by Sharon Shinn
Susannah let out a deep breath; she didn’t realize she’d been holding it. “What a tale,” she said softly. “But I like your brother better for it.”
“Everybody likes Gaaron,” Miriam said, looking in the mirror again.
From behind Miriam, Chloe put her two hands on the blond girl’s face and turned Miriam in Susannah’s direction. “So what do you think?” she asked. “A style you’d like for your own wedding?”
Miriam looked gorgeous, her hair a textured, colorful weave of elegance. “It’s beautiful,” Susannah said.
“Well, come here and sit down,” Chloe said. “Let’s see what I can do.”
So for the next half hour, Susannah sat in the middle of the room while Chloe fussed with her hair and Sela tried cosmetics on her face. “Your skin is so dark, but it has these bronze tones,” Sela murmured. “I don’t know that I have the right colors here, but let me try this—”
“Do you have any gold ribbon?” Chloe asked. “Or maybe red. I need something really bright against all this black.”
“Oh, I like that, I do,” Miriam murmured, stepping back to get a look at the whole effect. But they wouldn’t let Susannah even peek into the mirror until both makeup and coiffure were complete.
And then they let her stand and walked her over to the big mirror in the corner of the room, the one that was as tall as Susannah herself and could contain her whole body if she paused before it. But now all she looked at was her head and her hair. And she gasped.
“It doesn’t even look like me,” she said, turning from side to side to try to view every angle. Sela had brushed smoky rouge onto her cheeks and applied dark red lipstick to her mouth; she had rimmed Susannah’s eyes with a faint black line, which made her dark eyes appear huge. Chloe had woven gold and crimson ribbons into the sleek black hair, turning it into a vivid tapestry of unrelated images.
“Bells,” Chloe said, as Susannah twisted this way and that. “For her wedding day, little bells in her hair. Don’t you think?”
Opinion was divided on that, but Susannah liked sound just as much as she liked color, and she thought she would like to try the bells sometime. “I look so beautiful,” she said at last. “Thank you all so much! You make me feel so welcome.”
An outcry at that—“Of course you’re welcome among us!”—but they didn’t really know what she meant. None of them knew what it was like to be so far from friends and family that you could not even imagine how to get back, and how lonely the company of strangers could be, even the company of well-meaning strangers. But these little acts of friendship mattered immeasurably to Susannah, slight and trivial though they were. Being alone was so much worse to one who had always been surrounded. And now she felt, just a little bit, covered up again by love.
They talked late into the night, drowsing on their bedrolls. Susannah drifted off to sleep more than once, convinced that the conversation was finally done, and then she would wake to catch a few more scattered words. Now and then, someone rose to use the water room, invariably tripping over some supine body on the floor, and then there would be smothered giggles and an exchange of insults. The little Jansai girl cried out once in the night, and Susannah stirred, but before she could even sit up, she could hear Zibiah’s voice comforting the mikala in the dark.
It was as much like sleeping in an Edori tent as not sleeping in an Edori tent could ever be. In the morning, despite not having slept very many hours, Susannah felt as rested and as happy as she had felt since the last night she had slept in Dathan’s arms, still convinced he loved her.
The next day they spent down in Velora, all except Zibiah, who had work to do in the hold, and the Jansai girl, who stayed with Zibiah. They spent a great deal of time in the open-air markets, fingering the merchandise and bargaining with the vendors, who seemed just a little wary of this explosion of girls into their midst. Although only Miriam, at nineteen, was really a girl, Susannah thought. Chloe and Sela were a couple of years older than she was, Susannah guessed, and Zibiah was somewhere in between. But they acted young, young as Keren, and Miriam’s high spirits infected all of them. So perhaps the merchants were right to be wary.
In fact, Susannah kept her eye on Miriam, and watched her as she fondled gold bracelets or let the piles of semiprecious stones sift through her fingers. The look on Miriam’s face was speculative, and Susannah remembered how, the night before, the blond girl had admitted that she had stolen things in the past. Miriam had a silver necklace in her hands and had been looking at it for the longest time, when she glanced up to find Susannah’s eyes on her. Susannah shook her head, and Miriam smiled and put the necklace back.
After that, Susannah watched her even more closely.
They bought bolts of fabric, yards of lace and trim, handfuls of beads and sequins and bells. No one ever seemed to pay for anything, for Susannah saw no money changing hands, but all the women flashed their bracelets at the merchants as a sort of identification. Miriam, when asked, confirmed this; the Eyrie had an unlimited spending budget across Samaria, and all a resident had to do was show the coded bracelet to be able to make a purchase.
“You’ll get one, too, when you and Gaaron are married,” Miriam said, displaying hers to Susannah. It was a slim spiral of gold set at random intervals with three sapphires arranged in triangles. “It has to include sapphires in this pattern, but you can have them set in gold or silver, in a wide band or a narrow one—whatever you like.”
“It looks very expensive,” Susannah said.
Miriam laughed. “The Eyrie is rich.”
Late in the day, the four of them were joined by Nicholas and Ahio, and, after much discussion, they settled on a small, dark, and clearly fashionable establishment in which to have dinner. The group including angels was escorted instantly to a table while other patient would-be diners had to wait a little longer. Susannah smiled an apology at the mere mortals as they passed, but saw no looks of recrimination on their faces. Apparently, being an angel was a pretty good excuse for any kind of behavior, rude or not. Or maybe it was youth that excused it.
They ate well, drank more wine than Susannah was comfortable with, and laughed even more than they had the night before. A man at a neighboring table had another bottle of wine sent over to them, so Miriam went to thank him and his friends and stayed a long time at his table. Chloe, Sela, and the men seemed to think nothing of this, but Susannah watched her, a little troubled. Miriam’s open friendliness was one of her most endearing traits, the Edori thought—but maybe one of her more dangerous ones. Susannah was not so sure the young woman should be laughing so flirtatiously with men whom no one from the angel hold seemed to know.
“Excuse me,” Susannah said to the others, and went to join Miriam and her newfound friends.
Miriam seemed delighted at Susannah’s appearance. “Sit with us for a while! This is—wait, I can remember—this is Leet and Kasho and—and—Morvai! They’ve only been in Velora a few days, but they’ve already eaten at every restaurant and tavern in town.”
“And we like this one the best by far,” Morvai said smoothly.
The names were Jansai, Susannah thought; so were the faces, smooth and calculating, their skin oily with rich food eaten over a lifetime. They didn’t wear traditional Jansai robes, so they weren’t traders, at least not conventional ones. Probably in Velora to set up some kind of lawful business—a profitable one, of course, but nothing illegal.
Still, Susannah had the Edori’s instinctive mistrust of Jansai, and she did not like any group of older men to be courting a nineteen-year-old girl, especially when those men had been raised in a culture that despised women.
Susannah pulled out a chair and sat down, letting her smile mask all her thoughts. “And where have you traveled from?” she asked.
Leet waved a hand. “Oh, from everywhere. Most recently Semorrah.”
“Semorrah!” Miriam exclaimed, as if she had never been there, when Susannah knew for a fact that she had. “Is it as beautiful as they say?”
Leet laughed. “It is a strange city. They are building it on a rock in the middle of the Galilee River! No one can get to it except by boat. And you would ask, well, then, who would go there? But mark my words, that will be the city that everyone will want to visit. Because it is so rare, and so difficult, it will become precious.”
“I want to go,” Miriam said.
Morvai leaned closer to her. “We may head back that way when we leave Velora. You could travel with us.”
“Could I?” Miriam said, with every appearance of delight.
“We would be happy to have you with us,” Leet said, scrawling down something on a piece of paper. “Here is where we are staying. You could join us tonight or tomorrow to discuss travel plans.”
“When will you be leaving Velora?” Susannah asked.
Morvai shrugged. “It’s hard to say. Maybe in a day or so. Maybe in a week or two.”
“When your business is concluded,” Susannah said.
He smiled at her somewhat ferally. “You say that as if you doubt we have legitimate business here.”
Susannah opened her eyes wide. “As far as I know, all Jansai are legitimate businessmen.”
There was a little silence around the table, but none of the men denied their heritage. Leet examined Susannah a little more closely. “And what’s an Edori woman doing so far from any Edori camp?” he asked. “Or did we miss your kinsmen as they pitched their tents somewhere near the city?”
“No, my clan is far from here at the moment,” Susannah said calmly. “I am making my home at the Eyrie now.”
“Yes,” Miriam gushed, with just a shade too much enthusiasm. Not for the first time, Susannah suspected that Miriam was toying with the Jansai even more than they were playing with her. “She has come here to marry my brother.”
“And your brother lives at the Eyrie, does he?” Morvai asked.
“Oh, yes. We were both born there.”
“Pity to live in an angel hold and not be born an angel,” Leet said. “Or so I’ve been told.”
“Oh, but Gaaron is an angel,” Miriam said, all wide-eyed. “He leads the host, in fact.”
There was another silence, this one longer and more startled. “Gabriel Aaron?” Morvai said cautiously. “Who will be Archangel next year?”
“That’s him,” Miriam said happily. “He’s such a good brother to me. I don’t know that he’d really want me to leave and go to Semorrah without him.”
There was another dead silence.
“I just had a thought,” Susannah said smoothly. “Perhaps Gaaron would take you to Semorrah someday. Just for a visit. That way you could see the city, and he wouldn’t have to worry about you being gone for a long time.”
“Oh, yes, let’s ask him tonight!” Miriam exclaimed. “That would be so much fun! Though I would like to travel with all of you,” she added somewhat wistfully.
Susannah came to her feet. “Look, mikala, they’ve just brought over our food to our table,” she said. “Say thank you to these nice Jansai for sharing their wine with us, and let’s go join our friends.”
Miriam stood up. “Thank you so much,” she said prettily. “I hope your business in Velora goes very well.”
The three Jansai grunted their good-byes, their eyes now smoldering a bit and their farewells sounding none too sincere. Miriam, on the other hand, was alight with sheer festive happiness as she and Susannah returned to the others and took their places.
“You’re trouble,” Susannah said in a low voice as she sat down next to Miriam.
The blond girl giggled and sent her a look of unadulterated mischief. “That’s what everyone says.”
“What, you weren’t really worried about a bunch of old men like that?” Nicholas asked with disbelief.
“They’re not so old,” Susannah said with some heat. “And they’re Jansai. And I don’t think they’re too afraid of angels or anybody else.”
“Miriam’s fine,” Chloe said with a shrug. “She can take care of herself.”
“I was only having a little fun with them,” Miriam said to Susannah. “I really can take care of myself.”
Susannah watched her thoughtfully. How to make this girl see reason without making her furious? No wonder her brother found her such a challenge. “No, you can’t,” she said softly. “Nobody really can.”
The next five or six days passed in much the same way. Sometimes they shopped, sometimes they sang, sometimes they sat in the Eyrie and gossiped, but Susannah was always in the company of Miriam and her cadre of young, attractive friends. The first few nights, one or two of them slept in her room with her but, as she expected, that custom faded quickly. Miriam always made a point of coming to Susannah’s room the last thing every night, to say good-bye and add, “Now, you won’t be lonely, will you?” but after those first few days, Susannah’s nights were spent alone. She tried not to mind.
The longer she knew them, the more Susannah was able to sort out the individuals in her new circle of friends. Ahio, for all his incredible good looks and lazy appearance, was the most serious of the group, a true musician with some passion for his calling. Nicholas, who was quick-tempered and volatile, was utterly good-hearted, quick to offer sympathy or support no matter how absurd the issue. Zibiah would do whatever she was asked, whether it was watch a lonely Jansai child or race another angel to the far side of the Velora market; she did not seem to have much independent conception of good or bad. Chloe had enough energy to inject even the quietest moment with hilarity. Sela had common sense when she chose to use it, which was maybe one quarter of the time.
And Miriam . . . Miriam was loving and defiant and intelligent and fractious and kind and aloof by turns.
Susannah could well understand why Gaaron had called his sister young and pretty and difficult. She could understand less well why he had not, from years of tearing out his hair in frustration, grown quite bald with the effort of raising her.
She wondered if she would ever get an opportunity to tell him that. She wondered if he would ever return to the Eyrie. He had been gone now for about a week, and she felt like she would never get a chance to know him, this angel whom she was to marry in a few months’ time.
Surely, if Yovah had picked them for each other, he had meant them to interact a little more than this.
But finally one night, as she and Nicholas and Chloe and Miriam returned to the Eyrie very late, Miriam said, “Gaaron’s back.”
They were all disentangling on the open plateau where the angels landed. “How can you tell?” Susannah asked, looking around as if she had somehow overlooked Gaaron lurking in one of the nearby doorways.
“He’s singing,” Miriam said. “Can’t you hear him?”
Susannah tilted her head to listen. From above came the choral voices of maybe a dozen singers—a large number to draw this late, for it was past midnight, but it sounded like a group of friends who had planned to stay up for an occasion and who were having a good time serenading the moon. The mix seemed weighted a little more toward female than male singers, and Susannah could not identify any single voices.
“I’ve never heard him sing,” she apologized. “I can’t pick him out.”
“Well, it’s him,” Nicholas said definitively. “Think I’ll go up and join in.”
“Me, too,” Miriam decided.
Chloe yawned. “I’m too tired! I’ll see everyone in the morning.”
Much as Susannah wanted to meet with her prospective bridegroom again, seeing him in a large group so late at night did not seem the ideal circumstance. She followed Chloe inside and said a sleepy good night as their paths verged in the gaslit halls.
Once she stepped inside her own room, Susannah found a note had been slipped under the door. It was from Gaaron and it was short: “I’ve been gone long, I know. Could you meet me for breakfast in my rooms tomorrow? If you can. Gabriel Aaron.”
Susannah read this a couple of times, wondering if there was any tone to be discerned. Was he angry that sh
e had been gone when he returned? Or had he come in so late himself that he just assumed any rational person would be asleep already? Was the opening line an apology? And why sign the note with both his names, which she had never used, which were only employed by the Jansai and the people who spoke of him as the Archangel-to-be? An implicit reprimand there? A reminder of his status and, by extension, hers?
Or simply the quick, negligent scrawl of a tired man who was not thinking too clearly as he settled back home after a long absence?
Nevertheless, Susannah slept fitfully, rose early, and took some care with her appearance. She put on one of the new skirts she had bought in the Velora market, but matched it with one of her old blouses, a beautiful purple-dyed cotton shirt that Anna had made for her. My old life paired with my new, she thought, not that I really feel part of either world these days.
Esther was just leaving Gaaron’s room, pushing a wheeled cart before her. She greeted Susannah with a small sniff, as if surprised to see her awake so early or not surrounded by questionable company. Susannah grimaced as she sounded the chime on Gaaron’s door. No need to wonder, then, if Gaaron had heard much of Susannah’s activities while he had been gone.
But Gaaron, when she entered, did not seem to be thinking about anything so trivial as Susannah. He was standing before his triple windows, his face in profile to her, his great wings held stiffly behind him like shoulders hunched against pain. His face looked drawn and tired.
“Gaaron,” Susannah said, and closed the door.
He turned his head to look over at her, and the sunlight threw every plane of his face into relief. He was not a particularly handsome man, but his features were strong, the cheekbones thick, the mouth generous. The brown eyes, so like Miriam’s, looked utterly exhausted.
He smiled, though it appeared to be an effort, and crossed the room. “Susannah,” he said. “It is good to see you.”
There was an awkward moment when both of them wondered if they should shake hands or hug or merely just stand face-to-face, closer than strangers might, and then Gaaron put an arm around her shoulders and steered her over to the table. The gesture was comforting; she suddenly remembered the feel of his arms from that long flight to the Eyrie ten days ago.