The Fire and the Fog (5 page)

‘Everything will be fine.’  Othwaithe
said as he put a large hand on Gel’s excited shoulder.  ‘We
will arm some of the lads, and send out a patrol or two, and
everything will be fine.’  He turned to leave again, but Gel
caught his shirtsleeve before he had a chance to go.

‘Can I have a gun?’ he pleaded, whining
slightly, ‘or a sword?’  If some of the other boys were going
to get weapons, Gel didn’t see why he couldn’t.  He was almost
old enough to work, which should mean he was almost old enough to
fight. 

Gel had already forgotten his earlier disdain
of soldiers; the prospect of a battle, the noise and the
excitement, had wiped his mind of the truths behind the life of a
soldier. 

Othwaithe turned and knelt, coming face to
face with Gel.  ‘No, son, you cannot.  You can have your
lessons, and your friends.’  He patted Gel once on the
shoulder, then turned and left.

‘Speaking of lessons, should you not be off?’
Maerge spoke right behind Gel, and Gel jumped slightly.  Gel
grumbled slightly, and muttered that he wanted a gun, but his heart
was not really into it.  His mother handed him his lute and
his box of sheet music, and patted his head, and that was that.

And so it was that, with a slightly heavy
heart, and a light rain cloud above his head, Gel left the
house.  Lute in hand, he was angry at the prospect of spending
another day practicing with Lady Vaen.  He knew that he needed
a tutor.  Tutors got you noticed.  It was Lady Vaen that
had set up his concerto for the Duke after all.  Gel knew that
you needed a tutor to get anywhere in music.  He just hated
it. 

Gel wondered why the world was so unfair as
he walked down the streets to Lady Vaen’s house, kicking angrily at
unoffending pebbles as he went.

***

The trip to Lady Vaen’s was uneventful. 
Gel played the songs she wanted, the way she wanted them played,
and he didn’t get distracted.  Somehow, everything went
well.  Long, boring, and completely useless, but well.

Not that the dragon didn’t have any
criticisms.  ‘Back straight’, ‘Chin up, eyes forward’ she
would interject at seemingly random intervals, interrupting the
flow of Gel’s performance, ‘Bend your wrists more’ she’d shout, as
if Gel were not already playing the music flawlessly.  She
gave detailed instructions on how he absolutely must dress
appropriately, so as not to shame her, and on exactly how he must
address the Duke and Duchess, again, so as not to shame her. 
It was almost as if she were more worried about how he looked than
how he played.  It was maddening.  It was with a great
bit of relief that he left that day, later than usual.  She
had kept him longer than normal, pacing back and forth as she
spouted off instructions haphazardly, slowly wringing her hands as
she walked.  She was clearly more nervous than he would ever
be.

***

As he gloomily marched the same path as the
day before, down the road and out of the town towards the old oak
tree, Gel wondered how much worse the day would get.  He would
be meeting Sheane and Mae at the tree again, and not only did he
not have a new song for them, he would once again be confronted
with the thing he dreaded most.  Gel did not want to have to
choose which sister to ask to the festival.

The problem was, as far as he could see, that
he liked them both.  Mae was fiery, exciting, and full of
energy, while Sheane was absolutely beautiful; quiet, serene, a
true lady.  Really they were both beautiful, he knew, but
Sheane was so demure, so much like a princess, that it was a
different, special sort of beauty.

Gel was so wrapped up once again in his
reverie that it wasn’t until he sat down in the grass beside Mae,
setting his lute down to on the other side of him, that he noticed
there was no Sheane.  No Sheane, no blanket, no goodies. 
No safety.

It wasn’t that Gel was afraid of Mae, not
really.

It was just that he was very much afraid of
Mae. 

She was grinning from ear to gorgeous ear
when he looked at her, and she leaned over and rapped him on the
head with her knuckles.  Hard.

‘Got something on your mind dummy?’ she asked
with mock innocence, still grinning widely.

‘Cut it out Mae, that hurts’ Gel replied,
rubbing his head annoyedly.

‘Aww, poor baby’ Mae laughed lightly as she
threw a slow punch at his ribs.

Gel caught her arm and held it, quickly
trying to think of a way to change subjects.

‘So, where’s Sheane?’

‘She got a cold’ Mae replied, still grinning
like a madman.  ‘She’s sneezing her pretty little head
off.  She’s been doing it all morning too.’  Gel thought
he could hear the sound of triumph in her voice.  ‘They’re
really tiny sneezes too.  Little quiet “Choo’s”, and she jumps
up a bit, it’s super cute.  But her nose is all red and runny,
so she couldn’t come’

‘So I guess that means no snacks
today?’  Gel asked, more disappointed for the lack of Sheane
than for the lack of goodies.  ‘No tea either?’  He was
genuinely sorry about the lack of tea though.  He really liked
tea.

‘Nope!  You’re stuck with just me today’
Mae answered, inching closer, her grin showing all teeth.  She
looked almost evil somehow, and definitely scary. 

Gel noticed that he still held her wrist in
one hand, and that she had wrapped her other arm around his. 
She was pressing closely against his shoulder, and he was having
trouble breathing.  Not because the smell of her was cloying,
she smelled wonderful, but because his heart was beating too
quickly.

Anxious, Gel cast around for something,
anything, to distract her with.

‘I didn’t write you a song today’ he started
as he saw his lute sitting beside him and began to reach for it
with his free arm.  He was going to tell her that he would
write her one now, which should gain him some distance, and the use
of his other arm, but Mae was too fast for him.

As he was reaching for his lute, Mae quickly
shifted.  One second she was sitting on the ground next to
him, her arms around his, the next she had plopped herself down in
his lap, and had wrapped his arm tightly around her small waist.
 Gel couldn’t quite understand how she had managed it. 
She held his arm there in a viselike grip, and Gel had to use the
arm that had been reaching for his lute to keep from falling over
completely.

‘Well, you’ll have to give me something else
then, won’t you?’ she said, and he thought he saw her cheeks flush
before he looked away.  He would not look into her face this
close, or he might lose any chance he had to get out of this alive,
and with dignity.

Once more, Gel cast around for something,
anything that could save him.  But he was distracted. 
Mae was sitting on him.  His arm wrapped around her waist, the
smell of her hair, the way her skirts had hiked up again and he
could see her pretty legs, this time close enough to reach out and
touch.  Gel was not thinking straight.  And so he said
the first thing that came to mind.

‘I want to ask you to the festival’ he
started, swallowing nervously.  Once again, he had more to
say.  He was going to continue with “but I also want to ask
Sheane, and I can’t ask you both, and I don’t know what to do”, but
he never got that far.  Once again, he wasn’t given the
chance.

With those few words, Mae’s eyes went wide.
 She let out what Gel could only describe as a squeal of some
sort, and she hugged Gel, throwing herself into him.  Gel’s
supporting arm gave out, and he fell back into the grass, Mae
falling with him to lie on top, her arms still wrapped around his
neck.  Her short, golden hair had fallen around his face in
the fall, and it felt and smelled lovely.  Mae pressing
against him felt lovely as well, but he had to try again. 

‘But, Mae, listen’ he started, trying to push
Mae up and off of him.  He did not get far.

As soon as he started, Mae untangled her arms
from around his neck, put them on his shoulders, and pushed. 
Pinned as he was by her legs laying across him, and her arms on his
shoulders, Gel could not help but look into her beautiful blue
eyes, now only a few inches from his face.  Her short hair was
just long enough to fall around his face, and it cut his vision off
from everything but her determined gaze.

‘No, Gel, no,’ she said, suddenly serious,
and staring straight at him, ‘No buts.  No listens, no
bringing up Sheane.  You’re mine now, and I’m not letting
go.’  Gel had never seen her so serious, or so beautiful.

As Gel tried to come up with any sort of
protest he could, his mouth opening and closing silently in stunned
confusion, Mae shut off any further chance for salvation.

She leaned forward, pressing herself against
him, her eyes closed, and she kissed him.  And Gel lost track
of everything.

Protesting that he liked Sheane too, that he
couldn’t choose between them.  Concentrating on the Duke’s
recital the next day.  Even complaints about how annoying
studying with his tutors was.  All these thoughts and more
disappeared, and the afternoon did too.

Several hours later, Mae stood in front of
him, quickly straightening her dress and hair, and blushing
furiously.  Gel still didn’t know what to say as Mae leaned
in, quickly brushed his lips with a kiss, and whispered ‘well…bye’
before running off towards the town.

Gel stood and watched her leave for a while,
trying to process an afternoon spent kissing his best friend, a
girl he now thought he loved, before picking up his lute case and
starting the slow walk home, shaking his head in confusion most of
the way.

When Gel reached the old stone house, he
walked slowly up to his room, tossed his lute on the floor, and
flopped, spread-eagle, onto his bed, staring at the ceiling and
trying to make sense of what had just happened.

He ignored calls from his mother, trying to
get him downstairs for dinner, and instead lay in bed thinking,
staring up at the ceiling yet seeing nothing till he fell asleep,
and yet he was no closer to an answer than when he had started.

I

Erris was excited. She woke up excited, she
worked excited, she went to sleep excited. Every day in the past
week she had been excited, and she knew nothing would be different
in the next two days either. In two days, she would be sixteen.

Not that it was as important for her as for
other girls, or so she’d heard. She wouldn’t be pampered and
trained to be a lady like some city girl, pretty and plump and
useless. She would continue to work on her fathers’ farm, the way
it should be. But she could be married now, if her father ever
found her a suitable husband. Or at least she could be in two days.
She wondered, sometimes, what that would be like. Cooking and
cleaning, helping to run a farm. Someday having children…

Still, turning sixteen was supposed to be an
important day for a girl. She wasn’t quite sure why, but it was, so
she was excited.

She would be sixteen; no longer a child in
the eyes of the Church, although she couldn’t yet be called an
adult. She would be allowed to commune and confess when her family
went to church, but not to vote. They seldom went to church, it was
rare to be able to put the time in to go; even more rare to be
called in to a vote. A day’s ride away, the nearest church was
small, with an even smaller congregation. Well, the nearest Regan
church. There were several Rognian churches closer, but they
weren’t allowed to those. Rognia was very strict about its
churches.

The border between the two countries was
fluid, and both churches worshipped Ragn. Why it mattered which
church someone worshipped at though, Erris didn’t know. And her
father had been vague the last time she asked, saying something
about different hierarchies and different rules. She suspected he
didn’t know either.

Still, while the confession and communion
might be nice, there were better rewards for turning sixteen; she
had convinced her father to take the family into town, to the
tavern, for her birthday supper. Trips into town were rare, and she
was sure there would be cute soldier boys there for her to practice
blushing over; there almost always were.

So if Erris woke quickly that morning,
excited and ready to hurry through another day, well, at least
no-one could blame her.

Of course, having a birthday soon never meant
the chores disappeared. Chores were like time; they were always
there, even when you didn’t notice them. So, as the sun rose slowly
in the East, as it did every morning, and as roosters rushed to be
the first to wake everyone, as they did every morning, Erris rose.
She doused her face quickly with water from the washbasin in her
room, slipped on her rough-woven wool trousers and tunic and slid
barefoot out the window of the room she shared with her sisters, to
the dirt below.