Angelica (23 page)

“And then Kaski's sister could stand it no more. She jumped to her feet and went shrieking into the camp, toward the laughing strangers. They whipped around and saw her running at them, and one of them aimed his fire stick and shot it at her. She burst into flame and crumbled into ash before Kaski could even say her name.”

Another silence. Gaaron could understand why Susannah had been crying. Zibiah put her arm around Susannah and briefly pressed her pink cheek against the bronze one. Susannah closed her eyes and seemed to draw a moment's strength from the angel. Then she opened her eyes, straightened up, and continued speaking.

“When her sister erupted into flames, Kaski flattened herself to the ground and covered her eyes. She was sure the strangers had seen her, so she was sure she would be the next to catch on fire. But though she lay there for a long time, the strangers did not find her. They did not aim their sticks at her. When she finally found the courage to stand up and look about her, the strangers were gone.”

Susannah lifted her eyes and gazed around the campfire at each of them in turn, Jansai and angel. “And Kaski stood there a moment, staring around her at all her dead. And she wondered when the black strangers might come back. And she started running. And she ran for two days before the angels found her. And she is afraid, even now, to sit here in this canvas tent, knowing the black men could return again with their fire sticks, and destroy every one of us, herself included. And she thinks it will happen yet.”

A moment longer Susannah held her head up, looking from face to face, reading—as Gaaron did—horror in the angels' expressions and nothing on the Jansai features. Then she dropped her head to Zibiah's shoulder. The angel lifted
her nearest wing and wrapped it around Susannah, cradling the cramped body against hers. The dark head disappeared entirely under the folded wing, but Gaaron could still hear Susannah's soft, bitter sobs.

“A grim tale to hear, but we needed to hear it,” Gaaron said, when he could find his voice again. “I take it none of you have seen these ‘black men' in your travels? You have talked to no one else who has seen them?”

The Jansai all shook their heads. Except for Covel. “I've heard about campsites that burned, but I never heard about black men dressed in black.”

“She's a child,” one of the other Jansai said. “What she saw and what happened might be two different things.”

“Terrible thing like that, though, you tend to remember all the details pretty clearly,” Nicholas spoke up unexpectedly. “She's been going over it and over it in her head, I'd guess. Seeing it every night when she tries to fall asleep.”

“Better for her if she had died,” Covel said starkly.

“Perhaps now that she has been able to tell the story, she will heal,” Gaaron said. “And now that she is among her own people again—”

“What? She stays with you,” Covel said sharply.

Gaaron was astonished. Beside him, he felt Susannah stir and push herself up, though Zibiah's wing continued to stay half curled around her. “But—she belongs to you,” Gaaron said somewhat blankly. “She is not happy with the angels. She needs to be among people she understands—”

“She has been tainted by contact with men,” Covel said clearly. “We cannot take her back. If you do not keep her with you, we will leave her here beside the road. An impure woman is a disease in the heart of the camp, and will spread contagion throughout. She is dead to us. She is yours.”

“But you—” Gaaron began, but before he could finish his sentence, Covel jumped to his feet and strode over to the wagon. He shouted out a few unintelligible Jansai phrases. There was a low moan from the tent, and a sharp cry that must have been Kaski's. Covel impatiently repeated his command, but nothing happened. Nimbly, he climbed up into the wagon, which rocked a little at his sudden weight, and disappeared into the canvas tenting.

A moment later, the little girl came tumbling out, shrieking and shaking and trying to turn around to scramble back in. Covel did not reemerge, but his hands thrust out through the canvas flap, pushing her backward with brute force. Twice more she tried to reenter the tent, crying the whole time, and twice more he repelled her. The second time, he shoved her with so much energy that she fell, somersaulting off the flat platform to the hard ground below.

Susannah was on her feet and running to the fallen girl before Gaaron could think to do more than stare. She knelt on the ground beside Kaski, gathering the girl into her arms and rocking her against her body. Kaski continued to twist and shriek in her arms, trying to get free, trying to make the Jansai keep her.

“You had better go,” someone said in Gaaron's ear, and he looked up to find one of the other Jansai standing over him. “Take her or not, it does not matter to us. But she will not be coming back to Breven.”

Gaaron nodded dumbly, enraged but powerless. He and the other angels came to their feet, Zibiah taking a few uncertain steps toward the huddle of sobbing girl and comforting Edori. Gaaron shook his head.

“I'll take them both,” he said. “I don't think Susannah will let go of her. Let me get aloft first, and the rest of you follow.”

It was five strides to the side of the wagon. Susannah looked up at him helplessly, but then she read the message on his face, and she nodded. She took a firmer grip on the writhing girl and rose to her feet, still watching Gaaron. He wrapped his arms around her, gauged the combined weight of the woman and the girl, and drove his wings down with one hard, muscular beat. In a few moments they were airborne, and ten minutes later they were back at the Eyrie.

M
iriam was bored.

All her friends were gone—
all
of them, even that sad, silent little Jansai girl—and of the hundred and fifty or so souls who lived at the Eyrie, there was not a single one she cared to talk to. In fact, she'd had to leave the lunch tables early because Esther had spotted her from across the room and appeared to be coming her way, a purposeful look on her face. So Miriam had escaped out the side door and practically run down the halls, just to get away.

There was nothing to do in her room, so she wandered outside, up to the high peak that sheltered the singers performing their hourly harmonics. There stood Enoch and Lydia, older angels she never spoke to if she could help it. She hurried back down, crossed the plateau, entered the tunnels, and headed to the lower levels.

But two of the music rooms were in use, one of them occupied by that horrible boy Zack making monstrous music on a flute. Ahio claimed he had promise, but Miriam couldn't for the life of her hear it. She didn't like flute music, anyway—didn't care for any music except singing, really. Maybe she should listen to the masses, or, better yet, practice one of the pieces she might attempt to sing at the Gloria this
year. Gaaron had not asked her to perform, but she knew it would please him if she presented some polished piece at the very Gloria where he was installed as Archangel. She had thought about having Chloe or Zibiah or one of the men practice a duet with her, but then she had decided this was something she should do on her own, proof to Gaaron that she could stand there with the world staring and show her love for him.

Of course, she had to admit she was enthralled by the picture—the slender blond woman, dressed perhaps in frilly white, perhaps in saturated blue, standing demurely before the crowd of thousands and singing some impossibly sweet and heartbreaking song. The impact was lessened somewhat when she imagined some of the angels standing beside her, overshadowing her with their very noticeable wings and their outstanding voices. No, it must be a solo.

She had not yet decided what this solo should be.

She stepped inside the music room and fiddled with the control panel a while, selecting a song at random, listening to a few measures, and then impatiently shutting it off. Another song, another dozen bars, another quick disconnect. None of them sounded exactly right. None of them created the mood she was going after. None of them made her seem like the wronged and misunderstood little sister who, in reality, wanted nothing more in life than to make her brother happy.

Maybe she should ask Ahio to write something for her.

Of course, Ahio wasn't here. Off with her brother on some mysterious mission Gaaron had not even paused to explain to her, even though she had told him how interested she was in knowing what he was doing at every moment.

It was enough to make even the calmest sister furious.

She shut off her most recent selection and skipped out of the music room. Sweet Jovah singing, what was there to
do
here? Making good on his promise, Gaaron had asked all the angels of the hold to refuse to take Miriam down to Velora for a solid week, and this was only the second day of that week. She thought she might lose her mind. Susannah had offered to teach her how to embroider and Zibiah had
volunteered to play any game she chose, but Miriam had scoffed at both suggestions.

Anyway, they were both gone. With Gaaron, with Ahio, somewhere off the mountain.

Even Chloe and Sela had disappeared this morning, going up to the Lesh estate in Gaza on some errand. A favor to Neri, perhaps. There was no one here to talk to, absolutely nothing to do.

Miriam emerged back on the plateau and stood there, feeling as helpless as she ever had in her life. How did people live for months, for years, in Windy Point, with no distractions anywhere for miles around? How could they stand it? Why didn't they go mad and jump from the mountaintop, ending their tedious lives in one quick, exciting plunge to immortality?

She crossed to the far edge of the plateau, away from the entrance to the labyrinth, and started to scale the rough side of the mountain. In a thin, full-skirted dress, she was not attired for climbing, and she almost gave up the third time her hem caught on a sharp rock. But she and Sela had scrambled up this short wall of the mountain hundreds of times when they were children; she ought to be able to manage now that she was a full-grown adult.

She made it to the top of the rocky rim that outlined the plateau, and she looked down. From here, she could see Velora, less than a mile distant, nestled up against the side of the mountain like the Jansai girl in Zibiah's arms. It did not look so far. The side of the mountain did not look so steep. Perhaps, if she moved carefully and did not lose her patience, she could make it down.

A shadow fell over her from above and the shape of angel wings blocked the sunshine. She looked up quickly, but the face was in shadow. All she could tell was that the flier was not big enough to be Gaaron.

“What are you doing? Thinking about jumping off?” came the merry question, and she recognized the speaker. Jesse, one of the angels from Monteverde.

A friend of hers.

She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted back. “Wishing I could fly! Nick and Zib and Ahio and Chloe
are all gone, and I don't have a way to get down the mountain.”

“Well, put your hands up, then,” he said, and swooped down.

Giggling, she threw her arms in the air and leaned into his quick embrace as he snatched her from her rocky perch. Even more dangerous than trying to descend on foot, to allow herself to be plucked from unprotected high ground in that way, but she didn't care. Neither did Jesse, for he came at her in a flat-out dive and actually knocked her from her feet before he caught her up in his arms. They were both laughing.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded, crying the words into his ear.

“Message from Neri for your brother!” he shouted back. “But he's not here!”

“How long can you stay and play with me?”

He grinned. “As long as you like! Where to? Velora? Or someplace a little more exotic?”

For a moment she was tempted—really tempted—to say “Semorrah,” and then see if he would truly embark on such an ill-judged impromptu venture. She didn't have a damn thing with her, of course, just the impractical dress she was wearing, and there was always the chance Jesse would say yes. “Velora will do for now,” she said.

“Velora it is,” he said.

In another ten minutes, they were on the streets, walking through the bazaars and eating sweets. Miriam was so happy to be out of the Eyrie that she wouldn't have cared if they were walking the sinister boulevards of Breven, but as it was—on this sunny day, next to this attractive angel, strolling through the friendly streets of Velora—she felt she could not have been closer to pure contentment.

“Buy me a present,” she commanded as they stopped at a little booth selling gloves and ribbons.

“Glad to,” he said, and paused to look through the merchandise. He was a dark-haired young man of medium height and build, not so good-looking as Ahio or so volatile as Nicholas, and he had always adored her. She could never tell if it would terrify Gaaron or flood him with relief if she decided
to marry Jesse, and because she couldn't tell, she had always laughingly turned aside his protestations of affection.

Anyway, who would want to live at Monteverde, away from everybody in the world?

He held up a length of cobalt-blue ribbon, shot through with random gold stars. “That's pretty,” he said. “Do you like that?”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “I'll have Susannah use it to trim a shirt for me. It's so pretty!”

They strolled on, paused to buy another cake, stopped on a street corner to listen to a shirtless young boy sing a devastatingly beautiful song, turned another corner and instantly forgot him. They argued over the attractions of Luminaux compared to Semorrah, agreed that Adriel was looking old, wondered who might offer songs at the spring Gloria, and traded gossip about the other angels in their holds. This took them to dinnertime, so they asked for a table at an outdoor cafe and settled in for a meal, spending a long time looking over the menu because every single item sounded so good. In the end, they ordered half a dozen separate entrées, which they had decided to share, and a pitcher of beer. Which soon became two pitchers of beer. It had grown almost dark by the time they settled up their bill, Jesse flashing his emerald bracelets at the waiter and making the meal a Monteverde expense.

“Where to now?” Jesse asked as they walked out through a gate in the little wrought-iron fence that had enclosed their patio. “Unless you want to go back?”

“Go back? Oh no, it's hardly even dark yet.”

“Fine with me, but I do have to talk with your brother,” he said.

“Talk to him in the morning. He might not even be back yet.”

“Where'd he go?”

She hunched an impatient shoulder, reminded of her grievances. “Does he ever tell me anything?”

Jesse grinned. “I don't know. Does he?”

She flounced forward, irresistibly drawn by the strains of music coming from around the corner. “No one tells me
anything,” she said over her shoulder. “What's going on up here?”

What was going on was a little street fair, a band of traveling musicians playing skirling music and a square of pavement set aside for a makeshift dance floor. Patrons were tossing a few coppers in a donation bucket and then pulling their partners under the gaily lit paper lanterns overhanging the intersection. The music was so fast that the dancers were twirling around in laughing, breathless patterns that often sent them careening into the shoulders of the onlookers.

Miriam clapped her hands. “Oh, Jesse, dance with me!”

He looked doubtful. “I'm not really a good dancer,” he said. “The wings—they get in the way—someone steps on them or I swing around too fast and hit someone in the face—”

She pouted, instantly convinced the entire evening would be a failure if she did not get at least one opportunity to experience that music. “You'll do fine,” she insisted. “Ahio can dance—he practices all the time. Just hold your wings back really tight—”

He shook his head. “Not in this crowd. Look at them! Bumping into each other every other step—”

“But I want to
dance,
” she wailed.

“I'll dance with you, if your friend doesn't mind,” said a voice at her side, and she turned quickly to survey the speaker. He was a middle-aged man, wealthy-looking, trim enough and vain enough to make an effort to hide his age. He didn't look reprehensible or Jansai, though, and with Jesse standing right here, what harm could come to her? She dimpled and extended her hand.

“He won't mind,” she said, giving the merchant a mischievous look from under her brows. It was a look she had practiced a hundred times in the mirror and used whenever she was just about to get her way. Gaaron hated it. “And
I
would
love
it.”

“I'll wait right here for you,” Jesse called as she and her partner stepped onto the dance floor. The older man tossed a few coins in the bucket to pay their way, then swept around to face her and take her free hand in his. He bowed in a courtly way, and she dipped into as much of a curtsey as she
could manage with her hands not free and her having no experience in curtseys.

The musicians had changed to a new song, but it was just as lively as the one before, so they were immediately caught up in the romp of dancers as they circled the rough pavement. Miriam was quite a good dancer when the ball was formal, but there were no particular steps to be following here—you just clung to your partner's hand and skipped from side to side and tried to maintain a forward motion. It was exhilarating, and Miriam laughed aloud. She even laughed when the couple behind them got too close, and the young man stepped on her gown so hard that she could feel it tear.

“Sorry!” he shouted over the music, but Miriam's partner turned her away before she could even tell him it did not matter.

“What's your name?” he asked her, leaning in so that she could better hear the words.

“Susannah,” she said. “What's yours?”

“Elias,” he said. “Why are you friends with angels, Susannah?”

She laughed up at him. “Because I'm supposed to marry one.”

His eyes opened wide, and then he laughed, too. “The one back there?”

“I haven't decided.”

They skidded through a few more figures of the dance, Elias fairly adeptly keeping her clear of their neighbors, before he spoke again. “While you're deciding,” he said, “I run a freighting business on the other side of town. I'd be happy to take you to dinner sometime.”

She smiled. “You probably have a daughter my age.”

He smiled back. “I do. That matters to you?”

She shook her head. “I would guess I'm not going to be back in Velora anytime soon. Or I might come by.”