Angelica (10 page)

“Susannah,” it said again, its tones low and urgent.

She tried one door, but it was locked, so she turned to the other one. It fell open as soon as she laid her palm across the smooth surface. She stepped inside, but this room was even stranger than the last one, all in darkness, with hidden shadowy shapes catching faint reflections from the light outside. One entire wall, floor to ceiling, appeared to be a window opening onto a view of the night sky. Constellations
pressed against the glass like children peering into a candy shop. There were so many stars she could not count them or sort them out. And they were moving, revolving around her, above her, like a picture panel circling a candle and throwing fantastical designs behind it.

She took a step backward, feeling small and strange and dizzy. “I don't like this place,” she whispered. “Take me back to the white room. I am afraid here.”

“There is nothing to fear. You are perfectly safe,” the voice responded, mercifully speaking in words that Susannah could understand.

“Take me back,” she said again, even more softly.

“Come visit me,” the voice said. “Very soon.”

Susannah closed her eyes, to shut out the shifting, disorienting view. She put her hands out and felt behind her for the door, then stepped backward, one careful pace at a time. Once she was in the hallway, she shut the door before opening her eyes again. Back in the white corridor, an alien enough place, but not so strange as the place she had just been.

“Susannah,” the voice said. “Come visit me soon.”

“Not now,” she whispered. “I want to go home.”

She woke with a start, taking a quick gulp of air and feeling her body jerk so hard she elbowed Linus in the head. For a moment, she did not know where she was, and she was washed with a quick wave of panic, but then Paul sat up across the tent from her, and she remembered.

“I'm all right,” she breathed, before he could speak and wake anyone else up. “Go back to sleep.”

He did not lie back down, but peered at her through the darkness, tilting his head so he could see her past the tent pole. “Another one of your dreams?” he asked quietly. “You still get them?”

She nodded. “Sometimes. Usually they are pleasant enough. This one was just a little strange.”

He resettled himself on his pallet, but she could sense his eyes on her even through the darkness. “You can tell me about it in the morning,” he said.

She laughed softly. “By morning I will have forgotten it.”

But she had not.

Sometime the day before, between sharing meals at the campfires and singing in front of Bartholomew's tent, the Lohoras and the Tachitas had agreed to travel on together for a few days. So when camp was struck with its usual quick efficiency, Susannah elected to walk on beside Ruth and the babies instead of keeping company with her own tentmates. Paul and Linus occupied themselves with the packhorses, and Susannah's father had joined up with the old men of the Lohora clan, so Ruth and Susannah were able to talk freely without any eager ears overhearing their observations. Ruth whispered news about Tachita girls, gossip about who was pursuing whom, and Susannah relayed similar stories from clans she had encountered on the road. It was very satisfying talk, although not always good-natured, and they both giggled and glanced around guiltily every time they repeated something just a touch unsavory about someone else they knew.

“And then after all that, she chose to stay with a trader who works along the river cities!” Ruth ended up one tale. “Moved into a house there in Castelana and says she's not traveling with the clans ever again. Can you imagine?”

“No,” said Susannah. “But did she love him?”

Ruth shrugged. “He had a lot of gold and he brought her bolts of the most beautiful silk cloth,” she said. “I think she just loved the idea of the luxury of the life she could have with him. She loved what he could bring her, not the man himself.”

Susannah nodded. “Well, she's part allali, isn't she?” she asked, using the Edori word that meant “city-dweller”—or, in fact, anyone who was not Edori. “Her mother was only half Edori, if I remember right. Maybe part of her has always longed for a more comfortable life.”

“I don't think I would find it comfortable to be trapped in one small house my whole life and see only the same view every day from my windows,” Ruth said. “But last I heard, she was determined to become an allali in every respect. She was going to marry this man—”

“No!” Susannah exclaimed.

“Yes, and she was going to be dedicated to Yovah. And
she had already begun calling the god ‘Jovah,' as all the allali do. It sounded very strange, coming from her mouth.”

Susannah lifted her hand to her own Kiss in her right arm, symbol of her dedication to the god nearly twenty-five years ago. “I did not know an adult could choose to be dedicated,” she said slowly. “I thought only infants and children were given the Kiss.”

Ruth shrugged. “Well, who knows about things like that? You and your brother are the only ones I ever knew who bore a Kiss, and it didn't seem to change your lives much. Do you think it makes you closer to the god? I find it hard to believe. He is so close to us already.”

Susannah swept back her heavy black hair to expose her right ear, though Ruth had seen this particular revelation before. “Oh, but I am even more special to the god,” she said in mock solemnity. “For I have another Kiss set right here on my skull.”

Ruth paused a moment to inspect the sight, a second crystal node implanted right behind Susannah's ear, smaller than the one in her arm and completely colorless. “Well, I have always thought that must be such a bother,” she said. “Doesn't it get in the way when you comb your hair? And doesn't it
hurt
?”

Susannah let her hair fall. “Oh, I can't feel it at all. I forget it's there for days at a time.”

“I still would not want one,” Ruth said. “Or a Kiss in my arm. I think they're very strange things.”

Susannah shrugged. “They're gifts from Yovah,” she said. “I don't mind them.”

The baby, who had been riding in a sling against Ruth's stomach, woke just then and began to fuss. Ruth shushed him and began to rock him, crooning a soft lullaby. Susannah dropped back a few paces and then waved at Ruth, an offhand promise to hunt her up later. She cut through the slow parade of walkers and searched through the moving camp to find her tentmates.

Keren was nowhere in sight, but Anna and Tirza were easy to find, chatting amiably among the stragglers in the rear of the group. Anna did not move very fast, and sometimes Eleazar insisted she ride one of the horses, especially
when the terrain was rough. But today, with two clans mingled and so many children to watch out for, the whole company was moving at a very sedate pace, and it did not matter how slowly Anna chose to walk.

“There you are! I thought you had decided to turn your back on the Lohoras now that you were with your true family again,” Tirza greeted her.

“The Lohoras are my true family,” Susannah said with a smile. “And I doubt any of you minded having one less body in your tent last night, though my brothers complained of how much room I took up. I! With my slim figure!” And she pirouetted quickly between one step and the next, and then laughed at her vanity.

Anna and Tirza exchanged quick glances. “Oh, you were in your brother's tent,” Anna said. “Well. That is a good place to be.”

Susannah felt her nerves flutter with apprehension. “Why, where did you think I was? Sleeping out by the fire like one of the old men? No, thank you, I do not wish to wake up with dew all over my face.”

“Of course that's where we thought you were,” Tirza said, sending a warning look at her lover's older sister. “I told Anna and Keren that you were tired of their cooking and had gone back to Ruth for something more nourishing.”

“You said no such thing!” Susannah exclaimed.

They bantered a while longer, but Susannah felt her unease spread from the surface of her skin inward, until it knotted all her muscles and kinked up all her veins. When Anna stepped away to go look for Claudia, Susannah turned to Tirza.

“Tell me,” she said with quiet determination. “You thought Dathan and I had left the tent together last night, didn't you? You thought that because he, too, was missing from the tent.”

“I hoped you were with him,” Tirza said.

“But you did not really think so,” Susannah said. Her own voice was hard with the anger she was trying to hold inside. “You thought your brother was probably out all night with some pretty young girl from the Tachita tribe.”

“Dathan is Dathan,” Tirza said. The look on her face was
sad, but the tone of her voice was pleading. As if she did not want Susannah to be angry enough to leave Dathan, as if she wanted Susannah to understand. “He is drawn to pretty girls. He always will be. That doesn't mean he does not love you, because he does. I never thought to see my brother so settled as he is with you, so content. Before he met you—every month, he was at some new girl's side. At every Gathering, at every chance-met campfire, he was flirting with the loveliest girl he could find. He was true to no one, till he met you. Susannah, he talked of you for an entire
year
after he first fell in love with you, and he didn't see you once between those two Gatherings. Do you know how amazing that is? For Dathan? I know he makes mistakes sometimes, but I believe he truly loves you.”

Susannah said nothing during this entire speech, but merely walked along beside Tirza, biting her lip and staring down at the ground beneath her moving feet. It was true; she knew Dathan loved her. But she did not know if he loved her enough. She did not know if he loved her as much as she loved him, or if his feeling for her was fitful and fanciful, a brief high fire that burned even more brightly when it was fed foreign and exotic fuel. She did not want to share Dathan with all the pretty girls he would meet from now until his last Gathering. She did not want to share him with even one of them.

“Come back to the Lohora camp this evening,” Tirza said in soft, persuasive tones. “I'm sure Dathan will be in our tent tonight.”

“Are you?” Susannah said, more sharply than she intended. “He has not looked for me once today, which is strange since he must think I know where he slept last night. He must know I am not happy with him. Why hasn't he come to charm me out of my anger?”

Tirza looked dumbly back at her, and they both knew the answer to that. Because he was off somewhere with Cozbi, roaming ahead of the slow-moving caravan, on horseback maybe, or pretending to be off on a hunt. If Dathan realized he had something to apologize for, he seemed to think he had a few hours' grace before he needed to speak his piece.

Susannah put a hand out to Tirza's shoulder, a gesture of
comfort. “Don't look so stricken, Tirza, this is not your quarrel,” she said. “This is something Dathan and I must sort out ourselves. If we can.”

“But Susannah—” Tirza said, but Susannah made a sharp gesture with her hand to cut her off.

“Not your quarrel,” she said again. “Let's talk of something else.”

It was late afternoon, and Susannah had returned to Ruth's side, before Dathan rejoined the clans. Susannah had not confided her troubles to Ruth, but the other woman could sense that something was wrong, and they had walked in silence for the rest of the journey. Paul had joined them once, when Bartholomew called a halt and they all took refreshment, and he had watched Susannah with concerned, narrowed eyes. But Ruth had shaken her head at him, so he had said nothing.

Ruth was the first one to spot Dathan, picking his way through the scattered walkers, clearly looking for someone. “There he is,” she said quietly.

“Who?” Susannah said and, looking up, spotted Dathan. “Oh. I guess he's back.”

“Give me the baby. He'll want to talk to you alone.”

“Maybe I don't want to talk to him.”

Ruth lifted the sleeping child from Susannah's arms. “Maybe you do,” she said, and dropped back a few paces to leave Susannah striding along, angry and solitary and easily seen.

Dathan located her and quickly angled through the line of walkers to make his way to her side. She would not look at him, just kept putting one foot down in front of the other, and focused her eyes on the flat vista ahead. It would be time to camp in another hour or two. The days were long, this time of year, and they could go farther than they might during the winter months, but none of them liked to tax their strength so far. They had old ones and young ones in their group; there was no need to push themselves too hard.

“Here you are,” he said, sidling up next to her and putting his arm around her shoulders. He bent down a little to peer into her face, which she kept averted. “I've been looking for you. Have you been walking with the Tachitas all day?”

“Except for the hour I was walking with your sister, when
you were nowhere to be seen,” Susannah said coldly.

“When was this? Earlier today? I was with the horses.”

So they had gone off on horseback. Dathan was usually careful to use part of the truth any time he told a lie. Susannah said nothing.