Raetian Tales 1: A Wind from the South by Diane Duane Read Free Book Online Page A

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