by Sharon Shinn
Now the silence was awful.
“That’s one reason,” Gaaron said, still speaking in that reasonable, inflexible voice. “Another reason is that I realize I am partially at fault for your recent actions. I have not trusted you, Zack, or you, Jude, with the tasks that any angel should be expected to perform. I have thought you were too young, too immature—with the result that you acted irresponsibly and cruelly. But I believe that if I give you a chance to perform a hard task, you will perform it well. You will see that the lives of four other people are completely dependent on you. I am certain that, under your guidance, they will make it safely to Gaza, and that they will be fed with the food you gather, and that they will be kept warm by the fires you build along the road, and the water that you fetch for them when you make camp too far from a riverbed.”
“I don’t know how to make a fire,” Jude said.
“Don’t you? Then you’d better learn. You leave in two days.”
“Two days!” Zack exclaimed. “But we—you can’t just—”
“And the third reason I want you to accompany these women on the journey,” Gaaron said, raising his voice to drown out Zack’s, “is that I believe they would both like a chance to get to know you better. Silas’ mother and Mark’s aunt. They came to me and asked what kind of people could be so cruel as to torment these boys. I thought a journey of some weeks would give them a chance to learn more about each of you—and you to learn about them. As I said, Silas and Mark are precious to someone. As you are precious to someone. I thought it would not hurt to remind you that love is a powerful force in this world, invisible though it seems.”
Again, not a word from either of the boys. Susannah herself was not sure she could have spoken, had she been sitting nearby and invited to participate in the conversation. What a risk, but a glorious one, to send these two wild boys off on such a tricky mission! Surely Gaaron had built safeguards into his plan—surely he or one of his other angels would fly overhead from time to time, to monitor the progress of the traveling band and make sure the angel boys did not desert the very vulnerable women. There was a devious kind of elegance to his solution, offering both boys a chance to be so good, if they didn’t take the much easier course of being bad. Was he right? Or would this difficult journey prove them to be as incorrigible as it sometimes seemed they already were?
“What if we won’t go?” Zack asked finally. “Will you send us to Breven then?”
“Oh, no,” Gaaron said coolly. “I’ll set you out on the streets of Velora to do as you will. You’ll be no more responsibility of mine or the hold’s. But I’m sure you’ll be able to take care of yourselves.”
“You can’t . . .” Jude breathed, but he did not finish his sentence. Zack said nothing at all.
“So, you understand the terms?” Gaaron said briskly. “You need to pack your own clothes for the journey—winter gear, I’d imagine, since it’s getting cold. You need to consult with Esther about what kind of food to bring, though you’ll have to obtain more food on the road. I can help you map out your route, there are plenty of small towns on the way. You shouldn’t have to camp out more than every other night, and I’d think you could buy enough food in any small town to see you through a few days’ travel. And you will have to learn to build a fire.”
“Nobody knows how to build a fire!” Jude burst out. “Nobody living in the hold, anyway!”
“I think the angelica does,” Gaaron said. “Why don’t you go ask her? She might even have some other tips you’ll find useful for long-distance travel.”
Now Susannah had to hide her mouth in her sleeve to muffle the sound of her laughter. Sweet Yovah singing, she could terrify them by the hour, describing the horrors they might encounter upon the road. Of course, Gaaron was right; a trip between the Eyrie and Manadavvi country was filled with enough small towns and large farming settlements that they would not really have to live the rough life of the Edori, but she could paint a picture of enough privation to make them grateful for even the meanest shelter on a cold night.
“So you’d best go seek out Susannah sometime today or tomorrow,” Gaaron continued, “and then pack your gear.”
“I don’t want to go to Manadavvi country,” Jude said.
There was a ruffling sound; Susannah imagined Gaaron shrugging his great arched wings. “Fine,” he said. “You will still need to pack your belongings for your move to Velora.”
“But you can’t—”
“Jude!” Zack hissed. “Shut up!”
“Maybe you’ll want to think it over,” Gaaron said. “I’ll be happy to discuss the whole journey with you later, but right now I’ve got to meet with a petitioner. You can come find me tomorrow morning and tell me what you’ve decided.”
“You can’t really turn us out of the hold,” Jude said.
Again, that sound of rustling silk; Gaaron had shrugged again. “It is interesting that you believe I cannot,” he said. “I must go. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
And there was another soft sound of feather and stone, as Gaaron turned and headed away down the corridor. The two boys almost immediately began arguing, Zack’s voice rough and angry, Jude’s high and frightened. They were only a few paces behind the angel, and their tense, excited voices faded within a few minutes.
Susannah stayed where she was on the floor of the music room, her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped so tightly around her folded legs that every muscle in her body ached from cramp. Her ankles hurt, her bent knees hurt, the sinews in her stretched arms burned with protest. She was dumbstruck by Gaaron’s bold and perilous plan. She was left breathless by the man himself.
She remembered Gaaron telling her how he was used to accepting hard tasks. How he did not view the role of Archangel as a position of privilege but as a grave responsibility, hedged about with obligation and difficult choices. She had always thought him a good man, though a little dull—strong, but devoid of ardor. He had no glamour, this Gabriel Aaron, and none of that quick joy that had characterized Dathan, that had drawn her to Dathan like a cold hand seeking sparkling flame. But how had she missed the great roaring fire of Gaaron’s passion? How had she failed to see the controlled but inextinguishable blaze that was Gaaron’s obsession for justice and honor—the great light of his soul that shone through the measured sentences, the thoughtful silences, the quiet decisions? His was a flame that would not burn out, that would struggle valiantly against any darkness, till it found a way to sear away malevolence and reignite hope. His was a flame that would not falter, that could be trusted to offer both heat and light on the grimmest night at the darkest hour.
She wanted to put her hands out and warm them at that fire.
Instead, she held herself more tightly, almost rocking there on the chilly stone floor, feeling heat course through her as revelation tingled across her skin. Dathan (poor Dathan) had asked if she was in love with Gaaron, and she had said not yet; and that was still true, she was sure that was still true. She was in awe of him, she thought that described it better. She was in awe of him and she was a little afraid of him, and she thought she might, as all the people of his hold did, feel some adoration for this man, this angel. But that was not love. That was not love as she remembered it.
She squeezed her arms more tightly around her body, and her whole body protested, fire at her sharply bent knees, fire at both strained shoulders. So she slowly unlocked herself, unkinked her muscles and bones, and pulled herself to a standing position, though it caused a few twinges of pain. Her left leg was clenching and relaxing with a recurring spasm and she stamped her foot a few times to try and relieve it. A muscle in her right arm flared and knotted in protest as well, and she lifted her left hand to rub away the sharpness and the pain.
But her hand touched, instead of coiled muscle, hard glass, and she realized at once what knife was poised with its crystal tip against her skin. She did not strip away her woolen shirt to inspect the colors that she knew would be rioting in her Kiss; she did not wa
nt to witness the dance of flame and fever. She knew a god’s hallucinatory celebration when she saw one, and this one she did not need to see.
C hapter N ineteen
It seemed to Gaaron that every time he turned around, there was Keren.
Every time he went to the dining room, she was seated there with her ever-expanding circle of friends, lingering over breakfast, enjoying a luxuriously long lunch, taking a second or third course at dinner. When he signed up for a midafternoon shift to sing the harmonics, Keren was there before him, performing a duet with Sela or joining a chorus that included Nicholas and Ahio. If he happened to go into Velora for the day, she was strolling the streets with Zibiah or Chloe, looking wistfully at the fabric she had been forbidden to buy, and accepting, with a look of happiness so incandescent that even Gaaron couldn’t begrudge her, the illicit small purchase that her friendly companion would make on her behalf.
Naturally, anytime he went to seek out Susannah, Keren was at her side. Keren and Kaski and any number of other miscreants who had nothing better to do than create worries for the angelica-to-be.
It was not as though he minded having Keren at the hold. He didn’t. She was like a drift of summer darkness, scented with herbs and honeysuckle, adorned still with the last affectionate kiss of sunset. To sit with her for an hour was to grow both relaxed and restless, to be both stirred up and reminded of satiety. Everything about her—everything, from her narrow dark face to her lustrous black hair, to her quick hands and easy laugh—blended innocence and sensuality to such a degree that it was impossible to overlook either trait.
He no longer wondered why the Lohoras had been willing to send her so far away, to live with strangers and take up allali ways. He wondered instead how one tribe had ever been able to contain her.
But she was a good-hearted girl, completely unself-conscious. She would turn that flirtatious smile on a woman as well as a man. Flirtatious might be the wrong word, he thought. It was instead an inviting smile, an inclusive one, a smile that said, Oh, I can tell you like me, and isn’t that fun? Because I like you, too. Maybe that was, after all, what made Keren so seductive: her genuine happiness.
It amused Gaaron to see Nicholas so caught up in the Edori’s spell, for Nicholas was the most easygoing of lovers who could not have told you, if you’d asked him, how many girls he had kissed. He had always taken love quite lightly—unlike Ahio, who had had a few serious affairs, and seemed quite shaken whenever they ended—and any girl who had ever loved Nicky talked about him warmly still. Nicholas neither reaped hearts nor broke them, and love had always made him charming and careless. But then, everything made Nicky charming and careless; no reason love should be any different.
Except it was different this time.
Gaaron kept wanting to ask Susannah what she thought of Nicholas and Keren, did she notice, was she worried, had she given any thought to what might happen when Keren left the hold to return to her tribe? But it seemed he never saw Susannah unless Keren was nearby, and, of course, he could not ask her then. He did not want to summon Susannah to see him privately—what a strange thing, that an affianced man and woman did not naturally find themselves alone together, talking, if nothing else—merely so they could discuss Keren.
Though he did wish there would be an excuse to see Susannah privately.
She had approved of his handling of the mess with Zack and Jude. That he knew, because she had told him. It was at dinner the next night, and their table was full with the hold residents who took turns seating themselves with the Archangel-elect. Susannah shared the table with him, of course, and this night so did Keren and Nicholas and a few of the mortals who had lived there since before his father’s time. The Edori women were laughing.
“Those two boys will be stuffing themselves till they are sick today and tomorrow,” Susannah said gaily. “You should have heard Keren! Telling tales about eating raw horsemeat on nights when it was too cold to build a fire.”
“Well, you.” Keren hooted. “ ‘One night it was so cold that I made a blanket of snow, and crawled beneath it, and it was warmer than the outer night air.’ No one sleeps under snow,” she added, as if the hold residents were so dense and so inexperienced that they might actually find such a story credible.
“If you’re that cold, you sleep with the horses,” Susannah added.
“If you’re that cold, you move down to southern Jordana and camp for the winter,” Keren retorted.
“Did you, in fact, teach them how to build a fire?” Gaaron asked.
“Yes, and they caught on to it quite quickly,” Susannah said. “They were so enthralled with their new skill, in fact, that when they return to live in the Eyrie, I’m afraid you might have to worry about them burning the place down.”
“If they return to the Eyrie to live, I am hoping they will no longer be the kind of boys who burn things down,” Gaaron said.
He caught Susannah’s look, brimming with some emotion, and he was sure she wanted to tell him something. But she glanced around the table at all their listeners, and she did not. Anyway, she wouldn’t have had a chance to speak, since Keren immediately began telling some new story, not about Zack and Jude, and everyone at the table was laughing. Even Susannah was laughing. Gaaron turned his eyes to Keren and smiled, though he had not heard a word of the tale. When he glanced back at Susannah, she was looking at him again, but she was no longer smiling.
So that was one missed opportunity, and there were others. And some days there were no opportunities at all. This was a busy season for Gaaron, for all the angels, because Samaria never made the transition easily through the seasons. The autumn harvests could so quickly be ruined by rain, the early winter crops could be so completely devastated by drought, that weather intercessions were almost a daily requirement. Gaaron sent his angels off on as many of these missions as he could, but he was traveling much of the time himself, singing the prayers for rain or the prayers for sun. He enjoyed the work; he liked the strong sense of connection he felt when he prayed to the god for a change in climate. He could feel it, as if it were a rope woven of glitter and breath. The prayer itself rooted in the sere winter soil, twisted upward like an aerobic vine, coiled once around his torso, and spiraled up some unimaginable distance to wrap itself around the wrist of the god. Thus they were all laced together, god, angel, and Samaria itself, through the medium of prayer and the force of conviction. Every time Gaaron left the site of a successful weather intercession, he felt energized, radiant, flushed with the god’s approval.
He would do a weather intercession every day, for just that sensation, except that there was too much else to do.
He had given his angels strict instructions, which he followed himself, to fly low to the ground when they were on their way to any corner of Bethel, and to watch what went on below. Did they see dark-skinned strangers lurking under the yellowing leaves of the cornstalks? Did they spot smoke from a catastrophic fire—or the blackened remains of a leveled farmhouse? Did they notice anything unusual at all?
For the past few weeks, such incidents had been nonexistent, and both Neri and Adriel reported perfect calm in their realms as well. Maybe the marauders had reached the end of their fury, or their resources; maybe, if they were visitors, they had moved on. But unease flew with Gaaron everywhere he traveled, perched on his spine between his working wings, and worry wrapped her cold little hands around his throat and whispered in his ear as he flew.
During this time Gaaron was also, as always, in high demand among the merchants of Velora. He met regularly with the governing council, and informally with the more powerful retailers and wholesalers who ran the city. The matter of Myra Shapping seemed to have been settled to everyone’s satisfaction. Her business was struggling a little, but everyone was sure that, in a year’s time, she would have recovered both her poise and her financial independence. But there were other matters to discuss, trade agreements with the river merchants, deceptive practices attempted by the Jansai, the higher p
rices set by the Bethel farmers because of a corn blight that had affected many crops. Gaaron found these details less interesting but equally crucial to the success of life in the province, and so he attended meetings, and listened gravely to arguments, and never failed to give his considered opinion, even when it was not popular.
“Well, I hate to say it, but you’re right,” one of the councilmen said to Gaaron one afternoon as they wrapped up a session. “Though it makes my very bones ache to think of giving the same price to a Semorrah merchant as a Luminaux craftsman.”
“The day will come when a Semorran stamp will be as valued as one from Luminaux,” Gaaron said with a smile. “Or more so.”
The man shook his head. “I can’t see it. Stupid place to live, anyway, in the middle of the river. Stupid place to build a city. My son and I went out there just last month. Almost drowned trying to cross the Galilee. I don’t think I’ll be trading there quite so often.”
“Your choice, of course,” Gaaron said. “I confess I find it a strange place myself. But that won’t stop it from becoming the trading capital of the three provinces.”
They talked a few more minutes before Gaaron headed outside. The merchantman had a shop in the heart of the bazaar district, a place that Gaaron rarely went because he rarely felt the need to purchase anything. But he remembered that he had encouraged Susannah to buy herself something new, a gift for herself, and that she had consequently started wearing a little more color. Perhaps she would appreciate a gift from his hand, some gesture of—affection, he might call it. Friendship.
Perhaps she wouldn’t, but now that the idea was in his head he would at least have to look at the merchandise.
So he turned down one long row of stalls, skipping the arrays of fruits and vegetables and going directly for the fabrics. He really didn’t know much about buying clothing for women. The times he’d purchased something for Miriam, she’d selected it herself. He couldn’t remember buying gifts for others.