Angelica

by Sharon Shinn

  Miriam had wanted to sit beside Jossis at the evening meal, to reaffirm her championship of him, but apparently all the other Edori had had pretty much the same idea. In any case, Jossis was between Amram and Shua when the meal began, and Miriam did not have the heart to intrude. Amram was showing Jossis some rock he had found down by the river. It did not look particularly interesting from where Miriam sat, but examining it seemed to occupy the man and the boy for a good twenty minutes before the meal began.

  The meat stew was good, and there was enough of it, for a change, that no one felt compelled to stick with a single serving. So they were all full and happy by the time the plates had been collected. The fire was warm, and the tents standing a few yards away were not, and no one made a move to leave once dinner was truly over.

  Shua was the first to lift her voice in song, a pretty and rather happy melody that sounded good on this deep winter night. Claudia’s daughter and Amram then tried a duet that faltered in a few places when Amram’s voice unexpectedly broke, but all the listeners applauded anyway. Miriam took her turn, rising to her feet to offer a heartfelt prayer of thanksgiving to the god. She could not have said exactly what she was thanking Yovah for on this cool and starry evening—a good meal, clear night skies, her Edori friends, Jossis’ continued presence in her life, her very existence—but she was filled with an overwhelming sense of gratitude and well-being and the only way she knew to express her emotion was in song. The others gathered around the campfire listened appreciatively, and when she sat down, Claudia leaned over to wrap her arm around Miriam’s shoulders.

  The next one to stand up, offering to sing, was Jossis.

  Everyone fell silent, for he had never lifted his voice in all the weeks he had been with them, and there had been singing almost every night. It was hard to see him, his skin so dark against the darkness of the night, his hair like a ragged branch of flame suspended in midair. He moved, and the shadows that were his hands spread before him in a gesture of supplication. No one else in the circle shifted or spoke or breathed.

  He began singing and his voice was sweet and pure, not a boy’s voice, but not that of a full-grown man, either. The melody was complex, dipping to baritone range and then jumping to a near falsetto, but he produced it easily, flawlessly, not even seeming to need to catch his breath between notes. All of the words were incomprehensible, words in his native language, but there was no doubt of the intent of the piece—thanks to the god for great gifts received or great danger averted.

  All the Edori applauded madly when the piece was ended, and Jossis gave an impish little bow and sat down again, smiling widely. But Miriam did not clap and she could not bring herself to smile. She had not understood a word of the song, but she had heard it before, and often: It was a prayer to Jovah that the angels sang, though none of the other races of the three realms performed it, and Jossis could not have learned it anywhere in Samaria.

  C hapter T wenty-five

  It was crowded in Velora. Well, crowded didn’t begin to cover it, Susannah thought—it was impossible. Every inn and hotel was full to bursting, with families all crammed into one room and solitary strangers bedding down on pallets in the halls. Tents had been set up along every city street that had an open lot or a small park, and on the outskirts of the city a veritable second town had grown up, composed of carts and wagons and more tents. Everywhere you looked, there were people—farmers, miners, Jansai, Edori. The city was overrun.

  News of the latest depredations on large settlements had sent a wave of panic through the people of all three provinces, and during the past month, there had been a wholesale emigration to the cities. Adriel and Neri were reporting the same tale, that of small towns swelling to three times their sizes as residents of outlying settlements and isolated farms migrated to the relative haven of urban areas. Luminaux, Castelana—even the waterbound Semorrah—all had become refuges for these frightened country dwellers. Any town that had boasted a population of more than a thousand now could lay claim to three times that many residents.

  Not, Susannah thought, that anyone was safe, even in the swollen cities. How could any of them be certain that marauders who could destroy fifty people with a single weapon couldn’t also destroy a hundred and fifty, or five thousand, or ten? True, Susannah couldn’t understand the construction of a weapon with such capability, but she could not conceive of killing a single person with intent. But once a race began engaging in wholesale slaughter, she did not see how sheer numbers could be expected to daunt them.

  She sympathized with the farmers and the miners, though, the ones who lived on far-flung homesteads where they were completely at the mercy of malicious intruders. And she worried about all the Edori clans, camped out on the open prairie, maybe aware of their danger and maybe not, completely unprotected from a sudden onslaught of fire and death. Was her father safe, were her brothers and her nephews? What about the Lohoras, every single one of them so precious to her? Had they thought to take shelter in Luminaux or one of the bigger towns that dotted Jordana? Or were they—as she was sure most Edori were—happily setting up their winter camps, oblivious to danger or fatalistic about it, putting their lives in the hands of Yovah?

  She could not stand not knowing, but there was no way to get information. Though that had not stopped her from trying.

  “When you have a free minute, could you take me down to Velora?” she had asked Chloe that morning, and the angel had obligingly carried her down to the city a couple of hours later. Now Susannah stood in the middle of chaos and wondered which way to turn.

  The town was too small to handle this many people, that much she could tell at once. Merchants and innkeepers appeared quite delighted with their sudden surge in business, but surely even they realized that space, food, and water could quickly run out. She knew, because Gaaron had told her, that the city council was hastily trying to throw together laws about sewage and waste disposal, which also required them to construct systems that would enable the populace to comply with the laws. But their efforts had come a little late, and there was a faint smell of rotting garbage and human waste that overhung certain sections of the city. There appeared to be plenty of food for now—merchants always stocked up against the meager supplies to be had during the winter—but how quickly would those stores be depleted when there were so many more mouths to feed? So many people living in such close proximity also generated other problems—theft, violence, plague. Susannah was fairly certain the city council had not looked far enough ahead to counter those troubles before they arose.

  But she was not there to lead the reordering of Velora. She was there to see if any of the Edori tents on the outskirts of town were sheltering any clans she knew.

  So she made her way through the mobs of people, trying to be gentle about it. There were more Jansai than she had expected. Why hadn’t they all taken refuge in Breven? Children ran past her, screaming and playing. Someone bumped her hard into a stone wall, offered only a muttered “sorry,” and hurried on. She paused to steady herself by taking a deep breath, regretting it instantly as she inhaled the mingled smells of close-packed bodies, cooking food, animal fur, sweet perfume, churned-up mud, and piles of garbage.

  She moved on a little more carefully, holding her arms close to her body with the intent of making herself as small as possible. There was no walking on the crowded sidewalk, so she stepped off into the street, where milling pedestrians and impromptu vendor carts were making the way impassable for horse-drawn vehicles. Everyone was shouting—the happy vendors, the angry carters, the lost travelers. Susannah wanted to press her hands to her ears and run away from the confusion and noise, but there was nowhere to run to escape the crowds.

  Eventually she made her way to the tattered edge of town, where the Jansai and the Edori had set up camps as far from each other as the limited space would allow. She counted dozens of Jansai wagons as she picked her way past, and there were maybe fifty Edori tents set up on the grass in front of her.

&
nbsp; Too many, was her first thought. There was not enough water or game available this close to the city to support that many people. How would they get through the winter, how would they all survive?

  But how would they all survive alone in the Bethel grasslands, easy target for malicious intruders who killed without mercy?

  Susannah stepped into the first circle of tents, looking for familiar faces. To some extent, every Edori was familiar—she had met most of them at some Gathering or another over the past twenty-five years, and even the clans she did not know well she had heard news of from other clans that were kin. But there were only a hundred or so Edori that she considered close friends, and none of them appeared to be among the group camped here.

  That did not prevent the first women who spotted her from offering a warm welcome. They were standing beside their cook pot, arguing good-naturedly over a packet of seasonings, when Susannah approached.

  “Hello!” the oldest one greeted her. “Are you from the Malitas? I did not see you this morning when I came over to inspect your tent.”

  “Did you need more marrowroot?” the younger woman said. She was thin and childlike, but obviously more than a few months gone in pregnancy, so she could not be quite as young as she looked. “You can borrow as much as you like.”

  “Thank you, no—no marrowroot and I’m not a Malita,” Susannah said with a smile. “I’m Susannah of the Lohoras—or I was. I’ve come to live here now.”

  She left it deliberately vague, for it was certainly possible that an Edori woman would choose to live in Velora, following a lover or electing to leave the nomadic lifestyle. There was no need to introduce herself as Susannah, bride-to-be of the Archangel-elect.

  “The Lohoras—now, I’ve never had many dealings with them, but my sister’s lover’s daughter, she followed a man of the Corderras, who are friends with the Lohoras,” the older woman said.

  “So I take it they aren’t camped among the tents here today,” Susannah said. She knew they weren’t; Tirza would have sent word to her if she was anywhere near the Eyrie. But she had hoped for more recent information. “Or the Tachitas? That was the clan I left to follow the Lohoras.”

  No, these women had no information about either of the clans so close to Susannah’s heart. “But the Corderras are here,” the older woman added helpfully. “They arrived three days ago—”

  “Four days,” the pregnant girl corrected. “Because they came the day it snowed, you remember? And I walked into town with Daniel and his nephew and I ruined my shoes.”

  “I told you not to wear those shoes,” the older woman said.

  The young woman shrugged. “They were old anyway. I bought a new pair.” She turned to Susannah with a happy smile. “Did you know that you can buy anything you need here in the Velora markets? Leather shoes and warm gloves and coats and food and everything. I don’t have much money, though,” she added regretfully. “But I would spend it all if I did.”

  Susannah spared her a quick sympathetic smile, though she was impatient to move on to someone who might have information for her. “Yes, I quite like living in Velora,” she said. “Though it does not really compare to Luminaux, of course.”

  They talked a few more minutes before Susannah felt she could, without rudeness, make her farewells and move on. It took her a few more tries to locate the Corderras—who might be friends of the Lohoras but who had not often come Susannah’s way in the years that she had been traveling with that clan. Clan friendships sometimes extended back for twenty or thirty years and were maintained by goodwill, not actual contact, if the tribes did not happen to meet often during their travels.

  But she recognized several of the Corderra women and was recognized by them, and there was a joyous reunion over the communal cook pot. They had heard her news, of course. No putting them off with evasive comments about “living here.”

  “Tell me what life is like there in the angel hold,” demanded Baara, a kind-faced, stoop-backed older woman who sat before the fire and made no attempt to help with dinner preparations. “How can you bear it, to be all shut in like that? How can you breathe at night?”

  Curious; just a couple of weeks ago she was defending the Edori to the angels, and now she must defend the angels to the Edori. “I rather like the life,” she replied with a smile. “It is much easier than the Edori way, I must say! I am growing quite soft.” She held out her hands so Baara could examine her pink palms. “See? No calluses. I do no work at all. But I am busy every day.”

  So then she had to recount for them tales of the people in the Eyrie, and say suggestive things about her husband-to-be (for no Edori woman would believe she and Gaaron had not shared a bed by now). “I have heard that this Gaaron is a very large man,” Baara said, and Susannah replied archly, “Oh yes, quite large,” which made everyone within hearing distance laugh.

  “And he values you, I hope,” Baara added.

  That Susannah could speak to with more certainty. “Yes, he admires me greatly and says so,” she answered. “And I find that I admire him more every day. It is a good union.”

  More of this talk was required before she could ask her own questions. Have you, in any of your recent travels, come across the Tachitas or the Lohoras? Are they safe for the season? Do you know where they have chosen to winter? Not so baldly stated, of course. The Edori were nothing if not roundabout.

  “The Tachitas . . . no, I have had no news of them,” Baara said thoughtfully. “But the Lohoras—yes, we camped with them for two days not three months ago.”

  Susannah’s heart leapt. “You did? And they were all well?”

  “All of them,” Baara confirmed. “Let’s see now. Bartholomew had been sick, but he was healthy by the time we saw him. And Anna had begun to share a tent with him—”

  “That is big news!” Susannah exclaimed.

  “She was still shy about it, but she seemed happy.” Baara went through the tribe person by person, remembering something about each one in order to give Susannah the most personal update possible. Even something so small as “Amram kissed one of the girls in my clan, I think it may have been for the first time” was an indescribably precious scrap of information to Susannah. She found that she was hugging herself with excitement, actually shaking a little—though some of that could have been from cold as well.

  “And the allali girl—she did not look happy that first night we all camped together, but she had grown to like us by the time the tents parted,” Baara finished.

  Susannah’s eyebrows rose. “Allali girl? In a Lohora tent?”

  Baara nodded. “Yes, did you not know her? I don’t think she had been traveling with them very long, though she was as tired and dirty as the rest of them. A pretty girl, though. She was sleeping in Tirza’s tent, I believe, and Tirza seemed quite fond of her.”

  Susannah found herself unreasonably jealous at the thought that an outsider had slipped into her place so easily that no one even noticed she was gone. Sleeping in Tirza’s tent, indeed! No doubt this girl was flirting with Dathan, too, and going off to pick berries with Amram.

  “What was this allali girl’s name?” she asked with remarkable composure.

  Baara couldn’t remember, and neither could any of the women gathered around the fire. “Daniel will know, he went off courting with her,” someone said, and all the women laughed.

  “Yes, and wasn’t he stupid-struck for three days after she left?”

  “Still, she was a pretty girl.”

  “Mischievous, I thought.”

  “Well, that’s an allali for you.”

  Someone went off to fetch Daniel, he who had been so stupid-struck by the charms of a city girl, and Susannah resigned herself to a wait. She consented to taste the stew, pronounced it quite good, and listened for a while to Baara’s tale of their travels across Bethel. Much sooner than she had expected, one of the women returned with a tall, slender young man who could not have been more than nineteen or twenty. His smile was engaging, though he l
ooked a little shy.

  “This is Susannah of the Tachitas, who used to travel with the Lohoras and who lives with the angels now,” Baara said by way of introduction.

  “The Lohoras! We just camped with them a few months ago,” Daniel exclaimed.

  “Yes, and I have just given her all their news,” Baara said. “We really only called you over so you could tell her the name of that other girl. The one who was traveling with them.”

  “The blond girl,” someone else put in. “You must remember, you courted her for two whole days.”

  Daniel looked embarrassed but he replied without hesitation. “Of course I remember! Her name was Miriam.”

  Susannah made her way back through Velora slowly, her head in an even greater state of confusion than the city itself. This time, she scarcely even noticed the children careening into her or the adults pushing past her, cursing under their breath.

  Miriam was traveling with the Lohoras—was not, as they had believed all this time, safely settled in Luminaux and learning to live a calm, productive life. Susannah had not been able to hide her shock at Daniel’s revelation, so they had made her sit for a while, and drink a little wine, and explain what it was that troubled her about Daniel’s announcement. “She is a girl I care for a great deal, and I had not realized where she was,” was all Susannah managed to say. So Daniel had gone to some trouble to assure her that Miriam was safe, well-treated, well-behaved, and happy, and he had reproduced enough snippets of her conversation to make Susannah believe that he had truly spent a good few hours with this troublesome girl.

  Hard as it was to believe, it sounded like Miriam had at last found a place where she could fit in. According to Daniel, she had helped watch the children, volunteered to prepare the food, joined in the singing, been thoughtful to her tentmates, and generally behaved like any good-hearted Edori girl. At any other time, Susannah would have been glad at the news that Miriam had run off to the Edori and found herself made over.