you with your book and all?” Laughter, not least from the young man himself.

  “Well then.” Gion took a drink. “You know the awful way the Reuss river valley gets there: gorges a hundred fathoms high, the river too fast and deep to sink piers in. But there was the road south from Hospental over the Munt-Avellin pass, and on the other side of it, the wine of Talia—”

  “And the money,” someone put in.

  “And the armies,” Mariarta’s father said quietly.

  “Aye, aye. Everyone wanted an easy way to that southern road: pilgrims, traders, young men wanting to go south to fight and make a few solidi for themselves. But how to get at the pass road, with the Reuss running between Ursera and the northern lowlands, no way across, and the mountains blocking both sides? Anyone wanted to take trade south to Talia, they had to go all the way over to Mustér or Cuera on the east side, or clear over to the end of the Ródan valley, right by Martignei; fifty miles, or seventy, what difference did it make?, because each of those passes had its own road to the lowlands, and Ursera wasn’t getting any of the tolls or trade.”

  “So the townsmen called in the great builders?—” said t
he scolar.

  Gion smiled. “Every one of them went to the Reuss gorge, and left shaking his head. No way to do it! The Ursera councillors published a great prize to go to the one who could bridge the river, but the few schemes they looked at on the prize-giving day were no good at all. And old Sievi di Planta, who was mistral then, he banged the table in the Treis Retgs and swore that he would pay any price to see that river bridged.

  “Then the man with the green feather in his hat came in.”

  All looked at one another with pleasurable anticipation, for the green peacock’s feather, the sign of pride, was a sure sign of il Giavel himself, old Malón the Father of Lies. “Well,” Gion said. “In he comes, and they all know him. All dressed as he was like a respectable wealthy man, there’s still nothing he can do about the way the left foot looks, or should I say hoof. He says to them, ‘I understand you need a bridge built.’ Now all are uneasy at the sight of him, for il Giavel, he’s master of tricks and treachery. But they’re desperate. ‘Yes,’ Sievi says. ‘And what makes you think you can do better than all the other builders who’ve been here?’ ‘Ah,’ the Devil says, ‘I have my ways.’ ‘If you can do it,’ Sievi says, ‘the prize is yours.’ ‘I don’t want your trumpery prizes,’ says il Giavel: ‘I want the soul of the first one to cross the bridge. For that payment, I’ll build it in a night. Tomorrow morning, if you like, you can send a rider to Caschinutta and tell them the road through Ursera to Roma is open...after my price is paid.’”

  Mariarta was watching the scolar. He had an odd narrowed look about his eyes that she couldn’t quite understand.

  “So they sent him out with a cup of red southern wine, and argued it. Some were against dealing with him, but all wanted that road more than anything: so finally they called il Giavel back in and agreed. Off he went smiling. Off the town counselors went, then, each to his own hearth in a hurry: Sievi di Planta went straight to Sontg Kolumban’s church to talk to Bab Ladagar, who was a Capuchin monk before he settled in Ursera. Some who were in on the secret thought that Sievi was afraid for his own soul. But others remembered that Capuchins know how to do more than eat bread, and not all the things priests know are written in the mass-book. All that night, the bells at Sontg Kolumban’s rang through the thunder, for an awful storm came up, and the Reuss rose in its banks and thrashed around like a bull-calf having the nose-ring put in. And toward morning the storm died, and the day came up clear. All the Ursera counselors but Sievi met in the town street, too afraid to go down to the gorge: but Bab Ladagar came to them. They went along then, half out of shame, half because they thought all their souls had a better chance with the priest along. Then they met Sievi, and went with him all in a huddle to where the road ran closest to the gorge.

  “And there it was, a plain arch, but one that seemed to have grown straight out of the stone of the nearer cliff of the gorge, right to the farther one. No pier in the water, just the simple arch of it, very beautiful, and uncanny. And there at the far end of it, picking his teeth and enjoying the sunshine, sits the man with the green feather in his hat.

  “‘And have you brought my price?’ says he. ‘Yes,’ says Sievi: ‘here it is!’ And the crowd of them opens up, and with a big kick from Sievi, out jumps the worst goat of his herd, the crazy one that everyone had been calling il Giavel all this while anyway, because of its temper and the horns on it, like knives. This goat goes bounding across the bridge, furious, and the first thing it sees is Old Malón himself; so mad it is, it goes after him with those horns and butts him right off the bridge and ten feet down the road on the far side. He picks himself up, screaming, ‘You’ll pay for this!’—and at the noise the goat goes after him again, chases him around the bend and out of sight.”

  The counselors laughed. “So the price of the bridge was paid,” said the scolar. “But no one tricks old Malón that easily.”

  “No, no, you’re right there, young man.” Gion had another drink. “Il Giavel, he was furious: he ran right on down the Scalina gorge, and lost the goat finally. At the bottom of the gorge near Caschinutta he picked up the biggest boulder he could find from the glacier-dump there, to drop it on the bridge and destroy it. And he was carrying the thing back up the road when who does he meet but old Duonna Burga, who lived at that old house at Uaul di Bastun south of town, she’s dead now of course, but she saw his foot and signed herself. Il Giavel dropped the rock to hide his face from the Sign, and the thing took root there and wouldn’t be budged. Still a nuisance, they had to move the road to go around it. So he had to leave the Bridge alone, and Punt dil Giavel it is to this day: but he cursed it, saying that because he was cheated, no good would come of its building.” Gion shrugged.

  “Doubtless,” said the scolar, “the truth looks otherwise to others. Probably some say that the Austriacs offered to send engineers to build the bridge, and the Ursera counselors agreed: so the deal is a deal with il Giavel in effect, if not in truth. Until the bridge was built, there was no harm in letting this part of the world rule itself. The way to the Pass couldn’t be blocked by anyone here. But now that gold comes through here from the south—“

  “And possibly armies,” Mariarta’s father said again.

  “Aye,” Gion said. “Ursera controls that bridge, the Hapsburgs think...so Ursera and its country needs controlling itself. Who knows what ideas we might get about striking up friendships with the Talians...or blocking the Hapsburgs’ way south to fight them? Suddenly we’re a hole in their southern defenses.” He sighed. “It’s late to wish the bridge unbuilt. But I wish they’d stop their foolish warring, the whole pack of them.”

  There were mutters of agreement. Mariarta’s father laughed softly. “The Austriac saltér,” he said, “even he calls it the Devil’s Bridge. Or something that means that—I forget the word.”

  “Teufelsbrücke,” Mariarta said from the cushion-seat, yawning.

  “You still here?” her father said, surprised. “Why aren’t you in bed an hour ago? Say good night to the gentlemen and be off.”

  Mariarta stood up, noticing the thoughtful look with which the scolar favored her. Earlier, it might have made her nervous. Now she just returned it, and made a curtsy. “Buna notg,” she said, and everyone at the table murmured good night to her as she walked to the door. As she went by the scolar, he leaned back toward her and said softly, “Gute nacht, präsidenterin. Erinnern Sie mich.”

  Mariarta smiled at being called “mayoress” again: but she was not sure what the rest of it meant. She went up the stairs, got into bed in the dark, and knew nothing more until she heard dil Curtgin’s cock shrieking kikiriki...

  ***

  She rose early, but he had risen earlier. Her mother and Onda Baia were baking, and the scolar was gone. “While it was still dark,” Onda Baia muttered.

  Mariarta’s mother laughed. “Baia, he’s going home: what traveler wastes time about that? Mati, we need some water.”

  Quiet and thoughtful, Mariarta got the yoke. Everything outside looked as it had yesterday morning, but everything was different, now, because of the scolar and his book.

  “Did you see it?” a voice hissed behind Stefan’s barn. Mariarta jumped, for her mind had been on the woman with the bow. She turned to see Urs pitching cowshed dung from a cart onto the pile behind the barn. “Did you look in the bag?”

  She blinked; the wind was whipping her hair into her eyes. Mariarta wanted to tell him everything. But she felt the woman’s cool eyes upon her. To say anything would be to let someone else in on their secret. “No,” Mariarta said, hurrying away. Behind her, she heard Urs laughing. Soon enough he would tell all the other children that the mistral’s daughter wasn’t so brave after all.

  Mariarta didn’t care. What someone else thought was more important, now. She headed for the river, and the wind stroked her hair out of her eyes as she went.

  TWO

  The feasts and fasts went around with the seasons, as in all the mountain valleys. Calandamarz and the alpagiada came and went,
the year got old and was born again: two years passed, three years. After the brief times of sun, the snows came and shut the valley away from the rest of the world. And around the time the föhn began to blow, when the snow was just beginning to thin on the lower pastures, the third year after the scolar had come, Mariarta noticed the old herd.

  Everyone knew about those few men who preferred never to come into town at all, but lived on the highest alp that might be green, eating nothing but plain flour fanz porridge, and the milk and cheese they got from the cows. Their clothes were all leather, cowskin with the hair left on: their rough boots were hides bound with sinew. Usually these hermit-herdsmen were only seen during storms too violent to weather even in the stout alp huts—especially in the earliest, treacherous part of spring, at the beginning of the föhn time. Those storms dropped tons of snow, and brought the avalanches crashing down. It hailed, too, and thundered, and the föhn came screaming over the house-roofs and ripped the tiles away.

  It was just rising, that wind, when the last few herders came from the low pastures to the west. With them came the old herd.

  The sight of him surprised everybody. No one knew quite what to do with him, except Mariarta’s bab, who was taking charge of everything as usual, hurrying from house to house, telling people to get ready for the storm. He told the old herd he could stay in their shed until the weather broke.

  That was when Mariarta first saw him, in the frontway shed, scraping up the straw to make a place to lie, while the cows moved calmly around him. As she peered in at him, he turned. His look fell on Mariarta—and he got a shocked expression, almost a look of outrage. Mariarta hurried away uneasily to the kitchen, where her mother was busy at the fire. “How is he, Mati?”