Angelica

by Sharon Shinn

  “We haven’t been by the Caitanas for a year or more now,” Susannah said. “I might mention it to the others. That’s pretty country and I’d like to see it again.”

  Paul looked over at her from across the fire. “You’ve seen other interesting sights, and far less pretty ones, from what I’m hearing,” he said.

  Susannah glanced at her nephews, not sure how much to say in front of them. Ruth, holding the younger one to feed him, nodded as if to say she could speak freely. “We came across a campsite burned beyond recognition,” she said softly. “We couldn’t even tell if it had been Edori or Jansai camped there—or, who knows, a band of farmers traveling to Luminaux. It was a very frightening place, and we did not linger long. We moved our own camp out that very night, late as it was.”

  “I wonder what could have caused such a thing? Bartholomew described it in a great deal of detail,” Paul said, glancing at his older son.

  “And I wonder if any other Edori have seen something similar,” Susannah added. “You need to spread the word among the other clans you meet, and we’ll do the same. Bad enough if it happened once, but what if it happened other times, in other places?”

  “We’ll pass along the news,” Paul said solemnly.

  After that, the talk turned to happier things, campfires they’d shared with other clans since the Gathering, funny words the boys had learned to say. Linus offered to wrestle his older brother, to prove to Susannah how strong he had grown. Their father turned to reminiscing, recounting a tale that involved their mother and some ill-advised additions she had made one night to the cook pot. He had them laughing so hard that Susannah’s stomach actually hurt. But it was good to laugh with her father and hear stories about her mother. The pain was welcome.

  After the meal was over and the dishes had been done, they gathered up the sleepy boys and made their way through the thicket of tents to the biggest fire outside Bartholomew’s tent. Here the others were already taking their places, turning this fortuitous meeting into a mini-Gathering, a coming together of far-flung Edori souls. Someone passed around sweetbreads still hot from the fire. Dathan offered a skin of wine to Paul and other men of the Tachitas. Some of them accepted it; Paul did not. Her brother then turned a sideways look on Susannah. She kept her gaze on the fire and pretended not to see.

  Most of them had shared their news casually over intermingled fires, so there was no need, as there was at the true Gathering, for clan members to get up one at a time and recite the events of the past few seasons. So after everyone was settled, and Eleazar had built up the fire a little more, no one moved or spoke for a few minutes until Claudia came to her feet.

  “Greetings to you all,” she said formally, smiling around at the assembled company. “Praise be to Yovah for bringing you to our campfire tonight.”

  And she lifted her voice in a simple song of thanksgiving that everyone immediately joined. The quick surge and rumble of voices filled Susannah with a deep and visceral satisfaction; she felt, if such a thing could be said to exist, a fierce contentment. She lifted her own voice in harmony, sliding her rich alto under the plain melody line. They sang it through twice before any of them were willing to let the song die.

  Then Anna came to her feet and stood beside Claudia, and the two sang a traditional Edori tune in the old language that almost none of them used anymore, except when singing. After that, Linus jumped up, eager to show off his new tenor range, though his voice broke once or twice on the higher notes and caused Susannah to cover her face to hide her smile.

  “Sing with me,” Ruth said, turning to Susannah. So the two of them stood before the fire and performed. The first year that Ruth had lived in their tent, before Susannah had left the Tachitas to follow Dathan, Ruth and Susannah had sung together all the time. They had perfected their pitch and their timing so that, on a few songs, at least, they could produce amazing harmonies and dazzling leaps of interval. When they had finished their first composition, members of both clans called out for an encore, so they offered two more pieces.

  “Susannah! Don’t sit down! Come stand by me!” called another Tachita when Ruth was finished, so Susannah obligingly moved over a few paces. She had been the only reliable alto in the group, back when she lived with the Tachitas, so she had been in high demand on any song for which harmony was required. Which suited Susannah just fine. She did not particularly like to carry a melody line. She liked to listen to the music, get a sense of its tone and mood, and then make up her own harmonies, which often differed radically from the ones the composer might have intended. It was her only true musical ability.

  But it was in demand, at least on this night. Keren was on her feet before the final notes had sounded in this latest duet, and she called Susannah over. Keren had a showy soprano that never sounded as good as when grounded by Susannah’s reassuring low counterpoint, and the Tachitas praised her extravagantly when the song came to its conclusion. Throwing Susannah a droll look, Tirza then came to her feet, determined not to be shown up by her lover’s vain sister.

  “Susannah. That piece about the winding river. Sing that with me, won’t you?” Tirza asked. So they launched into that one next, a wistful ballad about lost love and redemption beyond the grave. Everyone sighed when they were done, and no one leapt quite so readily to his feet.

  “It seems all the clans have grown tired,” Bartholomew said in an amused voice. “Perhaps one more prayer to Yovah would be in order, and then it is time to seek out our tents.”

  Everyone murmured agreement with this sensible plan of action, and the whole group joined in on the final song of the evening. Susannah’s journey from singer to singer had brought her halfway around the fire, and not until then did she notice that Dathan was sitting quite close to a Tachita girl by the name of Cozbi. Neither one was singing this final prayer, which was scandalous in and of itself. They were talking in low voices, until Dathan paused to take a drink from his wineskin. He spilled a few drops down the corner of his mouth, and Cozbi laughed at him, rolling her eyes.

  Susannah did not think it was so funny.

  Once the prayer ended, Susannah made her way back to where Ruth sat cradling her sons in her arms. “Let me carry the little one,” Susannah said, and took him carefully from Ruth’s hold. Ruth rose a little unsteadily to her feet and smiled.

  “It was so good to sing with you again tonight,” Ruth said. “Every time I offer a prayer to Yovah, I miss the sound of your voice next to mine. The Lohoras stole a greater treasure than they knew when they took you from us.”

  “They did not take me—I chose to follow them,” Susannah said, smiling. “What have you been feeding this boy? He is as heavy as a sack of rocks.”

  “We have been feeding him rocks,” Paul said behind her. “That is the best diet for babies.”

  Linus came up on her other side. “Stay in the tent with us tonight, will you, Susannah?” he begged. “I want to wake you in the morning by tickling your ribs.”

  “And what makes you think you would be awake first?” she scoffed. “Perhaps I would leave my dreams early just so I could tickle you.”

  “Yes, stay with us,” Ruth pleaded. “All these boys in my tent every morning! I need a woman’s calm voice next to mine to assure me that I am still sane.”

  “She may tell you that, but that will not make it true,” Paul said, and Ruth freed one hand from her hold on the baby to slap him on the arm.

  “You see what I mean?” Ruth said piteously. “I am friendless without you.”

  “It had better be a girl you’re carrying this time,” Paul said. “Or you will have no allies at all.”

  Susannah thought of Dathan, leaning over Cozbi and smiling down into her speculative eyes. If she went back to sleep on her own pallet, she would know if Dathan came back late this night—or not at all.

  “I would be happy to share your tent tonight,” she said. “But Linus has to sleep outside. I think it may rain tonight.”

  They wrangled happily for the
next half hour as they disposed themselves on the tent floor and traded the usual insults. Susannah found herself wedged between Linus, who slept closest to the outer edge of the tent, and her older nephew, who lay in the middle. All around her, the breathing was deep and even, with the occasional questioning cry of a baby hushed to instant silence. She had forgotten the rhythmic sound of her father’s quiet snoring, proof that he still lived. How she had listened for that sound in the days and weeks after her mother’s death. How it comforted her now.

  She lay awake longer than she wanted to, remembering Dathan’s face and Cozbi’s smile, and telling herself that it was just the wine and the excitement of new company that had planted Dathan so firmly at the pretty girl’s side. She would not have thought Cozbi was the type to flirt so readily with another woman’s lover, though. She had always seemed thoughtful and clear-eyed, back in the days when Susannah lived with the Tachitas. Well, everyone changed, she supposed; she herself certainly had. Why not Cozbi?

  She finally fell asleep, and then quickly was dreaming.

  She was back in the room of white and silver, moving effortlessly between the strange hard walls. The screens and tapestries stretched out before her blinked with a gorgeous array of lights, and she paused before each new vista, delighted at its marvelous, mysterious patterns. The voice that was so familiar, but so incomprehensible, seemed to call her from a distance, so she tried to find its source, stepping through unfamiliar hallways of smooth, arching white material and gleaming circular lamps.

  “Susannah,” it called, and she paused before two doors, one on either side of the corridor.

  “Where are you?” she called back. “I’m lost. I can’t find you.”

  “Susannah,” it said again, its tones low and urgent.

  She tried one door, but it was locked, so she turned to the other one. It fell open as soon as she laid her palm across the smooth surface. She stepped inside, but this room was even stranger than the last one, all in darkness, with hidden shadowy shapes catching faint reflections from the light outside. One entire wall, floor to ceiling, appeared to be a window opening onto a view of the night sky. Constellations pressed against the glass like children peering into a candy shop. There were so many stars she could not count them or sort them out. And they were moving, revolving around her, above her, like a picture panel circling a candle and throwing fantastical designs behind it.

  She took a step backward, feeling small and strange and dizzy. “I don’t like this place,” she whispered. “Take me back to the white room. I am afraid here.”

  “There is nothing to fear. You are perfectly safe,” the voice responded, mercifully speaking in words that Susannah could understand.

  “Take me back,” she said again, even more softly.

  “Come visit me,” the voice said. “Very soon.”

  Susannah closed her eyes, to shut out the shifting, disorienting view. She put her hands out and felt behind her for the door, then stepped backward, one careful pace at a time. Once she was in the hallway, she shut the door before opening her eyes again. Back in the white corridor, an alien enough place, but not so strange as the place she had just been.

  “Susannah,” the voice said. “Come visit me soon.”

  “Not now,” she whispered. “I want to go home.”

  She woke with a start, taking a quick gulp of air and feeling her body jerk so hard she elbowed Linus in the head. For a moment, she did not know where she was, and she was washed with a quick wave of panic, but then Paul sat up across the tent from her, and she remembered.

  “I’m all right,” she breathed, before he could speak and wake anyone else up. “Go back to sleep.”

  He did not lie back down, but peered at her through the darkness, tilting his head so he could see her past the tent pole. “Another one of your dreams?” he asked quietly. “You still get them?”

  She nodded. “Sometimes. Usually they are pleasant enough. This one was just a little strange.”

  He resettled himself on his pallet, but she could sense his eyes on her even through the darkness. “You can tell me about it in the morning,” he said.

  She laughed softly. “By morning I will have forgotten it.”

  But she had not.

  Sometime the day before, between sharing meals at the campfires and singing in front of Bartholomew’s tent, the Lohoras and the Tachitas had agreed to travel on together for a few days. So when camp was struck with its usual quick efficiency, Susannah elected to walk on beside Ruth and the babies instead of keeping company with her own tentmates. Paul and Linus occupied themselves with the packhorses, and Susannah’s father had joined up with the old men of the Lohora clan, so Ruth and Susannah were able to talk freely without any eager ears overhearing their observations. Ruth whispered news about Tachita girls, gossip about who was pursuing whom, and Susannah relayed similar stories from clans she had encountered on the road. It was very satisfying talk, although not always good-natured, and they both giggled and glanced around guiltily every time they repeated something just a touch unsavory about someone else they knew.

  “And then after all that, she chose to stay with a trader who works along the river cities!” Ruth ended up one tale. “Moved into a house there in Castelana and says she’s not traveling with the clans ever again. Can you imagine?”

  “No,” said Susannah. “But did she love him?”

  Ruth shrugged. “He had a lot of gold and he brought her bolts of the most beautiful silk cloth,” she said. “I think she just loved the idea of the luxury of the life she could have with him. She loved what he could bring her, not the man himself.”

  Susannah nodded. “Well, she’s part allali, isn’t she?” she asked, using the Edori word that meant “city-dweller”—or, in fact, anyone who was not Edori. “Her mother was only half Edori, if I remember right. Maybe part of her has always longed for a more comfortable life.”

  “I don’t think I would find it comfortable to be trapped in one small house my whole life and see only the same view every day from my windows,” Ruth said. “But last I heard, she was determined to become an allali in every respect. She was going to marry this man—”

  “No!” Susannah exclaimed.

  “Yes, and she was going to be dedicated to Yovah. And she had already begun calling the god ‘Jovah,’ as all the allali do. It sounded very strange, coming from her mouth.”

  Susannah lifted her hand to her own Kiss in her right arm, symbol of her dedication to the god nearly twenty-five years ago. “I did not know an adult could choose to be dedicated,” she said slowly. “I thought only infants and children were given the Kiss.”

  Ruth shrugged. “Well, who knows about things like that? You and your brother are the only ones I ever knew who bore a Kiss, and it didn’t seem to change your lives much. Do you think it makes you closer to the god? I find it hard to believe. He is so close to us already.”

  Susannah swept back her heavy black hair to expose her right ear, though Ruth had seen this particular revelation before. “Oh, but I am even more special to the god,” she said in mock solemnity. “For I have another Kiss set right here on my skull.”

  Ruth paused a moment to inspect the sight, a second crystal node implanted right behind Susannah’s ear, smaller than the one in her arm and completely colorless. “Well, I have always thought that must be such a bother,” she said. “Doesn’t it get in the way when you comb your hair? And doesn’t it hurt?”

  Susannah let her hair fall. “Oh, I can’t feel it at all. I forget it’s there for days at a time.”

  “I still would not want one,” Ruth said. “Or a Kiss in my arm. I think they’re very strange things.”

  Susannah shrugged. “They’re gifts from Yovah,” she said. “I don’t mind them.”

  The baby, who had been riding in a sling against Ruth’s stomach, woke just then and began to fuss. Ruth shushed him and began to rock him, crooning a soft lullaby. Susannah dropped back a few paces and then waved at Ruth, an offhand pro
mise to hunt her up later. She cut through the slow parade of walkers and searched through the moving camp to find her tentmates.

  Keren was nowhere in sight, but Anna and Tirza were easy to find, chatting amiably among the stragglers in the rear of the group. Anna did not move very fast, and sometimes Eleazar insisted she ride one of the horses, especially when the terrain was rough. But today, with two clans mingled and so many children to watch out for, the whole company was moving at a very sedate pace, and it did not matter how slowly Anna chose to walk.

  “There you are! I thought you had decided to turn your back on the Lohoras now that you were with your true family again,” Tirza greeted her.

  “The Lohoras are my true family,” Susannah said with a smile. “And I doubt any of you minded having one less body in your tent last night, though my brothers complained of how much room I took up. I! With my slim figure!” And she pirouetted quickly between one step and the next, and then laughed at her vanity.

  Anna and Tirza exchanged quick glances. “Oh, you were in your brother’s tent,” Anna said. “Well. That is a good place to be.”

  Susannah felt her nerves flutter with apprehension. “Why, where did you think I was? Sleeping out by the fire like one of the old men? No, thank you, I do not wish to wake up with dew all over my face.”

  “Of course that’s where we thought you were,” Tirza said, sending a warning look at her lover’s older sister. “I told Anna and Keren that you were tired of their cooking and had gone back to Ruth for something more nourishing.”

  “You said no such thing!” Susannah exclaimed.

  They bantered a while longer, but Susannah felt her unease spread from the surface of her skin inward, until it knotted all her muscles and kinked up all her veins. When Anna stepped away to go look for Claudia, Susannah turned to Tirza.