by Sharon Shinn
“Very well, then,” Obadiah said with a sleepy smile. “Let us talk about the Edori.”
“Ha!” said Uriah, and poured the angel another glass of wine.
“Let us ask ourselves if the Edori, who wander as far if not quite as purposefully as the Jansai, might become traders in their own right,” Obadiah said pleasantly. “If the Jansai are not to bring produce and trade goods from Monteverde to Luminaux, well, then, perhaps the Edori shall provide that service for us.”
Uriah’s face blackened into a scowl. “The Edori are so unreliable that you would not get this summer’s harvest till sometime late next winter, and you and all your merchant friends would starve or go broke awaiting their arrival.”
Obadiah shrugged. “I am not so sure. I think we might find a few enterprising Edori who like the idea of a life a little more structured and who wouldn’t mind striking a blow at their old enemies while they were about their new ventures.”
“You would never pursue such a foolhardy plan,” Uriah said, his breath sounding heavy and damaged in his lungs.
“Such a plan is already being considered in angel holds and Edori camps across Samaria,” Obadiah said mildly. “Indeed, I find myself wondering if you won’t find yourself with a few eager Edori competitors even if you do take to the roads again this spring—as, of course, we hope you do.”
Not much to Obadiah’s surprise, Uriah chose to cut short the conversation a few minutes later, adding an ominous observation that he thought his business associates would be happy to know the angel did not plan to be in Breven again any time soon. Obadiah nodded at the warning, bade a pleasant good-bye, and retreated to his hotel room.
“I won’t be back for a while, love,” he told Rebekah that night. “The volatile Uriah must have time to think over some unpleasant things I’ve said to him, and I won’t be welcome here for a few weeks at least.”
“Then I won’t expect you,” she said, as always seeming to be much more serene about the prospect of a long separation than he was. “But it has been so good to see you these two days.”
“I might come back anyway. Some night when he’s unlikely to know I’m in town. Look for me.”
“I always do.”
Nathan laughed out loud when Obadiah reported his most recent conversation with the Jansai leader. “Edori merchant peddlers—that’s very good,” he approved. “Surely Uriah didn’t believe you?”
“He’s a jealous and suspicious man. Of course he didn’t believe me, but he couldn’t quite get the idea out of his head once I’d introduced it. I think he might be more amenable to discussion when he sees me next.”
“Which won’t be for a while,” Nathan said.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Obadiah said casually. “I might go back next week to see how my poisonous suggestion has eaten away at his confidence.”
“I don’t think you should,” Nathan said. “Wait until he sends for you again. Let him know that if he doesn’t want to deal, we don’t need to deal. We’re looking at other options. I don’t think you should go back to Breven for a long time.”
And that was the worst sentence of all.
But Obadiah didn’t despair all at once. Who knew, Uriah might send for him right away, having been made so angry by Obadiah’s careless comments that he couldn’t stand the uncertainty of the future. And even if Uriah failed to summon him back, well, Obadiah had dropped into Breven uninvited before. All it took was a carefully planned late-night arrival and some discretion during the daytime. Even an angel could be invisible, even in Breven, if that was the prime consideration.
Still, he hated to disregard one of Nathan’s outright injunctions, at least immediately, so he resigned himself to at least a fortnight of longing and loneliness. He accepted every dinner invitation issued by Nathan and Magdalena, a fellow dorm mate, or the most chance-met acquaintance. He was willing to fly messages to Semorrah, perform weather intercessions over the Plain of Sharon, pray for plague medicines over small towns on the very southern tip of the Galilee River. Anything to keep busy. Anything to distract his memory and redirect the energies of his body.
Oddly, the first person who seemed to notice something was wrong with him was the person he had considered, at the moment, to be too self-involved to pay attention to anyone else: Magdalena. She was still suffering from migraines and megrims, and terrors that would wake her in the middle of the night.
“But I feel calmer when you’re around me,” the dark-haired angel said with a tremulous smile that she no doubt hoped looked brave. “You make me feel more hopeful just by being in the room.”
He laughed. “I would have thought, perhaps, Nathan?”
“Nathan makes me feel strong,” she said. “Like I can endure whatever might come, for his sake as well as my own. But you make me think that—whatever comes—it might not be terrible.”
“I do think the god has ordained this baby,” Obadiah said.
“The priests would tell you he ordains all babies,” she said a little playfully.
“That would be good,” he agreed. “That would mean the god welcomes all children into the world. Which is what Rachel and her Edori friends would tell us anyway. And perhaps they are right.”
Magdalena sighed. “As long as he welcomes this child,” she said, “then I will be happy.”
“So what can I do to keep you cheerful until that day arrives?” he asked. “Tell you amusing stories? Accompany you down to one of the new cafes for pastries and hot tea?”
She tilted her head to one side. “You can tell me stories, but I doubt they will be amusing,” she said.
He affected offense. “Are you saying that my stories are monotonous and full of woe?”
“I’m saying that you don’t seem very cheerful yourself these days. Like something powerful is weighing on your heart. I wish you would tell me what it is. You have been so good to me these last few months that I would like a chance to be good to you in turn.”
He was so surprised at her perceptiveness that he did not think to deny the charge immediately. “Thank you, lovely, but I don’t think there’s anything you can do to make things better.”
She inspected him. “Then there is something.”
He shrugged. “We all have cares from time to time.”
“You’re not ill, surely? You would tell me that.”
He laughed. “What, and have you call down healers from all over Samaria to poke and prod at me? You’re the last person I’d tell. But of course I’m not sick.”
“And your family—your mother?”
“Everyone is fine. Maga, let’s forget it.”
“I can’t imagine that you’d be disappointed in love,” she said with a smile.
He opened his mouth to make some jesting remark but found himself wordless. The silence ran on too long for him to be able to frame a plausible denial.
“Obadiah?” she said wonderingly. “You’ve fallen in love? With a lady who has rejected you? I find that to be—completely impossible to believe.”
“She has not rejected me,” he said in a low voice. “She is just—there is—her circumstances do not permit—”
Now Maga looked even more astonished. “You’ve fallen in love with a married woman? Oh, Obadiah.”
“That’s not exactly it—” Though it would be soon enough. “She’s betrothed,” he amended.
“But surely—for an angel—for you!—she would give up this other man, who must be in every way your inferior—”
He had to laugh. “You can’t know that.”
“I know you, and I would choose you over anyone. Except Nathan, of course.” She stopped, eyeing him with some misgiving, for she had instantly thought of the only other angel she held in as high esteem as her husband. “It’s not—you’re not still sighing over Rachel, are you? Oh, Obadiah—”
“No, it’s not Rachel,” he said in a testy voice. Had he had any idea how many people were aware of his infatuation with the angelica, he would have thrown himself in the oc
ean to drown a year ago. “I cannot believe you would even say that to me.”
“Then, who?”
“Maga, please—”
“Is she someone you met in Breven? Is that why you have spent so much time there?”
“No,” he said, for it wasn’t a lie. “I didn’t meet her in Breven.”
“But she lives there? Or very near,” Maga guessed. “You go there so often with such cheerfulness there can be no other explanation.”
He found a tiny smile. “Yes, upon occasion, when I go to treat with Uriah, I have seen—I have met with—this lady. But I don’t—there is—and of course I have always discharged my duty first!”
“Yes, of course, no one would ever doubt that,” Maga said absently. “Is she lowborn, Obadiah? A farmer’s daughter, perhaps? I know you think I’m a dreadful snob, but I’m not, truly I’m not. I would welcome anyone you loved. We all would.”
“Maga, I cannot explain the circumstances to you,” he said firmly. “I don’t even want to talk about this anymore.”
“You could bring her to Cedar Hills for a visit.”
“Maga!”
“I would be very gracious,” she assured him. “And I would tell her all your sterling qualities. I would make you sound so wonderful that she would think I was in love with you myself.”
“Yes, that would be certain to make her trust me.”
“Have you sung for her? She won’t be able to resist you if you’ve sung for her.”
“She has heard my voice once or twice,” he said stiffly.
“I cannot believe that she is not secretly in love with you, no matter what she says to your face.”
Obadiah was silent a moment. “Yes,” he said, “I believe she is in love with me as well. But she is afraid to give up the life she knows for the life she might find with me. I don’t blame her for that, but some days it fills me with despair.”
Maga leaned forward and put a hand on his arm. “Bring her to Cedar Hills,” she said warmly. “We will find a way to keep her. Of all the angels in the three holds, you are the one I would least want to see despairing. We will take this recalcitrant girl and prove to her that you are her ideal lover.”
“If she ever comes to Cedar Hills,” he said, “she will stay for a lifetime. But I do not know that she will ever make the journey, Maga. I do not believe we will ever see her here.”
The second person to notice Obadiah was out of sorts was a virtual stranger, and she made the comment the day following his rather unsettling interview with Magdalena. It was a fine day, chilly but flooded with sun, and he was sitting outside on one of the many benches scattered throughout the city. This one was backless, to accommodate angel wings, and faced a pretty fountain of Luminaux design. The water had been turned off in deference to the cold, but Obadiah studied the graceful bronze shapes of three singing angels and thought that the artist had perfectly caught the expression of raptness that many singers felt upon hitting a particularly beautiful note. He could not remember if, in warmer days, water dripped from their feathers or spouted from their lips, but he thought this might detract from the overall impression somewhat. All in all, he was just as glad to be viewing the sculpture in unadorned winter.
“Angelo?” came a hesitant voice a little to one side of him. The speaker was female and deferential; he knew that if he did not acknowledge her, she would hurry on her way. He was tempted, but his essential good nature won out. He turned on the bench to get a look at whoever had addressed him.
It was a woman with thick chestnut hair and an uncertain smile, and everything from her clothes to her posture screamed “angel-seeker.” But her face was teasingly familiar and it was not in him to be rude, so he smiled back at her. “Hello,” he said neutrally.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. It’s just that I saw you sitting here and I wondered how you’ve been doing since you got wounded—”
“Elizabeth!” he exclaimed, memory locking in place. Yes, yes, she had bound his hurts and checked on his progress and even helped him on with his clothes, and she had shown him true kindness at a time when he really needed it. “How are you! It’s been weeks since you were so good to me.”
Her smile strengthened, lighting her face and turning her into a pretty girl. “You remembered my name,” she said, and then blushed, as if mortified at making such a girlish remark.
“Yes. Of course. Here, sit beside me and tell me how you’ve been doing. I haven’t seen you at the dorm lately, have I? Of course, I’ve been gone a lot myself.”
Looking awed and grateful, she perched on the bench beside him, as far from him as the seat would allow. She clearly did not want to appear encroaching. “No, I’ve left the laundry room. I’ve become an apprentice to the healer Mary—the one who wrapped your wounds—and I’ve learned a great deal. I’ll never go back to working in kitchens and laundry rooms again.”
“Well, good for you!” he exclaimed and meant it. “So now you can heal cuts and bruises on your own, and deliver babies, and administer potions. You’re the one I should call on next time I get careless and have a hole torn in my wing, I suppose?”
She laughed. “Well, no, not quite yet. I can help at the birthings and the broken bones, but I’d want Mary around to guide me if anyone was truly sick or hurt. But I hope you won’t get shot down from the sky again any time soon!”
He laughed. “No, I hope not, too.”
“And you’re all better? All healed?”
He flexed his wings behind him, bringing the one so close to her back that it brushed her hair. He could see her tremble a little with delight, and had to restrain himself from doing it again, just to preen. Well, it was a fine thing, now and then, to know your very existence made someone else quiver with sensation. “All healed,” he said. “No scar remains.”
“I’ll tell Mary,” she said.
“So both of us have nothing but glad tidings this day.”
“Yes,” she said earnestly. “For I got the best news this morning.”
“And what was that?”
“A friend of mine was so sick. She almost died. I’m the one who found her, but Mary was the one who saved her. Although until this morning we weren’t sure that she would live.”
“How awful,” he said with easy sympathy. “What happened to her? She fell ill?”
Elizabeth hesitated. “She took—there was—she accidentally drank too much of a healing potion, and it nearly killed her,” she said at last. “It was my fault, really. I’m the one who gave her the potion. Although I did warn her—” She broke off and looked away a moment before resuming. “Anyway, she’s better now. And Mary told me I learned an important lesson about the misuse of drugs and the frailness of human beings. But I would rather not have learned the lesson. Or, at least, not learned it on Faith.”
“That is the only way we ever learn lessons,” Obadiah said gently. “When they are applied to the people we love. I’m sorry you’ve been sad. It’s been a strange winter for heartache.”
She lifted her eyes to his face, and the expression on her own face was suddenly wise. “You’ve been sad, too,” she said. “You never looked like this, even when you had a fever.”
He was caught off guard. “Didn’t I? Then I must look completely dreadful now, since never in my life have I felt so wretched as I did back when I was injured.”
She shook her head. “Not dreadful. Sad,” she said again.
“I guess I am a little melancholy,” he said. “It will pass.”
She hesitated again. “If there is—if you wanted—if you were lonely and simply wanted to talk—or something—I’ve gotten much better at listening than I used to be,” she said.
Sweet Jovah singing, an angel-seeker to her core, and yet the offer of comfort seemed so sincere that he was actually moved. “I thank you for your kindness yet again,” he said very gently. “It is good to know that there is somewhere I could turn if I needed solace. That will be a bright thought to take home with me on a drea
ry day.”
His words pleased her almost as much, he thought, as his body might have if he had brought her back with him and taken her to bed. She was not yet accustomed to thinking of herself as good-hearted or generous, he could tell that; she had not had enough experience thinking of anyone except herself. He could only guess at the life that had led her to Cedar Hills, hoping to better herself in the most drastic way possible, and that was not a life that had admitted of too many altruistic or generous impulses. But he had hope for this girl. She seemed to have strength, loyalty, and a sense of purpose. She might yet make a good life for herself and extend her charity to others.
“I think you’re sad because someone doesn’t love you,” Elizabeth said then, proving once again that every thought in his head was completely visible for anyone who glanced in his direction. “All I can say is, she does love you.”
“You can’t know that,” he said.
She smiled. “Anybody would.”
So that little interlude was just as unnerving as the one with Magdalena, though it left Obadiah feeling curiously heartened, as though the apprentice physician really had developed some healing skills, and not just in making the body whole again. Or perhaps he was just pleased to know that someone found him attractive and exceptional, worthy of love. Flattery always led to an improvement in mood.
Still, he realized he must work on his expressions and his attitude or risk having all his acquaintances approach him with words of sympathy and concern. He found, not entirely to his surprise, that if he spent his time with men, he was wholly safe from these intimate little conversations about his feelings, and so for the next few days, he kept company that was almost exclusively male. He couldn’t refuse, though, when Maga sent a note inviting him to dinner one night, even though it was with some trepidation that he read she was planning a “surprise” for him. A bevy of eligible Manadavvi girls, perhaps, imported specifically to distract him from his woeful love life, or one of the oracles brought in to discuss theology and to remind him that there were matters beside the heart that could occupy a man all his days.