by Diane Duane
“Gone,” Mariarta said. “Come with me and see.”
She led the ghost through the gates. The white stag followed them past the rotted timbers, onto the road. The Maiden stumbled as she went, as if her eyes saw one thing, but her feet felt another.
“Lean on me,” Mariarta said. “Come on. It’s not far.”
They turned the curve of the path where it straightened, leading to the road below. On glimpsing the rocks to their left, the Maiden stopped, like someone suddenly struck blind: a helpless, terrified look.
Mariarta pressed her hand harder against the statue. “It’s only trees. Come on—”
“It was not before,” the Maiden whispered. “I cannot pass there. He died—”
“He did,” Mariarta said, knowing that flinch, that dread. The thought of the vale above Arosa brought it to her constantly.
“If I go there, I will see—”
This is what kept her so long bound in a past of her own making. She dared not see the present she thought she had made— “Duonna,” Mariarta said, her eyes filling, “you will see what is. Not what was. You are done with that. Come with me now.”
“He lay there all broken,” the Maiden said, her voice growing thick. “They made me look—my father said, ‘That is what your lack of pride in your family has brought you. His blood is on your hands—’”
“It is not,” Mariarta said, the tears running down her face now. “No one forced him to do what he did. He made his choice. You are innocent of his death. Come—”
They struggled, but the Maiden was a ghost, and no match for Mariarta. It was the vale above Arosa that Mariarta was seeing, and the man who had followed her on a fool’s adventure; of his own choosing, Mariarta thought, and stepped forward, willing to flinch no longer, taking the Maiden with her. Behind them, the light of the white stag rode along like an inquisitive moon, casting their shadows from behind—a solid black one, and a greyer one, the Maiden’s. They leaned together as they walked, clutching the bronze statue; one of the shadows got steadily blacker, one of the shadows went faint. Mariarta and the Maiden both sobbed as they came down the path together and paused.
“Look,” Mariarta said. “Ah, don’t be afraid! Look there.”
The Maiden gazed across the cliffside. Standing there, just visible in the moonlight, was a young man, dressed in what Mariarta recognized from Luzi’s book as the Frankish style, brought by King Carl in the ancient day. He looked at them, alert: he was smiling. He was dressed as a bridegroom....
“I killed him,” whispered the Maiden. But she could not look away.
Mariarta smiled through her tears. “He’s been waiting for you a long time, it seems. How much longer will you make him wait?”
The Maiden yearned toward him. “Look down,” Mariarta said, gesturing at the ground. The Maiden looked. The thin ghost shadow that had been following her was gone. She looked behind. The white stag’s strange glow had died away; even the whiteness was gone from its coat in the moonlight. A plain red stag stood there, bigger than others, true, but it had a shadow like Mariarta’s. It looked at the Maiden out of dark liquid eyes with something like joy in them.
The Maiden cried out in joy, throwing her arms around the stag’s neck. It bent its head to her carefully, nuzzling her. “Oh, take care,” the Maiden said, and turned her face to Mariarta: “take care of him!”
“I will,” Mariarta said, smiling through the tears. “Go on, now, he’s waiting—”
The Maiden reached out to Mariarta, pulled her close. Mariarta hugged her, finding her solid still, but suspecting this would not last much longer. “Listen,” the Maiden said. “You’ve freed me, and I have no way to thank you, no gold or rewards to give...except what I know. Take him and go to Aultvitg.”
“Aultvitg?” Mariarta said, surprised.
“You must go! The raven told me this last night, after you came: now I’m free to understand it. You seek a maiden—you must seek the maiden between the lakes. There you’ll find what you desire. Promise me you’ll go!”
She was so vehement, suddenly, smiling through her own tears, that Mariarta had to nod. “I will,” she said. “I promise. Go on now!”
The Maiden fumbled at her belt, flung the great bundle of keys clanking away, picked up her skirts, and ran across the stones, a bride to the bridegroom. The young man held out his arms to her, gathered the Maiden in. Mariarta watched them hold each other, and had to rub the tears out of her eyes. When she looked again, blinking, she could see them no more.
Behind her, the stag stood snuffling her collar thoughtfully. Mariarta reached up, tentatively, to pat him. “Will you have me, friend?” she said. “It’s a busier sort of life I lead.”
The stag nuzzled Mariarta’s hand. His expression said, Tell me where: I’ll go with you, and bear you there.
Mariarta considered Walenstadt in the moonlight, the silence of it, and the peace—then looked at the old shell of the castle, empty of any light but the moon’s, looking for all the world as if it had never been haunted at all. “Altdorf, then,” she said. She took the path toward the town and the northward road, the stag following her.
FOUR
Tut vul flurir e sto sflurir,
All wants to bloom and all must fade,
mo sper la fossa stat la tgina.
but by the grave there stands the cot.
Ei dat sil mund negin murir;
The world is not for dying made:
il vegl vegn niev e viv’adina.
the old comes new, and passes not.
(Gian Fontana)
Altdorf in the early spring was a lively place—a winter’s worth of bottled-up trade beginning to flow again, like glacier-melt. The roads from north and south were raucous with travelers, the market was chaotic, the inn was full most of the time—so Mariarta was told when she came from the mountains in February, with an unseasonable load of skins.
She had kept Catsch with her that winter, while working her way across the mountains from Walenstadt to Altdorf. Her own way was easier now, for she rode the stag; a swifter or more sure-footed mount could not be imagined. The stag could carry her places Mariarta would never have dared climb to herself. As a result her hunting had been even more successful than usual, and Mariarta had been able to stop early.
Mariarta took a little-frequented way, thinking the stag was not exactly meant for use on the high road. She struck straight westward into the mountain country of the land of Glarus, and stayed in Glarus town for Christmas, leaving the stag to amble about his own business in the woods above the town until after Sontg Silvester’s. Mariarta had no fear that a hunter might chance upon him. She had noticed that, when away from her, in the snowy weather, the stag had a tendency to pale to white. All it took was a call from her, and he flushed warm red again.
The first of February saw her bidding him farewell on the cliffs of the Schachentaler Windgallen, above the road that led down the Schachen valley toward Altdorf. All that valley was white. She was troubled, for she could see no smoke from any of the chimneys of the houses scattered within sight. “A bad winter, maybe. Those who can have moved downcountry—”
The stag snorted in her ear, an uneasy sound. Mariarta elbowed him gently. “Grugni,” she said, and laughed: “grunter”, it meant, or “snorter”, and was settling into a name for him. The stag made a “huhh” noise, affectionate acceptance.
“We’ll go,” Mariarta said, taking Catsch’s lead-rein off the saddle she had bought and altered to fit the stag. The saddle, too, she removed, cinching it around Catsch. “I won’t be too long,” Mariarta said, stroking the stag’s neck. “A week at most. You take care.”
The stag breathed out a cloud, paced into the pines above the road. Mariarta watched him, trying as always to catch the point when she saw not a red shape, but a white one: as always, she missed it. Whiteness moved into the shadow of the trees, vanished.
Mariarta took her time on this road, for the footing was no better in the winter than it had been i
n spring with the Knight’s son of Attinghausen. She paused by Wilhelm Tel’s old valley-house, and found it buried in snow, empty. A bad winter—?
She went to the Schachen bridge. Cloud was pouring past Schweinsburg on the peak of Attinghausen, obscuring the castle proper, though the church below it was visible. Faintly Mariarta could hear its bells ringing for afternoon prayer. Arnulf, she thought. Later, perhaps....
Mariarta went into town, got rid of her hides in the marketplace, and made her way to the Lion inn. There was no problem about a room; fat old Amadeo haggled over the price for ten minutes without recognizing the young girl who had been there years before.
She spent a pleasantly boring evening with not just one, but two roast chickens, and two jugs of wine. It surprised Mariarta, that evening, to see old Conrad of Yberg there, sitting off alone in a corner with Kellner von Sarnen, deep in conversation. She yearned for a breath of wind to bring her what they were saying: but all the windows were shuttered too tight for drafts. She heard not a word that night: nor the night after, nor the next, which was the night before Massday. The snowy weather was closing in on the lake country again. Mariarta thought, on that third evening, as she ate one last chicken, that she would leave next morning before wasting any more of her coppers.
Still, the Key Maiden’s words were with her. Go to Aultvitg: seek your maiden between the lakes— But there were many lakes in this part of the world. She had talked to two or three travellers since she came here, standing them a great deal of wine for little information. Westward, lakes were as plenty as blackberries in the fall, but no one knew anything about maidens between them.
Mariarta yawned, stretched. At the end of the common room, one more man got up, bade his mates good night, headed for the creaking front door. As he went out, someone outside laughed like a saw in a log.
Mariarta’s head snapped up. The door opened again, creaking. In came a man in a long shaggy cloak and leggings. He threw his hood back. His head was so bald it shone, and his face was all one wrinkle. Two other men came in behind him. Mariarta swallowed, for she knew them too: Konrad Hunn and Walter Fürst. They got out of their coats, shaking off snow. In front of them, Theo dil Cardinas shouted at Amadeo, “Damn it all, you old robber, what do you mean you didn’t know I was coming?—”
Mariarta swallowed. That one noisy laugh had brought it all back to her: her father’s shocked look in the dusk as the rider came at him, the early mornings on horseback, that whole time when the world was still mostly safe, if troubled by the Bull. Mariarta waited while they sat on the far side of the room, were brought food and wine, and had a chance to eat and drink. Then she went to where they sat.
Theo glanced up. “Youngster, if you’re looking to cadge drinks—”
“Signur dil Cardinas,” Mariarta said, “I meant no such thing.”
He stared at Mariarta, no recognition showing. “You know me, it seems.”
“Theo,” Mariarta said, desperately, “it’s me. It’s Mati!”
He stared at her. “Why, so it is,” Theo said slowly. He pulled her into the remaining empty chair by the table, while the two others eyed him oddly. But Mariarta was past caring. She seized him by the forearm and shook him, fighting back the tears. Suddenly she was sixteen again, and her father...her father...
Theo gripped her arm too, then pushed her away. “I know this young man,” he said to the others. “I’ll vouch for him.”
“No,” Mariarta said. “Not ‘him.’”
Almost no one was left in the place, and no one was paying attention. Carefully Mariarta lifted her headscarf a little, to show the braids underneath it.
“Put it back on!” Theo said. “Great God, youngster, what brings you here like this?”
“My mother and father have died—”
“I heard about that,” Theo said, looking sad. “I was sorry. Couldn’t come to be with you: I had problems of my own...as you’ll hear. —Our conversation’s safe with her,” he said to Fürst and Hunn. “Don’t you recognize the young—the youngster who came from Tschamut, those times? The mistral’s writer?”
“My Lord,” said Walter Fürst. Konrad Hunn whispered, “But I heard that she—you—”
“Yes,” Mariarta said. “That was what I intended.”
“You deserve some wine,” Theo said. Mariarta laughed, seeing how careful he was to pour for himself first.
She spent a while telling them her story, with parts left out. Theo was noting, Mariarta knew, those spots where she paused too long. “But Theo,” Mariarta said at last, “what brings you here in this weather?”
“Well,” he said, much more softly, glancing around. “It’s been bad up my way for a while: bad all over, frankly.”
“Was it the winter? I came down the Schachen and not one house in five had someone home—”
Walter shook his head. “Not the weather,” Theo said. “The vogten, the bailiffs.”
“And the landvogten,” Walter said, “the governors. A bad winter all around.”
Mariarta was surprised. “What have they to do with us?”
“More than usual, lately,” Theo said. “Rudolf’s back from Italy.”
“Von Hapsburg?”
“Ssh,” the other two said: but the common room was empty now. “Yes,” said Theo. “The damned bailiffs are running crazy. Half those farms are empty because the bailiffs have thrown the tenants out to please their lord.”
“They can’t do that—!”
“They’ve done it. They’ll put friends of the family in those houses. Spies in the valleys.” Theo spat on the floor. “Walter, you should tell her about your lad.”
“My son-in-law,” Walter said, leaning back, turning his cup around on the table. “He was passing the lake crossing at Zinnen, you know where the ferry is? Here’s a man pleading with the boatman to take him over: but the föhn’s coming, the boatman won’t go out. My son-in-law asks what’s wrong. ‘The bailiff,’ says this man, ‘came to my house while I was away, told my wife to heat a bath for him, he had been hunting and needed one—some such garbage. She does what he says—what else can she do?—then he starts telling her what a fine woman she is, wouldn’t she rather live in a big house, he can fix it—” Walter’s mouth worked. “The man came home, found the bailiff pulling his wife’s clothes off and the poor woman screaming for help. He took the woodaxe he’d been carrying and split the bailiff’s skull with it. Naturally he had to run. But the bailiff’s armed escort was coming hard on his trail...and here’s the boatman refusing to budge. My son-in-law practically threw the poor bailiff-killer into the boat, and rowed him across himself, in the middle of one of those big blows that come shrieking down when the föhn’s in that mood. A miracle the boat wasn’t swamped.”
“Where’s your son-in-law now?” Mariarta said.
Walter sighed. “I don’t know. He’s a hunter, like yourself: in the mountains nine days out of ten, comes down only when he has something to sell to keep the family in bread. I don’t think Gessler’s people know who saved the other fellow. I don’t think they do. There are spies everywhere....”
“That’s what brings me,” Theo said. “Things like that have been happening up my way too. Foreclosures without reason, man-killings, rapes and prisonings, all kinds of cruelty. Appeals do no good, for it’s a town’s word against the bailiff’s. You know which side the lord is going to believe—” Theo shifted in his chair. “It’s not the kind of thing any of us feel comfortable sending messages to each other about. So, as we can, we slip away and meet. This time of year is good. The governors’ people don’t willingly go out on the roads in this weather....”
“The taxes,” Konrad said, “they just keep getting higher. The governors, the bailiffs, they take and take. There has to be something that can be done. But there won’t be any use in doing it separately. We’re scattered....”
“It’s a strength, though,” Theo said. “We can make them stretch. Throw corn all over the barn floor, watch the hens run around peckin
g it up! By the time they’re done, they’re exhausted. That’s what we need to do. Seem to act separately....but act together.”
“To do what?” Mariarta whispered.
“We’re still working on that,” Konrad said. “Be a few months before the details are in place.”
Mariarta knew the sound of an almost-stranger being told to mind her business. “No,” Theo said. “Mati...you know what we need. We’re our own people. We need our own judges. Not foreigners who don’t know our customs. We need our own councils to parcel out land; our own guards or enforcers to see the laws fairly kept. If there has to be an empire, fine. But let the people be our own people who make and enforce the Empire’s laws, as it was under the Old Emperor. And us answerable to the Throne directly, not to rich lords who see us as a way to make a profit.”
“Their armies,” Mariarta said after a few moments. “If we defy them, they’ll come.”
Theo beamed at her, and Mariarta realized she had said we. “So they will,” Walter said. “That’s the next thing to work on. But for the moment...we make plans. Quieter than making swords.”
“And cheaper,” Theo muttered. “Money’s another problem.” He looked at Mariarta thoughtfully. “What are your plans?”
“I ought to go back up the Schachen,” Mariarta said after a moment. “I can come again, though. A couple of weeks.”
“Would you help?” Walter said.
Mariarta looked at her wine cup, as Reiskeipf’s face appeared in her mind, now indelibly part slobbering pug-dog. “A bailiff killed my father, partly. I would help, if you would have me. If you can think of something I can do.”
The two men glanced at each other, then at Mariarta. “Mati, is it,” Walter said, holding out his hand.
“Mariarta,” she said, “but Mattiu at the moment, I think: unless there’s some other kind of need.” She took Walter’s hand.
