Zel (4 page)

“You’re offering me peasant bread?” The youth takes it without touching her fingers. He breathes deeply of its pungent aroma. He breaks off a corner, chews slowly. “You made this?”

“I helped Mother.” Zel did some of the kneading, after all.

The youth takes another bite. “It’s not bad.” He looks Zel up and down.

Zel shifts uncomfortably under his gaze. The mare presses against her chest, asking to be petted again. Zel leans into the pressure of the mare’s head, grateful for the excuse to give the horse her attention. She scratches the honey-colored coat with vigor, her hands moving upward.

The mare throws her head with a loud snort.

“Be careful,” says the youth. “Meta’s left ear hurts.”

Zel drops her hands. Meta. A fine and proper name.

“The hind hooves are finished,” says the smith, his
voice gruff. He comes around the horse and sees the youth. He clears his throat. “The forehooves can wait, sire.” He leans the large file against the water barrel.

“Take a look in this ear.”

“It might be best to wait for my brother.”

The youth shakes his head. “I came back now just to tell you about her ear.” He glances at Zel, then back to the smith. His voice grows strained. “Take a look.”

Zel watches this exchange in wonder. The youth owns the horse named Meta. So he is definitely a youth of means. But the smith is old enough to be his father. Zel has seen young and old interact. She knows that youth shows deference to age. Who is this youth who orders the smith around?

“As you wish, sire.” The smith rubs his hands on a cloth. He pulls a short rope and a wooden peg from his pocket. The rope is much finer than those that hold the mare to the posts. He threads the rope through a hole in one end of the peg and ties it into a loop. Then he grabs the mare’s top lip and slips the loop around it. He turns the peg, tightening the loop. The mare’s lip bunches together and protrudes over her now bared teeth.

Zel understands immediately: This way the smith can look in the mare’s left ear, knowing pain will stop her from moving her head even the slightest bit.

Still, the horse is clever. She stomps with her left forefoot. She will not yield gently.

The smith hesitates. And Zel can see the problem: How will he be able to work on the mare if he must use one hand to hold the peg? His Adam’s apple moves up and down as he swallows. “This is my brother’s type of task. Your horse knows my brother’s hands. Tomorrow would be a better day.”

The youth lifts his chin. Zel can see the muscles of his cheeks tighten.

She speaks on impulse: “I’ll hold her head still. It’s the lip rope that she despises.” Zel deftly takes the peg and untwists it before they can object. The loop slips off. The mare lowers her head and presses against Zel once more. Zel hugs both arms around the mare’s jaw and rests her cheek on the flat between the mare’s eyes. She wills herself to radiate quiet. The mare stands perfectly still.

“Go ahead,” says the youth.

The smith looks in the horse’s left ear. He pokes with one finger. His face goes blank. Then he looks relieved. He jams thumb and index finger into the ear and yanks. He holds the tick up, its legs wiggling in the air, so fat with blood that its hard outer shell shines as if it would explode. “Nothing but a tick, sire.” The smith exhales loudly. He walks to the forge and throws the tick into the coals. In an instant it is black. It pops.

“Good work,” says the youth.

The smith seems encouraged now, almost eager. “I suppose I could do the forehooves if you like, sire.”

The youth doesn’t look at the smith or the mare. His eyes are on Zel. “Yes.”

The smith goes to work.

Zel combs the mare’s forelock with her fingers. Ticks are hideous creatures. She’s glad to be rid of it. Yet its bursting unsettled her. She can hear Mother’s refrain in her head: She must toughen up, be sensible. But she’s all ajangle. The youth’s eyes unsettle her as well. She clutches the halter as though the mare has threatened to run off, but the mare has done nothing. It is Zel who has the urge to run off.

The youth is practically staring at Zel now. He blurts out, “I owe you something.” His hand goes to the coin pouch at his waist.

“What?” Zel brushes off her hands in amazement and steps back from the mare, who immediately stomps. The smith grunts. Zel laughs and steps forward again. She strokes Meta’s neck and looks at the youth. At his eyes. And she knows: Even in such giving words he is imperious. He treats her as he treats the smith. But she didn’t render a service for him; she did it for the mare’s sake. And she certainly didn’t do it for money. “You owe me nothing.”

“You give me bread, you enchant my horse, and you want nothing in return.” The youth rubs the back of his neck.

Zel likes his face. Almost against her will. His fine
brow furrows and a muscle in his jaw twitches. Yes, Zel likes the face of this spoiled youth very much.

“There must be something you want.” He drops his hand and looks at her intently.

His eyes pry. Zel shifts again in her increasing discomfort.

A small smile plays at the corners of the youth’s mouth. “Something.”

Heat rises in Zel’s cheeks. She needs to feel the cool wind of the alm in her face. She shakes her head.

His eyes twinkle. “Think hard.” His voice teases. As though he takes pleasure in her discomfort. Or worse—as though he knows her heart’s desires when she doesn’t know them herself.

Or does she? “Yes,” says Zel all of a sudden. She nods quickly. The idea is perfect. “Yes.”

The youth looks satisfied. “Name your price.”

Zel can hardly keep from shouting. “A goose egg.”

The youth comes a step forward. He cocks his head in disbelief. “A goose egg?”

“A fertilized one that is still warm from the goose.” She can carry it home inside her bodice. She can breathe hot on it. Then she can slide it under the goose. Won’t the lonely goose be overjoyed when the shell cracks and the gosling peeps? “It will make a goose I know very happy.”

The youth grins. “A warm goose egg. All right. I’ll be back shortly.” The youth leaves, almost at a run.

Zel watches him go. His calf muscles bulge. He must be a good climber, like Zel. She never tires of wandering.

The smith finishes the last hoof. He straightens up and rotates his shoulders. He looks at Zel circumspectly. “You don’t live in town, do you?”

“No.”

“Too bad.” He leans against a post. “Do you take care of your own donkey? Your own oxen?”

“We don’t have oxen or donkeys. We have goats. And chickens.” She doesn’t mention the rabbits. Everyone has rabbits.

The smith nods. “Tell you what. Whenever you’re in town, stop by. If I can use your help, I’ll pay you.” He jerks his chin toward Zel’s worn smock. “You could use the money, eh?”

It seems everyone wants to pay Zel today. Town is a place of give and take. But Mother has enough money for their town needs. And what would Zel do with money on the alm? “I’ll come again in winter. If I can be of use, that will be payment enough.”

Mother arrives, her sack full. She looks sharply at the smith. “Come now, Zel. We mustn’t be a bother.”

The smith shakes his head. “No bother.” He looks as if
he would say more, but Mother’s eye is unmistakable: His words are unwelcome.

Zel is annoyed at Mother’s protectiveness. Her first venture alone in town was fabulous. “I have to wait.” She chooses her words for the most effect: “Someone is coming with a gift for me.”

“A gift?” Mother speaks slowly. Her tone shows her displeasure. “What kind of gift?”

“A goose egg.” Zel laughs at her own words. She hopes Mother’s irritation will melt away, just as her own has. “A fertilized one.”

Mother nods. “A gift for the goose, then, not really for you.”

“You don’t have to wait.” The smith looks at Mother nervously. And now the mare turns a yellow, wary eye. The smith says, “When the egg comes, I’ll save it for you. You can stop by and get it on your way home this afternoon.”

“But it must stay warm.” Zel clasps her hands together.

The smith looks at Zel’s face. His own softens a bit. “Warm as a mother goose’s bottom, eh?” He points at her with a finger callous from work. “I’ll keep it safe.”

Zel has no choice but to trust him. “Thank you.”

Mother offers a hand to Zel. She smiles. “I guess this is a day for gifts.”

The smith raises a brow.

“It’s my birthday on the sixth,” says Zel, suddenly thrilled at the thought. But, in fact, giving the egg to the goose will be more wonderful than getting the papers and ink Zel knows are in Mother’s sack.

“Let’s go find the farmer who sells that lettuce you love so much.” Mother wiggles the fingers of the extended hand.

“Oh, yes.” Zel has a taste for a lettuce with small, round leaves that a traveling peddler once gave her. After that, whenever they came to the market, she sought it out and always from the same farmer, who calls her by name. She has asked Mother to grow this lettuce, but Mother refuses, without explanation. Zel can’t wait to make a salad of it tonight.

Maybe today she’ll ask the farmer for seeds so that next spring she can grow it herself. It’s time she tended a garden. After all, in not too many years she’ll be making salad for her own children.

And she must find that oxen cart that was covered with the oilskin and gaze upon its now revealed treasures. And she must listen for the melon crier. And she must drink from the well at the edge of the marketplace as she always does while Mother leans against the huge iron rock beside it. And she must gawk at the flower-bedecked central fountain. And she must visit the cheese-maker to see the giant copper pot where the milk scalds. And, oh, there’s so much to do.

Zel brushes Mother’s hand without taking it as she leaves the smithy. She reaches into her pocket and draws out the licorice stick. She puts it in the side of her mouth and chews. The taste of market day enthralls her.

Chapter 4
Konrad

hot goose egg. Konrad finds himself running. His feet are happy. He has met a remarkable girl, the friend of a goose, an enchantress of horses, who bakes bread heavy with molasses and looks at him with eyes dark and glowing.

As Konrad passes the printer’s shop, the smell of leather and parchment makes him laugh for no reason. He shouts a greeting to the barber surgeon who extracted his father’s brown tooth and replaced it with an ivory one last fall. The man waves in a rush, his hand aglitter with rings.

Konrad spins around and knocks into a woman coming out of the house of the scribe. Her bag falls to the ground. He picks it up, apologizes, races off. Faster, past
all the bustling crowds. The whole world seems to rush, caught in errands, but none so wondrous as Konrad’s.

Konrad arrives at the castle stables and there’s Franz, rubbing oil into a saddle. “Franz!”

Franz blinks into the sunlight. “Yes, sire?”

Konrad imagines himself placing the egg in the girl’s hands and the gratitude on her face. He can do it quickly, a little thing, a gallant gesture. “I need a goose egg.”

Franz blinks again. “You’re hungry? The midday meal will be within the hour.”

“It’s not for . . .” Konrad stops. He realizes he doesn’t want to explain to Franz that he’s on an errand for a mere country girl. “I need a goose egg.” He circles Franz, then stops by the saddle and drums his fingers.

Franz moves his chin in and out. He reminds Konrad of a turtle. “We don’t keep geese.”

“I know that.” Of course Konrad knows that.

“But we’ve got chickens. I can get you a big chicken egg if that’ll do.”

“That won’t do at all.” The girl would never accept a chicken egg. Konrad’s hands are now combing through his hair. He spins and looks out over the town toward the lake. “Maybe there’s a wild goose nest hereabouts?”

“Wild geese have already hatched their broods.”

Of course that’s so. The edge of the lake has had clusters of goslings for weeks now. Even Konrad, immersed in
his lessons, has noticed that. The girl has tricked Konrad. She asked for a deceptively simple gift—and he arrogantly assured her he’d get it—but it’s impossible to find. Does she take him for a fool?

“Annette could cook you up a dozen eggs.” Franz pats Konrad’s arm. “Go in the kitchen, sire.”