A Song for Summer by Eva Ibbotson Page B

siblings, they looked so wholesome and so good. They were helping, trained to work as peasant children are: a small boy with yellow hair was tending goats higher up on the mountain; another, a girl, sat close to Aniella, stirring something in a wooden bowl; two more were forking hay into a barn and one--a frail child with long hair--leant adoringly over Aniella's shoulder.
    "Look, there's her garden," said Lieselotte. "These are the herbs she grew and the flowers. She knew exactly what to use for healing."
    Aniella's garden, painted like a tea tray on the side of the mountain, was a miracle of husbandry. Rows of curly cabbages flecked in bright green paint, raspberry canes, small bushes which Lieselotte's mother named for them. "Rosemary, fennel, St John's Wort
    ..."
    "But she loved the wild flowers too," Lieselotte went on. "There's a picture of her over there in the triptych holding a bunch of gentians and marguerites and edelweiss."
    But Sophie was already worried. No one became a saint for loving flowers and being good to their family.
    What dreadful fate lay in wait for this appealing girl? They had only to turn to the next painting to see. A vile knight on horseback, his face set in a conquering sneer, rode with his henchmen towards the mountain. You could almost hear the clattering of hoofs, the clash of lances.
    "That's Count Alexei von Hohenstift," said Lieselotte. "He was a truly wicked knight and so were his followers, but when he saw Aniella he fell passionately in love with her and said she had to marry him.
    She wept and implored and begged him to leave her, but he said if she refused to be his bride he would kill every man and woman and child in the village and set it on fire."
    "Oh how awful," said Sophie. "What did she do?"'
    "Prayed, of course," said Leon.
    His irony was lost on these uncomplicated people.
    "That's right," said Lieselotte.
    "She went into that little grotto there; you can see it in the inset. It's still there, halfway up the hill behind the castle. And an angel appeared to her and said she must prepare for her wedding and trust in God."
    In the next painting they could see that Aniella had obeyed. Helped by her brothers and sisters, down whose small faces there ran rows of perfectly painted tears, she was trying on her wedding dress while her friends put out trestle tables and food for the wedding feast--and even the salamander seemed to mourn.
    "This is the one I like best though," said Lieselotte, moving down the row.
    The picture showed a flotilla of boats crossing the lake towards the church. In one boat were the musicians with their instruments, in another the guilds, in a third the school children in the care of nuns.
    And in the centre of the flotilla, in a boat beautifully draped and swagged, sat Aniella in her wedding dress with her brothers and sisters, carrying a bouquet of the alpine flowers she loved so well and not looking at all as though she was going to her doom.
    "Because she trusted in God, you see," said Lieselotte.
    Sophie, who could not bear unhappy endings, who was waiting for the dismemberment, the breaking on the wheel, was biting her lip. "What happened?"'
    "You can see. Aniella reached the church and as she stood at the altar the vile count tried to ride into the church with his henchmen--but the horse reared, it wouldn't commit sacrilege--so he strode up the aisle and just as the priest started on the service Alexei stared at his bride and--"' Lieselotte paused dramatically.
    "Look!"
    They leant over her shoulder. Aniella still stood there in her white dress with her bunch of flowers; but her face had become the hideous, wrinkled face of an old hag.
    "God had made her into a dreadful old witch," said Lieselotte. "Just in an instant. And the count screamed and drew out his sword and thrust it into Aniella's heart--if you come closer you can see the blood."
    They could indeed see it. It streamed over Aniella's dress as she fell to the ground, and over the children