Unnaturals (28 page)

For a moment, she cradled it in her palm. Was it enough? Was it
too much?

She couldn't just risk this. Even now.

But it was the only thing that would work against him.

But she couldn't do this to him.

Could she?

She realized she'd stopped struggling—and that he'd stopped assaulting her, too.

"Good," he said, softly. "I thought I would have to tie you to the bed."

She squeezed the glass—the part of it that hadn't stabbed a leaf—so hard that her palm started bleeding.

"Like I last tied your father," he added in an even quieter voice, "so that he'd pass through
his
mad moment. The latest of those. But I see you're faster than him in coming out of yours."

"I have better genes." Her hand fell to the floor, the glass shard rattling away. She was breathing hard and fast, and her limbs were twitching. She could barely find her voice. "He selected them himself."

"So I see."

He wasn't lying on top of her any more. He helped her rise to a sitting position and to lean her back on the wall. He sat beside her. Their shoulders and thighs were touching. They had toppled a cup of water from the table, which miraculously had fallen on its bottom and splashed only half of its contents. He now took it and offered it to her. She barely swallowed a mouthful. She gave the cup back to him and noticed he had the same problem. She also noticed the fist of his other hand was clenched, and his chest was heaving.

"Drink more," she whispered. "Put some on your face, too. It helps with shock."

"You're one to talk." He put some on
her
face. She closed her eyes. Her shoulders had started shaking.

"So, how about you, Nic? Who ties
you
up?"

He said nothing. She opened her eyes to him looking at her as if he wanted to continue what he'd started but wasn't letting himself.

"It was either giving this impression to the others," he said, "or beating you. I didn't want to beat you. But I wouldn't really—not without your permission—Never mind."

Wouldn't you, really?
She wasn't sure.

"You had to give this
impression?
You could have simply not interfered with where I was going or what I was doing!"

"Right. And let someone else have his way with you, in whatever way his pea brain saw fit at that moment!" She'd seen him angry often enough. This was worse than normal. "Because, Meliora, that's what would happen to you sooner or later if you went on doing whatever
you
saw fit in this village!"

"What are you talking about? And drink some more water. Really."

"Right you are, Healer. Always giving orders without knowing when to stop." But he did drink, even though he raised the cup to her as if in a mocking toast.

"I don't give orders without need." She closed her eyes again. She could not stop the shaking. She felt the cup of water being pressed into her hands.

"Giving orders is just half of it," Nicolas said softly, "You must also have them obeyed. Can you beat up Andreas? Walter? No? I thought not. You expect big ugly brutes to heed your words only because you have healed someone, or because you think you're right. It doesn't work like this. Not in such a primitive world."

"It's worked so far."

"Has it?"

She thought about it. Sometimes it had worked. But not all the time. It had been all right when the big ugly brutes were frightened by something external—Alice and the baby almost dying, then the disease. But at other times she'd relied on her father—and even on Nicolas—to bring big ugly brutes to heel. And look at where that had all gotten her. They had turned against her in the end. Because she could not heal everyone, and because she could not hurt intentionally.

No. No. She
could
hurt if needed. If earlier it hadn't been Nicolas but someone else who—she'd have—

She glanced at the shard of glass a step away from the two of them. She kicked it further away. Nicolas raised his eyebrows.

"Don't ask," Meliora said.
Or ask Belle. She knows how to deal with brutes so much better than I do
.

"Well, healer, learn one basic village truth. There are times, true, when a hunter is at the mercy of a healer. But most of the time a healer is at the mercy of the hunters."

Tell Belle this. See what she thinks of it
.

"I can hunt," she said instead. "At least, I can set traps. But I hate it."

"I know you do."

"My dad hates it, too. This is why he goes with the woodcutters so often."

"Yes, if only we could all go with the woodcutters."

"But the trees hurt, too."

The disbelieving look on his face was something to see.

"Oh gods, what am I to do with you?"

"Why should you do anything with me at all?"

He shook his head. "Don't ask."

"You broke my computer and Mom's."

He nodded. He didn't like it, she thought.

"You broke yours, too, and claimed it was mine."

"That was for the best."

"But of course. The brutes are only after me now, and not after you. Isn't that nice!?"

"Indeed it is. If they were after both of us, you'd be in more trouble."

"Oh, yes. I think that everyone considering me a devil-worshiper—and me beaten and raped for it—is no trouble at all. Absolutely."

"Did I say
no trouble at all?
" He sounded angry again, and she'd had just about enough of it.

"Drink more water! I can't have you go berserk on me again!"

He laughed, and the air in the room became easier to breathe.

"You broke our own personal interweb." She looked away from him, which wasn't of much help considering how close he was to her.

He sighed. She felt him move and reach into his pocket. He handed her something. It was a computer that she hadn't seen so far.

"I didn't mean to show you this tonight—but, let's say I don't want you to sound so sad or lament our personal interweb. It's all in there. We still have it."

"It's not the
interweb.
I can't message you."

"Well, let's say you don't have to message me any more—my wife."

"You
have
gone mad." But she didn't want to argue with him just now. Probably because of the incessant shaking and the pain still lingering in her belly, she didn't protest when he put his arm around her. It was fine. He did nothing else. He just leaned on the wall again and was silent, so she leaned her head on his shoulder and slept right there.

***

When she woke up, it was almost evening. Her palm had stopped bleeding, but she was stiff everywhere. He was still sleeping, right there on the floor, leaning on the wall beside her.

You fool of a hunter, would you ever dare to fall asleep in a room with Andreas? I know of a dozen ways to incapacitate a sleeping person. Do you trust me so much, or do you simply dismiss anyone who doesn't look like an angry, hairy hog and can't use a spear? You'll have to learn to do better than that, chief
.

Not that she could teach him much. He'd been right when he'd said she could not function well in a primitive world. She was almost as bad with sneakiness and deception for power-acquiring purposes as she was with a spear. If she weren't,
she'd
control Andreas.

"I say we charge right in and take her right out. There's three of us." She jumped at that voice. Nic still didn't wake up. The voice was loud enough to be heard even though it wasn't in the room, and as clear as a child's. Because it was a child's voice. She shook her head and rubbed her eyes, waking herself fully. The great spear-bearing crowd of the future. Her own hunters—or computer programmers and jar-makers, or whatever they were now.

She tiptoed to the window, below which the children were evidently having war council. She opened it slightly. "Next time," she whispered, "you should be quieter." Big, round eyes stared at her.

"Thank you." She smiled at them. "But I am all right. No need for rash actions just yet. Nic didn't hurt me."

"You sure?" Ronny whispered. "We'll come right in if—" Big and round his eyes might be, but they held a glint not unlike Nicolas'. Well, the village would need a chief one day.

"I am sure." She blew them a kiss. "Go home now, the adults will be looking for you."

"The girls would have come, too—Stephanie and Sybil—but the chief said women should ask men for permission, and we didn't give them permission." The boy wrinkled his nose. "They'd slow us down."

"Huh. Next time give the girls permission, all right? Sybil knows the blood moss. Do you, Ronny? No? Next time take Sybil, then. What if I were hurt?"

"But you weren't."

"True."

"So it's all fine."

How exactly to explain to you that it is not
?

"Off you go now," Mel said. "We'll make jars again next week."

"Yippee, jars!" the boys whispered loudly. Jars were so much more fun than whatever their adults had them do.

She heard steps behind herself as she closed the window.

"So, feel yourself already challenged," she said, "
old
chief. You heard most of it, didn't you?"

"I heard enough. You really don't understand." He shook his head in disgust. "
Jars.
As if I'd let you."

"You're serious about this letting and not letting, then."

"Have you ever seen me non-serious?"

He had a point.

"Well, have you ever seen
me
—Oh, gods!"

He'd just come closer and touched her bare arm.

"What, Mel? Did I hurt you?"

"Oh, gods-damn you, how could you—and how could
I
let you sleep on the floor. Go to a bed. Any bed, take your pick.
Now!
"

"Mel, do stop ordering
me.
" He was holding her with both arms, and his eyes weren't nice. The man could go from fully calm to furious in less than a moment. But
she
was also furious. And frightened.

"But if you do insist on me going to bed—"

"—you will go, and lie there quietly and calmly, and, and—"

When would it start? The shaking and the dry, peeling lips, the sweating, the smelling, the ramblings. The hours that would trickle more slowly than the creek's water at the height of summer. The hours of drenched sheets, soiled clothes, and desperation, and hope—and fight. She'd said she could not fight, but she could. She could fight for a person's life. For
his
life.

The disease started like this, always. It started with hot hands and a hot face.

He put his hand over hers on his forehead. He sighed. "I should have told you, I guess. I've had that, Mel. Years ago, when I first came to the village. You know it doesn't strike people twice. This now is nothing—if it is anything at all, it is just a cold. I get those often enough. It's fine. It's
fine,
Mel."

It was she who had to be put to bed. Just to sit, not to lie down, but still. He even brought her fresh water from the kitchen and then put a wet cloth on her face as his other arm cradled her close to him.

"It's all right, Mel, stop shaking."

You don't even know what to do with a person in a new shock following so soon after the previous one,
she thought.
You don't, but you plan to rule a village. You've done—the gods only know how much damage you have done so far. Why do I care so much if you die?

"I hate you," she whispered, her face pressed into his chest.

***

They went to Nicolas' cottage that evening. They had to sleep, the day hadn't been easy on either of them. Besides, old Codes needed her cottage. She said nothing when she saw them again. She just looked hard at Meliora's body, then nodded, as if to herself.

So. You know nothing happened, old hag. But the others don't, and you won't tell them
.

Meliora couldn't stand to look at anyone except for her three boys and two girls and Belinda and Mati. Old Carlos winked at her when she and Nicolas passed him by in the village's only street, and she wanted to throw a stone at him. She knew she wouldn't. She didn't break stupid old men who cracked useless jokes but would do nothing when she needed protection. She patched them up. Same with whole stupid villages, though the thought of putting the temple on fire and letting the fire spread did cross her mind.

Especially when she heard a scream and saw a man beating his wife in the street. Some people were watching. Belle was, for certain, her eyes only slightly narrowed. Meliora would have run to them, but Nicolas held her.

"Not your responsibility," he said.

"Do something, then!
You
do something, with your hunting ways!"

"Wait here. And you there"—Nicolas beckoned at old Carlos, then slipped a knife into his hand. "You stay with Mel."

Old Carlos grinned. "Right you are, chief. The prettiest apple of the village is safe with me."

"Any apple is safe with you," Meliora snapped as Nicolas strode away. She hated being called that. "You're swaying so much that there's no way you could climb a tree any more!" He had climbed trees only last year. Old as the earth, with a mouth as foul as the cesspit, he was as nimble as a squirrel. Had been, before the disease ate half of him. "Did you drink again today, Carlos? I told you not to. How Nicolas could give you a knife, I don't know."

"I do," the old man said, softly. "I am an old geezer who is fond of a young girl—and truly would protect her. For as long as I can—for long enough for him to hear the commotion and come. How many men do you think this boy can trust with a knife around you?"

Gun fodder. She'd encountered the word in the same feeds as guns and bullets. There were no guns or bullets in the village. But it didn't matter. Old Carlos was gun fodder.

A few moments later Nicolas was back. The man beating his wife hadn't let go of her. He was now dragging her in the street by her hair. Mathilda, Ronny's mom. Mel swirled, and both Nicolas and Carlos caught her arms.