Blood Red (9781101637890)

by Lackey, Mercedes

  “Supper then!” the innkeeper said jovially, no doubt very pleased to have his rooms so unexpectedly occupied. “Sa˘rma˘lut‚e cu ma˘ma˘liga˘, my wife’s specialty!”

  Relieved that it wouldn’t be papricas‚, which she liked, but had had far too much of already, Rosa followed him to an age-polished table in front of the fireplace. There was wine—real wine and not t‚uica˘, the plum liquor, or worse, turt which was twice as strong—and a plate of pickled vegetables to eat while they waited. Then came the meal, which was a pork-stuffed cabbage leaf with sauerkraut. Rosa felt right at home; this was nearly identical to things she ate or cooked at the Bruderschaft Lodge, except for the spices. There was a lot more cabbage than meat, but that was to be expected; they were no longer eating at the Graf’s table, after all!

  When they were done, they went outside to talk to the locals. Here, the talk was in mixed Romanian and the local German, so the village wasn’t entirely German. Rosa surveyed the tables and benches scattered about the little inn yard, assessing the people who were sitting out there. There was good light from a couple of torches and a lantern hung just at the inn door. Ideally she wanted someone who wasn’t sitting and gossiping with anyone else, but not someone who looked disagreeable. Although if she could find a couple of approachable women without any men—they might be a good source of stories. But right under the lamp, on a bench where she could lean her back against the wall of the inn, Rosa found an old lady nursing a small glass of that potent plum liquor and, after getting a nod of permission, sat next to her. She warmed up her shields; an Earth Master was not as good at projecting emotions as a Fire Master was, but an Earth Master could always make herself “feel” cozy and comfortable, and the sort of person that other people would like to talk to. She hoped the old woman was not impervious to that sort of thing. Some people were, particularly unpleasant people and bad-tempered people. The old lady seemed quite friendly and approachable however. And all of the villagers outside the inn had heard their little story, so the ice had been broken.

  It was a lovely evening, in a nice little village. Some houses had lanterns out at the front door. Some had a torch stuck at the road. Most had nothing but the soft light of their windows. Some people were sitting on benches by their front doors, but most were making their way here.

  There seemed to be a hundred thousand stars out, and it was a cloudless night. Rosa was fairly sure she wouldn’t want to be here in the dead of winter, but now, in late summer, it was lovely. There was a scent of all the drying hay on the breeze, and a soft hum of talk from all the people gathered in the inn yard.

  The old woman next to her was dressed in what Rosa now realized was the Saxon variation on the local clothing; instead of a white skirt, she wore a black one, with embroidery, a black embroidered vest, an embroidered white apron, and a plain black blouse, with a black bonnet of some sort over her gray hair, and two embroidered ribbons trailing from it, over her shoulders and down her chest. She was a little bent, but not much, and slender. Her face was not very wrinkled, and it was possible to see she had been a great beauty in her youth.

  “It’s a pity,” the old lady said, without preamble, in German.

  “What is a pity, good lady?” Rosa replied. “Oh, my name is Rosa Nagy. Dominik and Markos are my brothers.”

  The old woman nodded. “And you are the scholars, so I heard. Your father must be very odd to raise a girl as a scholar.” Rosa stifled a smile; it seemed that the old were universally allowed to be as rude as they liked.

  “He is. Very odd. But I like it, and a scholar’s daughter doesn’t have any dowry so I have no prospects!” she replied cheerfully. “I might as well be useful, and I like traveling and even living in a camp. When my father dies, or grows too old to teach, Markos or Dominik will take his place and I will go out with the other to collect stories. I think only the one that becomes a teacher will marry, so I will probably keep house for the one that doesn’t in winter, when we can’t travel. Was that what the pity was about?”

  The old lady seemed to like her attitude. “I am Frau Schmidt. No, the pity is we have no music tonight. The gypsies are off hunting for a missing boy, who they already know will not be found.” She lowered her voice in a conspiratorial fashion. “That’s not so bad for Casolt. It will be a while before we need to be vigilant again. Months, if we’re lucky. If we’re even luckier, it will take a gypsy again and not one of us.”

  “Vigilant against what?” Rosa lowered hers, too, and leaned toward the old woman—who smelled, oddly enough, of peppermint, and not the cabbage or garlic that Rosa expected.

  The old lady shrugged. “Against what no one wants to talk about. Something out there—” she pointed her chin eastward “—likes to hunt people. No one has ever seen it and lived to tell about it. Back when I was a girl, they tried hunting for it, and got nowhere. Now no one tries anymore. We just know it moves around, and once it’s taken a person, it moves off to hunt somewhere else. So it can’t be a beast, now, can it?”

  Rosa pretended to think about that. “I wouldn’t imagine a beast would be that clever,” she said, finally. “Does everyone know about this?”

  “Most do,” Frau Schmidt said flatly. “They just won’t talk about it. I think they are afraid that if they do, the thing will come hunting for them, or someone in their family.”

  “And you aren’t?” Rosa dared.

  The old lady laughed. “I’ve outlived my whole family, and the thing never comes into the village, so I am safe enough. I rent out my farm to Iliescu’s boy and his wife, I have my little garden, I don’t need to leave. When I die, the boy hopes I will leave him the farm so he treats me fair, and brings me good things. As long as he keeps doing that, keeping me happy and comfortable as if he was my own boy, I’ll leave him the farm, and he knows that, and I know that he knows, and he knows that I know that he knows, so we are all settled.”

  “You, Frau Schmidt, are a very wise woman,” Rosa declared, and the old lady laughed. Rosa had the feeling that hardly anyone ever talked to Frau Schmidt, but that she listened to everything, so it seemed that Rosa had found a good source of information. “You get the income, you get good things to eat, and you know the farm will be in good hands, even if they aren’t of your own blood.”

  “Oh, Iliescu’s boy is near enough. Cousin of my mother. That will do, since the farm came to me as my dowry. My little cottage I live in now was Erik’s from his parents. They lived in it until they died. We kept it up and never sold it, and when Erik left for the next world, I let Iliescu’s boy rent the farm from me, and I moved there.” That set Frau Schmidt off on a detailed rundown of the pedigree and degree of relationship of everyone in the village. From there, she dove with great relish into village scandals. Rosa listened with amusement and interest, because, from investigations in the past, she knew this was part of the bargain when you got things you could use. When you found the person in the village who knew everything, the price of learning what you wanted to know was to listen to everything. Rosa was the perfect listener for someone like Frau Schmidt. All of the village scandal could be laid out like a feast before the two of them, without worry that the wrong story would get back to someone who could make trouble out of it. So Rosa ah’d and oh’d and tsk’d at the right moments, while the village’s recent and current history was unveiled in all its tawdry glory.

  Predictably, said history was just like the history of every other village its size. Girls who had gone to the altar pregnant, boys with reputations, unfaithful husbands, unfaithful wives . . . and sad things, like boys who were snatched up by the Hungarian army never to be seen again, or not to come home until they were half forgotten by everyone.

  And, of course, a forty-year litany of the missing. Young men mostly, occasional girls, and too-adventurous children. All of them taken while alone—alone in the field, alone hunting, alone gathering mushrooms, wandered off from the safety of the farmyard. Frau Schmidt w
as very shrewd. She not only included missing villagers, she included the missing that had passed through the village and never turned up down the road. Gypsies, lone travelers, peddlers.

  “But you’ll be all right,” she would say, nodding wisely, each time she added another to the toll. “You’ll be fine. There are three of you. It never takes anyone who is with someone. Just don’t go strolling about alone.”

  During this time, Rosa refreshed her glass of plum liquor three times. Frau Schmidt showed absolutely no signs of intoxication, which Rosa could only marvel at. You would think she was drinking water, Rosa reflected. But then again, after a lifetime of drinking such powerful liquor, maybe it was like water to her. Rosa kept to her much milder wine. The Romanians made decent wine. From the look of things, it was perfectly acceptable for a woman to drink wine, but there was not one of the men that was not downing glasses of the potent plum. Evidently, if you didn’t, you weren’t a man.

  Dominik had taken up with a group of young men, Markos with what looked like a couple of farmers. Markos and the farmers were seated, bent over a small, sturdy, rough wood table, while Dominik and the young men were standing together near the entrance to a low stone wall that separated the drinking area from the rest of the street. They had been laughing, earlier, evidently at Dominik’s jokes. They weren’t laughing now. Markos and the farmers had been serious all night.

  Now the farmers stood up, and bade farewell to Markos, who stood up with them, took his glass, and went over to join his cousin. The innkeeper came by and offered to refresh Frau Schmidt’s glass again, but she handed it to him instead.

  “I know my limit, old friend,” she said, with a smile. “I’ve had enough to make me forget my aching bones and go to sleep. Be good to this nice young scholar girl. She listened to my tales as too many youngsters don’t do, and laughed at all the right places.”

  “I will, old mother,” the innkeeper said, offering her his hand so she could get more easily to her feet. “Dream well.”

  “With your good t‚uica˘ in me, that won’t be hard,” she chuckled. “I shall dream of when I was young and skinny and Schmidt and I danced the Învârtita until the sun came up or the gypsies stopped playing.”

  With that, she turned her back to them and made her remarkably steady and stately way out of the yard, and down the street, until she moved out of Rosa’s sight.

  “A good woman, Frau Schmidt,” the innkeeper said aloud, and winked at Rosa. “And all her tales are true, except the ones that are not.”

  Rosa chuckled. “She reminds me of the good old lady across the courtyard from us at the university. She makes the best cla˘tite! I have never mastered making them so thin.”

  The innkeeper made a sympathetic noise, perhaps reassured by the fact that the odd “lady scholar” was also domestic enough to lament her inability to make thin pancakes. That probably put his world back upright on its feet for him. Or rather, if he still believed that the world was flat (and he might!) it flipped the world right-side up for him. “If you stay long enough, perhaps my Maria will show you,” he said in a kindly tone.

  “I would like that very much,” she said sincerely, because to be honest, having tasted the Romanian version of pancakes, she was not at all sure she would ever be satisfied with the German ones again.

  Besides, it would be a good opportunity to coax more stories out of another village woman, this time the innkeeper’s wife, who probably heard as much, if not more, than Frau Schmidt.

  Meanwhile, she glanced at the cousins, who appeared to be deep in some sort of conversation with the knot of young village men. And two more of the customers called farewells to the innkeeper and departed.

  “The boys will probably be talking half the night, if your young men let them,” she said indulgently. “I will go to bed, write up my notes, and sleep like a sensible person. Thank you for your most excellent hospitality.”

  “You paid me well enough for it, Miss,” the innkeeper laughed. “Good night!”

  She went into the inn, to the right hand room where her bag had been left, fetching a burning straw from the fireplace to light the candle on the wall. Once there, she sat cross-legged on the bed, writing out everything pertinent that Frau Schmidt had told her. There was quite a lot of it, and it was a good thing Rosa had an excellent memory. The only detail that had been left out was the identity—or presumed identity—of whatever “it” was that was killing so indiscriminately. She debated leaving her notebook in the cousins’ room, then decided against it. They might well be too tipsy to read it, and although she knew Markos could throw off the effects of even complete drunkenness by shifting from man to wolf and back again, Dominik couldn’t.

  Better to catch them in the morning.

  So, with that, she changed into her nightgown and snuggled into the featherbed. She didn’t even hear when the cousins came in.

  11

  BREAKFAST was ma˘ma˘liga˘, a porridge of cornmeal, which Rosa found very tasty. Rather than coffee or tea, she was offered milk so fresh it was still warm. She was the first one awake, and it was the innkeeper’s wife and daughters who greeted her and presented her with a hearty bowl and cup, and seated her at the same table they’d had dinner on.

  “Did the gypsies ever find their lost person?” she asked, casually, before they could escape back to the kitchen.

  “Oh Frau Schmidt told you of that did she?” said the wife, waving the two daughters back to their work. She, too, was wearing the Saxon costume; this time a blue skirt and vest rather than the black of a widow, and a white apron. The Romanians wore white skirts with an embroidered black apron fore and aft, presumably in an attempt to keep a white skirt clean.

  “She told me about many things,” said Rosa, with a faint smile, as a chicken wandered in the open door, looked disappointed that there was nothing on the spotless wooden floor to eat, and wandered out again. “But yes.”

  The innkeeper’s wife sighed. “The gypsies have never done us any harm, and their playing makes folks stay and drink longer than they would otherwise,” she said, which relieved Rosa, who was afraid she might have to somehow justify her concern. “It’s a tragedy. There’s always one of those too-bold little boys in every family or clan, you know?”

  Rosa nodded, and decided to make up some family history of her own. “Dominik was like that. Up on the roof, up in a tree, over the wall—no matter what anyone said to him, he was always sure they were just nagging him to keep him from having fun.”

  “Exactly! It makes me glad I only have the one boy, and he’s as careful as a sheepdog,” Maria said fondly. “Well that was what Shandor was like, reckless beyond belief. Ten years old, and no one could tell him anything, and if he hadn’t been the sweetest-natured child who almost always managed to charm his way out of trouble, he would never have been able to sit for all the whippings. And not one whipping changed him, either, he was that headstrong. Day before yesterday, he took his pony when he was told not to, and headed out for Avrig, which he was told he could not go to. The pony came back, covered in lather, without him.” Maria stopped, and wiped her eye with her apron. “Well, there, I am a mother too. He might have been a gypsy scamp, but he had a mother and her heart is broken, and I, who buried two babies, I can feel that.”

  “And all credit to you, for the Good God made all of us, even gypsies,” said Rosa, heartily. “We are all of us His Children.”

  Maria smiled wanly. “There are plenty who would say the Devil made the gypsies, but—well there you are. And no, they have not found him, some of the men came at dawn to beg of me t‚uica˘ for the funeral feast. I gave them a little barrel, and also cornmeal and a chicken, for as I said, they have never stolen from me.”

  She hesitated a moment, and Rosa said, shrewdly, “And you might as well give them what you could spare, so they wouldn’t steal more than you could spare.”

  Maria smiled thinly. “My husband
said you were clever. Yes, there is that, and after they left there was a mark in chalk at the gate which I have not washed off. There may be food and animals missing from the village today, but the mother in me finds it hard to fault them. They have no body to mourn over, they will have to make it up somehow.”

  Rosa got an idea then, but kept it to herself for the moment.

  “Well, there you are. At least the good will come of it that our youngsters won’t go wandering off alone for a good long while, and God willing, that will keep them safe.” She sighed, and picked up Rosa’s empty cup and bowl. “Would you like more?”

  “Yes please—” Rosa began, and just then, the cousins emerged, with sleepy, sheepish expressions and neatly combed hair, from their room. “—and my brothers will want some too!”

  With a nod to the boys, Maria went to the kitchen, and came back with three bowls and free cups of milk, and a round of sheep’s cheese. Markos and Dominik sat across from her and ate with a good appetite, which meant at least they were not suffering from any ill effects of drinking. Maria and her daughters busied themselves in the kitchen and the oven in the back; from the smell of things, the day’s bread was coming out.

  “I think we all have news, yes?” Dominik said, as soon as they were alone.

  Rosa nodded. “You know about the gypsy boy?”

  Markos made a face. “Yes. The fellows we were with were saying one less gypsy is a good thing, but that might have been stupid talking. They got a little into their cups, though, and it was pretty clear they were relieved, and I can guess why.”

  Rosa nodded. “It means no one from around here is going to be taken for a while. Even the innkeeper’s wife came close to saying that, although she puts it down to the youngsters being too scared to run about alone. But I had an idea. I know something of Roma customs. Even without a body to mourn, they’ll be having a funeral feast, and then burning everything the boy owned to keep from being haunted. What if one of you bought a couple of hens or ducks or even a young pig and took it out there to them, say we are paying our respects. I can’t do that, I’m a woman, but you can. And we can get away with being nice to gypsies, we’re folklorists, we’re trying to collect stories. No one will be the least bit surprised that we are trying to make up to them.”