The Snow Song Page 2

  When Edith had finished she said, ‘I didn’t understand that story when my grandmother first told me it. I thought it must be missing a part. I know now it is about love that lies within us. Love is greater than a tall house and chest of gold.’

  Demetrius kissed her. ‘You don’t know how wise you are,’ he said.

  Demetrius asked the cabinet maker for Edith’s hand. The shepherd was not from these parts and therefore was considered an outsider and not a suitable husband. But in a drunken moment Edith’s father weakened and gave his consent to their betrothal. With sobriety came regret.

  The butcher had long let it be known that he wanted Edith for his wife. The cabinet maker, hat in hand, with a sore head and a worried heart, paid a visit to the butcher to tell him what he had done. The butcher was skinning rabbits at the time. He didn’t look up from his work.

  He said, ‘The lambing season’s nearly over.’

  ‘That’s so,’ said the cabinet maker.

  The butcher wiped his knife on his apron and said, ‘The shepherd will soon take his flock to graze farther afield.’

  The cabinet maker hadn’t thought of that.

  ‘You are her father. Tell them they can’t be married until after the harvest supper and not a day before. As for Edith – make her swear on her dead mother’s bible that if the shepherd isn’t back by the first snowfall, she will marry me. If she does that – swear, I mean, in front of the mayor – then you can forget about the money you owe me.’

  The cabinet maker walked home with a spring in his step. All would be well, he told himself. He would stop drinking, turn his business round. And with each step he began to spin himself a tall tale from thin thread.

  The cabinet maker told the young couple his terms.

  ‘Then we’ll be married on St Catherine’s Day,’ said Demetrius.

  ‘The saint of old maids,’ said Edith.

  ‘Can you wait that long?’ the cabinet maker said to Demetrius. ‘Wouldn’t you like a younger girl? More available? From another village, perhaps?’

  ‘No,’ said Demetrius.

  ‘Someone more like you?’

  ‘In what way, like me?’

  ‘A gypsy,’ said the cabinet maker.

  ‘I’ve not an ounce of gypsy blood in me,’ said Demetrius, laughing. ‘More’s the pity.’

  The cabinet maker, intending the suggestion as an insult, hadn’t expected such a response. The humour of his future son-in-law irritated him and he scurried away as might a cockroach, congratulating himself that he hadn’t disclosed the last part of the butcher’s request. He would tell Edith tomorrow when the shepherd was seeing to his lambs.

  ‘I doubt you’ll find that funny, gypsy,’ he muttered and lifted the bottle to his lips.

  The thought that he’d outwitted the shepherd pleased the cabinet maker. What could the shepherd do when he found out Edith was promised to another man? Nothing. Like the rest of us, he thought, he’ll be under the butcher’s boot.

  That night, when they were alone, Edith gave Demetrius her gold coin. He didn’t know the custom of the region and she told him it was a token of her love and represented a bond between them that couldn’t be broken. He put his arms about her and held her close, and promised on his life it never would be.

  ‘On our wedding day,’ she said to him, ‘we will put this coin under our mattress and there it will stay to be handed down to our daughter when it’s her turn to choose a husband.’

  He kissed her. ‘When I come back at harvest time, I’ll bring you a ring.’

  ‘And I’ll give you the red shirt that I’ll sew for you to be married in.’

  Chapter Three

  Her Mother’s Bible

  ‘This is foolish,’ Edith said to her father when he told her what the butcher wanted. ‘I’m to be married to Demetrius. I will never marry the butcher. How much do you owe him?’

  ‘Nothing to do with you,’ said the cabinet maker. ‘That’s my business. But if it’s not done today the butcher will forbid the elders from letting your wedding go ahead.’

  ‘I want to speak to Demetrius first,’ Edith said. ‘Surely it can wait until tomorrow.’

  ‘No, it can’t,’ said the cabinet maker. ‘There will be no marriage unless you swear.’

  Edith looked at his purple blushed face, the wine-red veins that inked his puffy features. How could this man be her father? They had nothing in common other than they lived under the same roof – and a leaky roof at that. She tried to think of one loving memory she had of him and couldn’t.

  ‘Well? What do you say?’ He came towards her and she stepped back. ‘Don’t you trust the gypsy to keep his word? Is that it?’

  He poured himself a glass, his hands trembling. ‘You’ll do as you’re told. Swear on your mother’s bible.’

  However much she hated the idea, she knew, as did every other village girl, that without the consent of the elders nothing happened in this community – and the head of the village elders was the butcher himself. Her freedom lay with the shepherd. She had to trust that Demetrius would return to her before the first snowfall.

  ‘Why wouldn’t he?’ she said defiantly to herself. ‘Why wouldn’t he?’ she said again as reluctantly she went to find her mother’s bible.

  ‘No, no,’ said her father when Edith returned with it and began to take the oath. ‘Not here; this has to be witnessed. It has to be proper.’

  ‘Witnessed by whom?’

  ‘The mayor.’

  ‘Father, I’m marrying Demetrius.’

  The cabinet maker put on his hat.

  ‘Wait,’ said Edith and before she could stop him he had taken a firm hold of her arm and they’d set off through the yard, her father kicking the hens out of his way as they went.

  She noted that her father showed the same determination to have this oath done as he normally would when in search of a bottle of wine.

  The mayor’s house was painted yellow ochre and was far more substantial than any of the other houses. The mayor and his wife, Georgeta, had a son, a sickly young man who was away at university. The mayor employed two maids and a cook, unheard of in a small mountain village. He had been born into privilege, yet for all his fine clothes, his library and chain of office everyone knew who held the power. Not the mayor but the butcher.

  One of the maids came to the door to say her master was not at home.

  ‘Poppycock,’ said the cabinet maker, pushing her aside. ‘Don’t stand there, girl, go and get him.’

  The maid tried again. ‘As I said, the mayor…’

  ‘This won’t take long,’ said the cabinet maker who was a bottle short of sobriety.

  The mayor’s wife, hurried into the hall to see who was causing the fuss. She was a tall, striking woman, cleverer than her husband, and had been married to him long enough to be deeply disappointed by him. Unlike the other women in the village she wore modern dress and still after many years was regarded as a newcomer. Her only friend had been Edith’s grandmother.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she said.

  She was perplexed to see Edith was holding a bible.

  ‘No,’ said the cabinet maker. ‘Women only complicate matters. I want to see the mayor.’

  ‘Is it about the wedding?’

  ‘Yes. And I want to see the mayor.’

  Edith, her head bowed, wished she’d been able to tell Demetrius where she was going before she’d been dragged here. She knew there was something inherently wrong in what was being asked of her.

  ‘I haven’t congratulated you on your engagement,’ said Georgeta to Edith.

  Edith thanked her.

  ‘You must be delighted,’ said Georgeta to the cabinet maker.

  ‘What, me?’ said the cabinet maker. ‘Why should I be delighted? Would you be pleased if your son married a gypsy?’

  The question remained unanswered.

  Impatiently, he looked round the hall, then, his words slipping together, he said, ‘Edith must swear on her mother’s bi
ble.’

  ‘Why? What must she swear?’

  ‘Oh, you wouldn’t understand.’

  The commotion outside his study had woken the mayor from his afternoon sleep. He sat up, brushing his hair back. The mayor retained about him the shadow of the handsome young man who was used to having all he wanted without the inconvenience of trying. He enjoyed the idea of being mayor more than the work the role demanded of him, for he was lazy by nature, but he’d had the good fortune to marry a woman who wasn’t.

  ‘Tell them to come in,’ he called into the hall.

  ‘About time,’ said the cabinet maker. He marched into the study and stood in front of the mayor’s desk.

  ‘What’s all this about?’ said the mayor. He looked at his wife who shrugged. He looked at Edith.

  ‘I want you to witness Edith swearing that if the shepherd isn’t back by first snowfall, she will marry the butcher.’

  At the word ‘butcher’ the mayor’s attitude changed. He sat up a little straighter, his expression became more serious. This Edith noted.

  ‘I want it written down,’ said her father, slapping the mayor’s desk. ‘On proper paper with the letters at the top, that you witnessed Edith’s oath and what she swore to.’ He swayed a little.

  Georgeta put her hand lightly on Edith’s arm.

  ‘This isn’t right,’ she said to the mayor. ‘How can it be? Edith is betrothed to the shepherd – her father consented. How can she now be contracted to the butcher? It’s not… it’s not moral.’

  She threw the last word at her husband. He looked away from her and said, ‘Thank you, Georgeta, you may go.’

  As the cabinet maker began to tell the mayor all over again what was required, Georgeta whispered to Edith, ‘You mustn’t do this, my dear. You don’t have to.’

  ‘I have no choice,’ Edith whispered back. ‘But don’t worry, Demetrius will be back for the harvest supper.’

  ‘I hope so,’ said Georgeta and kissed her cheek before she left the room.

  It wasn’t from naivety that Edith complied but from a certainty that her love would be as true as the snow that fell every winter. Though she had to admit to a nagging voice inside her head that said, ‘You are tempting fate.’

  That evening she went to find Demetrius and they walked hand in hand down to the old forge. The air smelled of spring, of new beginnings. Tentatively, she told him what had happened.

  He listened then said, ‘What a foolish man the butcher must be. An old dog marking trees.’ He stopped when he saw the worry in her smile and said, reassuringly, ‘Nothing will come of it.’

  How empty the word ‘nothing’ sounded to Edith. It was a word she knew all too well. Nothing had been her life before Demetrius had appeared.

  ‘I’ll be back,’ he said. ‘Don’t be upset.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have sworn on my mother’s bible.’

  ‘It makes no difference, my love. If it’s the only way your father will agree to our marriage, what does it matter? We’ll be married well before the first snow.’

  ‘It seems so long to wait until we can be together,’ she said and kissed him hungrily.

  He held her tight. ‘We are together. No man can separate us.’

  The village being small and gossip cheap, and love a rare thing hardly ever seen, the neighbours’ talk was all of Edith and her shepherd. They had been taken aback by how fast she had agreed to marry him, especially when they considered all the eligible suitors she had turned down. But the gossip that stayed on their lips and in their minds was the news that Edith had sworn on her dead mother’s bible to marry the butcher if the shepherd didn’t return by snowfall.

  ‘No – never,’ said Una, the butcher’s daughter, when she heard.

  ‘It’s true,’ said her sister, Vanda. ‘The cabinet maker had the paper signed by the mayor and then he gave it to our father.’

  ‘Never,’ said Una again. ‘It will never happen.’

  Chapter Four

  A Dead Lamb’s Fleece

  Demetrius dreamed he was standing with Edith by the small stream beyond the orchard at the end of her garden. The sun was setting, and Edith was laughing as she criss-crossed the water. In her hand was a small bunch of snowdrops. He followed her and back and forth they went in the same rhythm until he realised that he was on the far side of the stream which was now a river. Edith called to him and each time she was further away until she was lost in the mist.

  With a gasp Demetrius woke, drowning, into the dawn of a new day.

  All that morning, the dream stubbornly stayed with him as he and his dog checked the flock. He rounded up the three ewes that hadn’t yet given birth, and took into the pen a lamb whose mother had rejected it. Soon there would be no more excuses to stay. Tomorrow, the next day, he would take his flock up into the mountain. He was so lost in the dream of Edith that he was unaware of a well-built, compact young man standing a little way off, staring at him. Demetrius wondered why his dog hadn’t barked.

  ‘Good morning,’ called Demetrius.

  The young man didn’t answer.

  He continued with his work. One of the ewes was in trouble and gave birth to a dead lamb, bleating out her misery. He left the carcass on a bale of straw near where the abandoned lamb was penned. He was busy with another sheep when he saw the young man picking up the dead lamb.

  Demetrius asked what he was doing but the young man didn’t reply.

  Strange, thought Demetrius, but he would have to deal with it later. It was only after he’d checked the other ewes that the young man reappeared, carrying the abandoned lamb. He’d covered it in the dead lamb’s fleece.

  Demetrius put the lamb in the pen with the bereaved ewe and they watched as she began to suckle it as if it were her own.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Demetrius. ‘You did that very well. What’s your name?’

  He waited and he thought the lad might not have heard him so he repeated the question.

  The young man, turning his head to one side, said, ‘My name is Misha.’

  ‘Can you hear?’ Demetrius asked him.

  ‘One ear only,’ said Misha. His lack of hearing caused his words to come out slowly as if he was gathering his sentences together.

  Demetrius held out his hand and invited Misha to share his breakfast. They sat down to eat the bread that Edith had baked for him, with cheese, honey and sweet tea.

  ‘You’re going to marry the cabinet maker’s daughter,’ said Misha.

  ‘Yes,’ said Demetrius.

  ‘Good. And you will be back before snowfall.’

  Demetrius laughed. ‘Is there anyone in the village who hasn’t heard about the oath?’

  Misha didn’t laugh. ‘You must be back,’ he said.

  ‘I will be,’ said Demetrius. And for a reason he didn’t fully understand he told Misha about his dream, and the uneasy feeling it had left him with.

  ‘You’ll think me stupid,’ he added.

  ‘No,’ said Misha. ‘Stupid is my role, not yours. You’re the stranger, the lover. I’m the idiot.’

  Demetrius chose not to reply to that but said, ‘I fear something might happen to Edith while I’m away. This is the first spring since becoming a shepherd that I wished I didn’t have to leave.’

  ‘I’ll look out for her.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Demetrius and wondered why he felt no better for having spoken about his fears.

  The morning went well. Demetrius didn’t ask Misha to help but he was happy to have some company and they worked hard until for no apparent reason his dog began to whine.

  ‘Quiet,’ said Demetrius.

  Then, near the barn where the farmer allowed him to sleep, he saw a man, broad-shouldered, square-shaped. He was watching them.

  Misha saw him too and all his confidence left him and it seemed to Demetrius that he shivered to the size of a child as the man approached. Demetrius calmed the dog, thinking there was something menacing about him.

  ‘How long until you are gone, she
pherd?’ asked the man.

  ‘A matter of days,’ Demetrius replied.

  The man turned to Misha. ‘Tell your mother I want her to clean the house. If not her, then her sister.’ Misha didn’t move. ‘Do you hear me, you half-wit?’

  ‘No, he didn’t,’ said Demetrius. ‘He’s deaf in one ear.’

  ‘And who are you to tell me what my grandson is?’

  The word ‘grandson’ took Demetrius by surprise.

  ‘This idiot,’ said the man, grabbing Misha by the ear, ‘is daft not deaf. Isn’t that right?’

  Misha twisted his whole body so he could hear his grandfather.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  His grandfather let go of him. ‘Tell this shepherd what I don’t like.’

  Demetrius could see Misha concentrating on every word and piecing them together.

  ‘I don’t like…’ the man repeated.

  ‘Strangers,’ said Misha, keeping his eyes on the ground. He knew what was coming, there was no need to read his grandfather’s lips.

  ‘I don’t like…’

  ‘Gypsies.’

  ‘I don’t like… tell him,’ said the man and he clipped his grandson across the head. ‘Tell him!’

  ‘Village girls marrying strangers.’

  ‘Out of the mouth of an idiot comes the truth. The sooner you leave, shepherd, the better.’ As he strolled away he shouted to Misha, ‘Don’t forget to tell your mother.’

  When he’d gone Misha picked up his coat.

  ‘Please – stay a while,’ said Demetrius. ‘You’ve been more than helpful.’

  ‘I hate him,’ muttered Misha. ‘I hate him. He ruins everything.’

  ‘You’re not an idiot,’ said Demetrius. ‘You’re deaf in one ear.’

  ‘In this village, I’m an idiot. Born stupid, nothing in my brain, and whatever anyone tells me falls out, forgotten, the second it has gone in. I will instantly forget what he asked me to do. My mother won’t clean his house, anyway. I work for the blacksmith, but he’s wary of me because of my grandfather.’