Angelica (22 page)

“No doubt,” Gaaron said. “Where are they staying? What did you tell them?”

“They're camped out a little south of the city. I said I'd bring you as soon as I could.”

Gaaron nodded. “Get Zibiah. Tell her I need her. Meet me on the plateau as soon as you can.”

Gaaron went off in search of Susannah and found her with Ahio in the music rooms. For a moment he paused, just enjoying the sound of her singing along with a recording of Hagar, making even that fabulous voice sound warmer and more alluring. When the piece ended, she came to stand
beside him near the doorway. Ahio glanced at them, then crossed to the controls to play with the tempo of the recording.

“The Jansai are in Velora to talk to the little girl,” Gaaron said. “Do you want to come?”

“I certainly do,” she said. “Now?”

He nodded. “Zibiah will carry her down. Nicholas will come with us, too, to give us some consequence.”

She smiled. “As if the Archangel needed any consequence.”

“You'd be surprised. Dealing with Jansai, you need any edge you can get.”

“I wouldn't be surprised,” she said dryly.

Ahio clicked off the music. “I'll come, too, if you want more wings around you,” he offered.

Gaaron nodded. “Be on the plateau in a few minutes, then.”

In about fifteen minutes, they had all assembled, Gaaron and Susannah taking a few minutes to change their attire. Gaaron had put on a white shirt and black pants, clothes that the Jansai recognized as formal. Susannah had changed into a bright blue shirt and a long black skirt with an embroidered hem—Edori clothes, Gaaron realized, which the Jansai would also recognize. She was making her own statement, he surmised, one that said,
I know you and you know me. Do not try any Jansai tricks.

Or perhaps she just liked the colors, which flattered her dark skin and caused her black hair to flare with luster.

Zibiah was holding the hand of the young Jansai girl, who looked taller and thinner than Gaaron remembered. She peered out from under her veil with darting, suspicious eyes, and pressed closer to Zibiah.

“Does she know where we're going?” Gaaron asked.

Zibiah nodded. “I told her that her people had come to ask her some questions. She didn't say anything. She never does.”

“Is she afraid?” he asked.

“I think she always is,” Zibiah replied.

Gaaron glanced around at his group. Four angels, an Edori, and a little girl; perhaps the Jansai would not be
impressed, but it was the best he could do on short notice. “Let's go,” he said, and took Susannah in his arms.

The flight down the mountain and across Velora was short, but not so short that Gaaron did not notice how pleasant it felt to hold Susannah against him as he flew. Her long hair kept whipping into his face, tickling across his mouth and tangling with his eyelashes. “Sorry,” she cried into the wind, a laugh in her voice as she tried to catch the wayward hair in one hand. But it was hopeless, the hair too long and the wind too wild. “Next time I'll braid it!”

They landed just outside the Jansai camp. There were two wagons, shaded by ribbed canvas coverings, and about ten horses. Gaaron counted four men crouched around the small campfire and guessed that one or two more might have gone into Velora for the day. Solomon had sent a show of force as well.

He set Susannah on her feet and strode forward. “I'm Gabriel,” he said. “Thank you for coming.”

“Covel,” one of the Jansai said, standing to meet the angel. Not for the first time, Gaaron wondered where the Jansai got their names, since almost none of them seemed to be culled from the Librera. Perhaps they made them up out of euphonious syllables. His companions did not come to their feet, and Covel did not introduce them.

“I have brought the young girl who witnessed an attack on a Jansai camp,” Gaaron said. “She will not talk to us, but Solomon graciously agreed to send a Jansai woman to ask her what occurred.”

“My wife is in the wagon,” Covel said. “She will ask the girl your questions. What do you want to know?”

So, pretty sure that Solomon had told Covel this whole story already, Gaaron patiently repeated the details of the burned campsite. What had caused it? Had the travelers been attacked? Had there been a strike of lightning? How had she escaped?

“And any other details she might remember,” Gaaron finished up. “Though it has been more than two weeks now. She might not recall much.”

“We shall find out,” Covel said.

The Jansai turned to motion the young girl forward, either
unwilling to speak to a female child or proscribed by Jansai law. But she buried her face in Zibiah's clothes and would not step forward.

Covel looked at Gaaron in irritation. “I can learn nothing from her if she will not talk to my wife.”

Susannah stepped forward and bent over the little girl, murmuring something in her ear. The child looked up and allowed Susannah to detach her from the angel and take her hand. The two of them approached Covel, who had moved to the front of his wagon.

“I'll go in with her,” Susannah said.

Covel turned his head and spit into the dirt. Then he looked at Gaaron. “She can't come in the wagon.”

“I will go in with her,” Susannah repeated. “We will learn nothing unless she is willing to talk, and she is not willing to go in there without me.”

Covel looked again at Gaaron, who nodded. Muttering some Jansai imprecation, Covel pulled back the canvas flap that hid the interior of the wagon, and motioned them forward. Susannah helped the little girl in and then, making the awkward climb look easy, pulled herself inside.

Gaaron and the other angels were left facing the four Jansai men. Covel took the few short steps back to the fire. “Wine?” he asked. “Water? You may make yourselves comfortable while you wait.”

Gaaron glanced back at his contingent. Zibiah seemed tense and uncomfortable, the lone woman now out of eight, but Ahio and Nicholas were looking about them with curiosity. None of them had spent much time with the Jansai outside of marketplaces where their wares were set up. It was interesting to see the arrangement of the tented wagons, the metal spit erected over the fire, the array of clay jugs and pans clustered in the shade of the nearest wagon. This camp was even more spare than the Lohoras', though Gaaron credited the Jansai with a greater sense of luxury than the Edori. Maybe because they had traveled far and fast, they had pared down their traveling gear to bare necessities.

“I do not know if you welcome women at your fire,” Gaaron said gravely. “The rest of us would not be willing to take refreshment if she is not invited.”

Covel snorted. “She may sit with us, if she likes,” he said. “We are not interested in hearing her talk.”

That was too ungracious an offer to accept. “Then—” Gaaron began, but Zibiah nodded her head. She was willing. Gaaron shrugged. “Then, we will be happy to take refreshment with you.”

The eight of them disposed themselves around the fire, Jansai on one side, angels on the other, Zibiah carefully placed so that she was between the men of her party. There were no chairs, but the Jansai produced surprisingly comfortable leather-covered mats to at least shelter their clothes from the dirt. Gaaron spread his wings out behind him, unable to keep them from overlapping with Zibiah's, and hoped no small creature ran up from behind and skipped through his feathers.

One of Covel's wordless cohorts brought them clay cups filled with a steaming liquid. He handed two of these to Gaaron, so Gaaron passed the second one to Zibiah. Apparently the Jansai did not even want to risk accidentally touching a woman's fingers. Gaaron took a sip. It was fruit-flavored but heavily spiced with cinnamon and other seasonings, and it tasted marvelous.

“This is excellent,” Gaaron said. “Thank you.”

“A good drink for a long journey,” said one of the heretofore silent Jansai.

Gaaron nodded at him gravely. “How did you find the roads between here and Breven?” The standard greeting to any traveler. The whole of Samaria was large enough that even angels from three holds, flying overhead constantly, could not monitor every mile of terrain. They often depended on Jansai and Edori for news of untoward conditions.

But the Jansai was returning a nonchalant answer. “No problems. The Galilee is high, but it has been higher. We saw no floods. No plague flags.”

“Good to hear,” Gaaron replied. “What villages did you pass through on your way?”

They continued making laborious travel conversation for the next half hour, while trying not to appear as if they were listening for any sound coming from the wagon. If the women were speaking at all, their low voices did not carry
past the heavy canvas. Then again, it was possible that the child, who had uttered no coherent word for two weeks, was refusing to speak at all.

Finally, after another round of spiced juice and a discussion of the price of animal skins in the various city markets, the canvas flap folded back and Susannah appeared. She paused a moment, as if letting her eyes adjust to the brightness outside, then daintily stepped down. The girl did not follow her out.

Gaaron rose to his feet and she immediately came across the campsite to stand by his side. Her dark face was grave, and when she met his eyes, he saw that she had been crying.

“I take it she told you some of her story,” he said, offering her his juice. She nodded and took the cup.

“It is a frightening tale,” she said.

Gaaron pushed her to the inside of the angelic contingent, so that she was between Zibiah and his own body. “Tell us,” he said.

She handed back the cup, then folded her hands across her updrawn knees. “She had been traveling with her family and some of their friends. There were fifteen of them—only two of them men who were not related to her. She and her mother and her sister were in the wagon most of the time, though her mother would go outside to prepare meals. There were other women in another wagon—her mother's sister and her daughters. When the men left to hunt, the women would come out and tend the fire and clean themselves.”

Susannah reached out for Gaaron's cup again and took another sip. “On this day, they had decided to camp overnight, so they were all feeling relaxed. The men had hunted the day before, so there was no need for them to leave. Many of them were merely sitting around the fire, drinking wine and telling stories. Kaski and her sister—”

“Who?” Gaaron said.

“Kaski. That's our little Jansai girl's name. She and her sister had to relieve themselves, so they slipped out the back of the wagon so that they would not expose themselves to the gaze of men.” She glanced at Covel, who nodded. This, apparently, was common practice.

“They stayed out a while, running through the grass and
trying to catch butterflies. But they were not far from the wagons and the fire. Close enough to hear had anyone called out their names or cried for help.

“When they grew tired, they headed back. They came in quietly, and bent low to the ground, so as not to draw the attention of the men. They were able to get very close to the camp and yet remain almost invisible. But they found they were not the only invisible creatures to come upon the camp by stealth. They were astonished to see three strangers—three black men—crouched in the tall grass a few yards from the wagons, watching the Jansai around the fire.”

“Three black men?” Gaaron interrupted. “What does that mean?”

Susannah shook her head. “I couldn't tell. Were their faces black? Was their clothing black? Both? She just kept calling them ‘the black men.' She kept looking at me, so perhaps their coloring was like the Edori.”

“We do not call Edori black,” Covel interjected. “Sometimes we refer to you with a word that means ‘men of bronze.' Any child would know the difference.”

“Still, my guess is that their skin was dark, and perhaps their clothes were as well,” Susannah continued. “Other than that, she seemed to feel they were just like other men—shaped like us, like Jansai.”

“And they were crouching in the grass before the campsite,” Gaaron prompted.

“And while the girls watched, the black men stood up. They had—long sticks that seemed to be made of gleaming metal. She tried to describe them, but I could not understand what she was trying to say. The strangers pointed these sticks at the camp—and fire came out of the sticks—and the camp exploded with it.”

Susannah hesitated a moment, either trying to picture that scene for herself, or remembering what Kaski had said in a small, trembling voice. “She said that there were just a few short screams from the people in the camp,” Susannah went on slowly. “Like the fire caught them and burned them up so quickly they did not have time to call out in pain or terror. She said there were just those few short cries and then the sound of burning. Everything else was silent.”

Susannah, too, fell silent for a moment. No one else stirred. “Kaski and her sister at first were too stunned to react. So they hid in the grass as the three strangers stepped forward and went to inspect the burning camp. They were speaking a language that made no sense. One of them bent down to pick up some of the cinders and rub it between his fingers, and he looked up and said something to his companions. All three of them laughed.