Raetian Tales 1: A Wind from the South Read Free Page B

spring race that the boys do, ringing the bells to wake the grass. Urs caught Mariarta’s eye, grinning. He was skinny and dark-haired, and his eyes always glittered as if a joke was waiting to come out. Mariarta grinned back at him: he was one of her particular friends.
    At the same moment Crutscha bellowed louder than ever, hitting the half-door with one horn, so that Mariarta almost fell off it. Then Crutscha put her head over the door and reached out toward Urs, sticking her tongue out as if she wanted to lick the bell.
    “Is that it,” Gion said then. “Here, Urs, bring it over. That’s it, Flep. She wants to be in the pasture, the good creature.”
    He opened the half door. “Come here then, you beast, come on,” he said, and put the bell on Crutscha. She mooed, a much more cheerful sound, shaking her head so the bell rang loud in the small space. Then she turned straight to her manger. Shortly no sound was to be heard but satisfied crunching, and the bong, bong of the bell as she moved.
    “That’s her made happy,” Gion said. “But the grass up there must be ready now. We’ll ask the mistral about taking them up, eh Mati?”
    “I’ll tell bab she’s eating again,” Mariarta said, and went back up the track to the street.
    Urs went with her. “Is it really a scolar? ” he whispered. “Did you see his book?”
    “A mistral ’s daughter doesn’t babble news,” she said proudly. Urs made a face at her, as he always did when he thought she was acting important. She grimaced. “I didn’t see it. But he has a bag he wears on his back. I bet it’s in there.”
    “Maybe he has gold,” Urs said, awed by the thought.
    Mariarta looked at him scornfully. “You orob , you know scolars are always poor. It’s other people they always give the gold to.”
    “Are you really going to look in the bag?” Urs said, as they stopped by the mill. “You won’t do it. You’ll be afraid your father will catch you.” His eyes glittered, wicked and cheerful. “And there’s probably a spell on the bag—monsters will come out and hack you up so fine the hens’ll be able to peck you up.”
    “I’m not afraid,” Mariarta hissed at him. She ran off, feeling furious. Urs always teased her until she itched with anger, as if the föhn was blowing, and he made her do things to show she was brave. Then she would get in trouble with her bab or mam.   Orob!   she thought again.
    But she was going to look inside that bag.
     
    •
     
    It was a long time before Mariarta got her chance. Dinner had to be gotten through first. Still, it was hard to be impatient with that night’s dinner.
    This time of year was not much different from winter in terms of what you got to eat. There might be toasted cheese, and some cold wheat porridge from the morning, sliced and fried in lard, or on Sundays, in butter. There would be a piece of wheat bread, or some oat bread if the wheat was getting scarce. It was a long time since the pig was killed; a scrap of bacon from the dwindling flitches hanging smoke-blackened in the chimney, or a chunk from the salt-meat crock, might go into a pot of barley soup for Sunday dinner; but until the sow farrowed, this would get less likely. To drink, there would be barley-water, for the cows weren’t yet in milk. The supplies in the pantry were dwindling, and would do so until summer. Mariarta had been watching her mother’s worried looks at the store cupboards, and noticed how their key never left her mam’s belt.
    So when Mariarta returned and was set to scrubbing the big table in the kitchen, she was astonished to see the porridge that had been boiling now set aside. The smaller butter-tub sat on the sideboard, with a great scoop out of it; and one of the old dry-spiced sausages that her mam tempted her bab with. Ten whole slices of it lay on one of the earthen plates: soup that smelled of oats and bacon was simmering in the pot that hung from the crane. Her mam was rasping half a hard sweet