The Snow Song Read online

  ‘Why? Who is he?’ asked Demetrius.

  ‘He’s the butcher.’

  The word hit Demetrius so hard that he felt it as a physical blow, taking his breath away.

  ‘The butcher?’ he said, stunned.

  He had been a fool. He should have realised the implications when Edith told him of the promise she’d made but he’d seen it as a simple piece of nonsense. Now he felt a cold dread and the image of Edith alone on the other side of the river came back to him.

  Misha said, quietly, ‘I’m sorry, I was stupid, I should’ve…’

  Demetrius put a hand on his shoulder. ‘You are far from stupid. I’m the idiot, not you. I have to leave…’ He stopped, seeing the anxiety on Misha’s face. ‘Can you read?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, Edith taught me. I have one book – of fairy tales.’

  Demetrius opened his rucksack.

  ‘Here,’ he said. ‘It’s a book I like and you might too. It’s about a man in the time of the Thirty Years’ War who everyone thinks is a simpleton. He isn’t.’

  Misha took the book, an expression of genuine wonder on his face.

  ‘You’ll lend this book to me?’

  ‘No, it’s yours to keep.’

  ‘That makes two books. I’m a king of two books,’ he laughed. ‘Thank you.’

  Demetrius noticed that he carefully hid the book in his coat.

  Chapter Five

  From the One

  By the time Demetrius and Misha said goodbye, it had started to rain. The farm was a fair walk from the village and below Demetrius could see the houses huddled together, smoke coming from the chimneys. From a distance it looked as if it belonged in a children’s book. Yet nothing was that simple, except his love for Edith. She had become the reason for everything. The moment he first saw her he knew he’d waited perhaps many lifetimes to find her. As he neared the cabinet maker’s house, the feeling of apprehension in him grew. He had hardly thought about the butcher before, but now he knew him to be a cruel man of sharp edges and granite determination. And the thought came to him, as heavy as thunder, too terrible to contemplate, that the dream was a warning.

  ‘No,’ he said aloud, almost shaking himself. ‘That will never happen.’

  He cursed himself for judging the butcher to be unimportant.

  The rain was dancing in the puddles as he opened the gate to the yard. The hens had taken cover under the verandah, as had the pig. Demetrius pushed it aside and stood in the doorway.

  The cabinet maker was ranting.

  ‘And when do I have time for that? You expect me to work all day and then come home and mend the house?’

  ‘Other men do,’ said Edith and muttered something that Demetrius didn’t catch.

  ‘What?’ said her father. ‘What did you say?’

  Edith put down a bucket and straightened herself.

  ‘I said, if you were sober you could earn the money to repair the roof.’

  ‘Not another word from you, girl,’ said the cabinet maker, lifting his hand.

  Demetrius caught it before it struck Edith. Her father tried to free himself but with one swift movement Demetrius had him seated in a chair.

  The cabinet maker was so surprised that for a moment he was quiet.

  ‘I’ve come to mend the roof,’ said Demetrius.

  ‘Go away,’ shouted the cabinet maker. ‘I regret that I ever…’ he stopped.

  Demetrius never took his light blue eyes off him.

  He waited until all the anger was gone, then said, ‘You will help me.’

  Edith watched, incredulous, as her father followed Demetrius like a lamb and went to work. By the time the rain had stopped that evening the roof leaked no more.

  ‘How did you do that?’ Edith asked Demetrius after the supper plates were cleared away and the cabinet maker had retired to the inn.

  ‘I don’t know, but it works with sheep. It’s a knack that will be useful when dealing with your father after we’re married.’

  Demetrius decided not to tell her about the butcher’s visit. Not that evening for it was their last until he returned. He played the violin as he had many nights and willed his soul to never leave hers. He felt that he had lived in shadows and only now in her silent gaze of love was there light.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ he asked Edith as he put his violin away.

  What she had been thinking was that he was the first person, apart from her grandmother, who had ever valued her, ever seen her for herself. But she didn’t say that.

  What she said was, ‘Why do you love me? I have no worth in this village, I have no dowry.’

  ‘I knew when I first saw you that all that I would be, and all that I could be, lay with you,’ he said.

  ‘I feel the same,’ said Edith. ‘You are the clearing in the forest, a place of safety.’

  ‘Why a clearing in a forest?’ he asked.

  ‘My grandmother used to say the forest is the darkest place we know. We imagine it to be full of wolves, bears and the bloodless. There we hope to find the storyteller’s cabin, a place of safety, and to pick the berries that are redder than a red rose. I think love lies in the same forest and is no less hard to find.’

  ‘Then we’re blessed,’ he said.

  They talked into the night, his lips gentle on her cheek as he whispered words of love. Their fingers entwined, they leaned closer together until they could feel the warmth of the other’s body.

  The cabinet maker staggered into the yard that night cursing moon and man. He didn’t see them as two people. He saw them as one and was thrown when from the one Demetrius stood up.

  ‘Go home,’ shouted the cabinet maker. ‘Go home.’

  The following morning Edith went out before dawn, still in her nightdress, in the hope that she might stop the time from gathering hours. She walked down to the orchard to where the stream ran and the air smelled of lilac blossom. She sat holding her knees as the world changed colour and the ducks laughed at the light of the new day.

  Then she saw him and his little dog in the sunlight and for a moment it seemed that he was on the other side of a great river, not a stream. She stood up and, not minding her bare feet, she ran to him.

  ‘I’ll be back for the harvest supper,’ he said. He took her hand and kissed her palm. ‘Remember, I will love you always. Nothing – not even death – will change that.’

  With unbearable sadness she watched as his flock, their bells jingling, made their way up the mountain to the green pastures.

  Chapter Six

  Who Has Lost It Ever Grieves

  Edith told herself spring would soon pass and summer would tumble into autumn and Demetrius would return. Perhaps, this time next year, they would be expecting a baby, a new voice to echo in the mountains. These thoughts in their simplicity comforted her.

  She remembered her grandmother’s stories about a pair of boots that could stride up mountains as if they were molehills, that could stand in lakes and think them puddles. If only she had such a pair of boots, she thought, she would be gone from this place, from her drunken father. She would climb the mountain, she would find Demetrius and stay with him. She felt the longing in every bone and muscle – but she didn’t leave. She and Demetrius would never be accepted as a married couple if it was known she’d run after her lover. She must be patient. In her dreams she nightly found him under a different moon.

  The sun became hotter; the grass dried yellow, scattered with poppies. The swallows ruled the sky and the village streets became dusty. Edith’s skin turned brown. Her garden grew, as did her corn. All the days were the same, as if time, made soporific by the sun, had forgotten to move the hands of the clock. In the evening she would sit on the verandah sewing Demetrius’ red shirt, her eyes on the mountain, noting every passing hour. He would have taken his flock high up where the wind was cool and where there were fewer flies to bother the sheep. Amid the green grass, the young lambs would grow strong legs, ready to be sold in the harvest markets. She counted
the days until the shepherd’s return. Never once did she doubt him or his love of her.

  She saw her marriage as a new beginning, an escape from her father, a man who had never cherished her. With Demetrius, there was a chance to start again with a clean piece of cloth on which a different future could be embroidered.

  The remoteness of the village meant there were few visitors, even in the summer months. No one ventured that far up the mountain and only the men of the village ever went down to the town to bring back salt, sugar, things that couldn’t be made or grown on the land.

  One day a hunting party arrived at the inn. It was ill-prepared for such a large, raucous group of guests. The huntsmen required rooms, wine and food and drank late into the night, throwing the small inn into chaos. The innkeeper had to ask for help from the village women so the guest rooms could be aired and cleaned. An incident occurred and the innkeeper called upon the mayor to lay down the law.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Edith.

  ‘Nothing,’ said her father, swaying. ‘Just a piece of harmless fun. And anyway, Sorina enjoyed it.’

  Sorina was the butcher’s granddaughter.

  ‘She is fifteen. What harmless fun?’ asked Edith.

  ‘You’d know if you were married.’

  ‘How many huntsmen are there?’ she asked.

  ‘Four or five.’

  ‘Have you seen them?’

  ‘Seen them, talked to them. They want a guide.’

  ‘Guide to where?’ asked Edith.

  ‘Up the mountain,’ said the cabinet maker. ‘They’re wealthy merchants – by the look of them they’ve never done a day’s hard work in their lives. Only used to the weight of a pen. They don’t wear boots. Who wears shoes to climb a mountain?’

  ‘What are they hunting?’ asked Edith.

  ‘Bear,’ said her father, ‘and pretty young girls.’ He roared with laughter. ‘One of them wants to go high into the mountain. The butcher offered to take him.’

  That was all the sense she could make of her father’s ramblings.

  Edith didn’t give the hunting party another thought. Neither did she see them on their way back down the mountain. They stayed one more night at the inn, complaining that the weather had been against them and they’d had no luck with the bear.

  ‘Sorina is smitten by one of the young men,’ or so the cabinet maker said.

  Edith thought, what could he know of love?

  Summer began to fade. The heat lingered but the nights had a slight chill to them. The red shirt was finished and in a matter of days it would be the harvest supper.

  ‘I don’t believe he’s coming back,’ said Edith’s father one night.

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking – why would he want you? You’d bring him nothing, no dowry, nothing.’

  ‘He will be back,’ said Edith.

  The cabinet maker threw up his arms. ‘All I’m saying is perhaps…’ He lost his balance and sat down abruptly. ‘Perhaps you should think of the chickens you have in the yard instead of dreaming of the cockerel you’ll never own.’

  ‘Where did you find that pearl of wisdom?’

  ‘It’s just that the butcher…’

  The butcher. Edith shuddered. She felt as if someone was standing on her grave.

  She stood up straight and said, ‘I’m betrothed to Demetrius, and it is he who I will marry.’

  ‘If he comes back,’ said her father. ‘Personally, I think he would be a fool to come here again. What have you to offer him? Just some pretty stitches on a red shirt.’

  ‘He will be here,’ said Edith.

  The promise to the butcher – or rather the idea that the promise might not be kept – now worried the cabinet maker. And being a man without the ability to keep his worries to himself, he imprudently confessed them to the butcher. But the butcher seemed remarkably unconcerned.

  ‘There was no betrothal supper, was there?’ the butcher asked, and before the cabinet maker could think of a coherent answer, he continued, ‘If there was one I don’t remember being invited nor were the other village elders. I ask myself, what kind of wedding would it be without keeping the traditions of this village?’

  ‘You’re right,’ said the cabinet maker. ‘But what if…’

  ‘Go home,’ said the butcher, ‘and don’t worry yourself needlessly. If he comes back, then he comes back.’

  Yes, thought the cabinet maker, if the shepherd returns I will tell him, God be my witness, that he can’t marry Edith. A bottle of plum brandy was enough for him to turn a shepherd into a lamb.

  The next day, a cartload of logs for the winter arrived at the cabinet maker’s yard, and the sight of them gave the old drunk hope.

  ‘What other deal have you done with the butcher?’ asked Edith.

  It wasn’t a word of a lie when her father said, ‘None that I know of,’ and, tucking a bottle of plum brandy under his arm, went off to his bed.

  ‘Wait,’ said Edith. ‘Where did that come from?’

  ‘What? Now can’t a man have a drink in his own house?’

  Edith had misjudged his sobriety. He caught hold of her.

  ‘You will marry the butcher, do you hear me, girl?’ he said and struck her across the face. ‘You will marry the butcher.’

  Edith felt she’d waited an eternity for this day. Her face still bore the faint mark of a bluish bruise but it didn’t matter. She had spent the past week thinking what she was going to wear. Now, at last, the day was here. Dressed in her finest petticoat, her second-best embroidered skirt and with flowers laced in her hair, she joined the women of the village to cook the harvest supper.

  Edith could hardly think of anything except Demetrius coming home to her. She was lost in a daydream when the miller’s wife took her aside and told her she was lucky that the butcher was willing to wait so long for her.

  ‘He can wait as long as he likes,’ said Edith. ‘I won’t be marrying him.’

  ‘I heard you made a promise,’ said the miller’s wife, ‘in front of the mayor.’

  ‘I made a promise to Demetrius, and it is he who I’m marrying,’ said Edith. ‘He’ll be back tonight – you’ll see.’

  Edith had never much liked the miller’s wife or the miller’s son who had married her best friend. Lena’s mother, a widow, had given her no choice but to marry a suitor chosen for her by the village elders. Lena was twenty, the same age as Edith, and now there was a sharpness about her that hadn’t been there before.

  ‘Edith,’ Lena said, ‘do you honestly think your shepherd, with his midnight looks, gives any thought to you? I doubt it. I imagine that wherever he plays his violin, there’s a girl waiting.’

  ‘You’re just jealous because I’m marrying a man I love, not someone the elders say I should marry.’

  ‘It’s tradition,’ said Lena. ‘To make sure we keep outsiders out.’

  ‘Perhaps we should welcome a few more in.’

  The butcher’s granddaughter, Sorina, teased her. ‘Did his kisses taste of strawberries? Did he steal your gold coin?’

  ‘Don’t be so silly,’ said Edith. ‘You’re far too young to know what you’re talking about. Now go and help with the cooking.’

  ‘Grandpa said you’ll be marrying him,’ she said.

  ‘Your grandpa is wrong because I won’t,’ said Edith.

  Three times that day, she saw Demetrius, felt his hand on her shoulder, spun round to find nothing there but wind and shadow.

  The night came. The full moon stared down on the small village nestling in the arms of the mountain, the church at its centre surrounded by fortified walls, the houses close together in their gabled splendour, all brightly painted, each with an inscription rendered in neat lettering. The verse on the cabinet maker’s house read:

  Tell me for what gold is fit?

  Who has got none longs for it.

  Who has got it, fears for thieves.

  Who has lost it ever grieves.

  A
truth Edith’s father had never heeded.

  The bells rang out into the mountain, and the women sang, as they had for centuries, to call the men in from the fields. The long table in the middle of the village hall was covered in an embroidered cloth, jugs of wine, painted plates piled high with food. One by one the men entered, took off their hats and took their places at the table, until there was only one empty seat: that of the shepherd.

  And a whisper like a late summer wasp went round the hall. ‘If he doesn’t come back soon, Edith will have to marry the butcher.’

  His two stiff, matronly daughters looked on, disapproving.

  Edith didn’t eat. She stared at the door, willing the shepherd to appear even at this late hour, willing him so hard that if dust could gather itself together she would have conjured him from its particles. After the plates were cleared, the band began to play, and the lads and lasses took their positions on the dance floor. Edith stood motionless, not daring to move. If not today, then tomorrow. Yes, he will be here tomorrow.

  ‘Where’s your shepherd then?’ It was the butcher.

  Edith held herself straight. ‘Tomorrow,’ she said. ‘He will be back tomorrow.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said the butcher.

  With his words echoing in her ears, Edith helped her father to their door.

  Chapter Seven

  The Root of Her Tongue

  Tomorrow came and there was no sign of Demetrius, nor was there the day after. Edith went over everything that could have happened to him, until dread flooded through her. She asked the shepherds who had been at the harvest supper if they had seen him and none of them had.

  With every passing day, her father’s mood improved. The wind began to blow in autumn; the leaves, skittish in their falling, heralded the snow to come.

  ‘The days are getting shorter. Soon it will be winter,’ he said, rubbing his hands together, glad he’d had the foresight to make Edith swear the oath in the mayor’s office. ‘Demetrius – if that is his name – probably stole the sheep and took them to the next village. I know many a farmer who would have bought them. What do you say to that, girl? He’s off somewhere else – back to his wife.’