Angel-Seeker (51 page)

A smile went along with that, and Elizabeth found herself liking this woman a great deal.
Just like that
. “Elizabeth.”

“Rufus and Elizabeth, come with me. We will find you a tent among the Chievens.”

The Chievens, it turned out, comprised ten tents, all filled to bursting with Edori of every age and size. Naomi introduced them to two or three dozen people, and Elizabeth smiled and accepted hugs or other signs of affection, but she knew in the first three minutes that she wouldn't be able to keep any of these people straight. Rufus seemed to be having no trouble, though. He gripped hands and offered embraces and seemed to grow both calmer and more excited with every exchange. It was as if he was feeding on the Edori lifeblood, renewing himself after a long starvation, and the most casual contact, the most quickly spoken word, acted on him like an infusion.

He is among his people now,
Elizabeth thought.
He may never leave them again
.

Just as well, perhaps, that she had not, the other night, forced that conversation about what their future together might hold. Hers, she was very sure, lay back at Cedar Hills or somewhere that constituted civilization. His might very well lie with the Chievens or the Cashitas or the Barcerras or any of these other tribes. Once having rediscovered his spiritual family, she thought, Rufus might never be willing to leave them behind again.

She squared her shoulders. Well, she would deal with that day
when the day arrived. She knew enough Edori philosophy by now to resign herself to that.

“Now, Luke and I have no extra room in our tent, but Anna and Eber, perhaps—there are only six of them—they could squeeze in two more.”

Rufus looked over at Elizabeth with a laugh in his eyes. She thought it might be the first time he'd remembered her existence since they walked into the camp. “Thank you kindly, a generous offer, but my
allali
girl is more comfortable alone in a tent with me—and even then she thinks the accommodations close.”

Naomi laughed and Elizabeth smiled, though she felt certain
allali
was not a compliment, and she hoped she didn't seem rude. “Yes, and young lovers need their privacy, and two to a tent is the only way to ensure that,” Naomi said gaily. “But you will eat with us, surely? You won't insist on your own campfire?”

“We will take every scrap of food from your very hands,” Rufus promised. “Though you must put us to work as well. We are not here to lie about and watch others do all the labor.”

“No, and I have no patience with such poor, lazy creatures,” Naomi said with mock sternness. “Very well then! Pitch your tent here, and when you are done, come find me—I'm right there, see?—and we shall decide just what needs to be done.”

And just like that, they were among the Chievens.

They had scarcely laid their bundles on the ground and begun to untie the canvas when two teenage boys materialized from nowhere. “My aunt says we have to help you put up your tent,” one of them said, and they practically took it from Rufus's hands. In minutes, the tent was situated, their blankets were unrolled, and Rufus had gone off with the boys on some kind of hunting expedition. Elizabeth went in search of Naomi.

“Not half an hour in the camp, and I've been abandoned,” she announced when she found Naomi standing over a cauldron, cooking something that smelled delicious. “Tell me what I can do to help.”

Naomi looked over and smiled. “Can you cook? Bake?”

Elizabeth nodded. “I used to work in a farm kitchen, making meals for all the hands. Just tell me how many I'm feeding and where the ingredients are, and I can get started.”

“I can see you'll be very handy to have around!” Naomi exclaimed. “In that box there—see?—yes, the stone container is the one with the yeast. If you'll get started on the bread—”

The next hour passed in a haze of work, talk, and contentment. Either all the Edori loved everyone with a warmth that was inexhaustible, or Naomi must have been the most popular woman in camp, because hundreds of people dropped by to speak with her. She offered advice, took messages, loaned tools, related news, complimented babies, and generally seemed to be the nerve center of the collective Edori soul. More than one person seemed to approach this campsite to ask specifically whether someone named Raheli sia a Manderra would be attending the Gathering this year; they all went away disappointed.

“Who's Raheli?” Elizabeth finally asked when the two of them were alone again.

“Oh, she is practically my sister!” Naomi said. “We grew up together in the Manderra tribe, but then she was lost for so many years—but two years ago she returned to us, and you can imagine the rejoicing.”

“She was—taken? Like Rufus?”

Naomi nodded. The Edori woman was chopping dried vegetables and feeding them slowly into a simmering pot. “I heard nothing of her for years. Everyone said she was dead, but I knew she was not. I knew it. And then, two years ago at the Gathering, there she was. I have not been so happy since the day my first daughter was born.”

“But she's not coming this year?”

“No, her friend is going into a difficult labor, and Raheli is afraid to leave her. Well,
that
I can understand. I almost couldn't bear to let Luke's sister out of my sight when I was pregnant. She had had five children herself, so I was sure she could help me through my own birthing! But Raheli is no midwife, I assure you, and so I think it a little funny that her friend is so sure she cannot survive this event without her. But Raheli is a very fierce friend, and she would not leave behind anyone who needed her. I do admire her for that. But I miss her!”

“Well, maybe she'll come to the Gathering next year, and you can see her then.”

Naomi stirred, tasted, and stirred again. “Oh, I'll see her much
sooner than that. The whole clan will travel to the Plain of Sharon to hear her sing at the Gloria.”

“Sing at—your Edori friend sings at the Gloria? With the angels?”

“Well, anyone can sing at the Gloria once the angels are done with their part, you know,” Naomi said. “Though it is true that not many Edori attend from year to year. More of us go now that Raheli leads the singing.”

Elizabeth felt as though she had somersaulted backward. “Your friend Raheli—is Rachel? Is the
angelica?
”

Naomi beamed. “Yes, angelica, that's what they call her. I'm not very good with titles. The Edori don't care much for such things.”

“And she—who is her pregnant friend, then?”

“That lovely woman who is married to Gabriel's brother. Why can't I remember her name? I met her once—”

“Magdalena?” Elizabeth said in a strangled voice. She was remembering the outspoken, golden-haired woman who had seemed so protective of the angel, wretched with early labor pains.
Fierce
was not a bad word to describe her.

“Yes, that's her! They're very close. So naturally Raheli could not leave her at a time like this.”

“No,” Elizabeth said, hoping she had not said anything snippy or overfamiliar during her brief conversation with the angelica. “Of course not.”

Naomi smiled over at her. “May I tell you again how happy we are to have you among us? I am so glad you accompanied your friend.”

Elizabeth shook away thoughts of angels and their consorts to concentrate on a topic she was more familiar with. “He wanted so desperately to come, but he was unsure of his welcome. I think he brought me more as a hedge against rejection than as a companion of his days.”

Naomi sighed a little and started peeling an onion. “So many of them . . . last year and this year . . . all the people who were snatched up by Jansai during the time of Raphael's reign, they are making their way back to us. But they are hurt and afraid and unsure of their welcome, and it breaks my heart to see them limping into camp with such hope and terror in their eyes.” She gave Elizabeth one quick, straight
look. “Not limping with their feet, you understand. Limping with their souls.”

Elizabeth nodded. Yes. She had understood.

“And some of them—you can see them heal, as soon as they cross into the camp. You can see their heartbeats readjust to the sound of the drums. One or two of them—it makes me cry to recount the story, can you see the water in my eyes?—they have found clan members among the other tribes. An uncle or a sister who escaped the Jansai depredations and who came to rest with another clan. And to see them reunite with someone they loved when they thought everyone they loved was dead—it breaks your heart at the same time as it lifts you up. I would wish for such a thing for your Rufus. But I have not heard of any of the Kalessas coming back to us last year or this.”

“Maybe next year,” Elizabeth said hopefully. “Maybe when he—or she—gets his courage up. It took Rufus weeks and weeks to be sure that he could come.”

“Yes, that's what I hope,” Naomi agreed. “That every year more of them will come back to us, freed from their masters and free in their hearts as well. And maybe Yovah has spared a dozen of the Kalessas. The god has been so good for so long.”

Naomi paused, as if briefly overcome by emotion, and Elizabeth turned her attention back to her dough. Punching down first this loaf, then that one. She would be able to feed fifty people on bread alone.

“So who's going to eat all this food?” she asked presently. “Surely there's enough here to feed the whole camp, but I thought I saw everyone else cooking and baking as well.”

“Oh, yes!” Naomi said, her voice bright again, her normal voice. “But today and tomorrow we cook enough for two days so that everything is ready on Feast Day and there is nothing to do but listen to the singing.”

“And that's what you do for a whole day? Sing?”

“Well, every clan takes its turn, of course. One of the clan elders gets up to relate the events of the past year—where the tribe traveled, what it discovered, which woman left to follow a man in another clan, what babies were born, who died—oh, the whole history of the
year. Thus we learn in one long day what has happened to all our people.”

“I would think it would be hard to remember all that.”

“Really? I admit, I forget bits and pieces of what the other elders have told us, but there are some who can recite the stories of every clan for the past twenty or thirty years. Luke can tell you everything he has heard since he was a boy. He knows where the Barcerras wintered five years ago and how many women of the Lohoras have followed the Corderra clan. He has a splendid memory.”

“Luke is your husband?”

Naomi laughed. “I chose to leave my clan and follow him, yes, but the Edori don't take husbands and wives. Which is why it is so funny to me that Raheli has married the angel Gabriel—though, don't mistake me, I admire Gabriel greatly, and I could not have picked out a better mate for Raheli if I had sat down and interviewed every angel, Edori, and
allali
in the three provinces. But to
marry
him! Well, it is a strange idea to me.”

“Then how do you know you have found the right man if you don't marry him? How do you know he will stay with you?”

Naomi shrugged. “How do you know these things if you do speak words in a ceremony? No words will bind you if your heart sets you free. I cannot imagine my life without Luke. I believe he will be with me always. That is binding enough for me.”

Elizabeth was not so sure this doctrine worked for her. She had dreamed for so long of being cherished and protected by a powerful man that she could not imagine blithely accepting the prospect of a long-term future dictated only by the whims of affection. She wondered how Rufus felt about this Edori concept. She was not sure she wanted to ask him.

It was almost as if Naomi had read her mind. “So tell me a little bit about Rufus and yourself,” she said. “Where did you take up with an Edori man? In some city, I suppose. He called you an
allali
girl.”

Elizabeth laughed. “I'm afraid to ask what that means.”

“Oh, nothing too terrible! City dweller—except that—well, Edori don't have a high opinion of people who live in cities. You understand. We cannot stand to be trapped very long in one place.”

“Yes, I guess I am an
allali
at that,” Elizabeth said. “I've lived in
Semorrah and a few other places. For the last few months in Cedar Hills.”

“And that's where you met Rufus?”

Elizabeth nodded. “He's working with the men who are putting up new buildings. The city is growing every day.”

“And you think he plans to stay in Cedar Hills?”

Elizabeth returned her attention to her dough, punching down a loaf that had just risen sufficiently. “I don't know. I think he's a little lost. Displaced. I think he might—having come to the Gathering—decide it's time to live among his people again. Having been apart from them for so many years.”

Naomi was silent a moment. “I would wish for that,” she said. “I will offer him a place in my clan, in my tent, before he leaves. But I don't think he'll take it. He's a halfling now—part Edori, part something else. So few of the people who were taken from us by Jansai have come to live with us now that they've been freed. They come to the Gathering, yes, they travel with us for a few weeks or a few months, but our life is not their life anymore. Part of them wants other things. Your Rufus is probably that way, too—pulled in two directions at once.” She smiled over at Elizabeth. “And, of course, he will not want to leave
you
.”