We were moving away from the sea. On our left hung high limestone cliffs, topped with turf and a few wind-blasted trees; on our right the country spilled like a bolt of silk unrolled in a market, like perfumed oil poured out in a flagrant gesture. The Ethendria Road, wide and well-kept, curved down into the Valley, into the shadow of cliffs and the redolence of wet herbs. The grape harvest was ended, and the country was filled with tumbled vines, rust-colored, mellowed with age, birdsong, and repose… Everything shone in that sumptuous light which is called “the breath of angels”: the hills flecked with the gold of the autumn crocus, the windy, bronze-limbed chestnut trees and the radhui, the peasant houses, sprawling structures topped with blackened chimneys. The trees and roofs stood out precisely against the purity of the sky whose vibrant blue was a unique gift of the autumn. The dust sparkled over the road, and its odor mixed with the wilder scents of smoke and grasses in the deep places of the fields.
In that lucent countryside, far from any inn, we stopped at a radhu. The priest, entombed in the carriage, seemed to feel no need for refreshment, but Miros and I were famished, having sustained ourselves since morning on white pears and figs bought along the road. “We’re sure to get something to eat here,” Miros said, guiding the horses along the grassy ruts made by a country cart. “Even if it’s only bais and cabbage. You’ve never had bais? It’s what people live on out here: bread made of chestnut flour.”
We approached the great, confused shape of the radhu among its luxuriant lemon trees, passing a garden of onions and cabbages, a number of broken wheelbarrows, a sullen donkey munching grass in the shade. Excited children tumbled out to greet us. “Watch the horses!” Miros bawled at the little boy and girl and the naked infant dawdling behind them. Their piercing cries accompanied us into a sort of open court, devoid of foliage, sun-baked, thick with dust.
We descended from the coach to the sound of rushing and slamming of doors within the lopsided stone structure facing us. In a moment a boy appeared with a clay pitcher of water, which he poured slowly over our grimy hands. This ceremony took place above the lip of a stone trough near the house, which spirited the water away to the garden. The boy worked with great concentration, breathing hard through his nose. He wore tarnished silver earrings shaped like little cows. Drops from our wet hands sprinkled the earth in that homely little court where blue cloth soaked in a scarred wooden basin, where chickens pecked at the roasted maize forgotten by the children in the shadow of the ivy-covered eaves. The tumbled front of the radhu offered a bewildering choice of entrances, arched doorways set at angles to one another: it looked as though a number of architects had disagreed on the plan of the house, each plunging into the work without consulting the others. Indeed, this was not far from the truth, for the radhu is a family project, expanding through the generations like a species of fungus. A stocky, bow-legged man appeared at the largest of the doorways and bowed, pressing the back of his right hand to his brow.
“Welcome, welcome!” he said, stepping out and holding his cracked hands over the trough to be washed by the silent boy. “Welcome, telmaron! You come from Huluethu, I think? From the young princes? It is an honor…”
“No, from Ethendria,” Miros said.
At this the old man’s face fell. He wiped his hands on the sides of his robe. “You are not wine merchants?”
“No, by the Rose!” Miros answered, shouting with laughter. “We serve a priest of Avalei. He’s resting in the carriage. He’ll come out when he’s ready. But we, I don’t mind telling you, are half starved.”
“Ah!” the old man said. His face lit up with a smile again, and he even chuckled as he explained: “I thought you were merchants for a moment—these wine sellers, they squeeze us to death—but Avalei!” He inclined his head and touched his brow. “Greatly is she to be praised. We love her in the Valley, telmaron. My own daughter wished to be one of her women, but the temple takes fewer novices these days…” He jerked his head over his shoulder and cleaned his ear with a thick finger. Then he welcomed us under the arch and into a huge old room, clearly the original room of the radhu, dominated by a blackened fireplace.
That great, smoke-stained room, its walls unrelieved by decoration, would have been gloomy and oppressive had it not been for a trapdoor in the flat roof, lying open to admit a wide flood of the limpid daylight. Beneath the trapdoor was a generous alcove or sleeping loft; several girls peered down from its edge with bright, laughing faces. The room below was furnished with two iron beds, a few straw chairs, and a wooden cabinet adorned with painted cherries.
The old man’s name was Kovyan. He spoke of the grape harvest, spitting into a tin spittoon with such force that the vessel spun in place. A young woman appeared in a dark doorway near the fireplace and called briefly to the girls in the loft. Two of them descended the ladder and skittered away through the doorway, whispering and giving us glances from their immense dark eyes. In a moment they returned with a round mat, laid it on the floor in the middle of the room, and set a stool on top of it. A delicious smell penetrated the air, sweet and hinting at pork fat, and I was embarrassed by the rumbling of my stomach—but Kovyan was overjoyed at this evidence of our hunger and slapped my knee with a gnarled hand as solid as a hammer.
The girls dragged in a wineskin, and Kovyan offered us cups of a powerful, spicy vintage called “The Wine of the White Bees.” As we drank, there came a sound of hurried commotion out in the court, and four young men rushed in with an anxious, expectant air. These were Kovyan’s sons and the sons of his sister: evidently a child had been dispatched to fetch them from the fields. They had washed hastily in the court, and their beards and long hair dripped with water that ran down to darken the shoulders of their robes. With the knives at their belts and the tin jewelry which reminded me of galley slaves, they presented a rough and even feral appearance; but all of their vigor went into making us welcome. Bows were exchanged and more chairs fetched from the recesses of the radhu. The “boys,” as Kovyan called them, made themselves comfortable on the squeaking iron beds, drinking straight from the wineskin because there were no more cups. Into this active, convivial atmosphere walked a pair of proud adolescents bearing a colossal bowl on their shoulders.