Angel-Seeker (18 page)

Magdalena said, “That's not funny,” but Nathan burst out laughing. The leader of the host said, “Good point. Whether or not he's been informed of the incident, he needs to know what we suspect. Though you must tell him of our suspicions very gently.”

“I will,” Obadiah said.

“So you plan to go back there?” Magdalena asked in some alarm.

“Of course. In a few weeks. There's supposed to be—a festival of some kind? Someone mentioned it, but I didn't catch all the details.”

“Yes, it's a harvest fair,” Nathan said. “They bring in singers and winemakers and performers and have contests in the streets. A few of the Cedar Hills shopkeepers went last year and said it was something of a brawl, but it appears to be a main event in Breven. It would be good if you were well enough to attend that.”

“I'll plan on it, then.”

Nathan gestured at Obadiah's hand, which Mary was now, with infinite care and patience, finally finished rewrapping. “How does that feel? It looked like hell when she uncovered it.”

“It feels like hell,” Obadiah said with a laugh. “But that salve you just put on—whatever it was—that's good. That makes the pain go away.”

“Manna root salve, angelo,” Mary said. “It's truly an astonishing ointment. I am so glad it's available to us again.”

Nathan looked over, clearly attempting to feign an interest he did not feel. “Oh? The manna root stopped growing for a time, did it?”

“All the seeds were gone, gathered up by silly girls to make love potions,” Mary said. “So of course we could grow no more plants, and we could make no more salve. It was very distressing to all the healers.”

Elizabeth didn't know this story. She'd never heard of manna root before, though she liked the sound of love potions. She didn't want to seem stupid in front of the angels, though, so she didn't ask what miracle had occurred to revive the plants that bore the seeds.

But Nathan, still attempting to be courteous, asked for her. “So how did you bring the plants back?”

Magdalena laughed. “You know that story, Nat. Rachel found an old song of Hagar's and prayed to the god, and all those seeds came raining down, sent by Jovah.”

“Yes, and no doubt the lovesick girls gathered up bucketfuls of them, but the healers harvested their share, too,” Mary said. “So we've had manna root again ever since Rachel became angelica, and we've all been grateful to her for it.”

“That's my Rachel,” Obadiah said in an admiring voice, but Elizabeth thought he was laughing a little, too. “Determined to bring love and joy into the world wherever she goes.”

Mary patted him lightly on his newly bandaged arm. “We're all done here, angelo. I'll leave drugs for you again, but I don't think you'll need many. You're healing nicely.”

“Can I eat?” he demanded.

“Yes. Whatever you like.”

“Good. Because I'm starving.”

Magdalena rose. “I brought a basket of food and I left it in the hall. Can I stay and eat with you?”

“I'd be happy if you did.”

She stepped past them and went out the door. Mary put a hand on Elizabeth's shoulder, and they both stood up. “We'll be going now. I'll check on you in the morning, and I'll make sure this one comes by at least once more today to see if you need anything.”

“I'd appreciate that,” Obadiah said, giving them each a friendly smile. There was something about him that seemed both warm and genuine, as if he was quite happy to have landed in their circle of friendship and would call them by name if he ever encountered them again, no matter what exalted company he might be in at the time. So it seemed to Elizabeth, anyway. “You can't have too many friends when you're a sick man.”

“You,” Nathan said in a scoffing voice. “You don't think you can have too many friends when you're well. I never saw a man who collected people the way you do.”

“I collect friends so nobody realizes how uninteresting I am on my own,” Obadiah said lightly. “Mary. Elizabeth. Thank you so much for your ministrations.”

“You're welcome, angelo,” Mary said sedately, and Elizabeth repeated her words, though in a rather more breathless voice. Magdalena stepped back into the room, a huge picnic basket in her hands.

“All your favorite foods!” Magdalena exclaimed. “I was in the kitchen all day nagging the cooks—”

The mortals were across the threshold before they could hear the rest of her sentence, and Mary closed the door behind them. Then the healer turned to give Elizabeth one long, serious look.

“Don't think I wasn't as curious as you were,” the fair woman said. “But that doesn't mean I'll be repeating a word I heard in there, and you shouldn't either. That story will get around in a day or two—impossible to keep such a tale a secret—but it shouldn't be you or me who repeats it. We hold positions of trust, and we shouldn't abuse that trust by gossiping.”

“I won't,” said Elizabeth earnestly. “Not a word to anyone.”

Mary's face relaxed into a smile. “You're a good girl,” she said. “If you ever get tired of working in the laundry, come see me. I could
teach you a thing or two about healing and see how you liked it. Might be a better career for you than soaking and scrubbing, who knows?”

“Thank you,” Elizabeth said. “But I—right now—I'm promised to Doris at the moment—”

Mary grimaced a little. “You have friends in the angel dorm, I take it. That's all right. I wish you luck. But come see me someday if things don't turn out so well here. I'll find work for a good pair of hands like yours.”

And that compliment warmed her almost as much as Obadiah's smile, almost as much as the consciousness of knowing a secret that everyone else would be agog to hear. Elizabeth was humming as she returned to the laundry room, and not even the foulest-smelling detergent or the hottest splash of water could turn her mood from sunny to sour.

T
he following day was also alive with angels. Elizabeth was starting to think she'd caught the trick of it, had learned how to draw the great winged creatures into her sphere through the sheer power of her desire. Though that was silly, she knew in her heart. Like Obadiah, flying over the desert, she had been marked by fortune, either good or ill. None of her own actions had had the least bearing on shaping the patterns of her days.

In the morning, after making an appearance in the laundry room, she headed upstairs to do a brief check on Obadiah, as the healer had asked her to do. It was not presumptuous at all. Her tentative knock on the door was followed by a quick, “Please come in,” and she entered to find Obadiah standing half-dressed in the middle of the room.

“Oh!” she said involuntarily, because the angel on his feet was quite a different proposition from the helpless creature sprawled in a sickbed. He was taller than she had thought, for one thing, with an air of such negligent grace that he might have been posing for Jovah's concept of an angel the first time the god decided to fashion one from the materials of the universe. And his wings, which had drooped so miserably the past few days, were arranged behind him like a proud retinue, polished, gleaming, and poised for action.

Even the angel's face seemed different, sharper, more handsome, though it retained its general expression of sweetness—and, at the
moment, a comical look of dismay. “Elizabeth,” he said. “Thank the god you're here.”

“What's wrong?” she said, immediately trying to cover up the fact that she was staring at him and attempting to seem professional and helpful instead.

He gestured at his shirt, clumsily settled over his shoulders and completely undone in front. “I can't—my fingers are so clumsy in these splints—I can't get the buttons done. I got my trousers on, but that was a feat, I can tell you.”

He sounded so indignant that she couldn't help laughing a little. “Well, I can help you with your shirt.”

But he turned his back to her before she could take a step forward. “It's not on right. Can you see? It feels all bunched up over my wings.”

It had never occurred to her before that angels must have special seamstresses to design their clothes, but naturally some accommodation must be made for the magnificent appendages springing from their backs. As much out of curiosity as a desire to help, she came close enough to study the construction of the shirt. Yes—that was efficient—there was a central panel of cloth that unrolled down the spine between the two great feathered joints and buttoned underneath the surge of sinew and feather. Not only was the back of Obadiah's shirt not buttoned, that center panel had hooked itself over one of the belled wings and refused to fall properly in place.

“Here, stand still,” she said, and carefully tugged all the fabric into alignment. She made some effort to avoid touching his feathers, since she had learned that angels hated to endure casual contact with their wings. Still, it was impossible not to be aware of them, spilling down on either side of her to pool on the wood floor. They emitted a faint odor, and she sniffed cautiously, trying to identify it, but she could not name the scent. Starlight, maybe, or the fragrance carried by the wind shortly before the arrival of rain. Something elemental.

“There,” she said. “That's all done. Now turn around.”

He made one elegant pirouette, moving with such perfect understanding of spatial relationships that not a single quill edge touched her as he turned. “I cannot tell you how annoying I find it not to be able to care for myself,” he told her. His voice was light, but she
suspected the emotion was sincere. “I have never been sick a day in my life!
I
am the one who has called down plague medicines for fevered farmers who were convinced they were about to die.
I
am the one who has brought comfort and ease to hurt children and crying mothers. I promise you, I will be much more patient with them in the future.”

She smiled and concentrated on the shirt. His chest beneath the fabric looked too lean, the chest of a fit man who could ill afford to go a week or so on a starvation diet. It was a matter of a minute or two to thread all the ornate buttons through their proper slits, and then fasten the cuffs as well. She did not have the nerve to suggest that she tuck the ends of the shirt into his trousers, so she stepped back once her task was completed.

“There you are,” she said with a smile. “Fit to go out in public.”

“And once more I'm thanking you for your kindness,” he said. “Now I know what they mean by the term
godsend.
You have been so good to me these past few days.”

She allowed herself to look up into his face. Yes, quite handsome, but more kind than handsome; he had a smile that made you want to confide in him. Not that she would, of course. “I did very little,” she said. “Let me know if you need me to do anything else.”

“No, I'll be completely well by tomorrow, you'll see. I'll even figure out how to work these stupid fingers so I can dress myself like an adult. But I do thank you for your help.”

“You're welcome, angelo.”

He stood there for a moment longer, smiling down on her like the first noon of springtime, and then widened his eyes with consternation. “Damn! I'm late. Come check on me again from time to time.”

And he leaned in, kissed her quickly on the cheek, and blew out the door like a flock of summer birds. Elizabeth stood there with her hand pressed against her face, feeling like the god himself had laid his palm against her skin with a touch like fire and fate. Oddly, she felt less like an angel-seeker at that moment than she had since the day she had first set foot in Cedar Hills.

Later she was to wonder if that kiss marked her like some kind of brand visible only to other angels. For she had just stepped into the
hallway, dazed and unsteady, when Calah poked her head out of her own doorway down the hall.

“Is that—aren't you one of the laundresses?” Calah demanded.

“Yes, angela.”

“Step in here a moment, could you? My dress has a tear, and I'm very clumsy with a needle. You can sew, can't you? As well as wash?”

“Yes, angela.”

So she slipped inside the young angel's room (as untidy as all their rooms were; who had raised these people?) and set a few stitches in an impossibly delicate silver gauze gown. Just as she was finishing this task, three other young angels—two female and one male—tumbled into the room, talking and laughing together with so much energy that Elizabeth felt her skin prickle with borrowed excitement.

“What—now you've got servants waiting on you? How do you rate so high?”

“No, I just grabbed her as she was walking down the hall. She works in the laundry room.”

“Well, I have a stack of clothes that need mending.”

“Don't be silly, the poor girl's just trying to do her job. She wasn't sent here to keep your wardrobe in order.”

“Well, she's keeping Calah's wardrobe in order!”

Elizabeth glanced up, wondering if she was supposed to be taking part in this conversation, but they were all happily bickering with each other, ignoring her. She carefully folded the gossamer gown and stood up, laying it on her chair.

“All done, angela,” she said.

“What? Oh—thanks. You're very good,” Calah said distractedly, and put out her hand. She was holding half a dozen coppers—a nice tip for such a small job—and Elizabeth gave a little bob and accepted them. Faith had said that angels could be generous from time to time, and that it was rude to refuse their gifts, or Elizabeth wouldn't have known quite how to behave at this moment. She was still unused to being paid for her services, let alone receiving a thank you that came in spoken or monetary form.

“Thank you, angela,” she said, and left the room.

And then, on her way down to the laundry room, she encountered three more angels in the hallways. All of them bid her hello in
an absent but courteous fashion, when she didn't remember a single angel ever even noticing her presence before when she passed one in the corridor. Perhaps Obadiah's kiss had held some magic in it, lifting her across an imaginary border from the invisible to the visible world. Perhaps once one angel acknowledged you, they all would.

Or perhaps the magic would only last a day.

At any rate, the spell was still in effect that evening as Elizabeth left the laundry room and stepped outside to go home. She paused a moment to take deep breaths of the clean, cool air, feeling half smothered by a day of inhaling steam and starch. No more pretending that it was still late summer; true autumn was firmly entrenched in southern Jordana. The days could still be delightfully warm, but the nights held a whispered promise of chill to come.

“Well!” came a voice behind her, and she nearly jumped off the stairs. She hadn't heard anyone come out of the door. “If it isn't the elusive little laundry girl.”

Elizabeth spun around in astonishment to find herself staring up at the angel David, two steps above her. She had a moment's quick impression of darkness, for he stood in the overhanging shadow of the building, and his hair was dark, and his eyes, and his wings. That notion quickly evaporated in her blinding happiness at seeing him again. “Good evening, angelo,” she said a little breathlessly.

He came slowly down the last two steps so he stood very close to her on the edge of the cobblestone street. There it was again, that aroma of starlight or moonlight or distance—the god's own scent, perhaps, divine and mysterious. He was so close she could see the individual scars across his olive skin, each separate lash around his intent eyes. “I have not seen you around these past few days,” he drawled. “But I have heard word of you—the laundry girl who joins the healers in saving the lives of angels.”

“I—I was asked to help, and I helped,” she said, stammering slightly. “I did very little.”

“But you have been preoccupied,” he said in a low voice. “And nowhere to be found when I looked for you.”

She almost could not form the words. “You—looked for me?”

He nodded. A small smile was warming the blackness of his eyes,
causing the full mouth to curve. “Of course I did. We had an assignation, you and I.”

“You—I could not find you that day,” she said.

“Yes, but there have been other days since then,” he said. “And you did not find me those days either.”

She did not even try to reply to that.

He put a hand up to her cheek—the very cheek that Obadiah had kissed, had marked with an angel's approval—and stared down at her. “I am expected elsewhere just now,” he said in a slow voice, “but I will be back before midnight, if you wished to return and wait for me then. Unless there are other duties you have? Other friends you have made while I have been waiting so patiently?”

She could not believe it. He knew she had been called in to aid with Obadiah, and he was—he was not
jealous,
no, that was ridiculous, angels weren't jealous of the attentions of mortals—but he had been reminded of her existence. Just as Faith had promised. She had become memorable.

“No, angelo, my time is completely at your disposal.”

He dropped his hand and immediately assumed an air of briskness. “Good! Then I will expect you to be waiting for me when I return. Sometime before midnight.”

“And I should be—?”

“In my room, of course. You know where it is.” A small grin as he said that.

She blushed. “Yes, angelo.”

“You may call me David, you know.”

“Yes, David.”

“And I should call you—?”

“Elizabeth.”

“Elizabeth. Good. A pretty name. I will see you in a few hours, Elizabeth,” he said, and took off jauntily down the street.

Elizabeth stared after him, her heart pounding, her face prickling with receding heat. To meet an angel in his room at midnight! What did it mean, what else could it mean than that she was to take her first angel lover? She must go home and bathe and cover herself with scented creams and braid her hair and put on that new green dress.
She must tell Faith, because this was not a secret it would be possible to keep, but she must let no one else know, in case the tryst turned out badly.

But surely it would not. Not this time. Surely David would be there as promised, would take her in his arms and make love to her with his fevered angel body? She shivered as she hurried home, trying to imagine what that act would be like, how much different it would be from love with a mortal man. This would be better; she knew it. This would be a union with an angel.

She tried not to let it bother her that, until five minutes ago, her angel lover had not even known her name.

It was cold in David's room.

After three hours of waiting, cold was all Elizabeth was really experiencing anymore. Excitement had worn off after the first dull hour passed, and eager speculation had carried her only another thirty minutes or so. Boredom had crept up and curled around her toes as she sat, stiff and uncomfortable, in one of those narrow-backed chairs designed to accommodate angel wings. Disappointment had circled the ceiling like a nervous carrion bird till she finally lost the energy to glare it away, and then it had come to perch on her shoulder and squawk hoarsely in her ear.
He lied, he forgot, he does not plan to see you tonight. You were a fool to believe that the angel David would ever take you in his arms.