Raetian Tales 1: A Wind from the South

by Diane Duane

  RAETIAN TALES:

  A WIND FROM THE SOUTH

  Diane Duane

  The Badfort Press

  County Wicklow, Ireland

  A Wind from the South is copyright 1998-2006 Diane Duane. All rights reserved.

  All ebook versions are produced by the Badfort Press, a division of The Owl Springs Partnership (http://www.owlsprings.com)

  This Microsoft Reader .LIT file generated from the author’s original Word file using the RMR plugin for Microsoft Word 2003

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  PART ONE: The Bull of Uri

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  PART TWO: The White Chamois

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  PART THREE: The Pugniera

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  Afterword

  APPENDIX 1: Maps

  Mariarta’s First Journeys

  Mariarta’s Eastern Journeys

  “The Maiden Between the Lakes”

  Northward to Battle

  For Konrad and Elisabeth Egli

  with happy memories of much bündnerfleisch

  and a lot of Fendant under the bridge

  PART ONE: The Bull of Uri

  Tgi che ha magliau il giavel, magla era la corna.

  (He who eats the devil must eat the horns too.)

  —Raetian proverb

  ONE

  Her first memory was of the shine of copper in the kitchen—a dim, warm, ruddy light, gleaming from pots hung on the cream-colored, stuccoed wall, catching the firelight in the near-dark. It must have been after supper was done, all the lamps quenched. A star or two of rushlight shone in that memory, reflected in the eyes of those who bent over the scrubbed blond wooden table, talking. What their words were, what caused their remembered laughter, she had no idea; the memory was too old. It only came to Mariarta sometimes as she was falling asleep, and heard the echo of it coming up through her bedroom floor. She would lie there, those nights, drifting along the edge of the crevasse of sleep, looking drowsily out the window at the stars. Some times of year you could not. When winter bit hardest, all the house shutters were closed against the gigantic falls of snow that came down the southern slopes of Piz Giuv into the valley. Not one shutter could be opened, except those covering the tiny wooden-screened ghost-windows under the eaves. Otherwise the snow could come whipping in and ruin everything. The house was dark then. The place stank of beef tallow and soot, and tempers grew short in the close air.

  But other times—like now—

  Spring was beginning. The snow was not over. But the föhn had begun blowing—the warm fierce south wind that melted the snow on the high pastures, and started the glaciers talking, and made tempers short. Her father was one who suffered badly from föhn weather. Today he had gone ranting around the house until mamli had given him wine with valerian in it and told him to stop his yammering before he brought the avalanche down off Giuv. Her bab had taken the draft sheepishly enough, and gone off to lie down with a cold cloth on his head.

  “Fine for those who have time to lie about,” Onda Baia had grumbled: but Mamli had gone after her next. “Baia, here’s half a cheese melted on the stone, why are you standing here gabbling!” Mariarta’s aunt had turned back to the cooking, and Mariarta slipped away before her mother should notice she had finished her lesson early, and find her something to do.

  Having lessons was unusual enough. None of the other children in town had them. But she was not like the other children—as she had heard too often recently. She had been happy when she was like them, and had spent every sunny day in the lower pastures, helping the herders with the cheesemaking in their huts, or just spending long hours lying among the little flowers and tough grasses of the scree slopes, watching the clouds’ shadows pass across the face of Giuv, thinking of nothing.

  Now there was too much to think of. She was the daughter of the mistral of Tschamut, her mother told her, and this suddenly meant all kinds of things—not getting dirty, answering promptly when spoken to, always telling the truth. No more playing with the cowherds—well, they were gone from the lower huts now, anyway, headed to the pastures on Alp Tgom, where the grass was ready for the cows. But no more playing all day with Cla and Paol and Duri and Flurin and all the rest. “The age of reason,” her mother had called it. To Mariarta it was the age when everyone had reasons you couldn’t do what you wanted.

  These days, instead of going straight out to play, she had to spend three hours a day with a tutor. Useless stuff it was. All the people in the musty old books were as dead as Hendri Lozza who fell off Giuv last month while chasing chamois. And as for the language lessons—

  She had tried throwing a tantrum. “I don’t want to learn Daoitscha!” she cried, and clung to her mother in the kitchen, burying her face in the embroidered apron. “The words all sound bad, and they don’t make sense when you put them together!”

  Mariarta cocked one eye from inside the folds of the apron. She saw her mother looking with a sad face at her father; and her father sighed. “That’s as may be, car’,” he said, “but you must learn it, or I will beat you.”

  Mariarta sighed, and stopped crying. Her father had never beat her except once, the time the kitchen cauldron full of hot soup almost fell on her. All this meant was that she had to do it whether she liked to or not—it was something not even her father could change. “Is it because I’m the daughter of the mistral of Tschamut, bab?”

  Her father seemed glad of an answer he could agree with. “Yes. And Daoitscha’s one of the things the daughter of a mistral needs to know.”

  “Will you let me learn something else too?”

  “What, car’?”

  “How to shoot. I’ll learn the Daoitscha faster if you let me learn how to shoot too.”

  Her father laughed. “Maybe. Maybe, if you learn the Daoitscha well.”

  Mariarta frowned. She had heard her bab say this maybe-that-meant-no at town meeting, to people arguing: hearing it, Mariarta knew her father was waiting for the people having the argument to forget about it—and he would wait as long as he had to. I don’t care, Mariarta had thought. I’ll wait too. And I’ll learn the wretched Daoitscha!

  ...In her bed she gazed out into the dark, all afire with stars. Her window faced west-by-north, and the mountain filled half of it, the sky the rest. Piz Giuv was a broad-shouldered mountain, and Tschamut was built on one of its lower shoulders—a lump of a ridge with a lumpy top, jutting out over the floor of Val Tavetsch, just off one side of the road which led to Cuolm d’Alp, the high pass, and the great town of Ursera on its other side. Mariarta wondered whether she would ever see Ursera. It was nine leagues away over the pass, two days’ journey. Her bab went there to talk to the governors—whoever they were. He had brought her home a white ribbon, last time: and Cla had stolen it from her, and Mariarta had stolen it back, and almost strangled Cla with it....

  The white stars of the Plough swung above the peak-snows of Giuv. Mariarta yawned. Everything was still—the föhn had stopped blowing for the moment, and there were only the tiny creaks and sighs of the house cooling and settling for the night. She turned, under the s
traw-stuffed coverlet, and fell asleep.

  Mariarta never heard the breath of wind that went past her window, stirred the hangings as if looking in at her, then blew away toward the alp.

  ***

  If you put your left hand on that scrubbed table (her tutor said), it would show you the fashion of the mountains all around Val Tavetsch. With all fingers pointing north, the little finger would be the long irregular massif ending in Piz Nascholas and the Pazolastock, and right above it would be Cuolm d’Alp and the pass into the neighboring Urseren valley. The ring finger would start (at the knuckle end) with Piz Ravetch, and end in sharp-shouldered Piz Cavradi. The middle finger would have Piz Blas at the knuckle, and Piz Nual at its tip. The first finger would be the peaks of Rondadura and Gannaretsch, and the glacier running from Tgiern Sogn-Gions, where years ago the Capuchin had left the tin box with the ghost of that bad man from Selva in it; you could still hear the ghost wailing in the crevasse if you went there. Then a long gap—where tiny Val Maler and Uaul Sogn Gions would go—and finally the terrible peak of Scopi, at the thumb’s knuckle, reaching to Piz Garviel, and the scrubby alp of Meidia Marscha. “So as long as you have a hand,” her tutor said, “you’re never lost.”

  Tschamut sat at the tip of the fourth finger, like a bit of peeled-back nail, rising higher than the road. It was fifteen houses, a church and an alp. That alp was a matter of cheerful rivalry between Tschamut and Selva, its nearest neighbor. Selva had thirty houses, and two churches, and one of them had two bells. Selva also had a grazing alp, Uaul Nual. But it was steep and hard for the cows to graze, and the Selvese looked at Tschamut’s more level alp, with its long sweet grass, and muttered that the Tschamuts people should rent part of it to them. Mariarta’s father laughed at the idea each time the mistral of Selva mentioned it over wine, for their alp was just big enough for their own cows, let alone the Selvese ones too.

  The Selvese sometimes admitted the truth of what Mariarta’s father kept telling them. That alp was just a scrap of green nestled against the mountainside. Right behind it was the slope of Cuolm d’Alp, and Piz Giuv’s first craggy shoulders rose behind that, too steep to climb. Nothing grew there—not even the long pale yellowy grass that tufts all but the stubbornest mountains in that part of the world. Giuv’s other shoulders spread a mile east and west, and the other mountains reared up behind, giving Tschamut no other high ground.

  Low ground it had. Tschamut’s spur of land reared out over the narrow valley through which the Rein ran—a fierce cold narrow river, fed from the glacier on Piz Curnera. It was one of Mariarta’s jobs each morning and evening to go fetch water for washing and cooking from the river. She hated that chore. If I’m the daughter of the mistral of Tschamut, she said once, I shouldn’t have to fetch and carry water like a maschnéra! But her father had then asked pointedly how her Daoitscha was doing?—and Mariarta had hurried away.

  This evening she was tired. Her lesson had been long, and Sandre the master had threatened to beat her because she refused to sing the Daoitscha song he was trying to teach her, some stupid thing about a bird. Mariarta couldn’t see the point—it didn’t rhyme, how was it supposed to be a song? The stupid old cowturd!

  Across the river, the grey sheep bleated. Mariarta thought their bleating sounded like the master trying to sing, and burst out laughing. The bucket on its long yoke banged against the backs of her legs as she climbed the path leading to the dusty street.

  She walked down it, trying not to stir the dust, and pushing her way past Cla’s goats, which were shouldering their way to the barn for their evening milking. Mariarta walked on to pass the front gates of her house. With the low late sun shining on it, the house looked particularly fine: its old brown wood all golden-shaded, and the gilding in the letters of the house-motto catching fire from the sunset. No other house in town had such gilding, not even Paol di Plan the woolseller’s, and he was rich. Mariarta walked by the gates, felt pride in her father for being so important—

  “Stop dreaming, you’ll be into the ditch,” said Onda Baia from the kitchen door. “Give me that and get us one more.”

  “But—“

  “Fudi! None of that out of you, or you’ll get none of what’s cooked with the water.” Mariarta moaned, but she slipped out of the shoulder-strap of the yoke and watched while Onda Baia took the bucket and poured the water out into the big kitchen cauldron. Baia was her mother’s sister, and the resemblance showed in her face—the high cheekbones and dark blue eyes. But there it stopped, for Mariarta’s mother was much slenderer than Onda Baia. Anyone in town was slenderer than Onda Baia, Mariarta thought: under her linen shirt and gray skirt, she was immense. Onda Baia always said it was because a witch had ill-looked her years ago, so that she would lose a young man they both were courting. Mariarta thought it had more to do with how much fried porridge Onda Baia ate. Her mother said it was a scandal that someone should eat the food of three men and do the work of half a woman...but she never said it in front of Baia.

  Onda Baia handed Mariarta the bucket, her glance falling on the street. Then Onda Baia’s mouth dropped open, and she crossed herself.

  Mariarta turned to look. Cla’s goats were going by, with Cla behind them, poking them with his herd’s stick. But past them, twirling along past the front of the house, went a swirl of dust and wind. “It’s a witch, or a tschalarera!” Baia cried. “Don’t go out there, child, you’ll be—”

  “Baia,” Mariarta’s mother said from behind her, “what’s the matter? Oh.” She glanced down the alleyway between their house and dil Curtgin’s, toward the street. “Is that all? If it’s a witch, this’ll stop it.” Her mother reached in for the broom and put it bristle-end-up outside the kitchen door. “And windbrides make much more noise. But don’t talk of such—it’s unlucky. Come in now, the meal’s boiling over!”

  Muttering, Onda Baia vanished into the dark and heat of the kitchen. “Go on, Mati,” Mariarta’s mother said. “We need one more tonight. Then it’s dinner.”

  Mariarta sighed and trudged off with the yoke. She made her way down to the water, got out on the stones near the dipping pool, and braced herself to let the bucket fill. As the bucket grew heavier, Mariarta looked westward along the riverbank, upslope, where the sun dipped toward the crest of Giuv in a glory of golden air.

  The breath went out of her. Up there by the triangular brown Virgin-shrine on its pole, kneeling on the rocks, was a young man all in black, one she had never seen before. He sang to the shrine with his arms outstretched, and the hair stood up on the back of Mariarta’s neck, for the language he used was not hers, or even Daoitscha...and he had not been there a breath ago.

  Mariarta pulled up the bucket and wriggled out of the yoke, staring. She had always thought the stories about buttatschs and witches were just things that happened to other people—

  She was scared, but Mariarta knew what she had to do. Carefully she picked her way over the stones toward the figure in black, while the eerie singing went on. He stood there silhouetted against the sunset, motionless—until her foot grated on gravel on a stone, and he turned and saw her—

  Mariarta’s stomach knotted. She could see no face in this light....if the ghost in fact had one. At least she knew what to do. “All good spirits praise God,” she recited rapidly, “and I do too. The first word and the last are mine. What’s the matter, and what do you need?”

  The singing stopped. The black kneeling shape looked at her, expressionless, saying nothing. Very slowly it stood up.

  Normally it should have told her right away what it needed done so that it could be put at peace. But it didn’t seem to understand her. Was it a foreign ghost? That could be a problem—she didn’t know the words in any other language. Nervously, Mariarta began again. “Tuts buns sperts laudan Diu ed jeu e. Igl empren ed il davos—”

  The dark shape burst out laughing.

  Mariarta got furious. “Stop that,” she shouted. “I’m trying to help you!”

  The black shape laughed
harder. “Pertgisei, oh, do excuse me!” And he spoke Romansch after all, though his accent was strange. “Buobetta, who do you take me for, one of the piavel de notg?”

  “Yes,” Mariarta said, annoyed at being called a little girl, “and I’m not afraid of you.”

  The sun dropped behind Giuv, and the light changed. Now the black featureless shape was simply that of a man standing in the shadow of the mountain, looking at her with amused dark eyes out of a long, thin face. “That’s good, for I’m not dead, and nothing to be afraid of. Who is it that’s not afraid of me?”

  “I am Mariarta Agnete di Alicg,” she said, “daughter of the mistral of Tschamut.”

  “Ah, well then,” said the young man, “bien di, misterlessa.”

  Mariarta frowned, for some of her father’s friends thought it was amusing to call her mayoress, too: she was never sure she liked it. But if there was mockery in this man’s tone, it was different from that of her father’s friends. “Bien onn. And now I know what you are.”

  “Tell me, do.”

  “You’re a scolar!” And that was exciting. “Let me see your book!”

  “You mean a student in the Dark Art?” His laugh was quieter this time. “No, I’m afraid you mistake me again.”

  “I heard you, though. You were singing in the Old Language. Scolars need the Old Language for their spells, the way priests need it to make Mass.” She clambered over the rocks to get a closer look at him. His black was dusty—the cloth of his breeches and short cloak were patched. He was exactly the picture of the wandering scolars, who went from town to town doing odd jobs for lodging and food. In return for their hosts’ kindness, they would look in the black book they all carried, find treasures buried on their hosts’ land, or lift curses. They could heal sick cows, and tame dragons. Of course, all scolars had sold their souls to the Devil, but you could still get some good out of them—