Archangel (16 page)

There were only three faces she recognized among the hundreds who came before her. The first she thought for a moment she had conjured up from memory.

“Rachel! You look so beautiful. Don’t you remember me, Rachel?”

She grabbed at the outstretched hands to have something to cling to. “Lady Mary! I didn’t know you were here!”

Mary laughed like a delighted child. “Yes, Lord Jethro was invited, of course, and I begged and pleaded to be allowed to come. I wanted to see you for myself. Rachel, isn’t this wonderful? Now we’re both married. I’m so happy for you.”

Rachel wanted to weep. Here was probably the one person in the world who was genuinely pleased for her, and she was practically a stranger. “And you? Since you’ve been married, how has it gone—?”

“Oh, splendid! I love being married.” Mary was beaming. “And—it’s a secret, of course, but I have to tell someone—I’m going to have a baby. Well, it will be months and months, but it’s still wonderful… .”

“Wonderful—” Rachel echoed, but hands came between them, faces and bodies, and she was again hearing the congratulations of people she had never seen in her life. Mary completely disappeared.

The second face she knew belonged to the angel Saul, who greeted her with an insolent smile. Her hope that he might not recognize her died instantly. “You’ve come up in the world since I saw you last,” was his greeting. “And Gabriel’s gone down a bit.”

“Is it worse to marry a slave than to try to assault one?” she said, very bluntly. “A man who gives honor receives it upon himself.”

“You’re mighty haughty for a slave,” Saul sneered.

She smiled with great superciliousness. “For an angelica,” she said and turned to go. It was the first time she had been glad to boast of her new title.

The third one she recognized before he recognized her, and then he only knew her by her distinctive gown. The Archangel took her hand before she could back away, and bent to kiss her fingers. When he straightened, he looked down at her and smiled without releasing her hand.

“So, Gabriel has found himself a bride after all,” Raphael said. “One hardly knew what to expect when the rumors began flying around Samaria that you had been—ah—residing in Semorrah for so many years. But you are quite the prize, my dear. I congratulate Gabriel.”

She didn’t think she could stand his touch. She concentrated on breathing regularly, and stared back at him, saying nothing.

His smile widened. “Who would have thought,” he continued. “A Jordana girl, and one not far from my own home. We might be related, you and I, for our coloring is so similar. You must know that my mother was a golden-haired girl who grew up not far from the Caitanas. It’s a common type in that region.”

Still she said nothing. His grip on her hand was quite painful, and obviously intended to be so. He was still smiling.

“She had a sweet voice, my mother. She sang me lullabies when I was a child. But her singing was not—how shall I say— of the caliber you would expect from an angel. Or an angelica. But you, I am sure, must have inherited a vast talent for Jovah to have picked you for the singular honor that awaits you in—I believe it is four months’ time? I am sure you are prepared for it. Only the strongest voices carry across the Plain of Sharon.”

She might have no voice at all; certainly not one she intended to use now.

He laughed, and dropped another kiss on her hand. “So you do remember me,” he said, in a lower, silkier voice. “I thought you might. I never thought the day would come when I would be giving you congratulations on your wedding. But so it has. And I offer you my most sincere felicitations. Believe me, I can imagine what joy you will have with your new husband.”

Still she did not answer; still he did not drop her hand. They might have stayed entwined that way forever if Gabriel had not suddenly materialized at her side.

“Rachel. They want to start the dinner. We need to lead everyone in.”

Raphael bent his smile on Gabriel. “I was just telling your bride what a charming husband I thought you’d make.”

Rachel turned her eyes in mute appeal to Gabriel. He misread the look; his own expression was rueful. “I’m sure she agreed with you wholeheartedly.”

“She has been very quiet during our conversation. No doubt overawed by the honor of speaking to an Archangel.”

“Rachel is seldom overawed by anything,” Gabriel said. “Come, angela. We have crowds of hungry revelers to feed.”

Raphael surrendered her hand to Gabriel and smiled at her again. Gabriel led her inside, and the murmuring crowd followed. Her husband glanced down at her after a moment.

“Or was I wrong?” he asked. “Has this ceremony actually cowed you? I thought nothing could.”

“It’s very unnerving,” she managed to say. Her voice sounded faint to her ears. “I am not used to so many people in such a small space.”

“Well, eat hearty, stoke your strength,” he said. “The festivities are just beginning.”

The meal itself seemed endless. There was no way the great dining hall could accommodate the hundred and fifty residents of the Eyrie and the hundred or so guests all at once, so they ate in shifts. The bridal couple remained at the table the whole time, nibbling on food and conversing with the parade of well-wishers who visited their table. Raphael and his contingent—Saul, Leah and a woman to whom Rachel had not been introduced—sat with them for the first half of the meal; the Gaza angels sat with them for the second half. Even in her disturbed state, Rachel noticed how Nathan managed to sit by the Monteverde angel Magdalena.
Their chairs were pulled so close together that their wings interlaced. They spoke softly, their heads bent forward, and seemed oblivious of anyone else in the room.

Rachel looked over at her husband once to find him watching Nathan with a dark frown. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I’m considering murdering my brother.”

She glanced again at Nathan and Magdalena. “Hannah said angels were not allowed to love angels.”

“That’s why I’m thinking about killing him. Or her.”

She toyed with her soup. “What a crime,” she said softly.

Now she had his attention. “I agree. And although I have discussed this with him often—”

She shook her head. “No. What a crime that people who love each other should be forced apart. For any reason. By any law.”

“I suppose Hannah told you why the unions are forbidden?”

“Because they bear monster children.”

“Yes. Children who live briefly, die painfully and disturb everyone who looks upon them.”

Rachel shrugged. “There are ways for a man and woman to love each other and not conceive a child.”

He stared at her. “Angels don’t believe in contraceptives.”

Now she was the one astonished. “Don’t believe in— So you engage in the act of love only to produce children?”

He looked quickly around, but no one was listening to them. Nathan and Magdalena were absorbed in each other, the lively Ariel was talking to a Bethel man, and for the moment everyone else was devoted to eating.

“It’s more complicated than that,” he replied stiffly. “Passion can be dissociated from the desire to bear children. But angel children are born so rarely. Any chance to produce more angels cannot be overlooked—it
is
a sin, a crime, to prevent conception, if there is a chance an angel might be sired.”

“That’s only if you believe there aren’t already too many angels in the world,” Rachel said sardonically.

His irritation showed, though he tried to hide it. “I suppose the Edori believe differently, as they seem to about everything.”

“What the Edori believe,” she said, “is that a bond to a child is the one tie that cannot be broken. So that to have a child is a decision to be taken only after a great deal of thought. And since
an unwanted child is the greatest burden a woman can bear, women have ways to prevent such a thing from occurring.”

He gazed down at her with such mixed emotions on his face that she struggled to guess at them all. Did she know how to take these shocking precautions? If she was never to be his wife in fact, did it matter what she knew? If Jovah had brought them together for a purpose, might it include childbearing? and if so, how were they to reconcile their many differences and produce angelic offspring?

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, with a touch of malice. “I also know ways to enhance fertility. Every Edori who has ever wanted a child has eventually had one.”

Although briefly heartened by that little conversation, Rachel found herself increasingly exhausted as the interminable evening wore on. And, as Gabriel had warned her, there were more activities to face. Pleading a headache from the tight gold clasp on her head, she escaped to her room to loosen her hair and change clothes. She lingered there as long as she dared, but eventually made her way back down to the arena. Now clad in a sober dark gown, with a black shawl thrown over her head for warmth, she was much less visible than she had been in the gold wedding dress, and she slipped almost unnoticed through the celebrating throng.

What she had returned to, apparently, was an exhibition of angels. Six angels stood in a circle—Saul and Raphael, Ariel and Magdalena, and Nathan and a young angel named Eva. First one angel would improvise an impossibly complex line of music; then the one standing beside him would repeat it, note for note, and add his own difficult measures. The next angel would sing everything that had been sung before, add his or her variations, and turn laughingly to the next contestant. The impromptu song was nearly five minutes long before Ariel missed a note and was cut from the competition. The whole thing started again from the beginning. Eventually, Raphael was the victor. Everyone in the crowd cheered.

Another Eyrie angel—Obadiah, she thought his name was— stepped forward to sing a pretty melody; someone began harmonizing softly behind him. This, no doubt, could go on all night. Rachel glanced around to see what other entertainment was offered. The whole enclosure was lit by flame: Decorative wrought-iron
candelabra held blazing tapers a foot or so above the crowd; braziers spaced around the edge of the plateau added a dim orange glow. The combined effect was one of cheeriness and warmth. The main activities seemed to be listening and—despite the huge meal that had just been served—eating. Servants were circulating with jellies and candies and chopped fruits, and nearly everyone carried a glass of some bubbling beverage. Those who were not entranced with the singing had fallen back toward the edges of the arena and were engaged in quiet conversation.

As Obadiah was succeeded by another singer, Rachel began to drift through the crowd, looking for the lady Mary. Without her gold dress on, no one seemed to recognize her, and no one spoke to her. She felt like a wraith, a shadow, a visitor at her own wedding; she entertained the idea that this could all have happened without her—which, in a sense, was true. What they celebrated was not the marriage of Raheli sia a Manderra to Archangel-designate Gabriel, but the fulfillment of the decree of the god, and the formalized ritual of change. She was a prop, necessary but not a differentiated individual. Yovah’s wavering finger had come to rest when it was pointing at her; and so here she was in the Eyrie, hearing the angels sing.

Mary did not appear to be anywhere in the press of people. Easier for the visiting pregnant woman to beg off this affair than for Rachel, the nominal centerpiece, to do so. Although perhaps if no one realized who she was, no one would notice when she had gone… .

What kept her there was yet another change in singers. She was too close to the perimeter to see who was taking center stage, but she knew this singer just by the material he had chosen. Matthew, lifting a lilting tenor voice heavenward, crooned one of the tender Edori love songs Rachel had not heard in five years. The sound stopped her where she stood. She felt much as she had when Gabriel had scooped her into his arms and soared up to the Eyrie—dizzy, disoriented, despairing. Simon had sung this song to her… .

“Here. Chairs have been set up by the wall here. Your hands are cold, and no wonder. It’s freezing. Let’s take seats next to this nice fire. There. Would you like some wine?”

She had been ushered to a chair and pushed into it before she entirely realized that someone was speaking to her. He had
handed her a goblet of wine before she took the trouble to identify him.

“Josiah,” she said slowly. “Isn’t that right?”

He nodded. “Drink up. Come now. Drink it all. There now. Yes, I’m Josiah. I wish we had been properly introduced before this afternoon, but I did not arrive until very late, I’m afraid. You’re Rachel, of course.”

He was so very small and unalarming, so different from the angels and the rich gentry she had been surrounded with lately, that she found herself liking him almost on the instant.

“You’re the priest,” she said.

“Well, I’m one of the oracles, actually.”

“Is that better?”

He laughed lightly. “More select. There are several hundred priests. There are only three oracles.”

“There are?”

“Three oracles for the three provinces. The god finds power in the triumvirate. Oracle, angel and man. Gaza, Bethel, Jordana. If it comes to that, the three dooms that will be visited upon Samaria if the Gloria is not performed—the Plain of Sharon destroyed, the River Galilee destroyed, and the world itself destroyed.”

“I don’t know much about theology,” Rachel said apologetically. “Forgive me if I seem stupid.”

He considered her with great interest. “It is truly amazing to me,” he said, “in a culture like ours which is so completely self-contained, that there could be anyone who does not know all the doctrine, all the trappings, inside and out.”

“I wasn’t taught—”

“Oh, I know. The Edori have their own mysticism. It is just that I so rarely come in contact with the Edori. Nearly everyone I deal with subscribes to identical philosophies and ideals, and knows his place in the order, and certainly knows mine. So to come across a spiritual innocent is a somewhat wondrous occurrence.”

Half of what he said made no sense to her, but he was intriguing; she was willing to talk religion to please him.