~ MACEL ~
The valley was alive with the smell of cooked meat.
Word had spread early that morning that there would be festivities of some sort. The Governor was apparently eager to properly welcome everyone to the new colony. There would be food, songs, reverie, all in great plenty. If that hadn’t been enough to goad Macel out, Captain Clifford had arrived to debrief the Advanced Party at mid-day, ready for their assignments to a new position. As he dismissed them, he’d pressed into each person’s hand five heavy coins.
“Twenty bushels,” Sam had exclaimed, as they made their way to the Eia and its cider bars. “Twenty bushels each.”
A man can feed his whole family on twenty bushels a year. It seemed every relative over the age of sixty liked to say that, whenever an occasion brought them to Macel. It wasn’t true anymore, but a hundred bushels was a nice prize nonetheless.
The bloke in charge of planning the town out had done a good job, if the handful of buildings which had already sprung up were anything to go by. The plaza had taken shape almost overnight. It was a large patch of open ground, soft grass blemished with trees and thick with colourful flowers, surrounded by a hexagon of buildings and timber frames. A bonfire had been set up at one end, near to building with a stuccoed front and barely a frame behind. The fire crackled away noisily as people chatted and danced around the edge.
“Look at this place,” said Sam. “It’ll be crawling with girls.”
“It’s about fifty-fifty,” said Macel.
Sam snorted. “Not sure I’ve got the stamina for fifty. Five will do me fine.”
The sun was beginning to disappear behind the hills when they arrived. A small crowd had converged around a hastily-erected hurney pitch, where red-faced men and women battled over the scratch. Macel had once enjoyed hurney. That was before he’d broken his leg in a game, and missed the opportunity to take the summer tabbard to the top of the Merrowain Heights. Corrin Fleck had taken his place, and boasted about it for the next eight years, and Macel hadn’t watched a second of hurney since.
That was, until Sam nudged him. “Is that Delie?”
She looked barely recognisable on the hurney pitch, hair tied tightly into a ponytail and a sweatband on her forehead. She was running around in a frenzy, from one end to the other, throwing her arms in frustration every time her teammates lost control of the ball or passed it to somebody that wasn’t her. Her eyes were wide anyway, and set into her sweat-drenched face they made her look like a maniac.
“She never said she was the sporting type,” said Macel.
“It figures though,” said Sam. “Have you seen her when she’s changing? Girl’s toned.”
“Field drills can do most of that,” said Macel. “A good diet will do the rest.”
Sam cackled. “Exactly why you or I will never look anything like she does,” he laughed. “That and the tits. Look, that’s stall’s flogging pints for a copperhead.” Sam disappeared into the crowd. Macel didn’t see where he went, so he stayed to watch the game. Delie had received the ball from tawny-skinned Dana Shroot, and knocked down the opposition’s stakes with a well-placed throw of the ball. Macel applauded as Delie’s teammates mobbed her.
Sam returned just as the game was coming to an end, balancing two pints for each of them, and they meandered away from the pitch, supping. Governor Ballard was stood on the balcony of the big building by the bonfire as they approached, flanked by his wife and a greying man Macel didn’t know. The Governor was dressed in the fineries normally reserved for Commissioners, a liseran sash across a double-breasted jacket of white, and a soft-topped kepi in the same colours. The man at his side wore the same, without the kepi and with white flashes on his sash. The Governor’s wife looked like fire personified, dressed all in red and with a blaze of orange hair atop her head.
As the sun gave its last light, Governor Ballard raised his hand for silence, the palm pointed out to face the crowd. A hush fell around them in a wave, as people noticed the Governor and fell silent. He smiled at the quiet for a second, then spoke:
“It’s good to see so many of you here,” he said, his voice magnified by a microphone in the grey-haired man’s hand. “Today is a day for us to celebrate. We’re at the beginning of an adventure. We are the history makers, all of us. This town is our town. This world is our world.”
“Not much of a speaker, is he?” Matt Grogan had sidled up beside them at some point. “It’s like he’s making the whole thing up on the fly.”
Sam nodded. “I bet he’s nervous. I would be, standing up there with a whole planet watching you. Anyway, as far as I’m concerned his speech can be a steaming crock. He gets a pass from me for this awesome party.”
Macel turned to Sam. “Is it awesome?”
“Did you not see the price of those drinks?” Sam shrugged. “What’s not to love? There’s food, there’s women. We even got to see Delie playing scratch. Speaking of, here she comes. What delights has she brought for us?”
Up on the balcony, Governor Ballard was still talking, but Macel had lost interest in what he had to say. Adela, out of her hurney clothes and into something that used less material to cover more of her body, had come with friends. The long-legged blonde had dolled up for the occasion, her lips and cheeks painted a crimson that matched the dress she wore. And there was another. Her hair was as black as her face was pale, braided at her back, and her eyes smiled. His heart skipped.
Macel had seen her before, on the Eia before they landed. They’d been in one of the bars on the ship, the only two there. Macel had sat watching her for twenty minutes, nursing the same cup of ale, waiting for the right moment to go over to her and introduce himself. The moment never came. She finished her drink and left the bar, and he hadn’t seen her again.
What were the chances she’d be here with Delie tonight?
Delie and her friends were only a short walk away, but to Macel it seemed to take forever. He was trying to think of the perfect way to open a conversation with the girl. It quickly turned into overthinking, as he ran a million hypothetical scenarios through his head, most of them involving his first line backfiring and him trying to salvage a failing operation. In the end, he never managed to think of anything clever at all. He was brought out of a daydream he hadn’t noticed himself falling into by Delie, now only two feet away from him, flicking him on the cheek.
“Oi. Dreamer. Anyone home?”
“Huh?”
Delie rolled her eyes. “You can speak proper words, Macel, it won’t kill you.” She pointed at the blonde. “Inge Mjelde.”
“A pleasure,” said Inge Mjelde, holding a dainty painted-finger hand out for Macel to shake. The look on her face was one generally reserved for people experiencing the opposite of pleasure, but he figured it was better for his self-esteem if he took her on her word.
He knew what was next. Delie turned to the other girl, beside her, and Macel wanted to tell her to slow down. I’m not ready yet, he felt like screaming, give me time to think of something clever. Then it was too late.
“And this is Bessily Edwards.” Bessily Edwards said nothing, but blushed a little and looked away.
“Shit, that man next to the Governor’s a silver fox, isn’t he?” said Inge, before the silence could get awkward.
“Ian Fitzhenry,” said Matt Grogan. “Keep away. Word is he killed a girl once.”
Delie raised an eyebrow. “That’s hardly likely.”
“It’s true,” Matt insisted. “He cut her apart. When they found her, he’d sorted all her limbs alphabetically.”
Delie burst out laughing. “You say some ridiculous shit, Matt, you know that?”
That obviously annoyed Matt. He dropped a shoulder and shoved Macel aside as he strode away.
“Was that you I saw on the hurney pitch?” Sam had been chomping at the bit to get to the teasing. “She was good, wasn’t she, Macel?”
Macel nodded, uncertain. “I saw you score.”
“I always do,” said Delie, smiling sweetly. “I’m the best.”
“Bollocks,” Sam scoffed.
Delie sighed. “Come on, Inge. Let’s go. You too, Sam.”
“Why me?”
“Are you dense?” Macel saw Delie nodding in his direction, and Sam’s silent “oh”.
Before she left, Delie came right up close to Macel, so close she was pressing his nose in with her forehead. “You be good to Bess,” she whispered, “she’s had a hard time recently.” And then they were gone, and Macel was alone with the girl he was infatuated with.
That was his in. “What’s wrong?” he said. She looked up at him, and he got a good look at her face for the first time. She was pretty in a subtle way—the kind of woman he liked to think he would have come up with if he was designing his perfect lady, though in reality he knew he would end up designing something far more a caricature of femininity. There was a look of Flossie about her. Flossie Mayborn had been the apple of his eye for many of his formative years. He’d been in love with her before he knew there was such a thing as love, and when he did catch on he realised he’d loved her since they were children. But when they courted in the glades, he found that Flossie Mayborn was a pathetic scrape of a girl.
As well as being pretty, Bessily looked upset. She wasn’t weeping. Put out was probably the best way to describe it. “What do you mean? Do I look sick?” She contorted her neck, examining her body as best she could.
“You don’t look sick,” Macel said. “I only meant... sorry, Delie said you’d been having a hard time. I wanted to know if you were okay. As soon as I’m in front of a pretty girl, I seem to forget how to talk.”
“Am I a pretty girl?”
“Depends.”
“Depends? You’re supposed to say ‘yes’.”
“Even if it’s not true?”
Bessily recoiled. “Is that how it is?”
“I’m going to need you to define ‘pretty’,” said Macel. “You’re definitely not repulsive.”
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Her lip twitched. “Not repulsive.” She ran the words around her mouth with a sour look on her face that said she didn’t like the taste. “I’ve had worse,” she said, but she looked hurt all the same.
“I like your name though. Bessily, was it?”
“For the princess. I assume, at least. Mother never said.”
“Oh.” He shuffled his feet.
Bessily tugged at a strand of hair. “You can call me Bess if you like. It’s shorter.”
“It is,” he nodded. “Bess, then.” He watched her for a second. Her eyes were like emeralds, he saw, glittering in the firelight. She had a soft face, a young face, the kind that just begged to be stroked. But he couldn’t do that. She wouldn’t like it. Instead, he coughed awkwardly.
“You never told me your name,” she said.
“Macel. Not for the princess.”
“I’ve never heard of Princess Macel,” Bessily frowned.
He shook his head. “There isn’t one. I was just being funny. Sorry, I’m just confusing you.”
Bessily laughed uncertainly. “Okay then, Macel,” she said, a hopeful look in her eyes. “Will you dance with me?” The Governor’s speech had finished now, he realised, and somebody had started to play music around the fire. The song being sung was a bawdy one, ‘The Roving Maiden’, with lyrics that were a little suspect. The tune was upbeat enough. Bessily held out her hand, and he took it gratefully. He was a clumsy dancer, and self-conscious too, but at least he wouldn’t have to speak.
They danced in place for at least an hour, as the night turned crisp around them. ‘The Roving Maiden’ gave way to ‘Fire Eyes’ and ‘In The Woods’, and several other fast-paced tunes. And then came some slower ones. He’d spent the entirety of ‘Captain Gable’ getting lost in her eyes, half wanting to kiss her and half afraid to in case he was too early and blew his chance. By the time they stopped, midway through a song he didn’t know about an ancient battle, he was red-faced and doused in sweat. Bess was too.
She held tightly to his hand as they made their way to the edge of the plaza, to the shade of a skyscraping willow. “Let me get you a drink,” he said, as she sat on the floor panting for breath. She answered with a smile. He turned to try and find a drinkseller, but he had no idea where the stall was. Sam had definitely gone off towards the edge of the plaza, but which edge?
As he wandered the grass perimeter, he caught a glimpse of Tema Caerlin, looking radiant in a dress of aquamarine and with a ribbon of the same colour tied in her blonde tresses. She had a drink in her hand. From the way she was holding herself, she was on the brink of throwing it in the face of Eric Scobie.
“It’s not happening,” she said, as Macel approached.
Eric either didn’t care or didn’t hear. He reached for her chest, a leer on his face. “Just a quick play,” he said, as Tema recoiled from him. He was definitely drunk, moreso than most here. The odour of alcohol was palpable on his breath. No doubt he’d regret this in the morning—if indeed he remembered what he’d done. Macel hurried towards him, so he’d not have chance to go beyond drunken passes.
A tanned woman stood with Tema slapped Eric hard across the face. He held his hand up to the tender skin. “Oww.”
“She said no, Eric,” said Macel, striding between them. “Try somewhere else.” Eric scowled at the unwelcome intruder in his night, but staggered away. Macel watched him go, off into the darkness, then turned back to Tema. “Are you okay?” he said.
She nodded. “Took me by surprise, that’s all.” Her voice was a little shaky, but she had a smile on her face. If Eric had upset her, she was trying hard not to let it show. It probably wasn’t doing her any favours to dwell on it.
“I can stick around if you want,” said Macel. “In case he comes back.”
“I can manage,” said Tema, wrapping an arm around the other woman. “Viola’s got my back.”
“If you’re sure.” He pointed at her drink, which she was gripping so tightly that the cup was squeezed in around her hand, and the liquid inside nearly pushed to overflow. “Where did you get that? I can’t find a stall.”
“Straight across,” said Tema’s friend Viola, pointing at the other side of the plaza, where through a narrow gap in the throng the hand-painted words “pint for a copperhead” could be seen.
Macel thanked Viola and set off again through the crowd. The singer had stopped singing, and now some mournful woodwind had taken his place. The sound was far too weak to keep people dancing, and they’d all begun to resume their chatter. It left the crowd comparatively sedentary. Easier to navigate. He tried to hone in on the tune as he walked. It almost seemed familiar—every now and then it would swell or quieten and a bar would play that he was sure he knew—but he couldn’t place it.
“You’d best not be planning on giving me one of them big ones,” said the bloke manning the stall, as Macel approached. “That’s all anyone’s given me all night. It’s taking the piss.”
In fact, Macel had started to take the twenty-bushel coin from his pocket. He dropped it and rummaged for something else. The pockets were nearly barren. He’d been hoping to get change by breaking the twenty. There was just a single copperhead in his pocket, along with a lightly-rusted tink as small as his fingernail.
He showed the man his coins. “What can I buy for these two?”
“I got a few things,” said the man. “Nothing strong, mind.”
Macel came away flush with drinks but shorn of useful money. If Bess wanted anything else, she’d have to find the money herself.
He wasn’t completely sure where he’d left her, so as he weaved his way through the plaza he looked left and right. And when he made it across to the willow, there was no sign of her. He circled the willow a couple of times, in case he’d somehow missed her, and called her name once. It was a useless gesture. There were so many people about that she’d never hear him calling, and even if she did, he wouldn’t be able to hear her reply.
After five minutes, he was satisfied that she wasn’t on the ground. She wasn’t dancing, either. The sorrowful woodwind hadn’t let up. She could be anywhere. Fantastic, he thought, I’ve scared her off. Bessily wasn’t the first girl who’d scarpered at the first opportunity.
He found her by happenstance, at the far edge of the plaza. He’d begun to search for his friends, for Sam or Delie, when he spotted Bessily leaning against a half-built wall of freshly quarried stone, half asleep. She perked up as he approached.
“I thought you weren’t coming back,” she said. “You were gone a long time.”
“You moved.”
She shrugged. “You’re here now.” She reached forward and grabbed one of the drinks from his hand. There was a little tiny drinking straw in the bottle, the kind that screams out ‘drink me slowly’. This was advice ignored by Bess, who threw it aside and drained half the drink in a single gulp. A second later, she spat it to the ground. “What is this?”
“Vilsa juice,” he said.
“Vilsa juice? There’s no alcohol in vilsa juice. How can I get drunk on vilsa juice?”
“Who says you need to get drunk?”
The suggestion left Bess looking scandalised. “Where’s the fun in that?”
It really depended on what she meant by fun. “The juice is refreshing,” he said. “And it’s good for you.”
“Alcohol’s good for me,” Bess retorted, but her heart wasn’t in it. She took a demure sip from her remaining half a drink, then smiled weakly. “Sorry, I wasn’t trying to be rude. I’m used to drinking, is all. Helps me forget I’ve got no-one to talk to.”
Macel sat down beside her. “You can talk to me, if you want.”
“I’d like that.”
Lost in idle chatter they drifted away from the party, through the ghostly shells of the unfinished town and towards the eastern edge, where the valley rose into clear glades. The air was cool here. A sharp breeze blew, throwing their hair into their faces and chilling them. Bess, clearly possessed of more forethought, had a small fur-lined jacket on. It wasn’t much, but it was more than Macel had, and he couldn’t help but envy her for it. Even with it on, she shivered every now and then.
As they passed beneath a tree bearded by shredded bark, the most awful cacophony rang out above them. A bird, a magnificent specimen with a peaked bill and soft rose down, was raging from its nest. The reason was plain to see. Its baby, freshly hatched to judge from the cracked eggshell all around, had fallen from the nest. It lingered in the thick knot of a stooped branch, wings flapping impotently, a mournful chirping escaping its mouth.
The knot was slightly too high to reach, but that made no odds to Bess. She was halfway up the tree, shinning like a cat, before Macel had a chance to react. Her feet, shorn of impractical shoes, curled around thin branches that buckled with her weight. Macel had visions of the whole thing coming down around her.
“Give me a hand,” she called to him. “Prop me up.”
“Come on down, Bess, you’ll hurt yourself.”
She stubbornly pressed on higher. “The poor thing’s stuck,” she said. She had her hand fully in the knot. The baby bird was chattering away while its mother raised hell again, but Bess was not deterred. A few seconds later, something gave, and the baby came away in her hand. She lifted it up, into the nest, and at once its mother came over to make a fuss of it, picking at its feathers with her beak. “It’s the sap,” said Bess. “It’s so sticky. It’s all on my hands, look.” She waggled a hand at Macel, and in the same instant lost her balance.
“Bess!” Macel had no time to run to catch her. It all happened in the same second, Bess stumbling and Bess falling and Bess landing on the ground like a crumpled puppet. When he got to her she was in a foetal position, scrunched tightly to the ground. “Are you alright?”
She kicked out a leg. “I think so,” she said. The leg was bleeding, a thick serpent of red tracing the flesh, but she could move it okay. With his help she got to her feet. She was a touch uneven, but in general she could move. She hobbled along abashed for a little while. Then she laughed. “You must think I’m an absolute klutz,” she said, between giggles.
“Would it offend you if I said yes?”
“I don’t get offended.” Bess swayed as she walked, and stumbled into Macel’s arms. He held her there until she thought to stand, laughing all the while.
By the time they reached the crest of the hill, he was comfortable in her company. They’d discussed the long journey to the new world. Bess was full of stories of her days working in the stables, and her nights rooming with Delie. Macel liked the way Bess told stories. There was a sense of wonder in her voice whenever she spoke, like she was a child discovering the story for the first time herself.
They found a patch of grass, flat, between two spindly trees with yellow-brown trunks. Little chattering rodents flitted from one tree to the other, pausing on hind legs to observe the intruders in their domain. “They’re sweet,” said Bess. “I want one.”
From this vantage, they could see the entire valley. The party in the plaza seemed like a peaceful candleglow. In the distance, Macel could see the huge waterfall that cascaded down the cliffs on the valley’s northern edge to feed the Clearwater. The terrain at that edge of the valley was harsher, sheer rock faces and jagged boulders popping up in place of the friendly hills and gentle slopes they’d settled on as their home.
“It’s nicer here,” said Bess.
Macel frowned. “How do you mean?”
“Didn’t you feel it? Down in the valley, it’s... heavy, I suppose. Like something’s pressing down on you. Not so much that you can’t enjoy yourself, but when it lifts it’s like being set free. Oh, you must have felt it.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t feel a thing.” Except for the blister that was forming where his boot had rubbed, but that wasn’t really relevant to the discussion at hand.
Bess laughed. “I’m going mad,” she said. “Mad Bess.” She lay back suddenly, resting her head on his leg with her head tilted to gaze at the sky above. “Look at the stars. They’re so different to home.”
“It’s the same stars,” said Macel. “We’re just looking at them differently.”
“A whole new perspective. Perhaps my parents should come here—a new perspective would do them some good.”
His ears pricked up. Bess had wanted somebody to talk to, but thus far they’d only made disposable small-talk. This was the first time he’d heard her mention something real. All of a sudden, he wasn’t sure what to do with his hands. They were just hanging there, useless. They ought to be comforting her somehow. He started to stroke her hair, just gently with the tip of his finger. It was soft, like black velvet. Flossie Mayborn’s hair had been soft, too, silk in his hands.
Bess murmured something, too softly for him to hear. Was she asking him to stop maybe? If she was, she didn’t ask again. “I used to have a sister,” she said, with a sigh. “Do you have any sisters?”
“Just the one,” he said. “It’s my mother’s greatest regret. Girls are untrustworthy, if you ask her, and too prone to corrupting their bodies with pleasure. My mother’s not a very nice person. In any case, Tanis is with the Temple now, a sworn sister. So in a manner of speaking, I’m an only child.”
Quiet fell then. For a few seconds he could hear nothing but the breaths Bess took and the sound of a small animal scurrying in the grass nearby. Then she spoke. “I suppose I am too. Elly was only three when...” She went very quiet then, and Macel saw her stiffen. He put a hand on hers and took in the silence. It felt nice just to be with her. He’d never felt that with a girl before. Usually he was scrambling for something to say, until he’d spoken for too long and driven her away.
Perhaps I should kiss her, he thought. But would it be appreciated? Wouldn’t it be better to wait for her to lean into the kiss? That way at least he’d know she wanted it. He stayed still for a small eternity in that little heaven, just caressing her hand and letting the indescribable fragrance of her hair lap at him. He could have stayed there even longer.
The stars transported him a million miles away, to the Heights, to a memory. His parents had been disappointed when he’d come back, unbetrothed to Flossie. They’d been matched beneath an open sky, as they always used to say. He’d asked his father once how he’d know he was happy. “When I was with your mother,” his father had said, “there was a moment when I knew I wanted to kiss her.”
“And how did you know she wanted to be kissed?”
“I didn’t,” was father’s response. “But it was worth the chance.”
Was Bessily worth the chance? He squeezed her palm, and looked over to her.
I guess I’ll never know, he thought. Bessily had fallen asleep, bathed in slender moonlight. He watched her every aspect—the curve of her breasts as they rose and fell, the way her nose twitched as she dreamed, the gentle swaying of her hair in the breeze. He watched until he fell into a sleep of his own.