Raetian Tales 1: A Wind from the South Read online

  “He’s making a bed for himself.”

  “Good. There’s some wheat porridge for him on the table. And here’s hot milk too. Don’t spill it.”

  “Mamli,” Mariarta said, “is he mad?”

  Her mother looked thoughtful. “Certainly he doesn’t live like us. But he wouldn’t hurt anyone, if that’s what’s worrying you. And even if he was astray in the wits, we’d need to be kind to him anyway.”

  Mariarta nodded, took the porridge, and went to the cowshed, carefully pushing its half-door open. The cows shuffled aside for her. The old herd had made himself comfortable in the corner, with a box he had pulled over to be a table, and he sat on the floor, in a clean spot by the manger. He thanked her, gruff-voiced, for the food. Mariarta fled, afraid that she should see that look of outrage again.

  The storm lasted three days. All that time Mariarta brought him his meals, and all that time she felt his eye on her. It made her nervous, but the nervousness had something to do with those grey eyes that watched her sometimes. Mariarta mentioned it to no one, not even Urs, who was filled with curiosity about “the wild man”, and pestered her constantly for details about whether he ate straw or howled.

  On the fourth day, the storm began to clear. The wind was still blowing, but the sun peered through the flying patches of grey. That afternoon, ashamed of her fear, Mariarta paused on her way to fetch water from the river, looking over the half-door.

  The old herd was sitting there unwrapping something from that bundle of rags. She saw him bring out a crossbow and run his hands over it—down the stock of it, down the long groove on top of the stock, where the bolt would lie. Then he saw Mariarta.

  “Do you like it?” he said.

  Mariarta swallowed, nodded. Her fear of him was fighting with her desire to touch the bow the same way he did.

  He smiled. “I saw that in you,” he said. “The shooting.”

  Mariarta’s heart leapt. Did he know about the woman in her head? “I want to—” Her voice died in her throat.

  The old herd shook his head, looking somehow pitying. “Bischuna, bischuna,” he said, “so young to be ridden.”

  “I want to learn!” Mariarta said.

  “A girl has work, mistral’s daughter. Hard to sneak away to the alp—”

  That was true. Mariarta knew her father would not approve. She would have to make sure no one in the village found out. She looked at the crossbow lying there in the herder’s lap—the smooth layers of horn welded together, the soft gleam of the wood in the filtered daylight that came in through the cracks of the cowbarn; the soft oiled-sinew sheen of the bridle and wrapping of the bow. She had to shoot it. She had to.

  “I’ll find a way,” she said. “Where do you stay?”

  “The lower alp. Surpalits hut, until May. Then—” He shrugged. “We go too high for a mistral’s daughter to come except once in a while.”

  She nodded. Still, it would be two months of learning. “And in the fall—”

  “September,” the old herd said. “Two months then, until that starts again.” He gestured with his eyes at the weather.

  “I’ll come,” Mariarta said. “Not every day. They can’t know.”

  He nodded. Mariarta heard her mother’s step coming from the kitchen toward the entryway. Hurriedly, she ran off.

  ***

  She couldn’t come every day. But Mariarta said to herself, I’m the mistral’s daughter: what’s all this schooling for if not to make me clever? And clever she became. Her lessons went so well that she was often done early. Her tutor praised her—very unlike him. She sang as she pounded the washing in the big tub, and about all chores showed such a good will that all the children in Tschamut were disgusted with her, for she was endlessly held up as a good example.

  In the afternoons, when they were still dawdling about their own chores, Mariarta would slip away—carefully, to make sure no eye caught her going. Then she would hurry up the cow-trail that led over Crappa da Scharina to the lower alp. Only the old herd was there as yet. None of the other herders were so averse to human company that they cared to be there so early.

  The herd was as good as his word. He taught Mariarta the bow. But first he made her build one.

  It was no light business, and took days. The herd brought lengths of cured alder from his hut, and the plane, adze and chisels to shape them. He taught Mariarta how to choose wood for strength. He showed her how to carve the stock and set the bow in it; how to twine the bridle of sinew or rope, fastening bow and stock together with it in the cunning way that would absorb the shock of the released bow and quarrel. The herd taught her how to carve the “nut” that would release the drawn string when the trigger was pressed. Most difficult of all, he taught her how to carve the trigger that kept the nut in place until pressed, and he beat her in a friendly way until she got exactly right the crossbow’s most important part, the socket out of which the trigger-tooth fell, letting the nut turn and releasing the string.

  Then came the finicky business of making quarrels for the bow to shoot—planing them straight, setting the feathers in them; learning to carve quarrels that needed no feathers, but had gouges carefully whittled into them so that the wood itself stood out like fins. The crossbow Mariarta finally finished and armed was crude, not much of a thing to shoot with—but making it had taught her how to fix one that was: like his.

  The herd’s bow was a thing of price. The nut was carved of chamois horn. The bow itself was horn of the ibex, rare in these parts, but common near Cuera of the prince-Bishops. Someone there had sawn the straightest part of one of those horns thin—five, six, eight times—then glued the layers together: not flat, to bend with the way the bow drew, but vertically, against the draw. The herd made her the carved-horn hook that hooked through your belt, which an archer used to draw the bow. You stood with your feet on the bow-arch itself, inside it, and bent till the hook at your belt caught the string. Then you straightened up. It was the straightening, the strength of your legs, not your arms, that pulled the string far enough for you to latch it over the nut. Then you chose your target.

  It was nearly two weeks before the old herd let her shoot even once. Mariarta’s impatience drove her wild. A hundred times before the herd had shown her how, she lifted her eyes, hunting something to shoot at—to aim at, to strike. The urge made Mariarta feel the way she felt when the föhn blew hot in spring—the itch under the skin, the testy, edgy wildness. It frightened her.

  And there were distractions. Urs caught her, one afternoon, going up the cow-trail. She spun him some wild story about going out to look for the first steilalva of the year. Mariarta was furious when, instead of going away, Urs insisted on helping her look.

  This happened several times, until Mariarta realized that Urs was watching for her departures. He would follow her, accepting whatever crazed story she told him; when he came back to Tschamut, though he would be beaten for slacking, he would just grin that odd grin and go off to his chores. He’s lonely, she thought one day, while doing the washing. Urs had to spend all day mucking out the stalls or bringing water for the cows from the river. Come the summer, he would go to the alp with the other men: nothing but days of milking, stoking the fires for the cheesemaking, scouring pots....

  Mariarta stopped, staring at the wash-house wall. When did I last see any of us on the mountain? she thought. All the ones I envied while I was having lessons. Paol and Cla, they’re cowherds now too; Duri hardly sets foot out of the mill... It had never occurred to her that all their childhoods had ended—that what she was doing now would be what she would do until she died. Washing, cooking, cleaning, mending, tending the garden behind the house.... Mariarta’s lessons, which had made it possible for her to escape up the mountain, were only a cruel mockery. What use would they ever be? What use was speaking Daoitscha, except to old wheezing Reiskeipf the saltér? Not that she particularly cared to talk to him. Once or twice now she had caught him looking at her out of those little eyes like a man eyeing a d
ish with his dinner in it. ...But all the rest of it, the counting and reckoning, the lists of kings and their great lords...it was useless to her. The only thing that remained hers was the shooting.

  Mariarta considered the tub with its worn splitting staves, the dirty water in it, the bowl of wood-ash soap, the splashed gray flags of the floor. Then she thought of the alp, and her bow. Slowly, with determination, she began to scrub again.

  ***

  That night, late, the wind woke her; and there were voices in it.

  When the wind rose, it often hissed past the carved eaves, moaned to itself in the chimney. When half asleep, hearing the soft hiss of it in the pines, you could imagine long sorrowful stories being told, a voice like her mother’s saying “Su, su, su....” about something that couldn’t be helped.

  This time, she heard the wind say “Su, su....” ...in her mother’s voice.

  At first, it didn’t seem odd that the wind should sound like her mother. But slowly, in the dark, Mariarta realized the wind had never talked about this kind of thing before.

  “We’ve got to start thinking of it, Cilgia.”

  “It’s too early.”

  “It’s not. Look at the way she’s gone up, this past year!”

  It was her bab’s voice. Mariarta lay wide-eyed in the darkness. Voices could not be heard clearly through these walls—

  “It is. But, Fadri, the body may be old when the heart’s still young.”

  “I know.... It still has to be thought about. And the prospects aren’t good around here.”

  “But there are plenty of likely young men—”

  “They’re none of them likely, Cilgia. Don’t think I haven’t seen Urs chasing after her. The boy has no hope of finding a trade. All he’ll ever have is someone’s hay to sleep in, and a penny or two from his share of the cheesemaking each year. No. There are only three serious possibilities. Duri—I won’t have it—you see the way the father works himself at the mill, and the son doesn’t work unless he’s beaten. Mati would wind up being miller and mother both, and die before her time. Flep di Plan—”

  Her mother’s voice sounded alarmed. “That I won’t have. The father never lifts his eyes from counting his money, but he hasn’t a crust for a poor man. And his son’s cruel: did you see what Flep did to dil Curtgin’s cat, as a joke? Or he called it a joke. I won’t see Mati married into that place.”

  Her bab snorted. “I can’t say I disagree with you, but we’ve still her bodily comfort to think of. That would be taken care of, even if the son never did another lick of work—”

  “So that’s two. But who else—”

  “Well.” Her father sounded uneasy. “I haven’t had her schooled for nothing. I want her... I want her to get out. Have a better chance, somewhere else.”

  Now her mother sounded really shocked. “Not in Selva, surely! You know how those people are!”

  Her bab sounded reluctant again. “I had been thinking...well, if Reiskeipf—”

  “Fadri. He’s an Austriac.”

  “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.