Or tried to be. Lucasta was never soaked by the feeling of trying to forget, of pushing something far, far back.
But I'll bring you other jars. Maybe I'll even bring candles—to my father and Nic. Let's see how long you people can pretend.
Alice knocked on their door in the morning. "The chief asks everyone to the temple," she said.
Mel didn't go. She went out of the village again, alone, and walked upriver, watching the water. She did nothing that day. When she came back, there was no one at home.
There was, however, a message. Elizabeth is in a bad state. Go to her. It had come five hours ago.
She ran to Elizabeth's home. It was just close enough for her to be able to manage the distance. She was in pain again, but she ignored it. She entered without knocking and ran through the kitchen to the little bedroom. Old Codes was in the kitchen, busy by the fireplace. She pretended to ignore Meliora. Belinda was inside, red-faced, sweaty, laying wet cloths on Elizabeth's face. Other women were there, but they tried to keep out of the way. Lizzy lay drenched in her own blood.
"Where is Pat!?" Meliora shouted.
"Hunters' gathering," a woman answered. Then, at some of the other women's heavy looks, "What, she needs to know! She's saved some of us, all right! She might save Lizzy, too!"
"She hates her. You know they hate each other. Get her out of here—get out, you—"
"Do you have the brains of hens or what!?" the first woman screamed. It was Alice. "Let her in!" On the bed, Lizzy moaned.
Mel hadn't waited to be let in. She'd already shoved aside the woman who was blocking her way.
It wasn't the sickness. At least, it wasn't the sickness that Meliora had fought all these months. It was sickness that came with nature's way and with women producing children with their bodies. Premature birth. Damaged internal organs and blood that just wouldn't stop.
They fought for the mother and baby all night. Lizzy opened her eyes at some point and looked into Mel's.
"You know, Mel," she whispered. "In the Art School they taught us, strange as it might seem to us city people, to sometimes look at the world closely. Only then could we reproduce it the way it needed to be reproduced."
"Lizzy, be quiet. You're losing more blood like this."
"Oh, Mel, please don't cry."
A healer should not cry before her patients. A healer should not shout at them things that didn't concern them and would only distress them. A healer stayed detached because only then you could go through it all, and reach the other side. And a Lucastan wouldn't do any of these, not when it mattered...
Mel cried and shouted. Lizzy had been her first friend here. One of the few who had, at some point at least, cared.
An hour later, the baby came.
"You'll care for her, won't you, Mel?" Lizzy's voice was but a whisper, her lips dry even as her forehead dripped with sweat. "See how beautiful she is, Mel..."
Beautiful? She was pink, skinny, as wrinkled as an old woman. She was helpless, and she was wailing like a jackal. One of the other women was washing her mother's blood from her.
"She is..." Mel swallowed. She could not say it. She could not lie to Lizzy.
"I will care for her, Lizzy," she said instead. "I promise you. I swear!"
Lizzy smiled. The baby stopped wailing at the moment the mother's eyes closed. Mel took it in her arms. It started wailing again.
"Here, girl, give her to me. Haven't held a baby in your life, have you?"
"I have held a baby," Mel said, very, very quietly. "I have held a proper baby who can eat, crawl, grab its toys. I have held a baby that didn't have wrinkles. And, more than that, Mistress Codes, I have held a baby whose mother was standing right there beside me, healthy, happy, never bloated, never even inconvenienced, waiting to take her new baby in her arms. While Lizzy... Mel hiccuped. "Lizzy..."
"Blasphemy! Mel, you're mad by grief, you don't know what you're saying. Hush! Here, give little Lizzy to me, you're making her cry again—"
"This is no Lizzy! You can't name her Lizzy! This ugly, mother-killing abomination—"
"Meliora, shut up, I beg you! If the chief hears you—"
"The chief? Yes, mistress, you're right. The chief."
She walked into the chief's meeting with the hunters without bothering to knock on his cabin's door.
The hunters looked at her as if they had never seen her before, except for Nicolas. They were angry and worried, but she didn't care.
Out, Mel, Nicolas mouthed soundlessly. Get out.
She didn't. She walked towards the chief, never stopping, never even looking to the side, until there was only an inch between her eyes and his.
"Lucasta, Father," she said, "was to blame for Mom. Maybe. But this damn Village of Life is to blame for Lizzy!"
The village was like an open wound on the face of the earth. It was time for healing.
She heard breaths taken in sharply. One breath came from behind her—Lizzy's man. He hadn't known, of course. Because he, the fool, was here, instead of beside her!
The chief slapped her for the second time in her life. Her ears rang. Blood spluttered out of her mouth.
"Damn you, chief, you're a grand failure!" she shouted. "This whole village is! I am ashamed to be your daughter! Or am I your daughter? Do you consider me this at all, or should I have come to the world through a woman's tears and blood? What is so bad with artificial wombs, chief? Everyone"—she turned to shout at them all now—"Lucasta made mistakes, but it made good things, too! All cities did! Why can't we take what we must and abandon only the rest? You stubborn fools!"
He slapped her again. She fell. After all, she hadn't been well recently. Through blurred eyes, she saw Nicolas try to shout something, but someone pressed a hand to his mouth. He tried to run to her, but two men her father's age held him. Younger men were rising, and Meliora knew those would join Nicolas.
It was happening, then. There would be new graves, and not because of disease. They didn't need bullets, bows and spears would do. Anything would do.
Nicolas shook his head. The young men stopped in mid-stride.
Chief
She woke up beneath the village's overpraised stars and moon. She heard a breath being exhaled in relief, but she could not see the person. One of her eyes hurt to open, the other one was swollen shut.
"At least nothing is broken," she heard Nicolas' voice. "You fool. Next time, something will be."
She opened the one eye she could. A part of his face was swollen, too, and his upper lip was split.
"Why, Nicolas? Why you, too?"
"Guess why!" Something blissfully moist and cool was pressed to her forehead. "Because you're not the only damn fool here, it seems. I only joined the fun when you were already losing consciousness—but at least I was able to spare you the broken bones and permanent damage. He'd have continued. He likes to drive his point across fully once he starts. He—You don't know this aspect of him, do you? When he loses it? All you've seen since you came is a weak man who will do anything for the people he cares for. Yes, Meliora. He'd do anything."
"Why? Why would he kill me? Only two days ago, he—"
"Would have died for you, yes. That hasn't changed. With your mother dead, you are the only thing that can break him. A man, even a chief, has his limits, and a place such as the village helps reach them." He fixed her eye with his. "You know about bullets, assistant priestess, you must also know about gunpowder. A place such as this is gunpowder waiting for a spark. Do you understand?"
Perhaps she did. Then again, perhaps she didn't. She knew about fixing people, not breaking them.
"Where is he, Nicolas? Where is my father?"
"In his cabin. Resting. Patrick and Walter are there, making sure he comes to no harm. He is coming to peace with himself, preparing to transfer the chief's office to me."
She exhaled slowly, then again. She realized she was trembling. It was a delayed reaction. What she'd feared the most hadn't come to pass. Her father was ali
ve.
"You are taking his place, but you didn't kill him. Why?"
His voice was as soft as Lucastan silk. "Would you have preferred me to?"
His fingers were still on her face, gentler than before. "Do you want me to kill him for you, Mel?"
He was as mad as the chief himself.
His other hand was in her hair now. Gentle, gentle—but he could crush her with one blow, weak as she was. She couldn't fight him. She could fight nature, disease, those non-existent gods. Things.
"I don't know how to fight people. I only know how to fix them." She wanted to press a hand to her mouth. She was babbling, she knew it. She'd seen people in shock babble like this. "I don't want to fight you."
"Then don't. You're kind of mine now, so it wouldn't do to fight me, anyway." He leaned and brushed his lips against her swollen cheek, then rose and left.
A moment later Belinda and Mati were by her side.
"It's all right," Belinda said. "You will be like new in no time."
"What did this madman mean? About me being his—no, that doesn't matter—Belle, please. Go after him. See that he does not harm my father."
"And how do you propose I do that?" Belinda's voice was cooler than before. "Do you think I can tell Nicolas what to do—Oh, Mel, don't you do stupid things now! You can't get up just yet!"
"He won't harm him." This was old Codes' voice. "If he wanted to, he would have. He could have harmed your father and the few men who'd stood beside him. He avoided the unavoidable, girl. He let himself be hurt in order to stop the other fools from going on a rampage. He prevented a bloodshed."
"At what cost?"
"Cost? I wish I could tell you. Cost is not as simple as 'you give me some trinket, I give you money,' like in your cities. We'll figure the cost out—in days, months, years—the gods only know when. Let's move you now. Nicolas wanted to keep you under the stars for some time, said you'd like this. It's warm enough, so why not. Though even if it weren't, it's not up to me to argue with him."
"You will all obey him now, no matter what?"
"All of us? Wish it were that easy, girl. But it never is."
Belinda and Mati moved her with a litter, and she fell asleep on the way, hating herself for her body's weakness. She should be up, with Nicolas, with her father, with whoever was changing the village. She wished she could change her body like she could change her computer. She wished her body were a computer.
But there were no computers here. The next morning Meliora learned that Nicolas had destroyed the few in the village—smashed them publicly. The "devils" from the temple, her computer and Mom's, Nicolas' own.
What was he thinking?
She could walk today, and even open both eyes. Old Codes, Bel, and Mati brought her to the temple. Everyone was there, and chairs had been brought for the sick and injured like her. Old Reneta watched her with hatred. Old Carlos winked at her. Her father was standing in front of everyone, his face swollen, and he didn't meet her eyes even once.
Nicolas was at his side. He did look at her. Then the ceremony started. No one was sure what to expect, but obviously, there must be a ceremony.
Old Codes went in front and talked. The old chief had come to the village eleven years ago, she said, and had served it faithfully ever since. Five years as a woodsman, seven years as a chief, ever since the chief before him had gone into the embrace of the earth.
The chief was tired now, but he'd trained a good replacement. It was time for change. Time for a good, peaceful change.
"There can't be peaceful change while she is still sitting here, free and mighty!" Walter stood up, pointing at Meliora with a finger.
Suddenly Nicolas was before him. He didn't point with fingers. He pointed with a knife. With his other hand, he waved towards men to block the old chief's way.
Walter stopped only when the knife was touching his chest.
"You think it enough to smash the devils she brought with her? You think that gives her a right to sit in the holy temple? The old chief should have smashed her head! She calls herself priestess, but she goes out in full moon nights to bring devils with her! She made my wife die!"
"She tried to save your wife." The knife continued pointing. Meliora admired how still it was.
"Right she did! She wasn't even there when Melanie died! No, she sent devils to make my wife die! I've seen her! I've seen her type on that thing! She thought no one was looking, but you can't hide devils in this village!"
Walter, what devils? You came from Sylvanna, to the devils with you!
She tried to stand up, but someone caught her hand. It was Alice, her small son wrapped in her other arm.
"Shhhh," Alice whispered. "Don't you interfere now. This is men's stuff. You'll only make it worse. You don't trust me? But I want you to be alive and whole. I'll be having a new baby this winter."
"She made Lizzy die, too!"
"Really? If anyone made Lizzy die, Walter, it was you!" Meliora shouted. Alice or not, she could listen about devils all day, but she wouldn't tolerate this.
Walter made a step back. Hadn't he at least known, the fool? Hadn't he known that Lizzy had loved him? It wasn't his fault that he'd loved another, truly. But he shouldn't have accused Mel.
The temple wasn't silent now. People were buzzing like a swarm of bees. Accusations, speculations. Mel saw old Codes open her mouth, but Nicolas raised a hand, just as his other arm encircled Mel's shoulders. He drew her to himself roughly.
"She didn't make anyone die," he said. "She tried to help, as much as she could—and if she couldn't do much and turned to devils in a vain attempt to find help, who can blame her? She's just a woman. She lacked a man's guidance. Her father, as we've established, needs to be retired and could not have provided it. She won't go near devils or healing any more. No woman will heal, except when allowed by the chief, and be certain I won't allow her. Back off, Walter, and leave my wife in peace!"
"Nicolas, have perhaps jackd—" She wanted to say "have jackdaws drunk off your brain." But she couldn't say anything because his arm squeezed her more tightly and he silenced her with a kiss. In front of everyone. His other hand still held the knife.
Someone laughed. Just like that. Others followed—few enough, yet enough to lower the tension a bit. Meliora finally caught her father's eyes. A few moments ago, he'd been trying to break away from those holding him. They had even stuffed a cloth into his mouth. Now, he seemed all right.
Madmen, all of them. With a few sentences, the young chief had dismissed everything she'd done for the village, and made the position of women worse. And it had been bad—just look at Lizzy. And now, if all that stuff about depending on men's guidance was true—wow, what a village it would be with all the capable men to guide it. She was so glad she'd saved old Carlos. He must be the only man in the village with brains in his head.
The ceremony ended. It seemed almost normal from that point on—except that old Codes stopped talking, the woman that she was, and Meliora's man said that jars would no longer be harvested. People would do without jars and without canning. They'd be drying meat and fruit and vegetables like the gods themselves had done. There were no jars mentioned in the Book, Nicolas said.
Meliora felt like screaming. The new chief held her by his side throughout his speech, and she held his arm in turn. She squeezed it so hard that she noticed him clench his teeth, but otherwise he bore it without signs of discomfort.
Nicolas made her father the head woodcutter and furniture maker. Yes, it would do her father good to do something with his hands. He'd been the head woodcutter before he'd become the chief. As for Nicolas calling her his wife—normally for people in the village to be married, they had to exchange vows and the chief had to say a few words in the temple. Mel and Nicolas exchanged no vows, but Nicolas was the chief, and people seemed to consider his words enough in this case.
But they can't play with my life like this.
Can they?
The gathering ended and people went
to work. Meliora noticed each group of workers was slightly different from before. Each included someone Nicolas trusted.
She let go of his arm just as old Carlos passed them by. The old man seemed to be very well, Mel was glad to see.
"You squeeze him, girl." He winked at her. "You squeeze him hard. He'll come to heel. And you don't wince like this, boy. You smile at your wifey now. You're lucky. Were it, say, ten to twenty years ago—oh, well, fifty or sixty years ago, all right—I'd take her from you!"
Nicolas actually narrowed his eyes and put his arm around her again. She wanted to kick him.
Her father passed her by without saying a word. She watched his back retreat and suddenly felt so small, just a little girl whose Daddy was going to the Academy again and wouldn't take her with him.
"Not yet, Mel," he'd say. "One day. One day for certain."
And then we came here. You and I both. Of all the places in this world, we came here!
She didn't even notice the tear on her bruised cheek before Nicolas brushed it away.
She winced. That cheek still hurt. His hand dropped. A moment later, Belinda was by her side.
"Mel," she said. "Come with me first, you need your—Ah." She looked at Nicolas, meeting his eyes. "Chief," she said. "Mel needs her clothes and some—other things. You must—Ah. May I talk to her before she leaves with you?"
May I. But of course. He'd said women needed guidance. Belle's face was serene.
"Fine. You have an hour. You're both to go to Mistress Codes' cottage and not go anywhere else. Meanwhile Patrick—hey, Patrick!—will wait outside the door, in case you need something. I'll come for my wife in an hour."
"Thank you."
Had Belinda just thanked him for putting a prison guard before her house?
Meliora continued to keep her mouth shut. For now. She thought that if she didn't, there would be train crashes.
Belle put an arm around her shoulders, helping her walk. Once inside Mistress Codes' cottage, half of the serenity on her face faded. The rest stuck there, stubbornly, as she gathered Mel's clothes into a sack.
"Belle, I am not moving in with him. This is madness—"
Unnaturals Page 20
