A Plague of Angels

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “Doubt it,” said the child. “Ma says I’m as unhelpful a whelp as any she’s had.”

  Abasio laughed dutifully. The child was looking at him mildly: unafraid, certainly, but with a proper wariness, nonetheless.

  “No big matter, young’un. I heard that a refugee was spotted here in the valley two days ago. I’m looking for such a person, that’s all. I thought perhaps you knew where the refugee had gone.”

  “That wasn’t a refugee,” the child asserted, turning back to the bank and continuing its search. “That was my cousin Olly. She went too far up the river, is all She’s never been here before, my cousin, so she went too far. Then she had to come back down, so maybe somebody thought she was a refugee.”

  “Your cousin.” His heart sank. He felt it thudding away in his boots.

  “From over near Longville. Olly Longaster.”

  “Wandering around all alone?”

  “Well, she came in a freight wagon as far as our road,” the child said. “She just walked right on past us.” The child turned limpid eyes on Abasio and smiled at him.

  Abasio knew at once that the child was a girl and that she was lying to him. How many times had he seen that glance, all innocence? How many times seen that smile, all sweetness? Girls, girls, girls, and this one was lying through her teeth. Which meant it wasn’t her cousin at all. Which meant.

  “I’ll ride on down and see your ma,” he said with a smile. “She’s Ori Suttle, isn’t she?”

  “How’d you know that?” the child snapped, glowering at him suspiciously.

  “Oh, I was born and brought up over there,” he said, pointing west and south, symbolizing the distance between thumb and forefinger, a little way only. “On a farm.”

  “You’re a cityman,” the child challenged. “Citymen dress like you Mud-colored. Hair all covered up. Bet you your hair’s a funny color under that cap.”

  “I’m a cityman now,” Abasio agreed. “But I wasn’t then I remember your ma, Farmwife Suttle. And your aunt, what was her name? Upton? And her son. Is he still here?”

  “Most everybody who ever was here is still here,” the girl said, dismissing him as she turned back to the muddy bank.

  Including the refugee, Abasio assured himself as he rode on down the lane. Certainly including the refugee.

  Ori Suttle sat just inside the open door of the dairy, skimming cream with the assistance of the Widow Upton Abasio dismounted and carefully tied his horse, taking his time about it so they could get a good look at him, then went close enough to bow and introduce himself as a former neighbor, now a cityman, out looking for a refugee who had been reported in the neighborhood.

  “And what would you want with a refugee, cityman?” asked Farmwife Suttle, drawing her brows down in a scowl at him. “Some poor soul from some troubled place, already with enough worry on his poor head, driven out, no doubt, only to have you city hounds after him as well.”

  “I’ve been helpful to refugees in my time,” said Abasio mildly. “Sometimes I can offer a job, or some advice as to where one might be found.”

  “I know your jobs,” snorted the Widow. “Jobs for harlots and songhouse barkers and poor fools to be killed in the arena.”

  “I’ve never put anyone in the arena, fool or not,” said Abasio stiffly. “And I’ve never made a harlot of anyone, either. It’s true, I’ve recruited concubines a time or two, and carnival folk—a magician, and a strong man. Why do you assume I’m a villain, Farmwife?”

  “Your hands are covered, boy, which means tattoos to me, and that means gangs—though you don’t speak like them, or at least not when you’re speaking to us, though I’ve no doubt you can and do, most times. Well, it’s no matter what you are. There’s no refugee here. Only my niece, Olly Longaster from Longville. She missed the turning and went too far up the valley, where she was seen by Farmer Chyne. And if you were born here and raised here, as you claim, you know about Farmer Chyne.”

  “He was never fond of strangers,” said Abasio.

  “True. And what with these monsters breeding in the hills, more of them every year, he’s got other things not to be fond of. Was his manner as much as anything that made my niece sure she’d gone too far, so she turned and came back again. And that’s the whole story of that.” She tapped her skimming spoon on the edge of the jar. “May I offer you some biscuits, cityman—”

  “Abasio,” he offered.

  “Abasio.” She nodded. “Then it was old Cermit was your grandpa.”

  He got the name out with some difficulty. “Cermit. Yes.”

  “Poor old man.” The Widow gave him a sharp look. “All solitary up there in the woods. So you’re the boy who ran off to the city and broke his ma’s heart.”

  “Hush, sister,” said the Farmwife. “Let old dung lie.”

  “Do that,” said Abasio stiffly. “I did no more than she had done in her own youth. And I’ve not regretted it.”

  “You’re young still,” said the Widow with a sniff. “Your time for regret is yet to come.”

  “I offered biscuits and fresh butter and cheese. The good cheese, boy. The stuff we keep for ourselves.”

  Abasio found his mouth watering. The good cheese, the aged stuff that the farmers kept for themselves because there was no point wasting it on cityfolk. He hadn’t tasted that crumbling yellow wonder in years.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he told her fervently. “I’d be most grateful.”

  He told himself later it was fate, certainly. Fate that the Farmwife mentioned the cheese, and that he accepted it, and that he had his mouth full of it when she walked in. She. Her hair a cloud of darkness and her eyes glowing at him. Her skin shiny as a piece of handled wood, polished and gleaming. Her skirts pulled between her legs and hiked up into her belt as women did when they worked in the garden, the fabric damp around her knees, knees so softly rounded he could feel them in the palm of his hand, shapely calves, sweetly turned ankles, and feet that made him think of dancing on meadows. Barefoot and laughing she was, coming in and catching sight of him and her brows going up like wings, saying, Who’s this? Where’ve I seen this one before?

  And he, he caught his breath through that mouthful of bread and cheese, and choked like a fool, and almost strangled himself, gasping, so there was somebody pounding on him and the Farmwife clutching him around his middle, and when he caught his breath at last with a great whoop of air, she’d gone.

  “Smaller mouthfuls, boy,” counseled the Farmwife “Did your ma teach you no manners before you left her?”

  “It wasn’t that,” he said, unthinkingly truthful.

  “No, I hardly thought it was,” she said dryly. “That was Olly Longaster, my niece, as you’ve no doubt guessed.”

  Which was a blatant he, but he would not argue with her. “She’s—she’s a very lovely girl,” he said.

  “She’s a lovely young woman, yes. She’ll make some lucky farmer a fine wife,” said the Farmwife.

  “What a waste,” he blurted, still unthinking.

  “A waste!” Farmwife Suttle exclaimed. “Isn’t that a city-man talking! How would you not waste her, boy? Let’s see, she could be a gang concubine, sold to a Chief, and passed on by him to his boys when he tired of her or when she caught one of the IDDIs or grew old. Or she could go to a brothel, where she’d fetch a good many silver rats for her owner until she sickened there. They don’t last long in the brothels.”

  “I was thinking of the Edge,” mumbled Abasio, red-faced. It wasn’t true. He’d been thinking of himself.

  “Oh? And since when have the Edges been recruiting from outside? You know as well as I do, boy, that the Edges are closed, them with their lawns and their trees and their tennis and their guard dogs. Them with their clean white clothes and their clean soft hands. Them with their patrols! You have to be born to one of their families, go to one of their schools, be confirmed in one of their faiths, and dress and talk as they do, and if you don’t, out you go. No outside wives for them. Nossir.”

&nb
sp; The Farmwife leaned forward to rap him on the knee with a hard knuckle. “Let be, boy. She’ll make some farmer a fine wife, bear him several handsome children, and grow old no unhappier than most of us.”

  Abasio had no desire to let be. He wanted to rage at her. He wanted to run after the girl. He would have done, except he’d seen her go, and the way she had gone bothered him. She’d fled. She’d taken one look at him and gone out like a cat spooked by a dog.

  He finished his bread and cheese, unashamedly begged a bit more for his homeward way, and went out the way he’d come, trying to decide how he’d manage to find the girl, or talk with her if she was so unwilling. As he rode back along the brook on his way to the gate, he saw the girl-child once again, this time sitting on the branch of a gnarled tree, watching him closely.

  “Olly says she saw you,” said the child.

  “What’s your name?” asked Abasio.

  “Seelie.”

  “Seelie. Well, yes, she saw me and I saw her, but she didn’t stick around. She came out here, did she?”

  “That’s her business. I’ll be watching, so don’t you try anything.”

  What did she suppose he would try? Abduction? Here in farm country, where the tocsin would bring the farmers and their families swarming at him like bees? Rape? With the same consequence?

  Then all such worries departed him, for he saw her, standing as Seelie had stood, knee-deep in one of the pools, hunting something or other, a plumy creature on her shoulder that at first he thought was a bird, then thought was something else.

  He didn’t speak until he was near her. “You’re Olly,” he said foolishly. So far as he knew, it was the only name she had.

  She looked up from the fat crayfish in her hand, then dropped it into the sodden sack hanging from her belt. “And you’re the man from the city,” she said, carefully keeping her eyes away from his. He was just as she remembered him, though the cap and gloves he wore contributed nothing to his appearance. Dark, he was, like walnut wood, darker than she was, and she was dark. Eyes with fire in them. Hands that moved gracefully, as though of themselves.

  Handsome or not, she had been warned against citymen. Burned Man had warned her with every word he said. Oracle had warned her with some of the words she hadn’t. Though it took all her resolve, she accused him.

  “You’re a ganger,” she said flatly. Her eyes told him she’d seen him before in ganger company, though she didn’t say that. She knew he recognized her and knew she was not Ori Suttle’s niece. Still, she would not admit it. Not to him. “A ganger,” she repeated.

  He flushed. Just so had his grandpa used to say the word. A ganger. As though he had said, a cockroach. A poison snake. A rat in the granary.

  “Some here in the country don’t approve of gangs, it’s true,” he said, trying to keep his voice flat and unchallenging. “But in the city, most men my age either belong to a gang or pay dues to one. As for me, I’m a member of the Purples.”

  She gave no sign she had ever heard of Purples. The very fact she did not made him ache with doubt. Had she not felt anything, then? Had she merely looked at him as at any wandering ganger? Was this flaming heat in him all on his side, none on hers?

  It was much on hers, as well, but she was using all her strength to deny it. “That’s all right.” She waved her hand, dismissing the question and him along with it. “We’ve all a right to our own way of life So I’ve been taught, at least.”

  Oh, go away, she said to him silently. Before I throw myself at you, like some stupid Ingenue. Go, go, get you gone!

  He refused to be dismissed. He wanted to winkle her out of her deception. “What brought you here from Longville? I think I went there as a child, to market, probably. Isn’t the Longville market famous?”

  She looked up at him briefly, her eyes opaque. “I suppose all markets are famous to those who buy and sell there. Here in the country, markets are our entertainment.”

  “You found the village dull?” he persisted, purposely leaving the village unnamed.

  She shrugged. “It was home, but sometimes we … sometimes we need new surroundings. Else we stultify.”

  Stultify. Another of Grandpa’s many words. She too had been reared by a lover of words. “You find Wise Rocks less stultifying?”

  “It’s too early yet to say,” she said, stooping to the bank, eyes probing the ripples. It was easier to keep a proper, attitude toward him if she did not look at him. The angel flew from her shoulder to his, landed there, much to his surprise, and pecked him sharply behind the ear.

  He clapped his hand to the spot, feeling blood. The winged creature went back to its mistress, who scolded it wordlessly. He looked at the blood on his hand, feeling inexplicably angry, more at her than at her pet. She was almost contemptuous, certainly disrespectful to him who’d grown accustomed to respect. Or what passed for it in the cities. He had no idea what it cost her to appear so.

  “Perhaps you’d find the city less stultifying,” he challenged. “I’d be glad to escort you there, if you’d like to see it.”

  It was the worst thing he could have said. Her face closed, like an iron-bound door, shutting him out. “Do you think I’m a fool, cityman? I’ve been told what sleazy life awaits women there.” She gave him a contemptuous look, hating him for being what Oracle had said citymen were. Not her Prince Charming, but a serpent, his darting tongue laden with false words.

  He looked so shocked, so bereft, she almost regretted her decision to have no more to do with him. More gently she said, “There’s only one thing you could do for me, cityman, and that’s to let me pick your brain. I was recently told by a—fortune-teller that my fate is entwined with some mystery. In your travels about your exciting and no doubt wonderful city, have you by chance heard of three thrones that tower?”

  He shook his head, baffled at this change of direction. “If it’s a matter of prophecies, half the city is hearing prophecies on any given day. Every carnival has fortunetellers, the odds-shops have palm readers, there are astrological forecasts on the public amusement screens. Anytime a gang goes to war, it seeks some prophecy or other.”

  “Would you have heard, perhaps, of five beings called champions or six who seek salvation?”

  He became sly. “I’ll be honest with you, Olly Yours is the kind of question that needs to be taken to a real soothsayer, an archetypal. Oracle, perhaps. Even we citymen take some kinds of questions to Oracles. My Chief went to one not long ago, in a village near here, as a matter of fact.”

  Slyness achieved nothing. Her face closed once more. “It’s of no matter, cityman. Forget that I asked.” She turned away, dismissing him once more, this time finally.

  Memory tugged at him, faint and illusory. He couldn’t pin it down. He called after her, “I’ll ask when I get back Perhaps someone there will know.”

  She was splashing her way down the stream, ignoring him, wondering why she had even bothered with this spate of talk. Oracle had told her it was better to say nothing to such men, but there for a moment his face had been open and likable, not conniving at all. There for a moment she might almost have trusted him.

  He cried after her desperately, “You might consider the three thrones that remaineth!”

  She turned and came back a little way. “Remaineth?”

  Now, where had that memory come from? He groped for more. “Something to do with the world,” he said, astonishing himself. “Something about—after men went to the stars, the thrones that remaineth to … protect the world from upheavals.”

  “Is there, then, some such protection?” she asked. “I’ve not heard of that.”

  “It may not exist. Or perhaps it’s fictional. It’s simply something I heard of a long time ago.” It was Ma, or maybe Grandpa who had mentioned the thrones, he remembered now.

  “Ah,” she said. “Well. How interesting.” She smiled an almost-real smile, and he felt himself melting. “Thank you for that.”

  She went away again, downstream, where she
was joined by Seelie. The two bent their heads over the sack of crayfish and then, evidently deciding they had enough, they went on to lose themselves among the willows.

  Abasio was left to stare after them, a foolish look on his face. So he had found her, and now what? He had come all this way, been almost eaten by trolls—and she would have none of him. This wasn’t the city, where he could demand to see her pass and if she had none, take her for his own, or if she had one, kill the man who had issued it and take her anyway. This was not the city, where he could call out his gang to help him kidnap her and keep her thereafter.

  What was he to do?

  What he did, after some little time, was to shut his mouth. After a moment more he cursed, almost silently. When he got onto his horse, he was amazed to find his eyes wet and his body trembling.

  “Farmwife Suttle?” Olly asked. “Have you heard of three thrones of remaineth? Or anything about three thrones?”

  The Farmwife, who had her cheek against a cow’s flank as she stripped the last of the milk from the teats, drew back with a puzzled look. “Seems I’ve heard something like that. A story maybe? Some kind of fairy tale?”

  “That man who was here, he said there were three thrones at remaineth or of remaineth. He said it had to do with the world, with upheavals.”

  The Farmwife’s expression cleared, and she smiled. “Well, of course. That’s where I’ve heard it. That cityman was old Cermit’s grandson, and Cermit is always going on about upheavals. He’s a great reader, Cermit. Spends half the mice he gets for his crops buying books.” She picked up her bucket, slapped the cow on the flank until it moved toward the barn door, then moved herself and her milking stool to the other cow.

  Outside the barn the guardian-angel whistled and chortled, then came fluttering in to seat itself on Olly’s shoulder, where it pecked at her ear gently.

  “He said his name was Abasio,” said Olly, ignoring the angel, who had been extremely active of late, coming and going all the time, even at night, taking off on little flights into the forest at the least provocation. She hadn’t dared talk with the man, but since he left, she had very much wanted to talk about him.