Raetian Tales 1: A Wind from the South (3 page)

•

It was a long time before Mariarta got her chance. Dinner had to be gotten through first. Still, it was hard to be impatient with that night’s dinner.

This time of year was not much different from winter in terms of what you got to eat. There might be toasted cheese, and some cold wheat porridge from the morning, sliced and fried in lard, or on Sundays, in butter. There would be a piece of wheat bread, or some oat bread if the wheat was getting scarce. It was a long time since the pig was killed; a scrap of bacon from the dwindling flitches hanging smoke-blackened in the chimney, or a chunk from the salt-meat crock,
might
go into a pot of barley soup for Sunday dinner; but until the sow farrowed, this would get less likely. To drink, there would be barley-water, for the cows weren’t yet in milk. The supplies in the pantry were dwindling, and would do so until summer. Mariarta had been watching her mother’s worried looks at the store cupboards, and noticed how their key never left her mam’s belt.

So when Mariarta returned and was set to scrubbing the big table in the kitchen, she was astonished to see the porridge that had been boiling now set aside. The smaller butter-tub sat on the sideboard, with a great scoop out of it; and one of the old dry-spiced sausages that her mam tempted her bab with. Ten whole slices of it lay on one of the earthen plates: soup that smelled of oats and bacon was simmering in the pot that hung from the crane. Her mam was rasping half a hard sweet cheese to go into it, the cheese that bab washed in wine and dried under the eaves. Onda Baia was stirring the soup pot, muttering: she kept glancing at the guest on the far side of the fire, where he sat in the chimney-seat talking to her father. Baia’s glances weren’t friendly, which confused Mariarta.

When the table was clean, her mother brought  five bowls from the cupboard above the sideboard. “Be careful,” she said. Mariarta laid them out gingerly on the table, stroking the bright, smooth painted clay as she put each one down. Normally they all ate out of one pot in the middle of the table, except at Christmas and Easter.

Her mother gave her the tin spoons one at a time, polishing each one on her apron. Mariarta put one by each bowl. “Nothing more,” her mam said, smiling at her: “not till the soup’s done.” She glanced at the cushioned seat under the window. Night was coming on fast; it was already dim in the kitchen. Being close to the fire, Mariarta’s father had not yet lit the tallow-dip hanging by the window in its tray. Mariarta crept to the seat, hitched herself onto it as silently as she could, and stared at her guest.

He was even younger than he had seemed before; the firelight showed a face that hadn’t started a beard yet. “A long walk,” he said to her father. “And a ways to go yet before I’m done....”

Onda Baia muttered something else to the soup, laid the ladle down and went out. “Not too much further, signur Guigliem,” her father said, raising his cup to the
scolar.
Mariarta saw to her surprise that they were both drinking real white wine, instead of “Adam’s wine”, as her father called water.

It was all too much for Mariarta to bear. “Guigliem, is that your name?  We have a Guigliem here, it’s the miller’s son who had the tree fall on him and now he can’t talk—”

Her father’s expression was too kindly to be a warning. “Not my daughter’s problem, as you can see,” he said.

The young man smiled. “Guigliem I am, but to keep us all from being confused, you can say ‘of val Schatla’, since that’s where I came from.”

“I thought you came from the Chrusch’via,” Mariarta said, bemused. “And the Devil teaches you spells there, and when he’s done teaching you, eleven out of twelve of you get away, and the twelfth
scolar
gets turned into a crow.”

“My daughter is educated,” Mariarta’s father said to Guigliem, “and knows the old stories.”

Mariarta wriggled with pleasure at being praised. The
scolar
laughed. “I’ve seen many a crossroads,
duonna
, but I never saw old Malón at even one of them. And crows I’ve seen, but none of them were anyone I knew.”

“The table’s laid,” Mariarta’s mother said. “Will you gentlemen sit?  Mariarta, go fetch your aunt.”

Mariarta scrambled off the seat. As she did, her leg brushed something cool and smooth. She looked down in surprise—at the
scolar
’s bag.
I could have gotten in it,
and now I’ve lost my chance!  Urs is going to make fun of me—

Out Mariarta went into the frontway, to find her aunt. Off to her right in the darkness, Onda Baia was kneeling on the stones, praying under her breath.

Mariarta went to her. “It’s dinner—”

Onda Baia kept praying.

“Onda, what’s the matter?  Don’t you like the
scolar?
”

Mariarta stepped back at the furious, frightened look in her aunt’s eyes. “Like him?  Mad child, don’t you
see?
  He’s a witch, or something worse!  What kind of decent person doesn’t stay home and work their land?  No one walks the roads but gypsies who trick and steal, and soldiers who loot and kill, and traveling merchants who cheat you and run away.” Her voice was a hiss. “Travelers are the Devil’s people. They won’t settle, they won’t stay
still!
  And the old blood will tell, for you’re too friendly by half with such, you and your father both—”

“Baia,” came Mariarta’s mother’s voice, quite cool. She was standing in the door to the kitchen, her face in shadow. “As for travelers, there are also saints who walk the world, looking for hospitality. And poor people who have no homes, whom we must help because God sends them to us. Now, dinner is ready. If you don’t want yours—”

Onda Baia went straight into the kitchen.

Mariarta’s mother came to stand by her. “Mati—did your aunt frighten you?”

“A little,” Mariarta said. But it was more than that.
The old blood will tell. You and your father both—

“Your aunt was raised old-fashioned, that’s all,” Mariarta’s mother said in her ear. “New things come down the road, and old stories whisper in her ear, and they both frighten her. You mustn’t let that happen to you. You were right to say God had sent us someone to share dinner with: He did. Now go on in. The soup will get cold.”

•

She sat next to the
scolar
right through dinner, and was hard put to know what was better to look at—his smooth young face with its pale blue eyes, or the soup, all thick with melting cheese. She had a piece of sausage to herself, and another half a one the
scolar
gave her. He was kind. Mariarta thought of just asking him outright to let her see the inside of his bag: that would be so brave, even Urs wouldn’t be able to say anything.

But as soon as they finished eating, her father’s council began to arrive. They gathered around the table with Guigliem, and were given wine, and Mariarta’s father sat  at the head of the table, so that Mariarta knew the council was in session.

The
scolar
told them his name again. They asked him about the roads he had walked on leaving val Schatla, about the towns there, when he had left, and why. Mariarta was more interested in the bag. Her mother had told her to sit in the window-seat until it was her bedtime, but the bag had fallen on the floor. The tallow-dip was lit now. It would be hard to get at the bag without being seen...

“So they sent you away to be a student,” Flep said. The emphasis he put on the last word was amused, for everyone knew what Mariarta thought of the guest.

Guigliem smiled. “Not in the
scola nera
. I would hardly have arrived on foot without a
solida
of my own if I were accomplished in the black art.”

“But it’s well known that
scolars
can only do their wealth-making for others, never themselves.”

“Then it’s a wonder there are any at all,” said Guglielm. “What’s the point in learning a trade that will never do the craftsman any good, or maybe get you turned into a crow at the Crossroads?” They all laughed. “No, I was in minor orders in the Bishop’s monastery school at Cuera, where my father sent me before he died. I thought that after I took the tonsure I might work for the monks in Mustér, doing cattle-breeding for them. But word came that my old stepfather has died, too. I’m needed at home in val Schatla. So home I go, with my tonsure growing out. Just a farmer again.”

“A learned one, though,” said Mariarta’s father.

Guglielm looked wry. “Oh aye...I can speak Latin to the cows. But will they give enough extra milk afterwards to make a difference?  And what’s the point of speaking to them in Daoitscha?  The milk would probably curdle.”

All the councilors laughed. Mariarta’s father sat quiet, smiling.

Guglielm looked around with sudden concern. “Pardon me if I’ve spoken out of turn,” he said. “I did get the impression there’s no
saltér
here—”

Mariarta blinked. Why should the
scolar
care where the Austriac bailiff was?  He was only a little fat man who barely spoke Romansch; even his Daoitscha was poor, coming out of him in short thick-sounding phrases, with panting in between. He walked around Tschamut as if he owned it, and the one time Mariarta had tried to ask her bab why Reiskeipf acted that way, her bab had growled and stalked away, giving her no answer. She hadn’t raised the subject again.

“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—