Jovah's Angel

by Sharon Shinn

  “One of Jerusha’s angels is here, to carry the news back.”

  “Very well. Tell them I will come as quickly as I can.”

  At the end of a long day of meetings, she was touched when a gentle knock at the conference door was followed by Asher, entering with a tray of food in his hands.

  “I don’t believe you’ve paused all day to take a bite of food, angela,” he said somewhat reproachfully. “Now would be a good time for you to eat something.”

  She could not help smiling at him; his sweet fierceness appealed to her irresistibly. “How many people are still waiting to see me?”

  “Three, but they have a great deal of patience,” he assured her. “You have time for a quick meal.”

  “And will you share it with me?”

  “I have dined, thank you. But I will sit with you, if you like.”

  So he sat across from her and entertained her with recent gossip about the Eyrie residents. He did not consider it gossip, of course. His eyes would darken with scorn as he recounted one mortal’s actions, and his voice would lighten to admiration as he described a new song that Dinah had written.

  “And that new mortal girl that I saw this morning in the kitchen—what was her name?” Alleya asked. “Attarah? How long has she been here and where did she come from?”

  Unexpectedly, Asher blushed, but he answered readily enough. “She is from one of the conglomerate farms in the heart of Bethel,” he said. “Her father is Omar Avinmass.”

  “Oh, I know him. And she came here because—?”

  “Timothy says she is here for the same reason any mortal girl comes to an angel hold, but I’m sure she has a deeper commitment,” Asher said in a rush. “Her father brought her here three weeks ago so she could apprentice and learn the way of the holds—it is not like she is some angel-seeker from the streets of Velora.”

  No, but many an ambitious father before Omar Avinmass had introduced comely daughters to the angels and then waited hopefully for the likely result. Alleya hid a smile. “Well, and it would not be such an awful thing if Timothy or you or one of the other angels came to enjoy her company,” Alleya said. “After all, there are very few of us, and we must mate with mortals to bear more angel children. In some respects, it is your duty, you know, to find an attractive woman—”

  Now she had offended him. He replied stiffly. “I realize that angels mate where they will and call it duty, but I think there should be more involved than lust and—and procreation. To mate without love is shallow and—barbaric. It makes angels no better than animals.”

  “I did not suggest you should proceed without love,” Alleya said gently. “All I meant to say is that you should not be suspicious of her motives, or her father’s motives. She looked like a pretty and thoughtful girl to me. She might be saving herself for love as well.”

  “Yes, that’s what I thought, but Timothy said—” Asher began, and then launched into a comprehensive catalog of Timothy’s jocular comments. The last thing Alleya had expected at this juncture, on this day, was to be counseling lovesick young angels first navigating the tricky seas of romance, but it wasn’t in her to be abrupt with him. She knew well enough the torments passion could inflict.

  “My advice?” she said at last. “Take Attarah to one of the nice music bars in Velora. Buy a couple of bottles of wine. Get to know her. You’ll be able to resolve all of this much more easily than you thought.”

  “Yes, that’s what Samuel said,” Asher replied. “But I wasn’t sure—but if you think it’s all right…”

  “It’s perfect. Do it tomorrow. Tell me how it goes.”

  At last she was rid of him and could speak to her last three petitioners, and finally they, too, were gone. Weary past telling, she returned to her room, fell instantly into bed, and dreamed the short night away. When she woke, her thoughts went instantly to Caleb Augustus (Where is he right now? What is he doing, what is he thinking? Are his eyes turned in the direction of Velora?), as they always did. She assumed that thoughts of him would accompany her the rest of her life.

  She’d had worse company. She pulled herself almost painfully to her feet, and forced herself to face the morning.

  This day was identical to the one before, but the next day she varied her routine: In the morning, she prepared to set out for northeastern Gaza. Manadavvi country.

  “And from there you’ll be returning here?” Samuel asked her.

  Alleya hesitated and then, unaccountably, told the truth. “No,” she said slowly, “I’m going to Sinai for a day or two.”

  He looked at her sharply; something in her manner must have given away her reluctance to name her destination. “And why?” he asked.

  “When I was at Chahiela, I was talking with one of the little girls there. Deborah. She treats me like her big sister, and I always try to spend time with her when I visit. Anyway, she said something about Jovah no longer being able to hear us. She told me I should touch his face instead.”

  “Touch his face?”

  “At Chahiela, they have developed a method of communicating with those who are both blind and deaf. Touching your hand to a person’s face, you can spell out letters and words with your fingers. And that was how Deborah suggested I talk to the god.”

  “But—I don’t understand.”

  “There is an interface at Sinai. Maybe I can use it to communicate with the god.”

  Samuel looked thunderstruck. “Those are for the use of the oracles!”

  “Perhaps the oracles have not used them correctly.”

  “And you think you can?”

  “Maybe not. But I want to try.”

  “You don’t even know the language the oracles use to speak to Jovah.”

  “I know enough of it.”

  Now he gave her another quick, worried look, but she chose to ignore it. “This is not something I would want to be generally known,” she said. “But if there is an emergency, I want you to be able to find me.”

  “I will have no trouble keeping this secret,” he said somewhat grimly. “If anyone asks after you, I’ll tell them you’re still in Gaza.”

  “Good enough. And I should be back in three or four days.”

  She turned to go, but he stopped her with a word. “Alleya.”

  She looked back at him. “Yes?”

  “What do you plan to ask the god, when you touch his face?”

  Who I should marry, and if I can select the man that I love. “Why he has abandoned us,” she said aloud, “and how we can make him love us again.”

  “I hope he hears you.”

  “I hope he answers.”

  It was half a day’s flight to Monteverde, and then another hour or two to the Manadavvi holdings that so richly bordered the northeastern seacoast of Gaza. Jerusha accompanied Alleya to the home of Aaron Lesh, a courtesy that Alleya appreciated. Much as she hated to admit it, she was intimidated by the vast holdings and palatial mansions of the Manadavvi gentry. Theirs was a luxury beyond anything she could comprehend. She was never so aware of her roots in tiny Chahiela as she was when she touched down on one of those sloping emerald Manadavvi lawns.

  They flew through a light but ceaseless rain the whole way from Monteverde to the Lesh estate. Well, “estate” was not a grand enough word. Aaron Lesh owned miles and miles of the finest cropland in Gaza; a man could not walk from end to end of his property in a single day. His home was twice the size of the Eyrie and far more luxurious. He employed more servants than there were angels in Monteverde. And he was not the wealthiest of the Manadavvi.

  “Wet and bedraggled—just the way I wish to present myself to Aaron Lesh,” Alleya commented to Jerusha as they waited in a plush drawing room while a servant informed his master of their arrival. Jerusha looked surprised.

  “We are not here to advise him about beauty or fashion,” the other angel replied in apparent seriousness. Alleya sighed, and combed her damp hair with her fingertips.

  But Jerusha was right. Aaron, who had them instan
tly shown into a small, pretty dining room, did not seem to notice their splashed clothes or dripping wings. “I’m glad you could come so quickly,” he said, directing them to a round table already set with fine china and silver. “I know how busy you both are. I assume you are hungry from your long flight? We will be serving a formal dinner later, of course, but I thought you would want to refresh yourselves now.”

  “Yes, thank you,” Alleya murmured, seating herself beside Jerusha. The chairs, expressly designed with cutaway backs to accommodate angel wings, were extremely comfortable; and mouth-watering aromas rose from the platters brought in. This was a different Aaron Lesh than Alleya was used to dealing with. Then again, Manadavvi considered themselves the most civilized of hosts. It was a point of honor with them to treat their visitors well.

  Jerusha, of course, was not the woman for any circumlocution. She leaned forward across the table and said, “We flew in through rain. How long has it been storming?”

  Aaron waited till the servants spooned food onto each of their plates before replying. “It has been raining for nine days now without cessation. Nothing worse than what you saw coming in. But so much rain—with no sun—it is not good for us.”

  “No, I’m sure it’s not,” Alleya said. The food was delicious. She took a small bite so she could swallow quickly and keep talking. “I will gladly do a weather intercession, but I must warn you—”

  “I know. The god does not always listen to you, either.”

  “True. And even when he listens, sometimes the weather only lifts for a day or two. If you like, I will return as often as I can, but I cannot stay here long. I’m sorry.”

  “I understand,” he said, and he sounded almost humble. “We will be grateful for whatever help you can offer.”

  In the end, they agreed that the angels would sing that afternoon, stay the night, and sing again in the morning, hoping that way to reinforce whatever effect their prayers might have. And to allow the Manadavvi to show off his hospitality.

  So, shortly after their light meal, Jerusha and Alleya returned to the snarling skies to raise their voices to Jovah. Although she was used to singing in harmony (all angels were; harmony was the foundation of their existence), Alleya found it strange to offer these particular prayers as a duet. Jerusha signaled that Alleya should sing the primary part, and added her low, dark alto only after the Archangel had sung the opening verse. Alleya had always marveled at Jerusha’s voice, smoky and textured, not at all the voice she would have expected from someone so cool and rational.

  But their voices blended well enough, Alleya’s light and restless, Jerusha’s burred and throaty. Strange images came to Alleya’s head, of opals laid across black velvet, of sparks shooting from a burning branch of ebony; those were the complements their voices evoked. And the god heard both of them, Alleya could sense it. It was as if Jerusha’s rough voice hooked into the silken fabric of her own and rode it all the way to Jovah’s ear.

  The rain had not ended by the time they stopped, but they knew it would. The air changed around them in imperceptible shifts of weight and temperature. Even the color of the skies seemed less leaden. Alleya glanced at Jerusha as they finished their last song, and the other angel nodded, and soon enough they were back on the ground in front of Aaron Lesh’s compound.

  “I wonder how you do that,” were Jerusha’s first words.

  “Do what?”

  “Make the god hear you. Because he did. I could tell. It’s the first time I could feel my prayers reach him since—since I don’t know when. Since before Delilah fell.”

  “I don’t know what I’m doing that’s any different from what everyone else is doing.”

  “I know. I listened to you. It was a prayer we have all recited. Yet something in your voice reaches him.”

  “I’m glad it does.”

  “So are we all.”

  The rain had completely stopped by dinner time, which was a predictably lavish affair. The angels had anticipated that, of course, and brought with them formal attire, though Alleya found hers somewhat crushed from transport. She had packed a thin silver gown cut high in front, but daringly backless to accommodate her wings. It usually draped well over the curves of her body, but it usually hadn’t been carried five hundred miles folded in a backpack.

  “I hope I’ll do,” she said to Jerusha when the other angel stopped by her door on the way to dinner. “This gown is a little wrinkled. And I have no jewels besides my bracelets.”

  Jerusha wore an embroidered silk shirt over matching pants, and a collar of gold and emeralds, but she was no clotheshorse either. Although clearly she didn’t care. “I wouldn’t worry about it,” she said, giving Alleya a cursory inspection. “My mother always said neither a man nor a woman could wear any greater adornment than a set of well-groomed wings.”

  Alleya repressed a sigh.

  There were maybe fifty people awaiting them in the dining hall, all of them Manadavvi, all of them dressed as for some gala occasion. This was pretty much Alleya’s definition of torture, but she endured the evening as best she could. Conversation ranged from trivial observations to barbed political comments to gossip covering every family of any financial status in the three realms. Alleya smiled and joined in where she could.

  It was during dinner that she had her only real trial. She sat at the head table, the place of honor between Aaron and his brother; a few seats down from her was Emmanuel Garone. He was the one who broke conventional etiquette to lean over his dinner partners and confound her with a most unexpected question.

  “I hear odd rumors from Breven,” he said into what seemed to become an instant silence. “The Edori are engaging in shipbuilding for a most unbelievable enterprise.”

  Alleya carefully laid down her fork. “So I understand,” she said.

  “Ah, you’d heard of this mad plan? Romantic and desperate, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “They seem set on carrying it out,” she said neutrally.

  “What plan? What are the Edori doing now?” Various voices chimed in with questions. Emmanuel glanced quickly around the table.

  “They’re building ships to take them to Ysral,” he said. “And all of them are going.”

  “No! That’s crazy!”

  “Ysral! But there’s absolutely no proof—”

  “All of them?” Aaron’s voice cut in decisively.

  “Well, hundreds,” Emmanuel amended. “I don’t know the exact head count.”

  “That’s good news, isn’t it?” someone else asked. “I mean, if all the Edori leave Samaria—”

  Alleya stiffened. Aaron and Emmanuel shot quick glances in her direction. So it had been more than idle chatter after all. “If all the Edori leave,” Emmanuel said slowly, “we might not have much need for the Edori sanctuaries after all.”

  “No need for them,” Aaron agreed instantly. “No one living there.”

  “Of course, we’d have to put it up to a vote by the council—”

  “That’s all fairly premature,” Alleya said in as level a voice as she could manage. “In the first place, the Edori haven’t sailed yet—anything could occur to change their plans. In the second place, as Emmanuel said, we have no idea how many Edori are actually planning to leave. In the third place, who’s to say that they won’t come back? The sea is tricky, and these are not born sailors. I don’t think you can assume there will be no need of the sanctuaries any time soon.”

  “But maybe not all of them,” someone said in an urgent voice. “We’ll keep a few, of course, for those who don’t sail, but some of the bigger ones—”

  Alleya lifted her index finger in an abrupt motion to demand silence. She kept a pleasant smile on her face, but she was seething; and she wanted them to know it. “Not another word,” she said, enunciating clearly. “I came here to ask the god for sunshine, not to debate political ethics. And I will not taint a heartfelt prayer with a selfish, opportunistic discussion on how the Manadavvi can increase their holdings at the expense of
a few hapless Edori. If they sail, if their numbers drop, if everything changes, we can talk about it later. But for now”—she picked up her fork again—“let’s just enjoy the meal.”

  And she took another bite of food. There was a moment of complete silence and then Aaron’s wife pointedly asked the man beside her how his son was faring, and a low murmur of conversation slowly rose around the table. Alleya saw Emmanuel give Aaron a long, steady look; the younger man shrugged and sipped from his wine. But she sensed they were not entirely disappointed. The topic had been broached, and even though it had not gone over well, they had lodged the thought in her mind. They could not have expected a much better reception.

  The evening was interminable. The meal itself was a dozen courses (or so it seemed), and it was followed by a musical program. For a moment, as they were all shepherded into the recital hall, Alleya had a fear that she would be asked to perform; but the Manadavvi were too well-bred for that. Instead, the guests were entertained with flute players and a harpsichordist as well as a procession of exquisitely trained singers. Alleya enjoyed music, as a rule, but it had been a long day and she was tired of socializing. When the final notes had been played and the guests were invited into an adjoining room to play card games, she excused herself and went to bed.

  The next morning, she woke to sunshine, and could not help a small surge of triumph from quirking her mouth into a grin. Nonetheless, she and Jerusha made good on their promise and returned to the skies above the lush Manadavvi land. They repeated their prayers, adding a few songs of thanksgiving to show their appreciation for Jovah’s quick response.

  “Good enough, I think!” Jerusha called to Alleya over the fluttering sound of their mingled wingbeats.

  “Send a messenger if you need me to return,” Alleya called back.

  “You’ll be at the Eyrie? No more jaunting around?”

  Alleya could not help laughing. “I may make one quick detour before I go back but—yes, I should be at the Eyrie.”

  Jerusha nodded and waved. “Jovah guard you,” she said.

  “And you,” Alleya replied. She dropped downward to catch a southeasterly breeze while Jerusha drove her wings against the thin air to achieve greater altitude. In a few minutes, they were far apart; and soon enough, Alleya had left the Manadavvi lands behind.