Raetian Tales 1: A Wind from the South Read Online Free

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