Angel-Seeker (9 page)

“Rebekah!” Jerusha called once the women were alone in the camp.

She knew what was coming but did not feel like being cooperative. “What? I'm watching the baby,” she called back.

“He's sleeping. I just checked him. Come out here.”

Mutinously, moving as slowly as possible, Rebekah climbed from the front of the wagon. “What?” she said again, in a most unencouraging tone.

Jerusha handed her a fistful of waterskins, all on long straps that
would fit easily over her shoulders. Over a long distance, a woman could carry a dozen skins more comfortably than two buckets, and bring home more water once it was all measured out. “Here. The whole camp needs water. You know where that waterhole is that the men were speaking of?”

“It's too far away,” Rebekah complained. “And it's so hot. I'll go when it's cooler.”

“You'll go now.”

“What, we don't have any water at all? In the whole camp?”

“Listen to me, my girl, we all have to do our share of chores, and your chore is to go fetch the water.”

“I'm too
hot.
”

Jerusha snapped her hand out and gave Rebekah a little slap across the cheek. “We're all hot. Soon we'll all be thirsty. You go bring us water.”

Rebekah cast a sullen look at the other two women, half-expecting one of them to speak up.
No, no, Jerusha, let the poor girl rest in the cool of the tent till the sun has gone down.
But they both just looked at her expressionlessly through the veils they had not taken off even after the men left the camp. None of them would reprimand Jerusha for the light blow or the firm stance. In fact, they would have treated their own daughters the same way.

Rebekah jerked the straps from her mother's hand. “Where is it, then? This stupid waterhole.”

Simon's wife pointed. “Straight that way. East about three miles.”

“And don't you dawdle on the way back,” Jerusha said in a scolding voice. Rebekah had already made up her mind that she would linger at the oasis till the sun went down. She could find her way back blindfolded over three miles of desert; she would have no trouble in full darkness.

“All right,” she said vaguely enough and leaned down to check her bootlaces.

“And cover your face,” Jerusha added.

Rebekah straightened and gave her mother a look of deep irritation. “All the men are gone. No one will see me.”

“You don't know what other travelers might be about, camped
by the waterhole. Jansai or even Edori. You don't know. Wear your veil.”

“I'll bring it,” Rebekah said. “I won't put it on unless I have to.”

Simon's wife came a step closer and ran her fingers lightly down Rebekah's cheek. “Such soft skin,” she said in a whispery voice. “You put that veil on, now. You don't want to ruin your complexion in the sun.”

“Keep yourself beautiful for your husband,” Reuben's wife added.

Rebekah divided a sharp glance between them. Had that been one of their topics of conversation while the women all gathered together after the meal? Who Rebekah's husband might be? She was tempted to shock them all by saying something about Isaac, his face or his body, but she wasn't supposed to even know what he looked like, let alone that he might be under consideration as her groom.

Even more she was tempted to ask his mother,
Is he a kind man? Have you raised him to be gentle? Or is he just another Jansai brute?

But that would shock them all even more.

“I'll get the veil,” she said instead, and ducked quickly back inside the wagon. A quick kiss on the baby's forehead, and she was outside again, taking up the packet of food her mother offered. In a very few moments, she was trudging east toward water.

It was not so bad once she was in motion. Hot, yes, almost unbearably so, but that was a fact of life; it was always hot in the desert near Breven. And it felt good to be free of the wagon, free of the camp, of the gossiping women and the overbearing men. Her clothing was loose and comfortable, the outer jeska all white, the inner hallis that peeked through at the hem and throat a cool sage green. She was actually glad she'd brought the veil, for it shaded her eyes from the sun and kept her cheeks cool. But she would be sure to pull it off once she got near the Jansai camp again, just to annoy her mother.

Moving at an easy, steady pace, she took about an hour to cover the three miles. Just as she thought she really might want to sit and rest for a while, she saw the shadow of green on the horizon before her and increased her speed a little. She had brought one full waterskin but
had rather squandered it along the way, and now she was getting thirsty. She would take a good long drink before she made herself comfortable in whatever coolness the waterhole offered, lying down in the sand and drowsing away the hours till nightfall.

But when she came a few yards nearer to the oasis, this admirable plan flew out of her head. There was already someone else sprawled before the small fountain of water, looking half-dead and half-drowned.

An angel.

O
badiah thought he was hallucinating when he opened his eyes to see the ghostly white figure bending over him.

He was in a great deal of pain, and he had drifted in and out of consciousness for the last hour—or some considerable period of time. Maybe a day, or a lifetime. He couldn't tell. It was possible he was now delirious. Or dead.

And yet, he had always believed that Jovah mercifully erased your pain when he gathered you up into his gentle arms. So perhaps he was not yet dead, after all. In which case, this rather shaky apparition might be a living creature come on him by chance at the fountain of water.

“Help me,” he whispered.

For a moment, the creature did not stir at all, either to bend closer or to draw away. Then finally it dropped to its knees beside him and spoke in the voice of a woman. “What happened to you?” she asked.

He tried to shake his head, but that did nothing but stir up water and sand. “I don't know. I was flying . . . home. Something burned me.”

“
Burned
you?” she repeated, as if she could not believe it.

“I know,” he panted. “Crazy. But it was like—fire touched me—twice. My leg—and my wing.”

She was silent a moment. “What do you want me to do?” she asked. “I don't know if I can help you.”

“I need—I just—I'm so hot—” he said, and then fell silent, too winded to talk.

She sat there a moment, just out of arm's reach, surveying him. Or so he assumed. Her face was completely covered by a mesh scarf—her whole body was draped in flowing robes that concealed her size and her sex. A Jansai woman, he guessed. The last person in the province who would be likely to aid him. He felt the last of his strength ebb away as he realized there was no succor here after all.

“What do you have in your pack?” she asked suddenly.

“A few shirts—all dirty,” he answered.

“Any food? Any medicines?”

He tried to smile. “Angels never need medicine.”

“But they can carry it for others, can't they? Or beg for it from the god?”

“I don't have—the energy—to sing,” he said.

She nodded once. “Very well,” she said and rose to her feet. Without another word, she stepped away from him. The sun, which had been blocked from his face by the shape of her body, fell harshly into his eyes. He squeezed them tightly shut and wondered if it was possible he would die here.

Ten minutes later she was back beside him, carrying the skeletons of three or four small, round bushes in her hands. They were gaunt and spindly even in the spring, when they shot up from nothing and flowered in the desolate landscape. She laid these on the sand a little to one side of him and knelt by his head. “Can you move back from the water a little?” she asked. “I don't think it's good for you to keep your wounds wet like that. And give me your pack so I can see what's in it.”

He edged himself over a couple of feet, an excruciating process. When he had fallen in front of the water, he had managed to land on his right shoulder, with both his wings stretched out behind him, but they did not easily travel across the sand. He summoned the strength to lift them a few inches as he shoved himself backward, till the ground beneath him shifted from soggy to dry, then he collapsed
again. He absolutely could not lever himself up into a sitting position so he could pull the pack off. “I can't,” he said. “You'll have to help me.”

She regarded him, unmoving. “I can't touch you,” she said.

“I can't sit up.”

“I shouldn't even be talking to you.”

“I know. I can't thank you enough—I can't—there are no words—”

She shook her head, which he took as a signal to fall silent. “Hold very still,” she said. Daintily, as if he were a rotting corpse and she a finicky grave robber, she set her fingers on the buckles of his pack and slipped open the leather strap. Gingerly she withdrew every item of clothing stuffed inside—four shirts, two pairs of trousers.

“This ought to be enough,” she said. “Are you comfortable there where you are?”

“As comfortable—as I can be,” he said with an attempt at humor.

“Then let's make you a little tent.”

He had thought the very existence of his wings would make it impossible for anyone to rig a shelter over him, but the Jansai woman had obviously been considering the problem. She placed one spidery bush at the back of his shoulders, right above the join of muscle and wing; another one at his forehead; another one near his navel; and a forth one behind him again, near the bend of his knees. Tying sleeves together and weighting everything with rocks, she made an awning of the shirts and stretched them over the insubstantial framework of shrubbery. Instantly, he felt the assault of the sun get turned aside. The air around his face could not have cooled by a degree, but he felt relieved, refreshed, hopeful.

“That helps a great deal,” he murmured. “But now I can—no longer see you.”

“You are not supposed to see me,” she said, though without much conviction. “Can you stretch out your wounded leg? I'll try to clean it.”

He extended it as far as he could outside of his makeshift shelter, and the woman gently peeled back the fifth shirt, the one that had served as a bandage. No way, in this delicate operation, could she
entirely avoid contact with him, and he felt her small, quick fingertips brush across the surface of his skin. He shivered, surely the aftereffect of shock.

A small sound of dismay escaped her when the wound was laid bare. “What—is it?” he gasped. “Infected already?”

“No—it looks cauterized. You may not get an infection at all.”

“Cauterized? Then—”

“Then it
was
a burn,” she said quietly.

There was a small ripping sound as if she tore off one of the sleeves; then he heard her turn away and dip the shirt into the jet of water. “There's some sand in it,” she said. “I'll do what I can, but this will be painful.”

“I know,” he managed. “Thank you.”

In fact, it was agonizing, and it was all Obadiah could do not to shriek and jerk his leg away from her hands. She obviously moved as rapidly as she could—or quickly concluded that she might be doing more harm than good—because the ordeal did not last long. “I can't do any more,” she said at last. “Except bind it.”

Now her hands competently and firmly wrapped a strip around the gash, an action which seemed to hold the torn edges in place and actually reduced the pain.

“What about your wing?” she asked when she was done. “How badly is it injured?”

“The wound—seemed smaller. Maybe cauterized as well. I don't know. I didn't get—a very good look.”

She stood up and moved around his body. He felt her shadow bending over his tent, throwing its coolness along the feathers stretched pitifully over the sand. She did not touch his wing, though, merely straightened up and circled around him again. She sat near his face this time, though he could not see much of her through the weave of the bushes except the white folds of her tunic around the triangles of her folded knees.

“Small and also clean,” she pronounced. “I don't think there's much I can do for you there. I can't even guess how to bind such a thing.”

“No—I don't know that—anyone has attempted to bandage—an angel's wing,” Obadiah said, trying to speak lightly again. The effect
was rather spoiled by the long breaths he had to take between phrases.

“If I had some manna root salve . . .” she said, and then her voice trailed off.

“It will soothe a burn?”

“Oh yes. There's nothing it won't help to heal.”

There was a moment of silence. He wondered what she was thinking. “I know you must want to know,” he said at last, “how I got such wounds. In truth—I don't know myself. I thought perhaps—an arrow dipped in fire? But—I didn't see any arrow. It was like fire—thrown by itself through the air.”

“It doesn't matter what caused it,” she said, her voice a little cold, he thought. “All that matters is that you have been hurt.”

“You have been so kind.”

“I've done very little. There is very little more I can do.”

“I don't think I should—ask you to seek help—from the others in your party.”

A small, short laugh. “No indeed. The men I travel with are outspoken in their dislike of angels.”

“So you will not tell them you encountered me—alone and helpless—out in the desert?”

“Believe me, I will never be able to tell anyone of this adventure. I would be locked in Hector's house for the rest of my life.”

“Who's—Hector?”

“My mother's husband. Do you have any water?” she asked abruptly.

“There is a geyser right before me,” he joked. “All the water—even I could need.”

“Closer to hand, I mean. You must have a waterskin with you.”

“A canteen. I think I dropped it when I landed—”

She stood, and he saw her feet moving through the sand around the fountain. When she found the dropped metal container, she filled it from the fountain and brought it over to him, sliding it under the fabric of the tent.

“Here. How long will this last you? Maybe I should leave you one of our waterskins as well.”

“Not if you will be punished for that.”

“No one knows how many skins I brought with me, or how
many are in the camp,” she said dismissively. “They will not miss one or two. Do you have any food?”

“No,” he said.

She made a small tsking sound of annoyance. “How did you come to be traveling across the desert so ill prepared?” she demanded. “You don't have water, a tent, supplies—”

“I didn't think it would take me—more than a few hours—to cross,” he panted. “I did not plan—to linger. Or be shot from the skies—by mysterious weapons.”

“I have food,” she said, her hands going to a packet at her waist. “I'll leave it with you.”

“Not if you'll go hungry,” he protested.

She laughed, a surprisingly girlish sound. For the first time he found himself wondering how old she might be. He had taken her for an adult woman, very probably married, but now he doubted it. He had never seen a Jansai wife who looked prepared to disobey the laws of her culture, no matter how far away her husband might be at the moment. If she was a rebel, she was a young woman.

“Oh, I ate well enough this afternoon, and I'll be back in time to eat dinner at the campfire tonight,” she said carelessly. “You can have the few scraps I brought with me. It's not very much, but if you haven't eaten all day—”

“Since morning,” he agreed.

“And you're weak—well, you'd better have it.” She paused. “Unless it might make you sick to your stomach.”

“I'll just eat—a little bit,” he said.

She unwrapped a small bundle. “Some bread—that should be easy enough to digest. Some cheese. Oh, and some strips of dried meat. That ought to last you a day, at least.”

“Thank you so much,” he said.

“Are you hungry now?”

“Not really. Just hot. And hurting.”

“Would you like to sleep awhile? I'll just sit here and be quiet.”

“Don't you have to get back to your camp?”

She made a rude noise. “I don't want to go back. It's too hot to walk three miles across the desert. And there's nothing to do there.” A little pause. “But if you want me to go away . . .”

He smiled. “No. I'd like you to stay and keep me company. I don't feel—quite so much pain—while I'm listening to you talk.”

She resettled herself on the sand, spreading her clothes around her more comfortably. “But I won't talk if you want to sleep,” she said again.

“No. Please. Talk. Tell me—about yourself.”

“Tell you what?” she asked doubtfully.

“Your name—to start with.”

A small silence. “I'm not supposed to do that.”

She wasn't supposed to be talking to him, helping him, allowing him to even be aware of her existence, but he didn't point out any of those facts. “I'm Obadiah,” he said.

“I'm Rebekah,” she said after a pause.

“Where are you and your family traveling at the moment?”

Another little discontented noise. “To Castelana. I didn't want to go, but my mother said I had to.”

“Why not? Castelana is a pretty place. Not nearly as beautiful as Semorrah, but more interesting than Breven, I would think.”

Through the scrim of the bushes he could see her fingers pick idly at the threads of her tunic. “Yes, but I wanted to stay in Breven with my cousin. I don't like to travel. It's so hot and it's so boring.”